Chapter Thirty-Three: Freaky Year After Year!

  "Even if my piano wasn't broken, I'm not sure I could have beaten her." Xiao Yun smiled bitterly and turned around to look. The people on the square had almost all left, even Qin Yu's group had slipped away quietly at some point, leaving only the man in the front row still sitting in his seat, seemingly lost in thought.

  Carrying their respective instruments, Xiao Yun and the two women left together. After walking a short distance, they turned back to see that man still sitting in his original spot. Xiao Yun couldn't help but feel puzzled, "Do you know that person?"

  The two girls looked back, and Luo Qing said in a low voice, "He's called Lu Jianfeng, the eldest disciple of Yuan Huazhen, the great elder of the Elite Academy. He's only 22 years old this year and has already reached the middle stage of the Musician realm. It's said that Lu Jianfeng and Xu Wanjun are the most likely disciples of our Tianyin Sect to reach the Music Master realm before the age of 30."

  Luo Qing said, with a deep envy flowing between her eyebrows. The realm of music masters, to think that she hadn't even reached the realm of music workers yet, and they were roughly the same age, how could the gap be so big?

  At this time, Lin Chunyin interrupted, "Lu Jianfeng is talented, but his personality is also very proud and arrogant, with a strong sense of self-respect, and a somewhat narrow-minded heart. Shao Shixiong, it's best if you don't provoke him."

  Lu Jianfeng was still sitting in his seat, dazed. He had just been defeated by Xu Wanjun, and the blow should have been quite severe. Xiao Yun turned her head to look at him, shaking her head silently. This was a manifestation of poor psychological quality, too easily affected by temporary gains and losses. In other words, he was too mentally fragile. What strong self-esteem? That's just nonsense. It should be said that he had a strong desire to win.

  "I didn't win against him, it was Xu Wanjun who won against him, nothing to do with me." Xiao Yun shrugged his shoulders, a look of indifference on her face.

  "If your strings hadn't broken, who knows what would have happened?" Lin Chunyin smiled sweetly.

  Xiao Yun shook his head and didn't say anything more.

  Out of the square, Lin Chunyin's palm faced Xiao Yun, "Give me the zither, I'll fix it for you."

  "Huh?" Xiao Yun was taken aback for a moment, then shook his head and said, "Forget it, even if this broken zither is repaired, it's still useless. I'll get a new one another day."

  Lin Chunyin smiled and said, "Don't look anymore, the top ten disciples with the highest total score today still have one more subject 'qin skills' to rely on tomorrow. At that time, you don't have a qin, what can you do?"

  "You're so sure I can make it into the top ten?" Xiao Yun said with a hint of meaning.

  Lin Chunyin also smiled sweetly, "If you can't even get into the top ten, then I'm even more hopeless."

  Xiao Yunle chuckled and smiled, "I'll take this guqin to the music hall for repairs myself, so you don't have to bother. You should go back and practice well too, we'll perform on stage tomorrow!"

  Lin Chunyin was stunned for a moment and didn't continue to insist, her martial arts exam results ranked eighth, and she had more confidence in the literary exam, entering the top ten was still very possible.

  "Then, Brother, you should also go back and prepare well!"

  Lin Chunyan looked at Xiao Yun with gratitude, this time in the elite conference, she was able to get such a good score, Xiao Yun was a great contributor. To know that this score was obtained together with the disciples of the Elite Academy, which means that she surpassed many disciples of the Elite Academy, something that could not be imagined before.

  ——

  After parting with the two women, Xiao Yun directly hugged the paulownia wooden zither and went to the musical instrument hall, wanting to repair the paulownia wooden zither for tomorrow's use. However, when he arrived at the musical instrument hall, he found that the door was tightly closed, and no one responded even after knocking on the door. Only after asking a passing disciple did he learn that due to the Elite Assembly, the person in charge of the musical instrument hall had been summoned to the Law Enforcement Academy to participate in the literary examination, so the musical instrument hall was closed for the day.

  There was no way out, the music store closed down and there was nowhere to repair the guqin either. It wasn't convenient to look for Lin Chu Yin again, so Xiao Yun could only hold his broken guqin and return to the small hut on the back hill.

  Back to the bamboo house, Mu Tian'en had not returned. Xiao Yun threw the paulownia wooden zither into the room and ran to the kitchen to find something to eat. The martial arts exam just now had consumed a lot of his physical strength, and his stomach was already growling with hunger.

  After finishing lunch and taking a nap, it was already late afternoon when I woke up. Until evening, Mu Tian'en still hadn't returned, probably also grading papers?

  In the courtyard, Xiao Yun stretched and took out the Fengming Xiao, playing a tune of "Youth Tour", replenishing more than half of the majestic energy consumed in the afternoon. The seven spiritual platforms had five slightly larger statues, but it was not yet obvious. This, however, alerted Xiao Yun that his own cultivation was based on the Seven Sounds Path, and he needed to pay closer attention during future cultivation. Fortunately, he discovered the issue in time; otherwise, he would have strayed from the correct path, resulting in a disordered and unrefined cultivation.

  "Tomorrow, when the results come out, if I make it into the top ten, I'll find someone to lend me a qin to play with." Xiao Yun thought to herself, and suddenly her eyes lit up, "Hey, doesn't Old Man Mu have a Zhang Jiu Xiang qin?"

  Looking back at Mu Tian'en's room, if Mu Tian'en doesn't come back tonight, it would be possible to borrow his 'Jiuxiao' for use. That zither is absolutely much better than his own Jiuxiao zither, although it hasn't reached the level of Yuebao, but it can definitely be considered a top-notch instrument under Yuebao.

  Xiao Yun sneaked into Mu Tian'en's house, and one thing was certain: if Mu Tian'en found out that he had touched his piano again, he would probably fly into a rage. However, Xiao Yun couldn't care about that right now; if he made it to the top ten tomorrow, in order to get a good score on the piano skills exam, he could only take it without permission once more - at worst, Mu Tian'en would heavily punish him again afterwards.

  ——

  Vinaya Pitaka

  The atmosphere was somewhat oppressive, with fifteen musicians sitting around a long table, intently reading the scrolls. Each person's desk in front of them had a stack of white paper, which were the essay test papers of nearly a thousand disciples from the elite conference.

  Fifteen musicians were seated on the side, chatting and tasting tea with Mu Tian'en and Xie Tianci. Almost all of the upper echelons of the Tianyin Sect had gathered here.

  "Good grief, what's this nonsense? Incomplete sentences and fragmented paragraphs. Unacceptable!" A slightly plump old man held a test paper in his hand, furrowed his brow and muttered to himself, then picked up a brush, dipped it in red ink, and drew a big X on the pristine surface of the paper.

  "Haha, Yuan Qing Shixiong, what's the point of breaking up sentences? Look at mine, it can't be written and is blindly written. A good tune for a happy little song was actually written into a 'funeral dirge', unbearable to look at! An old man next to him, with an unknown expression on his face whether he was crying or laughing, shook his head while picking up the pen and drew a cross on that scroll of paper."

  "It seems that this is a year of freaks, and there are especially many this year. Fellow teachers and brothers, look at this one I have here, it's clear that he can't write, but he created his own symbol to try to get away with it." Another middle-aged man with a national character face, after hearing the conversation between the two, pulled out a paper from the stack he had just finished reading, on which there were black scribbles all over the place, and some ghostly symbols that made everyone laugh and cry at the same time.

  "This guy, his cleverness is wasted on the wrong things."

  "Yes, treating us old folks as if we were blind."

  ……

  "Ha, fellow students, come and take a look at this exam paper!"

  Just as everyone was smiling wryly, an old man in the corner stood up with a scroll in his hand, and to everyone's surprise, there was a look of delight on his face. If Xiao Yun were here, he would definitely recognize this old man - it was Ou Yuan Ying, the same person who had helped him out at the Lingyao Hall back then!

  "What's wrong, Yuan Ying? Did you encounter another extreme product that got you so excited?" asked a woman in her fifties beside him.

  "Top-notch, indeed top-notch!"

  Qiu Yuanying spread out the roll of paper on the table, stroking his beard with one hand, a look of appreciation on his face.

  Another fourteen people saw Ou Yuan Ying's appearance and couldn't help but feel curious, putting down their work in hand, they crowded around Ou Yuan Ying.

  "Look, fellow teachers," said Yuwen Ying, pointing to the test paper. "This student's score is not only identical in every detail, but what's even more remarkable is that he also made annotations on the side."

  "Huh?"

  An old man with a tall stature immediately picked up the test paper, and several people next to him also hurriedly leaned over to take a look.