Chapter 39

Chapter 39: Fragments Three [Catching Little Bugs]

Once March passed, June was in sight.

Half a year had passed, and the joint examination was not far off.

The joint examination for the second half of the year had already become the top priority for all the major spiritual academies across the country.

At the beginning of the semester, it didn’t feel like much. But now, in the middle of the semester, the lower-grade students clearly felt the senior students starting to become anxious and excited—

No matter what they were talking about, these seniors who appeared calm on the outside but were excited on the inside always found a way to bring up the "Ghost Slayer License Exam."

"That's right, that's right. The second horizontal stroke of the Golden Light Spell should be a bit sharper," Guo Tianyang nodded affirmatively when Ming Yue asked for advice.

Ming Yue bowed her head and thanked him, looking obedient and cute.

But Guo Tianyang, who was being asked for advice, seemed distracted, muttering to himself: "What if we pair the Golden Light God with the Earth God during the joint exam...?"

Ming Yue: "..."

Ming Yue glanced at the senior students preparing for their combat class in the gym and couldn’t help but comment:

"If the Golden Light God can really be successfully paired with the Earth God, then Senior, you’d be the King of the Earth."

Guo Tianyang: "..."

Guo Tianyang quickly waved his hand: "What are you talking about? The final exams are coming soon, how could I be thinking about the joint exam?"

"The bigger the exam, the calmer you have to be! Junior, do you understand?!"

Ming Yue: "..."

"I understand, but do you?"

The fourth year was a special year.

Their importance surpassed that of any other year in the undergraduate curriculum design.

The young eagles had honed their feathers, sharpened their vision, and were about to leap into the abyss to battle in the sky.

They were the pride of the university, the direct indicators of the quality of graduates that society would repeatedly test.

All the undergraduate resources, within the allowed scope, had to be tilted toward the fourth year.This year, the joint exam for the top hundred schools is scheduled for the scorching month of July, the month of the fourth-year graduation.

The timing of this arrangement truly left people speechless.

No matter where the fourth-year students were interning, the July joint exam meant that after their long or short and exhausting internships, they would have to rush to complete their June graduation exams. After that, they wouldn't even have a moment's rest, as they would have to hurry to Fengdu in Yuzhou to prepare for the triannual ghost slayer license exam, the grand test between the realms of yin and yang.

At that time, beings from both the human world and the underworld would take a break from their busy duties to visit the mist-covered Fengdu.

They would come to see the fresh blood entering the industry this year.

What kind of place is Fengdu?

Ordinary living people might tell you with great seriousness that Fengdu has been well-known throughout the thousands of years of Chinese history. It is said that the Northern Emperor of Yin resides there, and it is a place where demons and spirits run wild. Fengdu is known as the "Ghost City," the capital of the Ghost Kingdom.

In the world of yin and yang, Fengdu’s reputation is just as thunderous.

It lies at the seam between the realms of the living and the dead, where both yin and yang energies are extraordinarily concentrated, like a gas leak.

At the same time, Fengdu is also historically known as the secondary capital of the underworld, where the great powers of the netherworld have left their law images and statues.

According to ancient customs, during the Zhongyuan Festival, the Yin-Yang path opens, allowing the souls of the deceased to see the living.

Due to Fengdu’s mysterious feng shui, it is the place where the Yin-Yang path opens the most, and even some living people with a bit of knowledge of the trade would travel hundreds of miles to Fengdu on the 15th of July, hoping to see their deceased loved ones in a "more real" form.

As a ghost slayer reserve, Ming Yue naturally knew all about these matters.

However, when it came to the student stage of her life, the things that were related to Fengdu were only three things:

The joint exam for the top hundred schools.

Whether she would be assigned to Fengdu for an internship after learning how to open the Yin-Yang path during the Zhongyuan Festival.

The Yuzhou Spiritual Academy, which, although far from Jin University, was a rival institution.

Forget about Jin University. When it came to the matter of Fengdu, the Yuzhou Spiritual Academy was an absolute rival to every major academy in the country.

Back in the day, Yuzhou University, taking advantage of its geographical location, wanted to build its main spiritual academy next to Fengdu, but this proposal was met with strong opposition from all the major spiritual academies nationwide.

After all, who knew how many valuable cases Fengdu could provide? If Yuzhou got the land there, wouldn't its spiritual academy students get access to one of the highest-quality internship locations?

Don’t even think about it!If there's a cheap deal, either everyone benefits, or no one gets to take advantage!

Yuzhou University: Well, if you have the ability, turn Fengdu into a duck from another province.

After the opposition was ineffective.

The Yuzhou Spiritual Academy was set up 200 miles outside the city of Fengdu, constantly enduring the explosive assaults of both yang and yin energies from Fengdu, training students to master excellent skills.

As expected.

The concerns of other universities were correct.

In the third year of the Yuzhou Spiritual Academy's Fengdu department, the academy’s ranking in national disciplines began to rise dramatically, giving this young institution, which had been established for less than ten years, enough exposure to break into the top thirty.

Then, the Yuzhou Spiritual Academy’s ascent continued at an astonishing pace, and by the fifth year, it had entered the top ten and firmly stayed there, no matter how hard the eleventh place tried, it could not move them.

Guo Tianyang and the students around him greeted each other and went ahead to practice combat.

In the afternoon, there were no classes, so Ming Yue sat cross-legged on the wooden floor of the gymnasium, flipping through the Yuzhou Spiritual Academy’s encyclopedia entry on her phone, with the sounds of seniors sparring loudly in the background.

On the phone screen, the sentence “In the past five years, the academy's ranking has consistently stayed in the top ten” made Ming Yue’s eyes hurt.

Who else is in the top ten?

Imperial University, Jin University, Hua University, Chang’an Normal University, Jiang University, Shendu University, Xiang University, Zang University, Lin University.

And then there’s Yuzhou Spiritual Academy, a young "nouveau riche."

This "nouveau riche" was extremely ambitious. Recently, on the Double First-Class forum, they had claimed they would challenge the number one spot for the most successful candidates in this year’s joint exam for the top hundred schools.

“At the tenth anniversary of the establishment of Yuzhou Spiritual Academy's Fengdu department, we want to present our school with the most valuable gift.”

“This year’s license exam, the number one position for successful candidates, please wait for us.”

Other spiritual academies: Oh no.

This thing is causing a stir.

At the beginning of the new semester, the first thing all the spiritual academies did was to gather a bunch of online trolls to fiercely attack Yuzhou Spiritual Academy.

Today, when Ming Yue came to consult Senior Guo Tianyang about the Eight Divine Spells, she overheard several discussions among the seniors about Yuzhou.

Sure enough, the closer it got to the July exam, the more tense the seniors became.Last year, Jiang University was first in the joint exam for the top hundred schools.

The year before last, Imperial University was first.

The year before that, Chang’an Normal University was first.

Jin University’s first place was five years ago.

Every student at the Feng Ling Academy is under a lot of pressure.

Especially the seniors who are taking part in this year’s joint exam for the top hundred schools.

After all, Jin University is known as the "number one spiritual academy in the country, if not for political ranking evaluations, it would definitely outshine Imperial University."

— Of course, anyone with clear eyes knows that the infighting between students is just a bunch of rookies pecking at each other in the eyes of the industry’s top experts.

But, even rookies deserve their dignity.

In the afternoon, Ming Yue stayed in the gym, occasionally consulting the seniors about spell-related questions in class. She was also pulled over by Guo Tianyang for a combat spar, as it was said that Ming Yue’s reputation of "one against ten" had spread among the lower years, and today she had to pass her senior’s test.

Ming Yue blinked her eyes.

“If you want, Senior.”

And so, Guo Tianyang "fought" for twenty minutes before being defeated by Ming Yue.

Guo Tianyang: "…"

The senior class president rolled around on the ground, begging for a rematch, while a crowd of classmates watched and laughed.

After class, on the way to the cafeteria, Ming Yue felt heavy-hearted.

On the Double First-Class forum, there were a lot of posts about the joint exam for the top hundred schools.

After the new semester started, the number of these posts had exploded.

Comments mocking the Feng Ling Academy could be seen in almost every post.

Subtly or openly, the words were filled with bullying.

Ming Yue felt a mix of bitterness and anger as she read them.She understood the pressure and difficulty the seniors in their fourth year were facing, feeling deeply empathetic.

On a typical day, walking through the campus, they were all cheerful, friendly, and quirky elites. But behind the scenes, who knew how much criticism they were enduring?

Especially since there were seniors from Feng Ling Academy in the Double First-Class Spiritual Academy forum management team.

They must have been suffering a lot.

As the evening glow filled the sky, Ming Yue stood by the library's floor-to-ceiling window, sipping on soybean milk, contemplating whether she could be of help in any way.

According to the Feng Ling Academy’s data, the minimum requirement for participation in the joint exam for the top hundred schools was being a Chinese citizen aged 18 or older.

However, most universities implicitly accepted that third-year and fourth-year students participated.

After all, if the older years didn't have enough chance of passing, there was no hope for the younger years.

However, there was a situation where older students guided younger ones, with the younger ones acting as assistants for internships, commonly referred to as "external internships."

Heh, external internships.

Ming Yue was thinking about the possibility of becoming an external intern.

After June, she would be considered a second-year student.

She would definitely have more qualifications than she did in her first year.

If that didn’t work, she could write a self-recommendation letter, outlining her strengths and weaknesses, pros and cons.

She could see if the teachers and seniors were willing to make an exception.

Now that half the semester had passed, if she wanted to do this, she should start making moves.

While pondering whether there was anything in her past that could help her write a glowing self-recommendation, a notification popped up in her phone’s Feng Shui Calculations course group:

[Announcement: Week 9 class time and location changed]

[Originally scheduled: East Teaching Building 203, 7 PM to 9 PM]

[New schedule: Subway Shui Ximen Station, 8 PM to 12 AM]

[Please, students from classes of '18 and '17, do not be late.]Week 9?

That’s tonight’s class.

Ming Yue: "…"

Ming Yue immediately checked her watch—it was already 6:30 PM.

Great.

Shui Ximen Station was way too far from the Luoxia campus!

Chen Wuqi, the instructor for the Feng Shui Calculations course, was really someone who just acted on a whim!

Ming Yue finished her soybean milk in a few gulps, tossed the cup into the trash, grabbed her bag, and rushed out of the library.

On the subway, she looked around—everywhere she saw students from the Spiritual Academy with their bags.

It was like a family reunion. Two rows of seats facing each other, with everyone crying and wiping their noses.

"You got dragged into Chen Wuqi’s class too, right?"

"Yeah, exactly. Who else changes the class time an hour before it starts like he does?"

"He's like Li Xianzhou’s buddy. Can you expect him to be any better at organizing things?"

Ming Yue listened to her classmates' complaints with her left ear, while chatting with a senior from the 2017 class sitting next to her.

"Senior, are you also heading to Shui Ximen?"

The senior complained, "Yeah, the academy changed the schedule all over the place just to accommodate the fourth-year students taking the license exam."

"Our two-year group’s classes have been combined this time."

"And we have to stay until midnight. What’s the deal with that?"

Ming Yue: "…"

Ming Yue whispered, "I think, maybe the course this time is more hands-on, so Teacher Chen can’t really control the class time and location."

"After all, things might have come up suddenly... it’s a rare opportunity for practical experience, hahaha."The senior nodded. "True."

"Junior, do you know what happened at Shui Ximen?"

Ming Yue honestly shook her head. "I haven't checked, and the teacher didn’t mention it in class, so… I wasn’t really prepared."

The senior patted her junior's head. "That's why I said the classes were merged."

"The subway Feng Shui calculations have been a topic we've been following for a long time."

"The land for the Shui Ximen subway construction looks like it’s bound to cause problems."

Ming Yue took out her notebook and jotted it down. "Subway Feng Shui calculations?"

The senior nodded. "A lot of cities have this project."

"After 2010, first- and second-tier cities went crazy with infrastructure, building subway lines one after another, and expanding existing ones—just like the second line by our school gate, now it’s being extended forward—what was it called again?"

"Tian Tan Station," Ming Yue reminded.

"Right, Tian Tan Station."

"But, the subway foundation is deep and the land is vast, and it's not uncommon for it to conflict with the land of spirits and the dead."

"After all, once the transport system is set up, it means that the place will have a lot of Yang energy, and who knows how many living people will come in every day. The old ghosts definitely won't be happy."

"Moreover, the worst part is that the Yang energy here is flowing, following the subway light rail vehicles and tracks," the senior mimicked the motion of a moving train.

"Can't stop it."

"So," the senior clapped her hands, "this is why there’s a subway Feng Shui calculation project."

"It’s for risk avoidance."

That makes sense.

This project could definitely generate revenue for the Spiritual Academy!

Ming Yue nodded like a chicken pecking at rice.

"But Shui Ximen is a bit different," the senior pulled out a tablet and kindly showed her junior the construction plan for Shui Ximen.

In the diagram, various lines were jumbled together. One could see the architectural perspective and the surrounding hydrological and geological features.Oh, Ming Yue understood. It seemed that this project also involved the Architecture Academy and the Geoscience Academy.

A subway station.

The old city gate, a few archways.

Several waterways, deep riverbanks.

Rapeseed fields, wheat fields.

What a scene of the old city gate of Jinling.

With the subway station's design, it was almost the perfect blend of the old and the new.

The subway station was located just west of the waterway, following the flowing stream.

"What do you see?" the senior asked.

Ming Yue seriously responded, "In Jinling, the spring and summer winds blow from the east."

"Yin energy is close to water, and old rivers are filled with many wronged spirits. Drink a spoonful of river water, and you get three pounds of Yin energy."

"This subway station is in the west, perfectly catching the Yin energy floating along the long river."

"Exactly," the senior nodded in satisfaction.

"At the same time," Ming Yue gasped for air.

"I think, with so many subway stations, this project must have generated a lot of income for the Spiritual Academy."

"And also for the Architecture Academy and the Geoscience Academy."

"You seniors are amazing. This year, our academy's fees will definitely be plentiful."

"Maybe for Mid-Autumn Festival, we'll even get mooncakes with salted egg yolks."

Senior: "..."

Senior: "You really think ahead."