Chapter 56

Chapter 56: Preparation Two

Ming Yue’s words caused Yan Jun to be momentarily stunned.

"Is this the price you paid for being interrogated by Senior Lü Xingru for an hour?" Yan Jun asked.

"..." After the second round ended, Ming Yue adjusted his clothes, but spoke a little more to Yan Jun than usual: "It's not exactly like that."

"I can sort of tell what kind of person Senior Lü Xingru is from that hour-long conversation."

"Class leader, do you think the senior committee member in their fourth year is the type to feel guilty for digging up dirt on my family and then giving me a spot?"

Yan Jun couldn't help but laugh: "I don't think so."

Ming Yue: "Exactly."

"He happens to be in charge of the statistics for off-campus internships. The self-recommendation letter I sent earlier was just passed along with his feedback."

"Hehe, with the joint exam from hundreds of schools, I can use public funds to travel to Fengdu now." After speaking, Ming Yue wiped his sweat.

Yan Jun: "Then we can travel together."

Ming Yue caught the bottle of ice water Bai Linlang threw at him and directly handed it to the class leader: "What a coincidence."

"Class leader, you’re also going to join the off-campus internship."

Yan Jun silently counted the number of people in their class who would participate in the 18th-grade level, rejecting Ming Yue’s ice water: "You drink it. I’m not thirsty."

"I’ll definitely go. I’m the main contact for our class."

"As long as anyone from this level participates in the joint exam project, the class leader has to go."

Ming Yue shook his head: "Drink, don’t be polite. I’m not in the right condition to drink cold water right now."

"So hard, class leader."

Upon hearing this, Yan Jun glanced at Ming Yue. He didn’t ask the usual unnecessary questions like why he still showed up for the martial arts class during his period. Instead, he reminded him:

"Right now, everyone in the whole department is focused on the fourth years."

"Next month, we’ll begin preparing for the trip to Yuzhou Fengdu."

"You can take this opportunity to learn more about the current situation in Fengdu.""Once we’re at the scene, it’ll be easier to handle."

"Next month, that soon!" Ming Yue asked in surprise.

"Senior Lü Xingru only asked me the day before yesterday. Is his paper going to be ready in time?"

Yan Jun answered cautiously: "That depends on how complete the information you provide is."

"..."

Ming Yue pouted but didn’t speak, and started fixing her messy hair again.

The bell rang for class to end, and Yan Jun walked with Ming Yue toward the door.

Jin Yuanbao, trying to get closer, was kicked away by the violent Head of the White Room. All Jin Yuanbao could do was watch as his boss got a girl and forgot about his brothers, getting farther and farther away.

Not far away, Jun Weiran was packing his tools, carrying his things out. Jin Yuanbao approached him, "Old Jun, you're still the best. You don’t forget your brothers even when you meet a girl."

Jun Weiran didn’t reply, his face dark and the atmosphere cold.

Jin Yuanbao smacked his lips, too afraid to speak further.

The two close brothers walked out in silence, forming a sharp contrast to the bustling gym around them.

In early summer, the trees were lush and green, butterflies fluttered around the flowers, and the two brothers from the male dormitory had nothing to say.

Jin Yuanbao couldn’t hold it in anymore, "I say, bro, this isn’t gonna work."

"Three hits won’t get anything, it’s a miracle if you even manage to get a girl."

Jun Weiran’s handsome face didn’t show the slightest change in expression, "I don’t understand what you’re talking about."

Jin Yuanbao, knowing how to flatter his brother, nodded, "Hmm, I don’t really know what I’m talking about either."

"I only know that today, Yan Jun, the big boss, did his homework on the class content early, and spent a long time planning to spar with Ming Yue."

"Before class, in the dorm, he even spent a long time picking his clothes."

"Look at that white shirt of his, so thin and breathable. If you look at it a bit longer, you can almost see his skin. Damn, even in a physical education class, it’s so flashy, it’s like he’s about to show off.""..."

Jun Weiran's brow twitched for a moment, but he still didn't say anything.

Keep pretending, keep pretending.

Jin Yuanbao thought to himself, I’m going to see how long you can keep this up, and continued to nag:

"Look at that guy's numbers."

"Sigh, I’ve said it before, the class leader is never the type to care much about his appearance."

"He knows how to dress up for the one he likes, but when he faces a girl, he manages to hide his devilish personality that he shows to us. Sigh, I’m telling you," Jin Yuanbao lamented, "How do you not get it?" Why make a long face for whom?

Jun Weiran: "I don’t need to understand these things."

Jin Yuanbao: "Damn, he who is near the water tower gets the moon first, but come to think of it, your tower was pretty close already."

"You literally ruined it yourself."

Jun Weiran coldly said: "You’re overthinking it."

"Ming Yue and I are just ordinary childhood friends."

"Where’s this so-called tower moon?"

Jin Yuanbao: "..."

Jin Yuanbao was speechless, "Bro, do you even know what ‘childhood sweethearts’ means?"

Jun Weiran: "Our Jun family and their Ming family have no connections."

"To say there’s some kind of grudge wouldn’t be an exaggeration."

"Do you want to keep talking?"

"..."

Jin Yuanbao opened his mouth, then obediently shut it.

He didn’t have any bad intentions.

He just liked to joke around, coax his brother into some fun, and didn’t really lean toward either Yan Jun or Jun Weiran. If you had to pick, Ming Yue’s good personality, when matched with the cunning Yan class leader, falling into a pit was just a matter of time.Ahead, Jun Weiran strode quickly, walking so fast that he didn’t seem to have any intention of waiting for Jin Yuanbao, soon surpassing him.

Jin Yuanbao followed behind, jogging and sighing.

What kind of mess is this?

Jin Yuanbao was from the equipment department, with relevant background in his family, but his strongest skill was actually in information collection and strategy weaving. On this point, Yan Jun, as a member of the information department, had praised him several times.

"If you don’t follow the proper path, there’s a lot of news you won’t hear."

"Yuanbao, it’s a shame you didn’t become a paparazzi," Yan Jun had said.

As for the enmity between the Jun family and the Ming family, after all this time, Jin Yuanbao had actually pieced together some information.

—This was also the reason why Jun Weiran responded coldly earlier, saying nothing else.

How should I put it?

Death leaves grudges, and it’s the descendants who bear the burden.

Yan Jun’s sources of information were accurate.

Jun Weiran indeed had a father but no mother. It wasn’t because his mother passed away early, but because his father, Jun Yuanshan, had a rather messy private life in his early years, resulting in a pitiful child.

He was abandoned shortly after birth at the doorstep of the Jun family. While Jun Yuanshan’s relationships were chaotic, he was still somewhat attentive to his son, so it wasn’t all bad.

The core of the problem lay in the major upheaval in the Yin-Yang world during the 1990s.

Both the Jun and Ming families had once been of the same standing, old families that had fallen on hard times.

The two families were not acquainted.

To elaborate, the Ming family was originally a northern aristocratic family, while the Jun family was an old southern lineage.

In this generation, Ming Dinghai was older than Jun Yuanshan by a full round.

Ming Dinghai’s talent and stature were indisputable, known far and wide across South and North China.

What wasn’t widely known was that, in Ming Dinghai’s pursuit of Li Lan, he traveled south to "build his empire," and during that period, Jun Yuanshan had once been under his tutelage. The two had either referred to each other as master and disciple or as brothers for many years, with a very deep friendship.

Then came the recorded upheaval in the Yin world.The description of this historical event is not a secret. You can still find some articles on CNKI from the late 1980s discussing the strange phenomena of the underworld.

Yin souls frequently manifested.

The number of sudden deaths in the living world increased.

Wells spouted water, roosters stopped crowing at dawn, and house dogs no longer guarded the night.

It was a mess.

According to the statistics from that time, in the late 1980s, the number of Yin-Yang paths opened from the human world to the underworld each year exceeded one hundred thousand.

Normally, even during the Zhongyuan Festival, when large numbers of ghosts pass through the human world, the number wouldn't reach the scale of one hundred thousand.

The most widely accepted explanation is that during those years, the underworld’s management of the departed souls was poor, and many exorcists from the human world visited the underworld multiple times to check records or seek fairness.

However, Jin Yuanbao, after much effort, couldn’t find any reliable explanation for the massive upheaval in the underworld.

Some said the collapse of the reincarnation pool caused the abnormalities between the Yin and Yang realms.

Others said it was internal conflict and fighting among the Ten Yama Kings, causing them to neglect their duties.

There were also claims that the ghost officers rebelled due to the massive increase in workload during the population explosion in the last century, and the underworld’s management couldn’t suppress the uprising.

Many voices, but ultimately, the chaos affected the human world.

Souls had no place to go, causing rebellion and trouble in the human world, disturbing the living.

During those years, the average lifespan of exorcists dropped drastically. Eight out of ten of them died from overwork or from accumulating too much karmic burden due to slaughtering too many souls in a short period.

The Yin-Yang industry also initiated many self-help campaigns during that time, some of which saw benefits.

The eventual resolution came from the efforts of Ming Dinghai and a group of exorcists from South China.

The methods were unclear, and the tools were unknown.

What insiders knew was only the result: the reincarnation process in the underworld suddenly became smooth again.

From then on, Ming Dinghai became famous.

However, beneath the glory, there were still shadows.The third year after the reincarnation process resumed, Ming family’s eldest son was born. He was a complete failure, causing quite a stir within the industry.

That same year, Ming Dinghai and Jun Yuanshan had a falling out.

The term "falling out" was added by Jin Yuanbao himself.

Before Ming Ye’s birth, most of the records praised Ming Dinghai, flattering him and his achievements. The praises for Ming Dinghai grew louder with each passing year. There were even fewer mentions of Jun Yuanshan, and after Ming Ye’s birth, there were no more records of Jun Yuanshan to be found. This left Jin Yuanbao quite confused.

Why did the two close friends suddenly part ways? What could be the reason?

Power? Fame? Money? Women?

Jin Yuanbao didn’t know.

What he did know was that Jun Yuanshan’s death could be found in the "Yin-Yang Industry Yearbook" death register in the library, recorded as occurring in the early 21st century, around the time Jun Weiran was a certain age.

Combining this with the occasional resentful words Jun Weiran let slip, when Jin Yuanbao was gathering information, he initially assumed that the Ming family had wronged the Jun family, and he made that judgment.

But the more he looked into it, the more it didn’t add up.

Ming Dinghai was a man of excellent character. He had once spent all his wealth helping wandering souls and ghosts open Yin-Yang paths to the underworld. This was well-documented in the history of northern China’s Yin-Yang affairs.

If you were to say Ming Dinghai had harmed the living, that didn’t add up either.

Ming Dinghai had died even earlier than Jun Yuanshan.

To dig deeper, if you suggested that Ming Dinghai and Jun Yuanshan both liked Li Lan (there were even people bold enough to spread such rumors), that was even more impossible.

Li Lan and Ming Dinghai had a deeply affectionate relationship, and anyone in the industry from both the north and south could vouch for that. It was a well-known love story. Even if one tried to find fault here, it was definitely not Ming Dinghai who wronged Jun Yuanshan.

When Ming Dinghai met Li Lan, Jun Yuanshan had no idea who she was.

Jin Yuanbao: "..."

So strange, what was it that made Jun Weiran hate the Ming family so much?Currently, the only thing known is that Jun Yuanshan’s death might be related to Ming Dinghai, so...

Could it be that he died from jealousy?

Jin Yuanbao thought impulsively, then quickly mocked himself. How could that be?

Up ahead, Jun Weiran was already out of sight. Jin Yuanbao sighed, decided not to chase him anymore, and turned to head to the cafeteria for a meal.

Time passed in the blink of an eye.

The June final exam month arrived, and the Spirit Academy, in order to help more students understand the essential exorcist license exam they would eventually have to take, printed many brochures. In these days, one could hear people discussing it while walking or eating.

At the same time, the July issue of Yin-Yang Studies sent out notifications to major research institutions and universities.

Jin University’s Spirit Academy, Lu Xingru’s paper was selected for publication.