☆, The Academy (2)

Yin Bi-yue restrained himself with great effort so he wouldn’t show any change in expression.

He respectfully lowered his head, adopting the look of someone being instructed.

Her thoughts spun like electric currents, yet her face remained as calm as still water. For even the slightest change would surely not escape the master’s eyes.

“He” naturally referred to Luo Mingchuan.

Was the original body ordered by the headmaster to commit the murder?

Why does sir want to kill Luo Mingchuan? Didn’t Luo Mingchuan also study at the academy?

Moreover, given your gentleman’s rank and standing, there are a hundred ways to kill Luo Mingchuan—why bother to act personally?

To make a quasi-saint secretly plot like this, is Luo Mingchuan really the ultimate aim?! Or… Cangya Mountain?

But the academy had remained neutral for many years, and he was on very close terms with Cangya. It was said that the Sword Saint and the Master were intimate friends.

Or perhaps, was there something special about this person named Luo Mingchuan?

When was this order given? Upon entering the academy, or upon being accepted into the Sword Saint’s tutelage? Did the Sword Saint know?

He felt himself drawn into a sinister scheme.

Just an insignificant pawn in the hands of great figures who turned clouds and waves.

If anyone else faced such a situation, they would surely live in constant dread.

But as Yin Bi came to, her mind was full of:

What about the promised final big boss?!

Why is there another layer above me?!

There’s still such a mountain in the villain camp! Where am I supposed to put my face?!

As expected, improving one’s strength is truly the way to go!!!

“Let this matter go for now, and don’t dwell on it in the future.”

The gentleman gestured to the woven chair beside him where he was cooling off.

“Come, sit.”

What he meant was: don’t think about killing Luo Mingchuan for the time being.

Yin Biyue did not refuse and sat down quietly.

That segment of memory was blank in her mind. But from what she could tell now, her past interactions with the gentleman had been fairly amicable.

The teacher also sat down on the nearby rattan chair. A few locust blossoms had fallen onto the stone table before him, beside a slightly worn set of black-glazed tea ware.

“You’ve come just in time; you’re here to keep me company watching the stars.”

Yin Bi thought back: when she arrived it had been morning, then she entered that strange, wondrous realm, and when she awoke it was already dusk.

Now the light had dimmed, and in about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the first stars would begin to appear.

Sure enough, everything was under the teacher’s control.

He heats the water and wakes the vessel, finely grinds the tea cake, pours water into the cup, the tea whisk moves in a circling sweep, and pale white froth blooms on the cup’s inner wall—contrasting with the deep black glaze of the tea set.

It is not jarring; rather, it yields a sense of harmonious fusion.

The gentleman’s movements are as free and graceful as drifting clouds and flowing water, yet orderly and exact, not a hair’s breadth out of place.

The more Yin Bi considers it, the more she thinks this must be what “following one’s heart without overstepping the rules” means.

He watched intently, finding it a little amusing inside, thinking that he didn’t even know how many people in the world would dare dream of being served tea personally brewed by the head of the academy.

Yet here he was benefiting for no reason. Was this a perk of doing favors for powerful people?

The two sat under the tree, saying nothing to each other, boiling water and brewing tea.

Unconsciously, his fluttering emotions calmed down.

It didn’t seem, as he had guessed, that the original owner’s lingering reactions were guarded against the teacher.

It was as if, sitting here, all the previous conjectures, distracting thoughts, and anxious restlessness gradually dissipated.

Since arriving in this world, his tightly wound nerves finally relaxed in the hazy aroma of the tea.

He picked up the teacup and turned it gently; in the cup reflected the faint light of the stars.

The gentleman drank a cup, squinted with satisfaction, and looked up toward the sky.

Thick clouds hid the moon, which only made the stars appear all the more splendid and brilliant.

There seemed to be a smile in his eyes.

“Actually, the stars aren’t as slow as they seem to our eyes; some of them move quite fast.”

Yin Bi was a little surprised and also looked up. He could only see the silent stars strewn across the sky.

He then realized that the starry sky the master saw must be different from the one he saw.

He could not imagine the world as seen through the Second Sage’s eyes, just as a mayfly cannot know the vastness of heaven and earth, and a summer insect cannot be told of ice.

In his previous experiences, he had never had the kind of vision of “eyes sweeping billions of miles to see the tracks of the universe.”

The gentleman watched with great interest, changing to a more comfortable position as he leaned back in the wicker chair.

Before long, he shattered Yin Biyue’s understanding once again.

He sighed and said,

“The ‘Auspicious Dragon’ and the ‘Winged Serpent’ were still three cosmic grains of the Ganges apart last year; by now they should be aligned on the same path.”

‘Auspicious Dragon’ and ‘Winged Serpent’ are names of constellations in the heavens.

‘Henghe Sha’ is a Buddhist unit of reckoning, about 10^52.

Then the teacher squinted, murmuring under his breath. Yin Bi-yue couldn’t hear clearly, only catching a few of the vast numerical units roughly — ‘zhuang’, ‘jian’, ‘ji’, and ‘nayuta’.

The teacher suddenly raised his finger and drew it through the air, as if connecting two points together.

So this, it turned out, was the sage’s divination.

It wasn’t really “seeing”—not some mysterious, ineffable spiritual perception—but a concrete calculation.

With a vast accumulation of knowledge, special methods of computation, terrifying numerical ability, and long years of measurement experience, he calculated the result.

Yin Bi Yue’s heart and spirit were greatly shaken.

To read the stars and know fate—what was it the master truly wanted to see?

At that moment the person beside him set down the teacup and smiled faintly.

“You should leave Cangya; it’s best that you head south.”

The teapot was drained to the bottom.

A sudden night breeze rose, carrying the leftover scent of tea mixed with the faint sweetness of locust blossoms, drifting through the darkness.

It blew the dense clouds at the horizon apart, allowing a thread of silvery light to break through, falling to the world from the distant ninth heaven.

The bright moon burst forth from the clouds.

At the same time, the once-splendid stars across the sky instantly dimmed.

Some were so small to begin with that Yin Biyue could no longer make them out clearly.

The moon rose and the stars dimmed.

The teacher’s smile was also hidden in the fine creases at the corners of his eyes.

He began to put away the tea set.

Yin Biyue knew that the star-gazing for tonight had come to an end.

So he stood up, brushed the tiny locust flowers from his lapel, and cupped his hands in salute, performing the disciple’s bow as he had when he arrived.

It was a farewell.

The teacher leaned back in the wicker chair and nodded.

Yin Biyue slipped the invitation from his sleeve.

His figure rippled like water and vanished from the small courtyard in an instant.

Then there was only one person left in the courtyard.

Even with the brilliantly unmatched moonlight as company, it felt somewhat lonely.

The scholar in his tall hat and broad robes wore a dark, inscrutable expression, staring at the desolate night and speaking to himself,

“Actually, the moon is also a star.”

There seemed to be a sigh echoing through the academy, where all was silent.

Only this star was too bright; no one dared to rival its radiance.


—

Yin Biyue fell within Xihua Peak’s own courtyard—still at the same spot where she had left that morning.

The invitation in her hand crumbled into dust, vanishing into the night.

He thought with some regret that this “One-Day Pass to the Academy” really was disposable after all; he had originally believed he now possessed a talisman that would let him come and go freely between the academy and Cangya.

He had no idea when he might reach such a state—so casually stamping something could grant the power to break through ten thousand miles of space.

At this moment Yin Biyue was even less aware that, after the revelations he’d had at the academy that day, the question on his mind had shifted to “when will I reach the Sub-Sage realm” rather than doubting whether he could ever reach it.

Among a hundred cultivators at the Focused State, perhaps forty would wonder how to enter “Barrier-Breaking,” twenty would ask when they’d enter “Minor Vehicle,” five might muse about what the “Great Vehicle” realm is like.

But almost no one would speculate about the attainments of a Sage.

Yin Biyue had never considered such things. Now he simply believed that relentless, diligent cultivation would be enough.

No asking, no waiting.

This is the confidence that lives in the subconscious.

It doesn’t waste time on self-doubt or wear down the will with endless second-guessing.

He gripped the sword hilt with his right hand and looked up.

Without the shelter of the tall buildings in Yunyang City, the moonlight over Cangya Mountain felt even colder.

One could vaguely hear leaves rustling in the forest and the surge of pine winds, with partridges calling from time to time, making the night feel even more vast and desolate.

During the day at the academy, the sword remained sheathed, yet the sharp intent of the blade surged forth — a technique he could no longer use.

It was something reached by the heart: attainable by encounter but not by will.

But it gave him great inspiration.

He stood in the courtyard all night.

At dawn, his whole body was soaked in the misty dampness of the morning dew.

Yet his eyes grew ever brighter.

He thought he had already found a way to use the sword.

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