Chapter 8: Genius

“Huh?” Yao Beibei stared wide-eyed. After all that fuss, Ding Ling didn’t even remember Ye Yibai!

“You… you don’t remember him?” Yao Beibei went blank for a second, then her jaw dropped. “So you weren’t trying to piss him off just now?”

Ding Ling said she didn’t remember, and Yao Beibei believed her immediately.

Although she hadn’t known Ding Ling for long, she knew Ding Ling never lied. Forget lying, Ding Ling didn’t even know how to make polite conversation. In that regard, she was completely consistent both before and after losing her wits.

Ding Ling furrowed her browless forehead. Anger him?

Though she could not clearly recall the past, her intuition told her she was a straightforward person. She rarely held grudges against people; if it came down to it, she would simply kill them.

If there hadn’t been other students eating in the cafeteria, Yao Beibei would have given Ding Ling a standing ovation.

She had nearly driven Ye Yibai to death with rage without even realizing it.

If Ye Yibai knew Ding Ling didn’t even remember what he looked like, he might spit blood in anger, or maybe throw up from overeating first.

Yao Beibei mocked him mercilessly in her head. Serves him right for ruining Ding Ling like this!

Ding Ling finished the braised pork and scalded rice down to the last grain. She stood up, carried her empty plate to the window, and said to Master Wang, “Delicious.”

Although the spiritual energy here was thin, it had one redeeming quality: the food was delicious.

It was far better than what she used to eat as a disciple of the Sanqing Sect. Back then, it was always rice paste and more rice paste, with hardly any meat. Every meal was vegetarian, worse than drinking dew.

The tip of her tongue had long forgotten the taste of mortal food, never imagining she would have the chance to savor it again.

After a moment’s thought, she added another compliment: “Divine.”

Master Wang beamed with joy. People had praised his cooking before, but no one had ever elevated it to divine status. This kid sure had a sweet tongue!

With a smile on his chubby face, Master Wang glanced at the clean plate. “The cafeteria is having sweet and sour ribs tomorrow. I’ll save a plate for you!”

“I will certainly come support you tomorrow,” Ding Ling solemnly promised, thinking once again that No. 1 High School was truly a fine sect, and her decision to stay for now was the right one.

Fed when she opened her mouth, clothed when she held out her hands.

Across two lifetimes, this was the first time she had lived such a life, and Ding Ling was quite satisfied.

Having eaten and drunk her fill, she prepared to return to her room and convert the food she had eaten into spiritual energy via her taicang to nourish this mortal body.

Yao Beibei followed behind Ding Ling, suddenly realizing a major problem. “Could it be that you don’t remember anyone? What about my name?”

“Yao Beibei.” Ding Ling had heard the young medical cultivator Xu call it many times.

Hmph, at least she has a conscience. Yao Beibei then asked, “Who else do you remember? Besides Nurse Xu, Director Chen, and Professor Song.”

Ding Ling thought for a moment. “Master Wang.”

Master Wang’s photo and name were posted on the cafeteria window. After studying the baby’s literacy book diligently for days, Ding Ling had grasped some of the patterns.

The writing system of this world shared similarities with the one from her world.

For example, the character “Wang” was written the exact same way in both worlds.

Yao Beibei stared blankly once again. She couldn’t even remember Ye Yibai, who had ruined her like this, yet she remembered Master Wang.

Even Master Wang from the cafeteria ranked higher than Ye Yibai?

Braised pork truly wins hearts.

The moment Ye Yibai stepped out of the cafeteria, Chen Li followed behind him, mocking Ding Ling. “Did you guys see that? She looks disgusting. I won’t be able to stomach braised eggs ever again!”

No hair, no eyebrows, and arms like sticks of black charcoal.

“Right, there’s even a burnt smell on her. Didn’t you smell it?”

When Ye Yibai said nothing, the people around him assumed he enjoyed hearing it.

The group grew even more enthusiastic. “Remember how she used to look down on everyone with her nose in the air? She’s clearly just a country bumpkin from Nanzhou, yet she really thought she was somebody.”

“Nanzhou is so poor it doesn’t even have a proper cultivation school. How did she score first place? Did a teacher leak the test questions to her?”

“I heard Director Chen recruited her personally. Could there be some shady deal behind it?”

“She even dared to provoke us just now. Should we find a chance to teach her a lesson?”

Ding Ling used to be arrogant, but she had the capital to back it up.

Now her spiritual root was ruined, she was an idiot, and word was that she’d have to rely on the Ye family just to feed herself. Yet she still dared to pick a fight to their faces. They had to show her what was what.

Ye Yibai’s face darkened, and he said coldly, “Don’t cause trouble.”

He didn’t want to make things difficult for Ding Ling, but he also didn’t want these people to think provoking him came without a price.

So Ye Yibai said, “The elders at home warned me not to do it again.” Meaning, he wasn’t allowed to break school rules again.

Ye Yibai also had an older brother, Ye Yiqing.

In the United Nations Cultivation Competition several years ago, the team led by Ye Yiqing had won the championship. The competition was broadcast live in multiple countries, and Ye Yiqing still had a massive fanbase even now.

When Ye Yibai enrolled, his clan naturally placed high hopes on him as well.

When he said his family didn’t want him causing trouble, they readily accepted the explanation.

Chen Li exchanged glances with the others. Why would Young Master Ye need to lift a finger for something like this? He could handle it himself.

“Understood,” Chen Li agreed with a grin, then asked, “Ye Yibai, do you have any inside info on the practical exam this afternoon? What’s going to be tested?” As he spoke, he reached out to sling an arm over Ye Yibai’s shoulder.

Suppressing the disgust in his heart, Ye Yibai dodged Chen Li’s hand. “No. Just master whatever the school taught.”

Chen Li’s arm caught only air. Watching Ye Yibai walk away, he stood there and scoffed.

What young master of the Ye family? Just because he was born lucky, he really thinks he’s hot shit. Ye Yibai only took the exam twice. If classes were truly assigned by score, he’d be dumped into the worst one.

As Chen Li fumed with resentment, he looked up and saw Ding Ling walking out of the cafeteria. The stifled anger in his chest finally found an outlet.

He said to the people beside him, “The young master is just shy. How about we take care of it for him?”

Ding Ling looked up almost at the same instant, staring directly toward where Chen Li stood.

Pinned by her gaze, Chen Li’s body involuntarily wavered before he steadied himself again.

“Chen Li, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Chen Li swallowed hard. “That braised egg just offended my eyes.”

One of them urged, “Classes are getting assigned this afternoon anyway. Why not wait until we’re inside the school to deal with her? There’ll be plenty of chances later.”

Yao Beibei was following behind Ding Ling, chattering away about the comprehensive scores. Seeing Ding Ling look up, she followed her gaze. “What’s wrong?”

Ding Ling withdrew her gaze. “Nothing.”

The malice in that person’s eyes was impossible to hide. Was he Ye Yibai?

When Ding Ling returned to the ward, Nurse Xiao Xu grew anxious. “You just went out like that? Why didn’t you find me? I prepared a hat for you.”

It was patterned with tiny yellow and green flowers. Ding Ling put it on; it was better than heading to the cafeteria with a bald head.

Students at this age showed no mercy with their words.

“Whenever you go out in the future, make sure to wear a hat.” Nurse Xu quite liked Ding Ling. Ding Ling was a very obedient patient; even with injuries like hers, she hadn’t cried out in pain once.

Ding Ling didn’t care either way. Wearing it or not made no difference to her, but since it was given to her, she put it on.

For the class placement exam in the afternoon, Ding Ling wore the little floral hat of yellow and green and walked onto the sports field.

Director Chen originally hadn’t wanted Ding Ling to watch, fearing the sight would upset her.

The practical exam first tested spiritual root grade, then spiritual power index, and finally evaluated the students’ control over their own spiritual power.

The three criteria would be scored, combined into a comprehensive score, and used to divide students into classes based on ranking.

Director Chen recalled what it was like when he went to the South Polar Continent to recruit students.

Among the Four Polar Continents, the South Polar Continent had the most beautiful scenery, but it was also the poorest.

The people here had farmed for generations to make a living; the winds of industrial civilization seemed never to have reached this place.

Because of poverty, they couldn’t afford to build cultivation schools. And because of poverty, most people with spiritual roots in Nanzhou chose not to walk the path of cultivation. They would rather remain ordinary mortals, scraping together every last bit of money for a ferry ticket to the Central Continent to look for job opportunities.

No. 1 High School recruited from the Four Polar Continents every year, and this year Chen Dahai was assigned to the South Polar Continent. When he went, he was already prepared to return without a single recruit.

Yet to his surprise, the moment he settled in the village, Ding Ling arrived.

She came from across the vast fields wearing a bamboo conical hat, her long hair braided and draped over her chest. Dressed in coarse cloth that had faded from countless washes, her pant legs rolled up above her knees, she was barefoot, her soles and ankles caked in mud.

On her back was a woven bamboo basket half as tall as she was, filled with grass stacked as high as the tip of her conical hat.

Sweat covering her face, she asked him, “Are you the admissions teacher from the Central Continent?”

Without any testing, Chen Dahai could tell at a glance that this child had a spiritual root.

Knowing he looked stern and fearing he might frighten the girl, he forced a friendly smile. “I am. Are you…” He originally wanted to ask if she wanted to cultivate, but as the words reached his lips, he wanted to change it to asking if her family agreed.

In the end, he didn’t manage to say either.

“I want to cultivate.” The girl raised a hand, wiping away the beads of sweat trickling down her cheek to her chin.

Chen Dahai kept smiling. “Here’s the thing, little student.”

“My name is Ding Ling.”

“Student Ding Ling, I am the dean of Jiangcheng No. 1 Cultivation High School in the Central Continent. For admissions, we need to see if you meet the requirements, so we have to conduct a test.”

“Test me then.” Hearing this, Ding Ling set the basket on her back onto the ground and wiped her sweat again. “How do we test?”

The principle behind that day’s test was just like today’s.

About a hundred people lined up in formations like they were doing calisthenics, divided into five groups. Five examiners held name lists, and whenever a name was called, that person stepped forward.

The newly enrolled students were all still in the initiation phase; simply being able to sense spiritual power and knowing how to apply it was enough to earn a high score.

“Yao Beibei.”

Ding Ling looked up in that direction.

Muttering under her breath, Yao Beibei sluggishly shuffled to the front of the testing platform.

A target was set up on the platform, and the teacher signaled for her to manipulate a stone to strike it, like archery; the closer to the center, the stronger the control over spiritual power.

This was what they had been practicing throughout the summer camp. Yao Beibei stood trembling before the testing platform.

The teacher waited a moment. “Move it!”

Holding back tears, Yao Beibei said, “It’s already moving.”

Without looking closely, one couldn’t tell the stone was quivering slightly. Looking closely, the stone still wasn’t moving.

The teacher glanced at her, silently making a mark on the scoring sheet. “Next! Cheng Lu!”

With a crestfallen face, Yao Beibei trotted to the very back of the line, sniffing quietly.

At that moment, the teacher of the third group called Ye Yibai’s name, and everyone in the remaining four groups stopped what they were doing.

About a hundred people turned in unison toward the third group’s testing platform.

Ye Yibai was already used to this kind of scene. He stepped forward at a leisurely pace. Before he had even come to a full stop, the stone before him flew out, lightly striking the bullseye.

The teacher gave him a nod. “Excellent.”

Chen Dahai glanced at Ding Ling, the scene of her test surfacing in his mind.

There were no cultivation schools in the South Polar Continent, so Ding Ling had only attended an ordinary school. For mountain village girls her age, if they couldn’t continue schooling, their families would arrange a marriage for them.

Chen Dahai had briefly explained what cultivation schools taught: “…That’s the initiation. After initiation, the school mainly teaches how to control spiritual power.”

The bright, spirited girl bowed her head in thought for a moment. “I understand.”

Then, right before his eyes, clumps of pigweed^[1] beside the field outside snapped cleanly at the ground, rose into midair, bundled themselves together in bunches, and lined up to hop into Ding Ling’s large basket propped by the doorway.

Chen Dahai’s eyes widened. No wonder! No wonder she only had a basket and no sickle; she was cutting grass this way all along.

She hadn’t even known what controlling spiritual power meant, yet she instinctively used her talent to do whatever she wanted.

I must recruit this child!

Without waiting for Ye Yibai to turn around, Ding Ling turned and walked away.

Whenever “she” appeared before, it had always been with unwillingness, resentment, and rage.

This time, it was heartache.

Chen Dahai let out a deep sigh. This child was hurt after all.

Ding Ling held up her charcoal-black arm halfway and ambled lazily toward the cafeteria.

It was time for the afternoon snack, and Master Wang^[2] had said there would be big meat buns today.