Chapter 74

The students of Spirit Capital Elementary were running all over the venue, but they did not get any useful leads at all.

It happened to be the weekend, so students from many schools had come. Some were learning alongside the main forces of their clubs, some had come to have fun with their parents, and some had made plans with classmates to stroll around…

The students of Spirit Capital Elementary had broad connections. They knew people at all kinds of schools and could ask others for help.

But who said Lin Ze and the others knew fewer people?

Back during the Hundred Clubs War, the Work-Study Club had made its name with the slogan “Boosting the Top Hundred.” Aside from Jade City’s Archaeology Club, they also kept in touch with many clubs outside their own school.

From listening to the Spirit Capital Elementary students chatting earlier, it was obvious they had a certain arrogance about them. They had not taken any of the Work-Study Club members besides Song Yi seriously at all, and they were even less likely to believe that these children, who looked like lower-grade students at first glance, could have any connections.

Arrogance came at a price.

The Spirit Capital Elementary students did not even know who their opponents were before running around asking favors. But Lin Ze and the others knew very clearly who their opponents were, and they also knew exactly how to ask others for help.

He calculated the account for them:

If you help Spirit Capital Elementary, you can only collect one benefit and offend Cloud Elementary.

If you help Cloud Elementary, you can collect two benefits, offend neither side, and even gain Cloud Elementary’s special gratitude.

Which side was the better deal?

It was obvious at a glance.

“They don’t know that the information you provide is fake anyway. You only need to provide the current situation, and just say it a little ambiguously. No guarantee it’s true. Let them confirm it themselves.”

Lin Ze strolled back leisurely. “This is called: all under heaven is business.”

He was stingy, sure. People who knew him well would have no objections to his nickname as a profiteer. But when people who did not know him that well dealt with him, they would all have the feeling that “what he said makes so much sense, I’ve made a profit.”

So they could only trouble the Spirit Capital Elementary students to be fooled by mixed true and false information and dart all over the place.

Instead of properly visiting the expo, they were running around blindly… It gave off the impression that they were not attending to their proper duties.

Quite a few people at the expo noticed them. “Are these people getting in everyone’s way students from Spirit Capital Elementary? No way. Isn’t that the best school in East Continent? Is Spirit Capital Elementary not good anymore?”

“It’s true. Look at the one leading them, Chu Wen. I heard he’s one of the standouts among the younger generation.”

Someone shook their head and sighed, the unspoken meaning obvious: truly, each generation was worse than the last.

Even the lower-grade children were focusing on visiting the expo. What were these people doing?

Teacher Yuan also vaguely heard some similar comments, and for some reason he felt comforted: although the children he brought were sometimes a bit mischievous, they were much more reliable than these ones from Spirit Capital Elementary.

Next time, he should be a little gentler with Song Yi and the others. He could not be too strict.

So in the end, whether someone was well-behaved or not was all a matter of comparison.

What Teacher Yuan did not know was that the “not attending to proper duties” of the Spirit Capital Elementary students had everything to do with the children he had brought.

Unfortunately, Song Yi and the others also did not know Teacher Yuan’s thoughts. Otherwise, they would absolutely have worked even harder to ruin the reputation of the Spirit Capital Elementary students.

Chu Wen had not even found a shadow of the people he was looking for before he was caught by his own father.

“What are you doing here? According to the plan, you should be making an appearance over at the sect booths. Do you know that if you wander around here aimlessly, a lot of people will notice?”

There were many big shots who came to the expo.

Chu Wen lowered his head awkwardly. He also knew that his words and actions were inappropriate, but he cared too much about this expo, and too much about the simulator spirit’s debut. “But Father…”

“You want to find the people who tampered with the simulator spirit? I want to find them too.”

Chu Wen’s eyes lit up. “Father, you believe me?” Then his expression changed sharply. “Did something happen at our sect’s booth? I knew it!”

Their scheme still had a follow-up! They absolutely could not be let off!

“Something did happen, but it’s not quite what you’re imagining.”

Father Chu dragged his son to Wanqi Sect’s booth. This was one of the liveliest booths at the entire expo. Many people were gathered around it. “We want to experience that previous version.”

“Yes, yes, yes. The previous artifact spirit was more interesting. Could we trouble you to switch it back?”

“What? It’s the same artifact spirit? Impossible. That’s not what the people on the cloud whale said. You’re not discriminating too, are you? Not letting ordinary guests experience it?”

Chu Wen: ?

Because he was doubting life a little too hard, his face briefly went blank.

Maybe he was still being controlled by the simulator spirit after all, and everything he saw was an illusion.

“They even said the research and development team was sick…”

Weren’t they supposed to dislike a weirdo artifact spirit?

Father Chu said bluntly, “Like and abuse are both unimportant. What matters is whether they are interested. If they are interested, then that is success. If you’re afraid of bearing a bad name, you can neither do good business nor become a leader of the younger generation. You can only be an ordinary genius.”

Chu Wen pressed his lips into a straight line.

“If it really was them who did it, then we need to think of a way to cooperate with them. We need to find them, but not in this way.” His old man added another stab.

“But they…” Chu Wen wanted to argue.

They had made a move against something as important as the simulator spirit. He had been too anxious, which was why he had lost his composure.

“The question is, what consequences did they cause?”

The consequence was that everyone liked the weirdo version of the simulator spirit?

Chu Wen could not say this aloud. It felt like denying all the painstaking effort he had put in for so long.

“I told you before: matters must be sorted by urgency and importance. See the situation clearly before acting. Even if they really are acting against you, it would not be too late to find evidence and settle accounts after the expo ends. Being frantic and hurried only made you forget your purpose in coming here. I had you attend the expo not only to make a name for yourself, but also to connect you with market feedback.”

Chu Wen lowered his head. “I was wrong.”

Father Chu patted his shoulder. “All right. Tell me the specifics.”

A sect person in charge like him needed to arrange the corresponding booth site. At the time, he had not been on the cloud whale.

He was not too clear on what had happened on the cloud whale.

Chu Wen honestly told him the whole sequence of events.

Father Chu could not hold back. “I told you to go make more friends, not go offend more people.”

Chu Wen had originally wanted to say that they were not worth befriending, but under his old father’s stern gaze, he lowered his head again. “At the time, I didn’t know they were that impressive.”

“No. Later, you knew. But you still didn’t want to make friends with them, because you had already placed them in the enemy camp. This is your second mistake.”

“Your first mistake is habitual arrogance. What you should enjoy is not only your classmates’ admiration, but even more, you should play a leading role. When they looked down on Cloud City, you should have restrained them. They represented your attitude. With you acting like this, will the people of Cloud City like you? Will cities as ordinary as Cloud City like you?”

Good thing no one else had heard their conversation. Otherwise, they might not have taken action like Song Yi and the others, but they would have put it straight into practice: boycott Wanqi Sect’s products.

It was very normal for an ordinary person to have a sense of superiority and be arrogant. Others would at most hear it and ignore them.

But when he represented more than just himself, he had to consider the corresponding consequences.

Chu Wen’s eyes reddened. Still unconvinced, he said, “But what we said wasn’t completely wrong. Father, you didn’t see it. That guy was about to suck away all the little gift boxes. I’ve never seen someone look so ugly while grabbing benefits.”

His old father was speechless. “According to your description, how old was that child, and how old are you? Didn’t she return them in the end?”

He sighed. In truth, Father Chu knew very well where his son’s problem lay: he was a genius, he had resources tilted toward him, and his path had been far too smooth all the way.

A Chu Wen like this easily became self-centered and did not accept or reflect on things.

In the end, he had simply fallen into too few pits and suffered too few beatings from society.

“If you didn’t think what you said was wrong, then it was quite right for them to scold you too. How is it that you can say those things, but when they say something, it becomes an offense?”

Chu Wen’s face was as red as his eyes.

He was exactly at the age when self-esteem was strongest, and he had very rarely encountered something like this. One could imagine the shock inside him.

But in front of his father, he still said, “After I find them, I’ll apologize to them.”

“Mm. You go visit the expo with the others first. We don’t need you to find people next. The girl leading them was Lu Shan from Cloud Elementary, right?”

Chu Wen nodded.

Before he left, Father Chu reminded him again, “Don’t feel unconvinced. Your divine sense has advanced.”

“Ah?” Chu Wen froze. He looked inward at his sea of consciousness and found that it was indeed so. The further one went in cultivation, the more important the strengthening of the sea of consciousness became. He had been stuck at a bottleneck for some time, unable to get past it. He had not expected to break through silently this time. “I didn’t even notice. Could it have been help from the fragrance of the spiritual flowers when the expo began?”

Father Chu patted his head. “Are you stupid? When has our family ever lacked spiritual flowers? The thing you lack least is those resources. What let you break through was the obsession of not wanting to die.”

Life-and-death tempering made it easier for people to break through.

This was a cultivation consensus that had existed since ancient times.

It was just that life-and-death tempering had decreased nowadays, and many people would not risk their lives for the sake of a breakthrough.

As everyone knew, cultivators who moved along the edges of the Human Realm advanced faster than cultivators who cultivated inside urban districts.

Although what Chu Wen had experienced at the time was not real life and death, he himself believed it was. The realization it produced was real, and the breakthrough he obtained was also real.

But because he had been thinking about the expo and the simulator spirit, even he himself had not noticed.

Father Chu still had many things to attend to. After pointing out the truth, he left him there.

Chu Wen clenched his fists, then loosened them helplessly.

At first, when he had said he would apologize, it was because in front of his father, he had to show that he could consider the bigger picture. It might not necessarily have meant he was sincerely convinced.

But now, he knew those people had granted him an “enlightenment favor.” Could he still give some insincere apology?

He absolutely could not.

In this kind of situation, one usually had to send a heavy gift in thanks…

But when Chu Wen thought about his attitude toward those children, he really wanted to dig a tunnel with his toes and run away.

Just then, a voice rang throughout the expo. “May I ask whether Cloud City Elementary School’s student Lu Shan is present? Congratulations, you have won today’s expo lucky gift bundle. Please find a staff member to claim it.”

This “lucky gift bundle” came out of Father Chu’s own pocket. He needed to express some goodwill. Even if Cloud Elementary had more than one Lu Shan, he could afford to give one to each.

Then he asked a connection on the organizer’s side for a favor. Wanqi Sect still had some face, and added to that, it was not a bad thing, so it became an official gift.

The lucky person instantly became the object of everyone’s envy. “How was this drawn? Is it randomly drawn from among the expo visitors?”

“A separate gift bundle like this must be really valuable… Maybe it’s a commemorative model. Damn it! I want one too! Please open a paid draw channel!”

Lu Shan, who was currently visiting the expo, widened her eyes. “Mom, did you hear my name? Were they talking about me?”

“Probably? Let’s go ask.”

The Lu family showed their identity tokens and were immediately invited backstage, where they received an exquisite little coronet. This was a storage spirit artifact, only made in the shape of a coronet.

The items gifted in the lucky gift bundle were all inside it. Most of them were limited-edition spirit artifacts from Wanqi Sect, and they were all things little girls nowadays liked more.

Lu Shan’s parents were both starting to suspect whether their daughter might be better suited to cultivating the Dao of Karmic Luck.

Father Chu smilingly chatted with them for a couple of sentences, then discovered that this Lu Shan was not the person they were looking for. But he waited and waited, and no second Lu Shan came to claim the prize.

“Little Lu Shan, are there a lot of people at your school with the same name as you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anyone with the same name as me.” Lu Shan shook her head. She liked this gift bundle very much, but she was a smart child. From Father Chu’s line of questioning, she guessed something. “Uncle, this gift isn’t for me, is it?”

She had heard someone looking for “Lu Shan” just now too.

Father Chu smilingly patted Lu Shan’s head. “No, this is for you. It’s just that other children with the same name as you all have a share too. I prepared several. Thank you for your support of the expo.”

Lu Shan breathed a sigh of relief. Otherwise, she really would have been too embarrassed to accept it.

But Father Chu also had a guess: those children were about the same age as Lu Shan, they were also Cloud Elementary students, and they were very likely in the same grade, yet Lu Shan had never heard of anyone with the same full name.

Then was there a possibility that the other Lu Shan was a fake name from the start?

Father Chu found it funny. His son had stayed in an ivory tower for too long and was truly about to become a silly sweet innocent. He had not even figured out who his “enemies” were before aggressively seeking revenge. Wasn’t that ridiculous?

While he entrusted someone to ask whether any Cloud Elementary teachers they knew had come to the expo, he also probed Lu Shan indirectly. “Speaking of which, we met your classmates on the cloud whale…”

Under normal circumstances, people who used someone else’s identity like this were acquaintances.

“Huh? Are you talking about Song Yi and the others?”

Song Yi. That was a familiar name.

Father Chu felt he was already close to the truth. “Mm, yes.”

Unexpectedly, at this moment, Chu Wen, who had slipped backstage wanting to see “Lu Shan,” suffered a mental collapse. He jumped out. “No, impossible! She wasn’t Song Yi!”

He had clearly gone to greet her before!

If that guy was Song Yi, then didn’t that mean he had been toyed with from the very beginning?

If that guy was Song Yi, he would not have had that kind of attitude.

Lu Shan looked Chu Wen up and down, then said with certainty, “Mm. If you put it that way, then it was Song Yi.”

That familiar expression, that familiar mental collapse—anyone who had suffered a fall at Song Yi’s hands would not find it unfamiliar.

Song Yi and the others naturally also heard the voice broadcast. Li Wenwen enviously bit a handkerchief. “Lu Shan really came, huh. I want a big gift bundle too, sob…”

“Damn it, the lucky talisman didn’t work!”

Unfortunately, for something that required verifying identity, they definitely would not pretend to be someone else. That was practically the same as offering up a kill.

They did not think this had anything to do with them either. The only ones relentlessly chasing after them had been Chu Wen and his classmates. Forget the organizers; even the other people from Wanqi Sect had not gotten involved.

And with Chu Wen’s attitude, how could he possibly be willing to let them take advantage?

Their identities were stable as anything.

They believed they had already grasped the essence of safely causing trouble.

A while later, Teacher Yuan came over to find them. “An old friend said he’s inviting us to eat. You all come too. We’ll continue visiting in the afternoon.”

The children’s gossiping ears instantly perked up. “Old friend? Male or female? Married or unmarried?”

Song Yi’s question was even more practical. “What cultivation level? What Dao do they cultivate? If their Dao is different, there won’t be any common topics. That’s no good.”

Then Song Yi was laughed at by everyone: Little Yi’s thinking was too conservative. What era was this? Cultivation level and direction weren’t obstacles!

Teacher Yuan made as if to knock these children on the head, and only then did they grin and stop the topic.

He was just as confused inside. The person said they were old friends, but in fact, they had not contacted each other for quite a long time and were not that familiar. They had met on the cloud whale last night, but the other party had not been this enthusiastic then either.

Today, this person suddenly said he wanted to introduce other people to him, and even complimented him on being good at teaching students and so on. It made Teacher Yuan suspect a little: had this guy committed some offense, so he was deliberately cozying up to him and wanted his help?

The other party had not spoken his request yet and was being so warm that it was hard for him to refuse.

He would first go see what the situation was. At worst, he would treat the children to a meal himself.

In front of outsiders, the children still gave Old Yuan a lot of face. They obediently followed behind the adults, preparing to go eat.

Then Song Yi’s sharp eyes spotted Lu Shan and Chu Wen standing together.

Her crisis warning erupted.

This situation was not good!

Next Chapter >