Chapter 82

Chapter 82: Aftermath (Part 1)

Half an hour had passed since the exam ended at 3 AM.

The thunderstorm had long since ended. The Yin and Yang balance at the Northern Yin Emperor Temple had been re-coordinated, and even the earth's cracks had naturally healed, causing many students hoping to secure their spots for graduate school to rush over and investigate.

The forty heroes who had been at the back were all scorched black by the thunder and fire. The students from the four schools who rushed over to greet them couldn’t recognize a single one.

There was no helping it.

The heavenly fire had fallen all over the ground, successfully completing its mission. It had burned countless corpses, leaving behind piles of ash and remains. The torrential rain had caused the pulverized body fragments, which should have been scattered in the sky, to become damp and stuck to the ground, flowing into small streams that eventually merged into the dirty river.

However, the fire had burned too intensely. The dozen or so students at the perimeter were all roasted to a crisp on the outside but tender on the inside, their faces blackened. Half of the students, after the fire had subsided, removed the remains of the Land God Spell and found that their Yin Eye abilities had suffered varying degrees of damage.

The other half had also sustained burns on their bodies.

This display of heroic bloodshed and tears had even caused the large group of students gathered to welcome the heroes' return to become anxious.

"Are you alright? President, do you want to wash your face?"

"Ah, what’s going on? You are the best students, after all."

"Damn it, let’s report this together! This can’t just end like this!"

In the dead of night, before the sun had risen, everyone gathered at the scene of the fire to check on the involved students.

Chen Xiu also had a blackened face.

As one of the students at the forefront, he removed the Land God Spell and found that his Yin Eyes were completely black. A wave of panic surged through him, and the feeling of fainting hit him instantly.

Guo Tianyang was standing beside him, holding him up, worried. "Senior, are you alright?"

Mingyue, over at her side, waved her hand to signal to her two roommates, who were charging toward her shouting her name. She turned back and then energetically made numbers with her fingers on Chen Xiu's only "white" spot on his face, sometimes showing three, sometimes two.

"Senior, can you see anything clearly?"

"……"

Chen Xiu didn’t respond.

Guo Tianyang: "……"

Guo Tianyang pushed her away. "Stop messing around."Mingyue had not yet removed the Land God Spell, and now her entire head looked like a coal ball. Her medium-length hair had been singed short again. She furrowed her brows, her face as black as the bottom of a pot: "I wasn't messing around."

"President, let me ask you, could you see the numbers I was showing just now?"

Chen Xiu shook his head: "Couldn't see clearly."

Guo Tianyang was shocked. "What happened?"

Mingyue nodded: "Just as I thought, when you removed the Land God Spell, I noticed your gaze went blank, so I guessed..." She shrugged.

Guo Tianyang felt restless: "I was just as close to the thunderfire, but I feel fine with my eyes."

Mingyue, based on her previous experience, speculated:

"It’s dark now, and visibility is bad. Senior Tianyang, it’s not that you weren’t affected; it’s just that the effect on you is lighter."

"As for Senior Chen Xiu... maybe it’s because your Yin Eye ability is naturally stronger, which is why you’re more sensitive to the heavenly fire."

Chen Xiu felt dizzy, his ears full of the concerned questions from his classmates. In the distance, he could hear the noisy chatter of students from various schools. He sat down, waved his hand to signal that he was fine, covered his eyes, and quietly asked:

"Mingyue, where did you come up with this weird theory?"

Mingyue knew Chen Xiu didn’t want to show weakness in front of the other students. She squatted down, also speaking quietly to explain:

"It’s not a weird theory, Senior."

"I’ve had this kind of experience before. Though the principles are a bit different, the result is the same."

"Maybe the fourth-year students don’t know about the subway station incident at Shui Xi Men."

"Yang Qi fire and heavenly fire are essentially the same, just with different concentrations and intensities."

"You’ll be fine, don’t worry."

"—Ah! No, Senior, don’t wipe my face—Ah! Ah! You poked my nostrils!"

From a distance, Bai Linlang rushed over, wanting to wipe the soot off Mingyue’s face to see the real her.

Yan Jun also walked over, surprised by how badly Mingyue had been roughed up, her blackened face making it hard to tell whether she was human or a chimpanzee. He then looked at the anxious Guo Tianyang.

"??" Yan Jun gave Guo Tianyang a look.Guo Tianyang pointed to his Yin Eye, made an "X" gesture, and then pointed to Chen Xiu, who was squatting on the ground.

Yan Jun: "…"

Yan Jun immediately understood and began to manage the scene thoughtfully, seeking out Lü Xingru for assistance.

Unable to see clearly, the sound of the instructor Cao Jinghua’s voice flickered by in his ears, blending with the voices of more people.

Chen Xiu took the bottled water that Guo Tianyang handed him and washed his face, then whispered instructions to the students next to him:

"…The ghost-slaying instructor is probably arriving soon. If they don’t ask about the heavenly fire or thunderstorm, we don’t need to answer."

"The statistics for this year's results should come out around seven. I’m not in great shape right now, so get Guo Tianyang and Lü Xingru to monitor the results and make sure that Su Hui and Qi Renjie don't try any tricks."

"We’ve got points for the public restroom robbery, and there was no big melee, so we should be fine for first place."

"…Wait, when we go to the main entrance to check the results, we need to bring a few seniors who can talk well. If things get loud, we, as the winning side, can’t show any weakness."

"Before eight o'clock, go back to the hotel, gather all the students who took the exam—both the blind and those who aren’t—and collect testimonies, fabricate a narrative of all the strange events during the exam."

"…We’re not villains, but we need to report first."

"Call Li Xianzhou. He’s in the capital right now. Brief him on the situation, especially the recurring earthquakes during the exam, the mysterious walking corpses, and exaggerate the students’ injuries. Ask him to help us pressure the Spirit Mediums Association… Got it?"

The classmates noted everything down. "President, you can rest easy."

Chen Xiu sighed. "I’d be lucky if I could rest easy."

"We still don’t know how we’re going to account for the ‘cultural relics’ we’ve destroyed from those ancient address layers."

Look at this exam now.

It was satisfying, but the mess was real.

What a mess.

Nearby, Bai Linlang pressed Mingyue’s head down, not letting her move, while An Xueru violently scrubbed her face. The rough treatment made Mingyue’s skin hurt, and she yelped: "Fatty! Tell me! Are you jealous of me?!"

"It hurts! This is human skin, not a rag!"

After surviving the disaster, An Xueru, who liked to act aloof, was in a better mood. She was amused by Mingyue’s antics: "Alright, consider this compensation for all the worrying we did earlier.""By the way, what's going on with President Chen Xiu?"

Mingyue, no longer caring about the pain, quickly gestured: "Shh."

An Xueru: "??"

Mingyue whispered, "It's just like last time... at Shui Ximen..."

An Xueru: "!!!"

An Xueru exclaimed in surprise: "Then, can he recover?"

"Chen Xiu is the most outstanding graduate from our department!"

Mingyue questioned, "Isn’t Lü Xingru the outstanding graduate?"

An Xueru: "…"

An Xueru rolled her eyes: "'Outstanding thesis' and 'outstanding graduate' are two different things, do you understand, Ming Er?"

They had already arrived at the hotel entrance, but Mingyue still felt a sense of unreality.

"Is it… really over just like this?"

"I almost got struck by lightning."

Ming Er’s Land God spell fragments still hadn't been cleared off his head, looking dazed.

Bai Linlang rubbed her dark circles and started pulling out the room card.

"You keep talking," she said, "almost struck by lightning? Why don’t you just fly up?"

Mingyue argued, "I swear, I had nails in the soles of my shoes. I really felt a strong electric shock."

"It was that kind of tingling sensation all over."

Bai Linlang, An Xueru: "Ugh—don’t believe it.""By the way, is your eye okay this time?" An Xueru asked.

Mingyue shrugged, showing her left eye, which had dimmed again after leaving the ghost city scenic area:

"Nope."

"I think I may have gained some kind of magical immunity."

"Look, my little treasure was forged by Shui Ximen's hammering, and now I’m not afraid of any high-level yang energy attacks!"

Bai Linlang opened the room door and shoved Mingyue inside: "Do you know how bad you smell?"

"Mix of sewer and corpse odor! I’m seriously about to throw up."

"Quick, go take a shower! After you shower, you can play with your little treasure or big treasure, whatever you like."

Mingyue was pushed into the bathroom: "Ah, Senior, you’re so crude and violent!"

"I don’t even know what big treasure is," Bai Linlang said, slamming the door shut.

After cleaning up, it was already almost seven o'clock.

The three of them lay down on the bed to rest.

One hour later—

The three blankets lay on the bed: "…"

The air conditioner blew over their damp clothes, swishing around.

The three blankets lay still like corpses: "…"

From the blanket near the balcony, Mingyue's muffled voice came out: "Fairies, are you asleep?"

The blanket in the middle replied with Bai Shizhang's voice:

"Yes."

"Shut up."

Ming. Blanket. Yue: "…Oh."A moment of silence.

The three blankets: "…"

From the blanket near the bathroom came An Xueru's voice, "Mingyue, if you have a fart to let out, hurry up."

Mingyue sat up with a head full of straw and two dark circles almost falling onto her stomach, lamenting, "I can’t sleep!"

"I stayed up all night, got rained on, struck by lightning! And now I still have to wait for the results!"

"Sleep, damn it, get up and enjoy yourself!"

Bai Linlang suddenly sat up and threw a pillow straight at Mingyue's forehead:

"Stop making noise!"

"What if the neighbor is resting?"

An Xueru also sat up, starting to tie her hair, "As if we can actually sleep."

"I really want to go take a look."

"But, receiving the results is a matter for the fourth years."

"Don’t forget that we are just external interns, even though our participation is high this year."

Bai Linlang: "…"

Mingyue: "…"

Both of them suddenly realized and said in unison, "Right, we’re just here to run errands."

An Xueru: "…"

I really don’t even want to roll my eyes anymore.

Bai Shizhang gave the order, "Since we can’t sleep, let’s go, let’s go watch the fun at the ghost city entrance."

The entrance to the ghost city scenic area was already crowded with people.Ten displays opened simultaneously, scrolling through the scores of everyone who had not been eliminated by the end of the event. A list of fifty names would be shown, repeating every so often.

The central screen simultaneously displayed the overall rankings for the institutions or organizations participating in the exam, such as Jinling University, X Province Ghost Slayers Association, and so on.

Chen Xiu was not present.

However, just as Chen Xiu had anticipated, when the results for Jinling University were posted, it shocked everyone present.

On the institution rankings page, after five years, the three characters for Spirit-Sealing Academy once again claimed the top spot.

These three characters were displayed prominently on the first line of the large screen, calmly and steadily overseeing (or perhaps looking down on) all the two-legged creatures below who were gazing up at its illustrious name.

Students from the Imperial University: "…"

Students from Yuda University: "…"

Students from Xiangda University: "…"

Some were angry, others were confused.

By the time Mingyue and her friends arrived, the results had already been released for over an hour. The fourth-year students from Spirit-Sealing Academy had already been engaged in a fierce verbal battle, having already insulted students from the Imperial University, Xiangda University, and Yuda University.

At this point, there was a brief break in the action, with tensions high on all sides.

Bai Linlang hesitated, "I feel like, did our academy cause some trouble again?"

An Xueru, who was looking at the individual rankings, nodded, "Probably."

Mingyue didn’t initially look at the individual names page. Anxiously, she waited for the institutional rankings page to flip to its final page, ready for the next round of displays, and sure enough—

"Aha!"

"Good job starting trouble!"

"After the good news, a little bit of verbal sparring is totally worth it!"

Her two roommates quickly asked, "What good news?"

Mingyue bounced up, excited, "Look! Look!"

"Room Leader, Fat An! We’re number one!"

"With a 30% pass rate, Spirit-Sealing Academy is number one!""Five years, it’s been five years!"

With a proud sense of accomplishment filling her chest, Mingyue felt her eyes welling up.