“How is there another…”
Lan Yue’s action left the crowd speechless. They’ve seen favoritism to one’s children before, but this was pushing it to extremes.
All found Lan Yue’s act disgraceful, but it was trumped by the curiosity to see Lin Qingrou’s visage.
A pity though, behind the silver mask was a medical mask that covered the entire face.
Lin Qingrou lightly picked the silver mask and put it right back on.
“This girl’s so stingy. No fun at all!” Lan Tianci nagged.
Shan Ji thumped his staff in anger, “Vice-chief Lan, you may be leading the Experts Alliance for now, but we are from the Tiannan Province’s base!
“Silver Heroine is our leader’s goddaughter. Offending her is the same as offending the entire Tiannan base!”
“It’s ok.” Lin Qingrou spoke.
“It’s best you stop here, Vice-chief Lan, or you will have to answer to Tiannan base’s leader!”
“Yeah, just let this go.”
All asked for the matter to be dropped.
Lan Tianci stared at Lin Qingrou, putting the others on edge. One more word from him would make Lan Yue strike again, and there’d be no going back from it this time.
Thankfully, Lan Tianci’s interest in Lin Qingrou waned.
Lin Qingrou passed Li Mo by a fraction, but she completely ignored him, without the slightest hesitation in her step.
They were classmates, true, but how could they be friends if they’ve never even spoken to each other? Be it his past life or the current one, Lin Qingrou hardly ever attended classes. Even if by some miracle she did come, there was virtually zero interaction with the rest.
Calling her cold didn’t quite fit. It was more along the lines of worlds apart.
“With three ferals gathered in the Experts Alliance, problems are bound to crop up, more and more serious too. If the chief does not exit seclusion, I think the Experts Alliance’s name will keep plummeting.”
Bai Wudi fanned himself behind Li Mo.
“Who’s the last feral?”
“He is even more mysterious than Silver Heroine, the one and only black-clothed man. He wrested the time-space trove from the hands of hundreds of experts.”
Li Mo was amazed.
[So there’s nothing great about Bai clan’s intelligence network. They found out I’m a fourth level but nothing linking me to the black-clothed man.]
But there was no way in hell Li Mo was going to tell him that.
“Jiang Qingxue, Shan Ji, Lin Qingrou, and the mysterious man in black. Each of these ferals has the power to aspire for the 2nd place on the Heaven Board. “
Li Mo asked, “2nd? Why not 1st?”
Bai Wudi explained, “Because the 1st is Zhou Mengxian. In China’s expert world, Zhou Mengxian is second to none!”
Li Mo said, “I heard your grandfather trained Bai clan’s fifth skill. Shouldn’t he be Zhou Mengxian’s match?”
Bai Wudi jumped in fright, darting his eyes everywhere.
“D-don’t spew nonsense.”
Once he knew the coast was clear, Bai Wudi lowered his voice, “Who told you?”
“This can’t be a secret in the expert world, right?”
“Of course it is. Grandfather had been fanatic in his training and only attained the fifth skill four months ago. This is Bai clan’s most guarded secret. Even among my clan, few are those who know it. How then could an outsider?
“Say it, who told you this?”
“I seem to recall him being you.”
“Me? When then hell could I have told you? Why can’t I remember?
“Did I have too much to drink that time and let it slip? Why don’t I recall anything? I’ll have to be more careful when I drink…”
Li Mo left Bai Wudi to his one devices.
He had to skip this night’s magic weapon refining back home since Bai Wudi was sticking to him like glue.
Come tomorrow, in the weed overrun yard, the thirty base teams took their places as Lan Yue stepped up the podium to declare the official start of his year’s testing.
The Expert Testing Grounds had very basic rules. The Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Black Tortoise, Vermilion Bird blocks were formed through drawing lots. The participants would face each other among those blocks, and the final four would fight over for the championship.
With the drawing finished, Li Mo ended in the fourth stage, having picked four.
The first match was between Shenjing’s Frozone, Sun Wei, and Xixiang’s Jiang Qingxue.
A crowd instantly formed when the first match would be with a seeded contestant.
Jiang Qingxue wore traditional Miao clothing. She bore a striking resemblance to her sister, Jiang Qingshuang, practically twins as they stood abreast.
Sun Wei made a habit of keeping that indecent stance. Not because he was an addict, but it was the only way for keeping the cold at bay from burrowing into his body.
“Begin!”
The referee gave the signal and Jiang Qingxue’s first move was to step down.
“Where are you going?”
“A forfeit?”
“No way, how can a feral admit defeat without even fighting?”
“It makes no sense.”
Not just the spectators, but even Sun Wei was floored. He watched Jiang Qingxue’s back for a good while before coming to his senses and snicker, “Missy must be scare I’d be milking her dry…”
Pff~
Sun Wei’s neck gushed blood before he could finish and collapsed with eyes wide opened.
“What happened?”
“How…”
“I-is this the power of a feral?”
“One hit nailed Frozone Sun Wei!”
Jiang Qingxue display caused widespread shock.
“Do you know what happened? No~? Then do you want to?” Bai Wudi fanned himself as he teased Li Mo.
But Li Mo was still as a statue, his words hitting nothing.
“Don’t you wanna know what Jiang Qingxue did just now?”
Silence.
“Y-you’re so boring!
“Fine, I give. Jiang Qingxue’s barely perceptible insects flew on Sun Wei. The wound from this insect is hard to heal and once it bit his neck, blood gushed. Do you get it now?”
Utter silence.
“You’re no fun, not one bit…” Bai Wudi shook his head.
“Chuan Province’s base Wang Jian versus Mobei Province’s base Overreaching Sage Zhang Ji!”
Of the second match, Li Mo never heard of Wang Jian, but he was quite familiar with Overreaching Sage Zhang Ji.
Well, he did kinda follow Li Mo around throwing all kinds of insults at him.
On stage, Zhang Ji asked Wang Jian, “What’s your level?”
“Second level body expert. You?”
“First level body expert. I’m just visiting. Please take it easy on me!” Zhang Ji was very courteous.
“Begin!”
“Here’s my jab!”
Zhang Ji shouted as he struck with just that, a jab. Wang Jian lightly slipped out of its way, but the oddest thing happened. Zhang Ji’s fist stretched and grabbed Wang Jian’s neck, smashing him on the ground.
Zhang Ji’s Overreaching Sage title wasn’t without meaning. His gift allowed his hand to stretch and change shape.
Wang Jian wasn’t privy to this miscellaneous info, losing because of it.
Zhang Ji hit him so hard that Wang Jian was frothing at the mouth, knocked out cold.
“It was such toil, ha-ha-ha. Truly a hard match.”
Zhang Ji cupped his hands.
