After Becoming the Hero's Ex-fiancée

Entering the City Gates (4)

Mortals could still use gold, silver and jade items, but when it came to cultivators, such items were worthless. They could only use stones with vital energy, of which the smallest were Yuan beads. A thousand Yuan beads were worth one Yuan stone, a hundred low-grade Yuan stones were worth one middle-grade Yuan stone, and a hundred middle-grade ones were worth one high-grade one.

As for anything higher, the old man had never heard of them.

Of course, the old man couldn’t really say much about the whys and wherefores of things related to the cultivation world, though he did talk about children who were born in the Heavenly Realms. At the age of three, they would go to a jade wall in the centre of the city to assess if they possessed the roots and aptitude for cultivation.

Zheng Wan immediately thought of her own parents, and even glanced at the expectant Ji Wang in passing, then said, “Is it possible to assess people as old as my father and mother?”

The old man was taken aback.

“Well, that… I never heard about whether such a thing is possible.”

A mortal’s lifespan was not longer than a hundred years. Compared to cultivators who easily lived for a thousand years, they were simply too tiny. While they could learn about some things with their cleverness, most of the time, their knowledge was only superficial.

For them, the opportunity to change their fate was to produce offspring that could become cultivators. Therefore, no parent would forget to bring their child to the jade wall in the centre of the city to be assessed when they turned three.

“Take us to the jade wall first.”

The old man looked around, then led them to a nearby post house, where several cultivators were waiting as well. When they saw Zheng Wan bearing the burden of her family and leading a group of four mortals, they all gave way to her.

Cultivators were also divided into the have and have-nots. For those who were rich, even their lackeys were cultivators, while the ones who were poor were mostly alone on their own. However, someone like Zheng Wan, who only just entered the Gateway stage and could already afford to keep four mortals as servants, didn’t seem to be a person with shallow pockets.

But Zheng Wan’s pockets were truly not deep at all. Based on the old man’s description just now, she roughly knew that the two Yuan stones the Senior gave her were low-grade Yuan stones, which could be exchanged for two thousand Yuan beads. It was still enough for this horse carriage which cost one bead per person.

It’s just that this horse carriage——

Zheng Wan’s round eyes stared at the red fleshy worm which was pulling the carriage over at the sound of the whistle, and forced down the nausea that had risen to her throat.

“Wanwan,” Madam Wang covered her eyes with her hands. She knew that her daughter was most afraid of these smooth and slippery round worms, especially when these worms were longer than three people at full length, and even had numerous pairs of little yellow feet. “Don’t look.”

“It’s all right.”

Zheng Wan pulled down her mother’s hand and revealed a smile that looked worse than a crying face.

Among the four of them, she was the only cultivator. Even though she was unfamiliar with the place, she still had to be their pillar of support. Trying to find some joy in the midst of adversity, Zheng Wan thought, if her father and mother were deemed suitable for cultivation, she would then have people to rely on.

This huge worm looked really ugly, but it ran like the wind. In less than thirty minutes, it brought the group from the city gate to the centre of the city.

The circular public square was so large that its edges couldn’t be seen at one glance. The ground was paved with large pieces of bluestone. In the centre of the square, there was also a white marble column. However, this one was not circular, but square. From a distance, it shone with a luminous glow, creating a forbidding and awe-inspiring sight.

“What is that?”

Zheng Wan saw that column that plunged upwards into the sky at first glance.

“The Boundless Ranking.”

The old man looked at it from afar with envy written on his face, “I heard that the top three cultivators with the strongest combat power of each cultivation stage will appear on the Boundless Ranking. But us mere mortals are unable to see it.”

Hearing this, Zheng Wan focused her soul power on her eyes. Her twinkling, black pupils glowed, and sure enough, rows of names really appeared on the square stone column that had just been completely bare a moment ago.

From bottom to top, the bottom was the Gateway stage, followed by the Centring stage, then the Accomplisher stage; it went up like this row by row, until the Savant stage, where Zheng Wan finally saw the name of an old acquaintance——

Four large dazzling golden characters, “Li Wei Zhenjun”, sat impressively at the top of the Savant stage ranking, above “Fu Sheng Zhenjun” and  “Fei Yun Zhenjun”.

“What’s wrong? What have you seen?” asked Zheng Zhai curiously when he noticed the change in his daughter’s expression.

“It’s nothing,” Zheng Wan curled her lips. “Father, Mother, let’s go and get assessed.”

Just about ten feet away, there stood a circular jade wall about the height of a man. The jade wall was being guarded by two sword-wielding cultivators. Zheng Wan took the lead and headed over, then said smilingly, “May I ask, Zhenren, can the jade wall assess the aptitude of one who is older in age?”

If it wasn’t for Granny Jin’s refusal to take a look for her father and mother, Zheng Wan wouldn’t have needed to go through such trouble.

The jade wall’s guard’s gaze lingered on Zheng Wan for a moment before saying, “A hundred Yuan beads per person.”

That meant it was possible.

Zheng Wan happily handed him a Yuan stone, and got back seven hundred Yuan beads in exchange, even generously offering Ji Wang the chance to be assessed.

—————————

[ Guixu Sect, Xuanqing Peak ]

The instant Li Siyi stepped off his sword, he seized a disciple at the door and asked, “Have you seen Li Wei Zhenjun?”

“Li Wei Zhenjun is sparring with the section leader at Xuanyu Peak.”

With a flicker of thought, Li Siyi casually threw a jade bottle, and his sword went straight to Xuanyu peak. There, Tian He Daojun was standing at one side to keep a hold on the situation as he watched his little disciple’s sword fight with the Pure Veracity stage’s section leader.

Clouds of sand and pebbles billowed around the arena, and everywhere was dark and murky.

Li Siyi was unbothered. When he arrived, he jumped off his sword straightaway and shouted,

“Little Junior Brother, did you really make a lifelong commitment with a mortal woman in the mortal realm?”