Chapter 77: You Don’t Know Physics or Chemistry?
The people of Shangjing were all waiting to see the final round of the imperial prince competition.
Chen Bai, Meng Huanchao, and Qi Zheng were also using their own methods to gather the disciples of the sages in Shangjing. It was just that this would take a little longer.
Although the common people discussed this matter every day, Shangjing itself showed no change at all. Everything was calm and peaceful, as if, just as Chen Bai had said, this really was a competition that would never have a result.
The most satisfied one was probably the king. Everything seemed to be going exactly as he had expected.
But while Shangjing was calm, the sage paths of the various states had already exploded into chaos.
Because one piece of news had begun spreading among the disciples of the sages.
“Whoever obtains Cloudtop Academy may conquer this chaotic age, pacify the world, and bring prosperity for ten thousand generations…”
Just hearing it was like thunder crashing in one’s ears.
This era was full of endless chaos, and wars filled with smoke and flames happened every single day.
At such a time, someone suddenly claimed that some Cloudtop Academy could conquer the chaotic age, pacify the world, and even bring prosperity for ten thousand generations. One could imagine how shocking this was.
“Fake, right? Anyone can shout slogans, but who can actually end this chaotic age?”
“What Cloudtop Academy? Never heard of it, never seen it. It’s just something that popped up out of nowhere.”
“We disciples of the sages spread the teachings of the sages precisely for the sake of peace under heaven. Generation after generation has constantly verified their own sage paths, but even now, not one school has proven itself correct. Even we disciples who uphold the sages’ teachings cannot do it. What can some Cloudtop Academy that appeared out of nowhere possibly do?”
At first, almost everyone denied it outright.
But after a little inquiry—
“What? The one who spread this news is the only orthodox heir of the supreme path of Ghost Valley?”
That made everything completely different.
What was the supreme path of Ghost Valley? Among the Hundred Schools of Thought, it had always ranked within the top five. Other sage teachings rose and fell with the changes of the times, but the supreme path of Ghost Valley had never once fallen out of that rank.
For a time, the disciples of the sage paths throughout the states were all in an uproar.
So, was Shangjing, which appeared calm on the surface, truly as still as a mirror?
For example, at the entrance of Cloudtop Academy, there was now a strange youth dressed in black. On his back was a large black wooden sword. He was crouching on the ground, watching Chen Xiaobu play with a wind-up frog.
Chen Xiaobu blinked, looking at his wind-up frog crawling on the ground, then at the black-clothed youth, who was watching even more seriously than he was.
Then he silently picked up the wind-up frog from the ground and hid it behind his back. “My brother said toys like this are for little kids like me. Once you grow up, you can’t play with them anymore. It’s embarrassing.”
He said it with righteous confidence, yet he was also a little cautious. Back then, he had exchanged one squeaky rubber chicken for a luminous pearl. Now he would never underestimate his toys again. If this person snatched his wind-up frog and ran off, who would he complain to?
The black-clothed youth came back to his senses, his eyes bright and full of spirit. “Little kid, let me take a look. Just for a while.”
Chen Xiaobu hid the wind-up frog even farther behind him, then spread his little legs and ran. Sure enough, this person had taken a liking to his toy. A grown person still wanted to snatch a child’s toy. How shameful.
Chen Xiaobu ran to the academy gate. The gate opened automatically. Without looking back, he rushed inside. Only then did he turn around and grin at the black-clothed youth. “Dream on. I only have one wind-up frog. My brother just gave it to me. Even Shang Jujiu and the others wanted to play with it, but I didn’t let them.”
The black-clothed youth was clearly stunned. How had the gate opened by itself?
A flash of sharp light crossed his eyes, and he walked toward the gate that had already closed. “That child seemed to have hopped upward at the entrance just now?”
“What a strange gate. This Cloudtop Academy is rather interesting.”
Chen Xiaobu had already taken the elevator upstairs. As he did, he raised the student watch on his wrist and sent a group message. “There’s a weirdo at the gate who likes children’s toys. Everyone, be careful. Don’t let him follow you inside.”
“Received.”
“Received.”
The voices of a group of little radishes rang out in the group chat.
As for the youth at the gate, he was still seriously studying the door.
Who knew how long he studied it before he finally came back to himself in confusion. “What a delicate and intricate mechanism. It is simply superb craftsmanship. I actually cannot see through its principles. Since when did Great Qian become skilled in the art of mechanisms?”
But how could there possibly be a mechanism in this world that could stump him? He would slowly study it until he understood it thoroughly.
Thus, at the entrance of Cloudtop Academy, there was now such a strange youth, spending each day there without eating or sleeping properly.
Even Chen Xiaobu was a little moved. “Is that really necessary? It’s just a wind-up frog. I didn’t let you play with it, and now you won’t leave?”
He reluctantly handed the wind-up frog over. “See… seeing as you like it so much, we can play together?”
So when Meng Huanchao arrived, he saw one big and one small lying there, enthusiastically playing with a wind-up frog.
Meng Huanchao stared at the black wooden sword on the youth’s back for a long while, almost thinking he had seen wrong. Then he could not help covering his face. “A dignified disciple of a sage, yet this embarrassing?”
He was actually lying on the ground with a little brat, butt sticking up, playing with such enthusiasm.
Chen Xiaobu, on the other hand, thought this person was pretty good. They had a common hobby. “I have lots of other toys too. They’re all in my book box. We can play together later.”
Just like that, Chen Xiaobu inexplicably gained a playmate, one who liked his little toys even more than he did. Look at him—he was completely obsessed.
Meng Huanchao thought about whether he should expose the other party’s identity. If this spread out, the man would probably have no face to meet anyone.
He shook his head. Since the other party did not say anything himself, Meng Huanchao would pretend not to know.
When Chen Bai arrived, Chen Xiaobu was already playing skateboard with that youth.
Chen Bai stared blankly. Who was this?
But seeing Chen Xiaobu having so much fun, he did not say anything.
He only secretly complained inwardly, “So many days have passed. Why hasn’t even one sage disciple come to Shangjing?”
Sage disciples should all look extremely learned and knowledgeable, right? Chen Bai thought. These days, even when he went out on the street, he kept looking at people with that kind of appearance. Unfortunately, he had found nothing.
He had also copied quite a few books on the teachings of the sages. He copied half of each and scattered them out. Yet not even a single ripple had appeared.
Chen Bai had even secretly gone to look at the books he had scattered out. In the end, they were sitting in the shops with no one asking about them. They were not even selling as well as those storybooks. That was a little awkward.
After thinking about it, it was probably because Great Qian’s literary atmosphere was not flourishing. Even if someone picked them up and read them, they probably would not understand them at all, like a monk unable to make sense of things. They would glance at the books and then abandon them like old shoes.
Chen Bai sighed. “A stumble right before the finish line. I really didn’t think clearly about Great Qian’s current situation. I originally thought it was some brilliant plan, but in the end, not a single person recognized the goods. I thought it would stir up waves and draw people here, but no one is spreading them at all.”
Such a loss, such a loss. He had spent a great sum of money hiring scholars to copy the books into volumes and sell them.
For example, just now, he had gone to a bookstore and bought two of those books. If no one else bought them, could he not buy them himself? Although it really was a little embarrassing. In the end, when the bookstore owner saw him pick up two books from the corner, he had been surprised for quite a while and said, “Someone actually buys these books? Can they even understand them? If not for the person who published them paying out of his own pocket to have people copy them and bring them here to sell, who would dare accept them, right?”
Chen Bai’s face had turned black on the spot. He paid, turned, and left. Who stabbed someone like that right in front of the person involved?
Chen Bai looked at the two books in his hands. “Is this what it truly means for a bright pearl to be covered in dust, unrecognized by anyone?”
Then he looked at Chen Xiaobu, who was playing skateboard until he was covered in sweat. The weather was very hot now. He could not let Chen Xiaobu play under the sun for too long.
He called out and had him go play inside the academy.
The academy’s first floor was actually used for receiving guests. As long as strangers were not allowed upstairs, it was fine. Ordinary people could not go upstairs anyway, because they did not know how to use the elevator.
Chen Xiaobu pulled the friend he had made over the past few days into the first floor and poured out the little toys from his book box. He said proudly, “I have lots of toys. They’re especially fun. My brother gave them all to me. Everyone else is super jealous of this book box of mine.”
A child showing off his treasure chest.
Chen Bai found it funny. He sat on the wooden shoe rack for a while, but the rack began to wobble.
It was probably another careless student who had rammed into it and knocked one of its legs crooked. He had to find someone to repair it.
Chen Bai looked at the two books in his hands and was still rather angry. Did this mean his plan had failed?
The more he looked at them, the angrier he became. “What sage teachings? Now they can only be used to prop up a shoe rack.”
After saying that, he actually put them under the rack.
This probably counted as an innocent party being implicated.
Chen Bai looked at the sky and said to Chen Xiaobu, “Lord Meng has class soon. Don’t get so caught up playing that you forget.”
Chen Xiaobu nodded and said reluctantly, “I have class soon. You can play here by yourself. Outsiders aren’t allowed upstairs. I’ll come find you after class.”
That youth looked “not very smart.” He was still foolishly touching the floor with his hand. To him, these floor tiles were really quite extraordinary.
The academy was originally worlds apart from the outside. The difference was enormous. One door was like the boundary between two worlds.
Chen Bai and the students were already used to it, but that did not mean that other people seeing it for the first time could adapt quickly. Even if this person was widely experienced and knowledgeable, it was impossible for him to adapt at once.
When the youth finally came back to his senses, he was the only one left on the first floor.
Originally, he had only come to see what the Cloudtop Academy mentioned by the supreme path of Ghost Valley was like. He had not expected it to be this unexpected.
At that moment, the youth also noticed the two books propping up the shoe rack. His heart ached a little, and he pulled the books out. “They look like two new books. How can someone ruin them like this? Great Qian’s people really do lack some literary culture.”
But when he casually flipped one open, his entire person froze.
What… what had he seen?
He actually became immersed in it at once and could no longer stop.
But when he reached the end, it suddenly stopped. The essay had been cut off extremely abruptly, right in the middle of a sentence, as if it had been done deliberately.
The youth looked dazed and lost. “Why is there no more? How can there be no more?”
Then his face was full of grief and indignation. “This is simply… simply wasting heavenly treasures! Such a rare volume was actually… actually used to prop up a shoe rack. If the scholars under heaven knew of this, wouldn’t their spit drown…”
But suddenly, the youth froze.
If such a rare volume could be used to prop up a shoe rack, did that not mean the other party did not care about such things at all? Did they have something even… even better?
For some reason, he could not help swallowing. His eyes shone brightly as he looked upstairs.
This Cloudtop Academy was probably truly something different.
Upstairs, Chen Bai was listening to Meng Huanchao’s class. The lesson happened to be about the Hundred Schools of Thought.
“Among the various states, there are two schools most skilled in mechanisms. One is the Gongshu clan of Lu. The Secret Record of Lu Craftsmanship came from the Gongshu clan. The other is the Mohists of Zhao. However, each has its own strengths. Lu’s Gongshu clan excels at war machines, while the Mohists excel at architecture, mechanisms, and ingenious devices…”
Meng Huanchao’s lessons were truly closely tied to reality and were very practical. They were very different from the masters of this era. This was also something Chen Bai especially liked.
A student asked, “Then are the Mohists good at architecture too? Are they as amazing as our master Mountain Lord? Our master built Cloudtop Academy.”
Meng Huanchao smiled. “Mountain Lord is naturally amazing. Just the precision of the mechanisms within Cloudtop Academy and the strangeness of its various ingenious devices can already be considered unique and unparalleled in the world. At least among the things I have seen, nothing can compare.”
The students’ faces all piled up with smiles. Their master was amazing, and they themselves were amazing too. So proud.
Meng Huanchao continued, “However, the Mohists are one of the Hundred Schools of Thought. What they uphold is not these mechanisms and ingenious arts, but their sage teachings. This is also what is most worthy of respect. A sage teaching often needs to be tempered a thousand times and verified and practiced by countless people. It requires endless effort and sweat from countless people, who struggle for a lifetime without complaint or regret…”
Meng Huanchao’s voice carried a kind of magic. With just a few simple sentences, he seemed to show these students the difficult yet unregretful scholarly road of those sage disciples. They were pioneers with firm wills, worthy of respect, searching for a path forward for all under heaven.
They did not know what lay ahead, so these sage disciples had to personally tread the path with their own feet. Even if they were covered in wounds and shattered to pieces, they would not regret it even in death.
They truly were people worthy of respect.
Even Chen Bai became somewhat absorbed listening. He could not help saying a few words too. “The core ideas of Mohist thought are universal love, non-aggression, honoring the worthy, and ultimately achieving great unity under heaven. Unfortunately, that is far too difficult. The states of this world each have their own selfish motives. How could great unity under heaven be so easy?”
“But in terms of ideology, it truly is remarkable. Compared to the School of Names among the Hundred Schools, with its rectification of distinctions, verification of reality, and division of status, its conception is even higher. But the higher the conception, the harder it is to realize. To know that it is difficult and yet still go against the current, to make people harbor hope and never give up, to look forward to the arrival of a world of great unity under heaven—the persistence of the Mohists is indeed extraordinary…”
Meng Huanchao could not help raising his head, a rare look of surprise appearing on his face. It could be said that he understood the Mohists better than most people in this world. Mohist teachings did indeed contain what Chen Bai had said, but Mohist thought was extremely scattered. They were still constantly exploring and verifying it. No one had ever been able to summarize it so accurately in one sentence.
This…
Meng Huanchao did not come back to himself for quite some time. When he finally did, a group of students were chattering and demanding that he tell them gossip about the Mohists and the Gongshu clan.
Meng Huanchao glanced at Chen Bai, as if he had discovered something interesting again.
After class ended, Chen Xiaobu immediately went to find his good friend. He had forgotten that his good friend had been shut on the first floor, did not know how to use the elevator, and did not know how to open the door to get out. Wouldn’t that mean he had been trapped there with nowhere to go?
When he reached the first floor, sure enough, he saw that youth muttering to himself.
Chen Xiaobu thought, sin, sin. Look, the man had been locked up until he had gone silly. He quickly opened the door and sent him out to see the sunlight.
That youth was probably truly absent-minded. He suddenly asked a little dot like Chen Xiaobu, “Tell me, among all the many ideas of the Mohists, which should we continue to uphold, and which should be abandoned?”
He still had not recovered from reading those two books just now.
Chen Xiaobu scratched his head. “What are you saying? You really got locked up silly. I know this one. We just talked about it in class. Isn’t the central idea of the Mohists universal love, non-aggression, honoring the worthy, and great unity under heaven… I even took notes just now…”
The youth was truly stunned.
By the time he came back to his senses, there was no one around him. Chen Xiaobu and the others had already taken the carriage home.
The youth slapped his thigh. “They talked about it in class? And he directly took notes?”
How come he, a sage disciple of the Mohists, did not know?
From then on, Chen Xiaobu gained a good friend who played toys with him and was always eyeing his notes.
How could Chen Xiaobu let others read his notes so easily? He was very shy, because his notebook was full of little people he had drawn while slacking off. Besides, he felt this person probably would not understand his notes. His note-taking had its own personality.
Of course, that was a story for later.
Aside from the youth at Cloudtop Academy, Gan Xin also ran into a strange person.
In a deserted alley, Gan Xin was blocked by someone. It was a man who looked like a street thug, with a sword at his waist, though he also seemed somewhat like a wandering swordsman.
Gan Xin was a little dumbfounded. In Shangjing, there was actually someone who dared block him in an alley?
Gan Xin glanced at the Old English Sheepdog beside him, whose tail was wagging nonstop, and said, “You dare block me? Do you know who I am? Do you know how vicious my dog is? Careful, it’ll bite you till you’re covered in blood and splatter it all over the ground.”
The thug had a blade of grass in his mouth. “You’re Gan Thirteen? That Gan Thirteen who made Ba suffer heavy losses?”
Gan Xin: “…”
Oh no. This person had probably come specifically to make trouble for him.
He quickly pressed a hand to his wrist and said loudly, “You know who I am and still dare block me? People often pass by Wutong Street. If anyone sees this, someone will immediately come arrest you and send you to the authorities.”
The thug smiled. He had long since checked this alley. Hardly anyone came here at all.
He had heard that Gan Thirteen was skilled at tracking and scouting, but no matter how capable he was today, he could forget about sending any message out.
“Perfect. You’re also a student of Cloudtop Academy. If I take you back and interrogate you, I’ll kill two birds with one stone.”
Just as he was about to move, a flurry of hurried footsteps suddenly came from outside the alley.
“Gan Thirteen, we’re here to save you! Good thing I was near Wutong Street. If it had been anyone else, they definitely couldn’t have rushed over this quickly. You would’ve been bullied for sure.”
It was Shang Jujiu rushing in with the guards of his household. “Which blind petty thief are you, daring to bully one of us? Don’t you know Shangjing is our territory?”
The thug froze. Why?
He had clearly confirmed that no one would come here, and no one had passed through. How had Gan Thirteen sent out the news that he was trapped?
Gan Xin was also stunned, because the thug was extremely powerful. Shang Jujiu had brought quite a few guards, but the other party knocked down more than half of them in just a few moves. Then he glanced at Gan Xin, turned, and ran.
Gan Xin and Shang Jujiu swallowed. “That person is really strong. He’s… he’s probably not just some petty thief.”
Gan Xin clamped his little legs together. “He almost scared me into peeing.”
But just as he finished speaking, another message came through the group chat.
“Don’t come over, don’t come over! The people coming to save me will be here soon. Don’t even think about kidnapping me.”
When Chen Bai received the news, he was also dumbfounded.
Several attempts to kidnap students of Cloudtop Academy had happened in a single day.
What was going on?
Were the students of Cloudtop Academy from ordinary families? And these kidnapping incidents had happened so openly in Shangjing?
Fortunately, the students were clever too. They pretended to be calm while secretly using their student watches to send messages, notifying one another for support. Only then had none of them actually been captured.
Chen Bai went to the authorities with the parents of these students.
The students’ parents were also shocked beyond belief. They were all Shangjing nobles, and not minor nobles either. Yet someone dared lay hands on the younger generation of their families in Shangjing?
These students were not ordinary among the younger generation of their clans either. At such a young age, they were already unfettered scholars of Hongwen Pavilion. They were very likely to become famous scholars or grand academicians in the future, and support the reputation of their entire clans.
One could imagine how furious everyone was.
In the end, they received an official reply.
“Recently, a group of strange people secretly entered Shangjing. No one knows what abilities they have, but they somehow managed to avoid patrols and inspections. Be careful when going out in the future.”
It seemed an undercurrent targeting Cloudtop Academy had appeared in Shangjing.
Chen Bai frowned and instructed the students not to take deserted alleys like Gan Xin had done just to save time. When going out, they should also bring more household guards with them.
Chen Bai could not understand it no matter how he thought about it. Had Cloudtop Academy offended anyone?
The students were basically little schoolchildren. They did not have any chance to offend people, did they?
And according to Gan Xin, the other party even knew his identity. Knowing full well that Gan Xin was the legitimate young master of Duke Gan’s household, he still dared to act. There should not be anyone in Great Qian with that kind of courage, right?
“Who exactly could it be?”
In this era, the Hundred Schools of Thought each held thousands of sage paths, blooming like flowers everywhere. There were the Mohists, who advocated universal love and non-aggression; the Confucians, who advocated benevolence under heaven; the Military School, which stopped war through war; and all sorts of teachings built on schemes and stratagems…
Perhaps their goal was peace under heaven, but their methods were all different. So-called disciples of sages were not only the gentle sort. One could even say that the chaos of this world might not be entirely unrelated to them. Because to prove their paths, they had to use the various states as chess pieces, verifying whether their paths were right or wrong.
Leaving that aside for now.
Since these students had encountered such matters, how could their families be willing to let it go? They absolutely had to make the authorities and the patrol office investigate thoroughly.
Because the identities of those involved were indeed extraordinary, and more than one person had been targeted, the authorities and patrol office did not dare be careless. Shangjing began to go on alert and carry out investigations.
Because of this, Shangjing, which had originally appeared completely calm, actually revealed something earth-shattering once they started investigating. It uncovered the undercurrent that had, at some unknown point, already arrived beneath that peaceful surface.
To be honest, when Chen Bai received the news, he was so surprised that his jaw nearly dropped to the ground.
No. He had to go find Qi Zheng and discuss this.
But as soon as he stepped out, the common people on the streets had already gone mad with discussion.
“Have you heard? That poor scholar who just moved into Xilaike Inn is actually a disciple of the Yin-Yang School of the Hundred Schools of Thought—a sage’s student!”
The words landed like a stone striking the ground, stirring up a thousand waves.
“Just now, the patrol office was checking outsiders and happened to check that poor scholar. That scholar did not even have a travel permit, and no one knows how he entered Shangjing. The patrol office was originally going to arrest him, but then he took out a strange token. Forget arresting him—the patrol officers even had to treat him respectfully.”
“After asking, they found out that poor scholar was actually a sage’s student of the Yin-Yang School. Tell me, who could have expected that?”
“Tsk, let me tell you, I came here by bus from the West Market just now, and something similar happened over there too. A master writing books by the roadside was found to be a sage’s student of the Syncretist School.”
“Hiss, they found one on my side too. Legalist School.”
“The one on my side was from the Military School.”
“…”
What was going on?
All of a sudden, before anyone had time to react, the disciples of the sages from the Hundred Schools of Thought seemed to have appeared in Shangjing overnight.
The common people of Shangjing were as confused as could be. “Didn’t they say these sage disciples refused to come to Great Qian? Why have so many suddenly come?”
“Who knows? Usually, these sage’s students have noble statuses and are rarely seen. In the end, so many have come to our Shangjing.”
“Tsk, if not for the authorities and patrol office suddenly checking people, no one would have known their identities.”
“Exactly. They could have come and gone without anyone knowing.”
“But with sage disciples gathering here, there must be a reason, right? Do you think it has something to do with the imperial prince competition…”
Chen Bai listened to the discussion. To be honest, he also could not understand it. His books from the different schools had not sold, had they? The news had not spread either. Then how had these sage disciples been drawn here?
It really was strange.
Before Chen Bai went to Qi Zheng’s place, he first made a trip to the bookshops.
What was he going there for? Of course, to buy back all the books he had scattered out. Far more sage disciples had come than he had imagined. If the books he had written were leaked, who knew what kind of uproar it would cause?
It was just that buying back the books he had scattered out himself really made him feel stifled.
He touched his money pouch. His heart ached terribly.
Chen Bai comforted himself. “It’s fine, it’s fine. I’ll move them all to the academy and treat them as a book collection. An academy without any books at all really doesn’t look proper.”
He had the people from the Court Commandant’s estate carry away load after load of books.
The bookstore owner: “…”
There were actually people coming to buy these books, and buying all of them at that?
Chen Bai really had no face to look at the bookstore owner’s expression. He instructed the people carrying the books to send them to the academy and hand them to Meng Huanchao.
However, Chen Bai still heard the bookstore owner muttering, “Quite a few people came to buy these books just now too. They looked a little abnormal. The moment they saw the books, their bodies trembled like they were having an attack.”
Chen Bai frowned. He hoped the people who had bought the books would not spread the news too quickly.
…
At Cloudtop Academy, when the usually unruffled Meng Huanchao brought the students to move the books, he casually flipped one open, and his entire person went foolish.
He felt that if this news spread, Cloudtop Academy would be surrounded by the Hundred Schools of Thought until not even water could pass through.
Meng Huanchao was lost in thought for a while before he and the students moved the books into the academy.
The youth at the academy gate suddenly said with a serious face, “Shouldn’t the two books propping up your shoe rack be changed? Those two books look quite new. It really is a pity to use them to prop up a shoe rack. Why not use some other old books instead?”
Meng Huanchao froze and looked toward the shoe rack. Sure enough, he saw two books propping it up. He opened one and looked. “…”
His expression turned rather bad. Which wastrel had actually…
He put the books together and moved them upstairs, saying, “It is indeed a pity. I’ll find someone to repair the shoe rack.”
The youth: “…”
No, why repair it? Use other books to prop it up.
At that moment, one of the students was carrying too many books, and one of them happened to fall.
The youth helped pick it up and blew the dust off it. But then he suddenly froze, because the cover of the book was written with an extremely exaggerated title: Sayings of Mo Di…
Mozi, personal name Di, was the founder of Mohist thought.
For some reason, the youth’s hands began to tremble. He was so excited that he became somewhat incoherent.
Could it be… could it be that someone had compiled the usual sayings of the founder of their Mohist teachings?
He could not help swallowing. The book in his hands was not just a book. It was heavier than Mount Tai.
But the student reached out, took the book from the youth’s hands, said thank you, then casually tucked the book under his arm and walked off unsteadily. It would probably fall again, right?
The youth opened his mouth. For a moment, he could not say a single word.
That was his Mohist sacred classic, and yet it was just… held so casually. It had even fallen to the ground and gotten covered in dust, and no one cared.
He felt as if his heart had suffered a heavy blow.
Wait. A Mohist sacred classic—he just wanted to take one look at it.
But after the group of students walked inside, the academy gate shut mercilessly again.
The youth: “…”
He could not figure out this mechanism. Clearly… clearly, as long as those students stood by the gate, it would open on its own. But when he stood there for ages, it did not react at all.
The youth looked up at the tall tower for a while, then circled around it. Finally, he gritted his teeth and turned to leave.
This academy belonged to Great Qian. With his noble status as a disciple of a sage, asking to enter the tower to look at a book should not be difficult, right?
At that moment, Chen Bai had also arrived at Qi Zheng’s estate. Qi Zheng had probably received the news earlier as well.
The two of them spoke almost at the same time.
“You were the one who drew the sage disciples to Shangjing?”
Both of them froze at the same time. If it was not them, then who could it be?
It definitely would not be the king, because the king did not want this competition to end. In that case, he would not be thinking of bringing sage disciples to Shangjing.
Logically speaking, the arrival of these people in Shangjing was beneficial to Chen Bai and the others. But this matter was not their doing.
“Why did they come?” Chen Bai asked. Back then, the king had destroyed a sage path. Logically speaking, he had thoroughly offended these people. They should not have come.
“Looks like we can only ask them,” Qi Zheng said.
Chen Bai thought, that made sense. Why had they come? They themselves would certainly know.
“It’s also a good thing. We can think of a way to approach these sage disciples and see whether we can fool one or two into joining Great Qian. Even fooling just one of them would mean we win, wouldn’t it?”
In truth, Chen Bai did not need to approach them, because…
Qi Zheng’s phone suddenly vibrated. He opened it and listened.
“Prince Zheng, Prince Zheng, this is bad! A lot of people have come to our academy gate. They claim to be sage disciples. If not for the fact that they can’t open the gate, they would probably have squeezed their way inside already.”
“I think they’re all fake. We tested them through the gate just now, and none of them could answer. They haven’t even studied physics or chemistry. A bunch of frauds.”
“Prince Zheng, hurry and send someone to chase them away.”
“We’re asking them questions right now to stall them. Prince Zheng, come quickly!”
Chen Bai, Qi Zheng: “…”
They had a feeling that the style of the academy right now was extremely bizarre.
