Shattered Pride and Forbidden Fantasies

“I… I’m Ji Xue! How… How could I be so incompatible with the Ji family’s cultivation method?! Why is the degree of compatibility so low?”

Ji Xue held the fan in her hand angrily, and the wooden ribs of the fan carried her immense rage that had nowhere to vent.

With a sharp crack, the rigid fan ribs shattered piece by piece as her five fingers abruptly tightened around them.

Fragments of wood, mingling with the meticulously embroidered ice cicada pattern adorning them, cascaded softly from between her fingers.

Her heavily made-up face, its crimson flush too profound for even rouge to conceal, burned with an intensity of its own.

More than the ‘Yi’ (Class B) evaluation for her ascension ranking, it was the reason annotated behind the stele that fueled the rage blazing in her eyes.

The blatant and glaring words ‘Cultivation Technique Compatibility: Class C-Minus’ emblazoned on the stele struck her like the most venomous insult, a fierce slap against the proud Ji family bloodline and dignity she held so dear.

In that instant, a sudden silence descended, the crowd gradually receding as if a curtain of inky blackness slowly fell, enshrouding her entirely.

Yet, even as the crowd dispersed, she seemed to hear countless lingering whispers—indistinct, yet unmistakably laced with mockery, schadenfreude, astonishment, and… pity.

“Absurd! Impossible!” she cried, her head snapping up, crimson eyes locked onto her own name.

A torrent of spiritual energy, mingled with furious rage, erupted uncontrollably from within her, spreading rapidly outwards like a raging inferno, instantly turning the frigid air blistering hot as a wisp of flame flickered to life on the fan ribs in her hand.

“This… this stele is flawed! The ranking is flawed! The formation array of the Hall of Clarity is flawed!”

Ji Xue’s shrill voice tore across the plaza. “How could my compatibility with my family’s inherited cultivation technique be so low! I’ve cultivated it since childhood! It’s as natural as moving my arm! How could… how could the compatibility only be Class C?!”

She shrieked, almost losing all composure, her voice laced with a terror and hysteria she herself seemed unaware of.

Her long-held pride and unwavering faith in the future crumbled into dust at this single word, in this very moment.

All her future plans shattered abruptly.

Observing Ji Xue’s hysterical outburst, Lin Mo felt a pang of confusion; was it not simply a matter of an unsuitable cultivation technique?

Couldn’t she just switch to another? She wasn’t some child from a poor family. Unlike himself, who would surely die if he didn’t cultivate the Bright Jade Profound Yin.

Lin Mo stood at the periphery of the crowd, watching the almost uncontrollable Ji Xue, when from within the throng, someone voiced the very same question he harbored: “Isn’t it just that she can’t cultivate her family’s inherited technique? Is it really that big of a deal? The Xuan Nv Sect has so many cultivation techniques; couldn’t she just switch to another one?”

Their companion immediately enlightened them in a hushed tone: “You don’t know? Ji Xue is a Princess of the Immortal Dynasty! To inherit the great lineage, this ancestral cultivation technique is the primary prerequisite; cultivation level and political acumen come second! If she can’t even comprehend her own family’s technique, then the throne… will be utterly out of reach. In such a situation, tell me, who wouldn’t go mad?”

‘Ah!’

‘So that was it; no wonder she suddenly lost control and went mad.’

‘Still, what was so great about being an emperor?’

‘Upon closer thought, it was nothing more than a laborer overwhelmed by the crushing weight of an empire—one had to govern a vast empire stretching tens of thousands of li, daily review mountains of memorials, and handle tens of thousands of large and small affairs; moreover, one had to exhaust their mental energy to manipulate their ministers, not only guarding against factionalism and their becoming too powerful to control but also constantly weighing and balancing the various factions.’

‘In the historical records of his home planet, Blue Star, which enlightened ruler or sagely sovereign didn’t burn the midnight oil, reviewing memorials until the third watch? The mere thought sent shivers down his spine.’

‘As for being an incompetent ruler, one wouldn’t enjoy a few years of pleasure before rebellions would rise, storming the palace and leading to one’s decapitation.’

‘However, everyone had their own pursuits; he might not understand, but he respected it.’

“Ruyan, have you seen your ranking?” he inquired, turning away from the raving Ji Xue to ask Liu Ruyan, who appeared somewhat dejected beside him.

‘…How much do you like bathing? Are you Shizuka?’

“Ruyan is Class A, but Sister Wan’er… seems to be only Class B. It’s not fair; Sister Wan’er clearly worked so hard!”

‘Class B?’

‘What the f*ck, I worked so hard, and you only gave me a Class B?’

Lin Mo, refusing to believe it, stood on his tiptoes. Fortunately, his cultivated vision was excellent, and scanning from the bottom, he spotted his own ranking on the ‘Class B’ stele.

‘What the f*ck!’

‘And my ranking is even behind Ji Xue’s!’

‘Goddamn it! There’s foul play!’

‘If it weren’t for that Qing You and that Pavilion Master targeting me, I would definitely have gotten Class A!’

The annotation next to Lin Mo’s name read: Cultivation Technique Compatibility: Mid-to-Low; Spiritual Energy Application: Unproficient.

‘How should I describe this evaluation…’

‘There’s no way to describe it.’

‘He didn’t know if it was true or false.’

He inexplicably sensed Qing You pulling strings from behind the scenes, yet he had no way to discern it clearly.

He still had many things left untaught, simply because he was stuck with Mu Qingli, a novice master, who had crammed his mind full of nothing but women’s etiquette and cultivation technique operation.

There was nothing to be done; she had forgotten to feed him and even forgotten about the Hall of Clarity. It was clear that Mu Qingli had been completely sidelined…

Rather than a Sect Master, she resembled an innocent young lady from a deep boudoir, unfamiliar with the ways of the world.

Mu Qingli’s explanation to Lin Mo was that she possessed a Profound Yin Physique since childhood, making her cultivation inherently natural—the kind where one could cultivate simply by ‘lying flat’.

From birth, she had no need for food, only requiring the essence of the sun and moon.

Having cultivated with the previous Sect Master since childhood, she rarely interacted with outsiders and had never taken a disciple; Lin Mo was her first.

Thus, she was utterly oblivious to the fact that mortal transcendence through cultivation required a process.

It was, in a way, like a prodigy athlete teaching a baby how to dunk, only to forget that the ‘student’ was an infant who couldn’t even walk, then growing frustrated that the baby couldn’t perform a simple dunk.

He could only pray that what he learned in the Hall of Clarity would be more useful than anything from Mu Qingli.

At this moment, the guiding spiritual light suddenly shifted direction!

Its path no longer pointed towards the crowd gathered around the steles, but instead extended abruptly outwards, snaking like a spiritual serpent around the four towering steles, directly ascending the white jade staircase behind them, and stretching all the way to the grand entrance of the main hall!

‘Holy crap, it’s that smart?’

Even more astonishing to Lin Mo was—

The heavy doors of the main hall had, at some unknown point, silently swung open!

Without a sound, without a trace!

Already, numerous disciples were winding their way up the stairs, stepping through the open doors of the hall.

However, much like Ji Xue, many disciples remained frozen before the steles, unable to accept the cold reality of their rankings, their feet rooted to the spot, not moving an inch.

Only…

They were not Ji Xue, after all!

Ji Xue’s voice, sharp as a blade, tore through the lingering clamor of the plaza: “Where is the person in charge of the Hall of Clarity?! Come out—!!!”

She continued to shriek and bellow, as if to unleash the unacceptable result, along with the shock and fury in her heart, within the majestic halls, desperately demanding an explanation, a confrontation!

Yet, no one answered.

As Ji Xue’s repeated screams gradually faded from booming to hoarse, still no one emerged to respond.

Lin Mo, accompanied by the slowly subsiding screams, calmly stepped into the main hall.

“What a pity… if only Sister Wan’er were Class A, then we could live together.”

His steps suddenly halted…

‘Live together?’

“Yes. The Hall of Clarity stipulates two people per room. Those of the same class live together. It seems I can only live with my senior sister.”

‘Live together…’

Lin Mo’s heart suddenly pounded.

‘Doesn’t this mean… for these three months… he could live with beautiful maidens?’

Lin Mo cast his gaze around—those passing by, those waiting for companions near the entrance, all were ice-skinned and jade-boned beauties!

At this moment, Lin Mo’s heart couldn’t help but pound even harder.

“Speaking of which, Sister Wan’er, Ruyan’s new senior sister is so strange. She’s constantly looking for someone. For a month, she hasn’t been seen cultivating, only searching. Yet, Master doesn’t care at all.”

Lin Mo’s fantasies spread like wildfire across a prairie: the morning sun rising, a beautiful maiden in a thin, translucent gauze nightgown, sleepily pushing open her door, the sunlight bathing her body, light and shadow outlining her graceful figure…

A maiden returning from the bath, carrying a sweet fragrance, wrapped in a towel, water droplets from the night dew still clinging to her hair tips, rolling over her collarbone, disappearing into the peaks and valleys…

Or perhaps changing clothes in the dormitory…

“Sister Wan’er? Are you listening to me? Sister Wan’er?”

Liu Ruyan gently shook Lin Mo’s arm, instantly disrupting his fantastical, rosy dream.

At the same time, it jolted Lin Mo awake from his beautiful dream!

And he broke out in a cold sweat!

‘Damn it!’

‘He mustn’t forget, this was the Xuan Nv Sect!’

‘A blade hung over his head at all times!’

‘He almost compromised his disguise!’

“Listen, I heard! Of course, I was listening! How could your sister not listen to Ruyan’s words~ Oh, those kinds of people are just like that, I understand how you feel, but it’s best to just be yourself and not worry about others. Others are just passersby, after all. Come on, let’s go see what the main hall looks like.”

Lin Mo, flustered, quickly brushed Liu Ruyan off with a generic platitude, then strode forward, no longer daring to hold her small hand.

After all, though Liu Ruyan was still young and innocent, her ample figure had long since been seared into his vision like a brand.

Indeed, the Xuan Nv Sect’s uniform simply couldn’t contain Liu Ruyan’s abundant curves.

“Wait for me, Sister Wan’er! I haven’t finished speaking yet!”