Chapter 123: Ascending Heaven Academy (2)
The faculty and staff of the Ascending Heaven Academy usually wake up at the start of the Hour of the Rabbit (05:00–07:00).
Dawn.
Perhaps because the weather was cold, the moon that rose last night had not even set yet.
Normally, they had to visit the instructor they served to receive roll call, but instructors often skipped the morning greetings of assistant instructors citing annoyance.
In the case of Chui—or rather, Ximen Qing—since he had no instructor to serve in the first place, he could skip the morning greetings.
“Hello, Assistant Instructor! I brought your meal! It’s warm because it was just made in the kitchen! Where should I put this?”
“I do not eat breakfast, so you do not need to bring it in the future.”
Chui dismissed Ying’er with a wave of his hand as she prattled while cleaning from early dawn.
Soon, Chui checked the condition of his disguise mask and set off on his way to work.
It was around the time when other assistant instructors were just finishing roll call and going to eat or take a bath.
Step, step, step—
The place Chui headed for was the center of the Ascending Heaven Academy’s grounds, where four giant divine trees stood in the cardinal directions.
The lecture hall building of the Ascending Heaven Academy was a colossal pavilion constructed by joining and supporting timber, bricks, and iron reinforcement between these four trees.
In other words, the four pillars making up this massive pavilion were rooted deep underground, breathing and living on their own.
‘It is wondrous whenever I see it.’
Chui marveled as he looked up at the giant pavilion that was high enough to reach the sky.
If not for these four divine trees, human technology would not have been able to construct such a wondrous building.
This massive lecture hall building, the center and symbol of the Ascending Heaven Academy, was a hidden scenic beauty that could not be found even in Wulingyuan of Zhangjiajie in Hunan Province.
Chui began to slowly walk up the stairs of the lecture hall building.
The area of the pavilion was wider than dozens of large training grounds combined, and although the height was said to be one hundred and eight floors, the gap between floors was so incredibly wide that the actual number of floors would exceed three hundred.
Although it was a difficult place to climb without using lightness martial arts, Chui made a point of moving his steps slowly.
It was to memorize the characteristics of each floor.
‘…Is the structure relatively simple?’
The lecture hall building was divided into eastern, western, southern, and northern sections.
In the east was the Azure Dragon Hall, in the west was the White Tiger Hall, in the south was the Vermilion Bird Hall, and in the north was the Black Tortoise Hall.
In these halls represented by the names of the Four Auspicious Beasts, there were enrolled cadets.
The ranks of the cadets were divided into four in total.
First-class cadets ‘Brahmacharya’, second-class cadets ‘Grihastha’, third-class cadets ‘Vanaprastha’, and fourth-class cadets ‘Sannyasa’.
The cadets of the Ascending Heaven Academy enter around fifteen to eighteen, pass through the four stages sequentially, and graduate between twenty-four and twenty-six.
In order to advance or graduate, cadets must choose the classes they want to take, create a timetable, and collect credits through monthly quizzes and twice-a-semester major exams.
Since Chui assumed office while the semester had already started, he would take over one of the existing classes, but from the next semester, he would be able to open his own class.
At that moment when Chui was climbing the stairs while thinking of this and that,
“…!”
Chui discovered a strange sight on a sparsely populated floor.
In a gloomy hallway where sunlight did not reach well, the sap leaking from the tree trunk flowed gently like a small waterfall, and around it, moss and vines grew thickly on the railing of the terrace (露臺).
There, five cadets were seen gathered.
Two male and two female cadets, who appeared to be first-class cadets, stood in crooked postures.
And a female cadet, who appeared to be of the same class, was kneeling between them with her head bowed.
She hid her face with disheveled hair and wore a particularly shabby uniform compared to the other cadets, giving a gloomy impression overall.
Her head and clothes were covered in filth, to the extent that anyone seeing it would frown.
The two female and two male cadets spoke in voices mixed with ridicule.
“This beggar-like bitch of the Sima Clan keeps crawling out to class stubbornly even though she gets bullied like this.”
“That’s probably because we are too soft, right?”
“Hey, I heard your family is ruined too? Why don’t you drop out? Can you even afford the tuition?”
“With what confidence are you holding out when you don’t even have the capability to bribe the instructors?”
After speaking, one of the female cadets pulled out a bamboo canister.
“This is Longjing tea from West Lake. Here, lick it up. You like tea, don’t you? When else would you taste it if not now? Your family is ruined now, so you’ll never have a chance to drink it again anyway, right?”
She poured the green liquid in the bamboo canister over the kneeling female cadet’s head.
Trickle, trickle, trickle…
The gloomy-looking female cadet could not resist at all and just kept her head bowed.
“…”
Chui stared silently at the kneeling female cadet for a while.
‘She looks like a face I’ve seen somewhere.’
At that moment, the four who were bullying the female cadet turned toward him.
One of the female cadets leading the bullying frowned deeply as she saw Chui.
“Ah, damn it. What is that? I thought it was a monster. What is wrong with his skin?”
It was a quiet whisper, but there was no way Chui could not hear it.
They were whispering curses while looking at the disguise mask Chui was wearing.
“Is he burned? I almost threw up.”
“It’s absolutely disgusting. Ugh, I’m not looking.”
“But why did he walk up to such a remote place? Since this is a closed area, everyone usually passes by quickly with lightness arts.”
The other three also met Chui’s gaze without avoiding it.
“…”
Chui soon took his eyes off them and turned away.
And he began to walk up another set of stairs right next to him.
“Snicker—idiot. He seems to be scared.”
“Wow—but it’s my first time seeing someone who looks like that. Goosebumps—”
“Beyond being ugly, he looks disgusting. Just looking at him makes me want to throw up.”
“I don’t know if it’s polite for someone to walk around wearing some kind of mask or something on their face at that point.”
Although the sneering voices of the other cadets, including the female cadet who appeared to be the leader, were heard, Chui did not care.
Because coping with the immediate interview with the dean was the priority right now.
* * *
The dean’s office was on the one hundred and seventh floor out of one hundred and eight.
Since it was a height approaching nearly five hundred floors by the standards of a general building, only fog and clouds were visible in the surroundings.
Swoooosh—
The wind brushing past the ultra-high floors was on a completely different level from that of the ground.
In this harsh environment where even a small breeze turned into a storm, even oxygen was scarce.
Creak! Creaaak…
Every time the wind blew, the branches of the divine trees shook, and each time, the artificial structures built between the natural elements uttered anomalous groans.
Chui walked through the corridor that swayed like a snake, heading toward the dean’s office.
Knock, knock, knock—
When Chui knocked on the door of the dean’s office,
“Come in, please~”
a lively voice was heard from inside.
Chui knitted his brow for a moment.
Then, quickly composing his expression, he opened the door of the dean’s office.
Creaaak…
The inside of the dean’s office was simple.
Floor and walls made by mixing stone, wood, and loess.
Within it, numerous bookshelves stood, and in the middle, a single desk sat alone.
A girl with a youthful appearance sat there, smiling brightly.
A polite bow—
Chui bowed his head slightly in greeting.
The girl received Chui’s greeting with a smiling face.
“You are Ximen Qing?”
“Yes.”
“Wow—you’re handsome~”
“…”
Chui shut his mouth for a moment.
Indeed, he was covering his face with a disguise mask, so what on earth was this reaction?
Meanwhile, the girl peeked at Chui’s face with a beaming smile.
“I don’t know about your skin, but your bones are very handsome~ I look at the bones when I look at a person. Do you know of phrenology (骨相學)?”
“…”
“Of course you wouldn’t know! Since I just made it up yesterday! Pwahaha—”
The height of the girl looking into Chui’s face was barely five feet.
Her face was also so youthful that she appeared to be only about twelve years old.
But there was no one who knew her actual age.
For she was the most senior among all the faculty and staff existing in the Ascending Heaven Academy, a fixture who had spent a longer time here than anyone else.
‘Sorting and Selecting (爬羅剔抉)’ Tang Jieha (唐抉瑕).
She was a supreme committee member of the Martial Alliance, the dean of the Ascending Heaven Academy, and at the same time, the chief elder of the Sichuan Tang Clan.
It was known that she, whose generational seniority was higher than even that of the Sichuan Tang Clan’s patriarch, had acquired an unaging appearance due to the side effects of drugs and poisons she had researched in her youth.
At that moment,
“Oops—look at my mind. Calling a guest, and what state is this office in.”
Tang Jieha hurriedly began to clear the clutter on her desk.
Between all kinds of documents, a wooden dice board, wooden dice pieces, and dice caught the eye.
Chui recalled several pieces of information he had known about Tang Jieha before returning in time.
‘A gossip-loving, talkative chatterbox. There were also rumors that her mind had gone a bit mad from conducting too many poison experiments. Other than that, she is the only person in the Sichuan Tang Clan who has fully mastered the Torrential Flowers of the Whole Sky (滿天花雨)…’
And another thing, she was a chronic gambling addict.
Whenever she did anything, she would propose a bet, but compared to such competitiveness, her gambling skills and luck were terrible, so she allegedly got fleeced every time.
At that moment when Chui was thinking about this and that,
“Sniff, sniff, sniff—”
Tang Jieha suddenly began to flare her nose in the air.
She trotted around here and there like a puppy looking for a place to defecate, and soon pressed close to Chui.
“Sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff—”
“…”
Chui stepped back a pace.
But Tang Jieha followed the retreating Chui, moving a step closer.
“You smell~”
“I took a clean bath, however.”
“But it still smells.”
Tang Jieha’s face suddenly turned dead serious, and she reached out her hand toward Chui’s face.
“…”
Chui stood still without moving.
And he silently watched Tang Jieha’s hand approaching his face.
Soon.
…Pluck!
Tang Jieha’s hand bypassed Chui’s face and plucked a single strand of hair.
“Sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff—”
She smelled the scent coming from Chui’s single strand of hair and continued speaking.
“The smells are layered like geological strata~ The smell of blood, the smell of iron, the smell of poison, the smell of money, the smell of fire, the smell of soil, the smell of snow… But the smell of blood is a bit familiar?”
“…”
“By any chance, did you clash with our clan recently?”
She asked with her eyes narrowed, and Chui did not answer immediately.
‘…This was why I was uncomfortable.’
Not long ago, Chui had stabbed and killed the Snake Butcher, Tang Sanlang, who was part of the Yangtze River Water Bandit Union.
Had the blood of the Tang Clan that he was drenched in back then still been emitting a fishy smell?
‘I must answer well.’
‘Sorting and Selecting’ Tang Jieha.
Her other martial title was none other than the Poison King (毒王).
Although she appeared to be just a foolish child on the outside… in fact, she was an absolute expert strong enough to hold her own even when compared to the Sword King, Namgung Cheon.
Chui thought.
“…”
Depending on how he passed this moment, his future steps would change greatly.
Unrivaled Spear Ghost