Volume 2, Chapter 61 – Wind Rising

Early in the morning, while Bai Xiang was still fast asleep trying to catch up on rest, emotions across the Qizhou University campus were already starting to stir.

Wen Qingxuan was the editor-in-chief of Qizhou University’s campus paper. He was a senior, with less than half a year until graduation. Precisely because of that, he wanted to, before leaving, witness his alma mater taking the lead in a “land-reclamation campaign worthy of the history books.” He’d been working overtime these days, churning out copy nonstop.

Wen Qingxuan was no good with the sword, but he still understood that the right to set the agenda for this gathering, judging by the recent renaming controversy with the Southern Territories Protectorate, would most likely be decided by a sword bout in the end.

So he wasn’t just making things up. He wasn’t writing empty slogans. Instead he mobilized every connection he had, dug up whatever he could on the enemy, and laid it all out openly, trying to make sure everyone knew exactly who they were up against, so they wouldn’t overturn the boat in some gutter where no one saw it coming.

And if, in the end, they still couldn’t fight their way to the right to lead… well, there’d be nothing Wen Qingxuan could do about that.

It wouldn’t be the fault of those who fought.

As long as his conscience was clear, that was enough.

“Everybody up, up!”

Just as dawn was breaking, Wen Qingxuan was already fully dressed and energized, using an empty drink bottle to bang along the edge of his roommates’ beds.

“You all promised you’d come work in the computer room with me, so don’t play dead pigs! Get up!”

The Qizhou University dorms were four to a room. The other three had already stayed up late scrolling the forums; now they were dragged out of bed by him, boiling with irritation, and only calmed down when Wen Qingxuan promised to treat these “godfathers” to soup-filled xiaolongbao.

A ragged bunch of them carried their breakfasts to the computer room. After signing in, they joined the other students from the campus paper to start work.

First up was managing the forum: delete the flamebait threads, and toss the “surrender faction” and the “here-for-the-laughs crowd” into the little black room.

Then carefully check and proof the articles, confirm the layout, and finally, on Wen Qingxuan’s say-so, start printing.

One sheet after another, reeking pleasantly of ink, rolled off the presses. Wen Qingxuan grabbed one at random to check, occasionally nodding in satisfaction and tapping his chin.

“Hey, Chief Editor.” A girl leaned over to him and asked, “We’re spending so much ink on introducing people from Qingze, introducing that genius ‘Leng Qiu,’ but on the Shinu people we’ve only given a tiny bit of space. Are we really fine with that?”

“Shinu what Shinu!” People behind them immediately started hooting.

“They’re called Luohou now, okay? Luohou!”

“If you call them Shinu to their faces and they blow up, don’t you dare say you know us!”

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Everyone was clearly joking. The Yu people had long enjoyed preferential treatment in the surrounding regions; no one felt there was anything wrong with it, and the whole room was laughing.

“I have thought about that,” Wen Qingxuan said, pushing up his glasses once he’d laughed enough. “If the Shinu… oh, I mean the Luohou people are challenging us in a straight-up land-reclamation contest, then yeah, the outcome would be hard to say.”

“But right now it looks like it’s going to be a sword bout!”

“Then it’s swords! A duel!” Wen Qingxuan flung his arms wide, pulling an exaggerated face. “When have we ever really taken them seriously?”

“All those foreign witchcrafts! Qigong! Compared to the national arts of Great Yu, they’re a grain of rice trying to shine against a full moon! Crushing them wouldn’t even be worth mentioning!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Everyone loved hearing this sort of thing. They thumped the tables hard, shouting in unison, “Send those Shinu back to the jungle to eat mud!”

“So the focus is on ‘Leng Qiu.’ That much we’re definitely not wrong about.” Wen Qingxuan nodded, clenching his fist.

“Condensing the Aspect at eighteen, Purple Qi at nineteen… She’s the core and the banner of this generation of Qingze! Second only to their previous lead, Zhao Jinyan!”

“A year’s passed now, and she’s grown another year older. I’d guess her strength is already on par with Zhao Jinyan’s—maybe she’s even surpassed that Zhao—and she’ll be our main enemy this time!”

“Shangqing Sword Dao really has it good,” someone said, shaking his head. “First they had Zhao Jinyan, now they’ve got Leng Qiu.”

“We’ve been pressed under Zhao Jinyan’s thumb for almost three years. You’re telling me we still won’t turn things around?”

“You can’t put it like that.” Wen Qingxuan frowned and raised his voice. “Shangqing Sword Dao has always been a bunch of unruly bastards. Back in the day, they were called Taiching Institute and Taiching Sword! Only after the Imperial House brought them to heel were they forced to change their name! Add in those twelve years of brutal war—half of the Thirteen Taiching Swords fell to Qiyun’s Ten Prodigies. They’ve been stewing in that humiliation ever since, desperate for revenge! It’s exactly that kind of mindset that makes them trumpet every achievement to the skies, as if no one else can compare!”

He paused, then softened his tone. “And us… the people of Qiyun, Benling Sword Dao. We walk the true Buddhist path, the Tiger-Subduing Golden Sword! We’re not as impatient and greedy for quick success as they are. It just makes us look less flashy, that’s all.”

Wen Qingxuan really was made for media work; he could spin a whole set of arguments without stopping. Before long, he’d restored everyone’s confidence. The room went wild, applause as fierce as if they’d all been shot up with pure adrenaline.

“Senior Brother Wen.”

Once the excitement settled, the girl from earlier lowered her voice and asked, “Speaking of geniuses… didn’t we get another seventeen-year-old Condensing-the-Aspect yesterday?”

“Bai Xiang, ranked third on the Yao Xiang List ?” Wen Qingxuan blurted out on reflex.

In an instant, everyone—including the girl—turned to look at him with a completely different expression.

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“I… ahem!” Wen Qingxuan coughed hard. “I mean… I’m a journalism major! Keeping track of these things is literally my job…”

“Enough, Senior Brother Wen.” The girl gave him a look of pure disdain. “You don’t have to explain.”

It really wasn’t his fault, though. This sword bout was tied to merits on the level of “opening new frontiers,” so the disciples sent by Qingze Sword Institute and Shangqing Sword Dao had to be the strongest allowed within the rules.

Take that Zhao Jinyan—he’d once reached first place on the Jinxiou Rankings , and even now he’d only fallen to ninth.

And Leng Qiu as well: as soon as she debuted, she crushed the arrogant Yujing Sword Institute in the first-year competitions. When she first entered the Jinxiou Rankings , she was already in the top fifty.

Compared to them, Bai Xiang’s measly ninety-seventh place really didn’t hold up. Her reputation was far higher on the Yao Xiang List than on the Jinxiou Rankings .

I mean, she was that white hair.

Born with white hair, heterochromatic eyes, a cool and distant air, and on top of that a perfect figure and flawless features.

If most people weren’t leaning conservative—or clinging to “classical aesthetics” because they were afraid of being called not conservative—Bai Xiang would have gotten even more votes.

Even now, plenty of people were still unhappy about it.

Wen Qingxuan felt himself grumbling inside.

Most of them were just groupies. After the last issue of the Yao Xiang List came out, they’d bombarded the campus paper’s editorial office with letters, raging about shady manipulation, accusing them of letting a girl who hadn’t even enrolled yet trample all over their senior schoolmates.

But that wasn’t up to me.

The more he thought about it, the madder Wen Qingxuan got.

Damn it, neither of those two rankings is decided by Qizhou University. All I do is tally the local votes; the final results come from Yujing!

“Anyway, it probably has nothing to do with her,” he said, waving his hand vaguely.

“Sure, she’s good-looking, and she’s talented.”

“But she’s still too young.”

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“Give it another year or two, or three or four. That’s when the stage will belong to her.”

…

Meanwhile, on the western edge of the Qizhou University campus, tightly adjoining the buildings was a narrow patch of sand, where a dark-skinned bald young man was doing a handstand pose.

He looked to be around twenty, bare-chested. The muscles on his arms and shoulders were extremely developed, and he was somehow balancing in the sandpit on nothing but his shaved head, palms pressed together, perfectly motionless.

“Excuse me.”

The call from the intruder made the dark-skinned youth open his eyes.

In his upside-down field of vision, a tall, pale-faced young man had appeared.

“I came straight here to ask you something.”

The tall, lanky youth stared at the dark-skinned one.

“All this time, I thought Zhao Jinyan was my true rival. At most, I figured he’d be replaced by that junior girl.”

“But ever since you all arrived, my masters’ attitude has changed completely. They even warned me that I can lose to Shangqing Sword, but I must never lose to you.”

“Can you tell me why that is?”

“…”

“…”

The two of them held that frozen standoff for a moment, then the dark-skinned youth suddenly smiled.

“Because they’re afraid that today, someone’s going to take their place.”

With that, he ignored the way the tall youth’s brows knitted together, flipped over, and walked out of the sand.

The tall youth narrowed his eyes, watching his back until he vanished from sight. Then he stepped forward, half crouched, and set his hand on the indentation in the sand.

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“This is… the ‘Earth-Heart Pile’?”

He felt it out for a while, then his eyes flew wide, shock spreading across his face.

“Oh.”

“So that’s why they were talking to me in such worried tones…”

“Senior Xia.”

A clear voice called from behind. The young man turned to see a girl in an antiquated-style blue dress, a long sword on her back, staring at him.

“I’ll be in the audience today. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask for Senior Xia’s forgiveness in advance.”

The girl cupped her fists, her tone and posture both stiffly proper.

“Ha!” The youth laughed, walked up to her, and before her wary gaze could react, suddenly reached out and rubbed her head twice.

“You—!” Only then did the girl snap out of it, her little face flushing scarlet.

“Xia Ran! You’re shameless!”

“Shameless is exactly right!”

The young man was already sprinting away, muttering as he ran.

“We’re about to fight and you’re still being so polite. Figures you were taught by that crazy abbess.”

“Your big bro’s saving you here.”

“Before you turn into a crazy abbess yourself.”