Chapter 51: A Bit Chaotic
The library door was open, yet Tang Thirty-Six insisted on climbing in through the window. Whether it was out of laziness or some other reason was unclear. For him, window-hopping was usually the simplest thing, but today it proved difficult. He sat down on the floor, breathing hard and coughing twice.
"You really are injured," Chen Changsheng said, walking over and crouching before him, reaching out to take his pulse.
Tang Thirty-Six blocked his hand. "I'm fine, just a bit tired."
Chen Changsheng knew he wasn't telling the truth, but the guy did seem genuinely exhausted. He leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.
Outside the window, the faint light of dawn fell on Tang Thirty-Six's face, making it look even paler.
Chen Changsheng shook his head, fetched a thin blanket from the side room, and gently draped it over him.
As the daylight grew brighter and time passed, Luoluo took Xuan Yuan Po to the Herb Garden. As members of the same race, there were matters she needed to discuss with him.
Tang Thirty-Six woke up and looked at Chen Changsheng, who was sitting on the floor absorbed in reading. "Why didn't you come last night?" he asked.
Chen Changsheng put down his book. "Go where?"
"The Academy of Heavenly Dao. Last night was the second night of the Ivy Banquet."
Tang Thirty-Six pushed the blanket aside, stood up, and yawned. He looked much more energetic. "On the first night, the National Academy made such a splash. Everyone was waiting for you last night."
Chen Changsheng said, "I didn't want to go, so I didn't."
Tang Thirty-Six stared at him. "You're really strange."
To someone normal, skipping an event like the Ivy Banquet just because you didn't feel like it did seem odd.
"I think you're stranger," Chen Changsheng replied.
He remembered the last time he'd gone to the Academy of Heavenly Dao, when this guy had been training hard. "You prepared for the Ivy Banquet for so long, but you didn't show up at all on the first night. What exactly happened?"
At this question, Tang Thirty-Six was silent for a moment. "I don't like that little monster from the Ancestral Sacrifice Temple."
Chen Changsheng said, "And so?"
Tang Thirty-Six said, "So I once made it known that if I got the chance, I'd cripple him."
Chen Changsheng said, "I know about that. Tianhai Ya'er mentioned it that night."
Tang Thirty-Six's mood soured. "Since he dared to show up at the Ivy Banquet, I was ready to do it. But... some people didn't want me to, so they didn't let me attend that night. They kept me in the dormitory."
Chen Changsheng said nothing. He thought that with this guy's temperament, no amount of academy rules or teacher authority could change his mind. "Not letting him attend" probably meant the teachers at the Academy of Heavenly Dao had directly restrained him.
He could understand the academy's caution. Tianhai Ya'er's background was too terrifying. Apart from someone like Luoluo, whose origins were even more fearsome, there really was no good way to deal with him. If Tang Thirty-Six had actually crippled Tianhai Ya'er at the Ivy Banquet, no one knew what the consequences would be.
But he could also understand Tang Thirty-Six's anger.
"What happened last night?" he asked, looking at Tang Thirty-Six's pale cheeks.
Tang Thirty-Six said, "Last night was the martial arts competition. The first place went to a young priest from the Affiliated Academy of the Divine Palace."
Chen Changsheng had only changed the subject to keep Tang Thirty-Six from dwelling on negative emotions. He wasn't really concerned about the Ivy Banquet, so he just said, "Oh," to show he understood.
Tang Thirty-Six raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you going to ask?"
"Ask what?"
"Why that young priest from the Affiliated Academy of the Divine Palace got first place?"
"The Affiliated Academy of the Divine Palace... that's the direct lineage of the Pope's faction. What's so surprising about them getting first?"
Tang Thirty-Six pointed at himself. "Someone beating me—that's not surprising?"
Chen Changsheng thought this guy was still so narcissistic. Helplessly, he asked, "Fine, then... why?"
Tang Thirty-Six was satisfied. "Because I didn't participate."
This time, Chen Changsheng was genuinely surprised. "Why?" he asked, confused.
"Zhuang Huanyu and those other guys on the Azure Cloud Ranking didn't participate either. Probably out of pride, or to prepare for the third night. As for me, the academy still wouldn't let me. They kept me in the dormitory."
Tang Thirty-Six's expression turned ugly.
Chen Changsheng couldn't understand. If the Academy of Heavenly Dao had stopped Tang Thirty-Six from fighting Tianhai Ya'er on the first night, that was excessive but still cautious. But the second night made no sense at all. Weren't they afraid of alienating him?
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to challenge Zhuang Huanyu."
The library fell silent.
After confirming he hadn't misheard, Chen Changsheng found Tang Thirty-Six even stranger—or rather, more interesting.
He actually wanted to challenge a senior disciple from his own academy, and the academy's representative figure at that.
Chen Changsheng thought that if he were a teacher at the Academy of Heavenly Dao, he wouldn't agree either.
Besides, the Ivy Banquet probably didn't have such rules.
"Why?"
"Because I don't like the look of him."
"That reason..."
"What about it?"
"Too powerful."
Chen Changsheng was speechless. He knew there had to be a deeper reason for Tang Thirty-Six to challenge Zhuang Huanyu, but since the guy wouldn't say, there was nothing he could do.
"It took me half the night to break through the academy's restraints and get to the venue, but by then, the Ivy Banquet was already over."
Tang Thirty-Six thought about his ordeal the previous night and was silent for a moment. "I felt the air in the academy smelled bad. I didn't want to stay there anymore. But I don't know Kyoto that well, and I couldn't think of anywhere else to go, so I came to find you."
Chen Changsheng confirmed that he had been injured while forcibly breaking through the restraints set by the Academy of Heavenly Dao's teachers.
The Academy of Heavenly Dao was solemn and dignified, but it wasn't suited for Tang Thirty-Six.
Kyoto was vast, yet he had nowhere to go.
In the darkness before dawn, he had wandered aimlessly through the streets and alleys, only to realize that Chen Changsheng was the only person he knew.
Chen Changsheng walked over to him, folded the thin blanket neatly, and sat down beside him, leaning against the wall beneath the window. He said nothing.
No glances exchanged, no conversation, but Tang Thirty-Six knew what he was thinking.
"Don't sympathize with me, and don't pity me... I'm a genius on the Azure Cloud Ranking."
"Being a genius doesn't mean you don't need sympathy."
"But you're not qualified to sympathize with me. In all of Kyoto, I'm the only person you know."
Tang Thirty-Six said this mockingly, but as he thought about it, for some reason, he felt a bit happier.
Just then, Luoluo and Xuan Yuan Po walked in through the main door of the library.
Xuan Yuan Po was carrying a lunchbox that was noticeably larger than usual.
Luoluo walked up to Chen Changsheng and said, "Teacher, it's time for lunch."
Chen Changsheng glanced at Tang Thirty-Six and spread his hands, indicating he hadn't meant for this to happen.
Tang Thirty-Six had always thought Chen Changsheng's personality flaws were far worse than his own. In the past two months, he hadn't made a single friend at the Academy of Heavenly Dao, but this guy had met two people, one of them a very pretty young girl. That was a blow to his pride.
Then he remembered what Vice Dean Zhuang had told him about the first night of the Ivy Banquet.
"So you're the one who crippled Tianhai Ya'er?" he asked, looking at Luoluo.
Using true essence against true essence to utterly destroy that little monster from the Ancestral Sacrifice Temple—even he would have found it difficult. The young girl from the National Academy was clearly extraordinary. And the fact that the National Academy had come out of it unscathed proved her background was even more remarkable.
Now, many people in Kyoto were speculating about the National Academy's connections. Some suspected Chen Changsheng's origins, but Tang Thirty-Six knew that this guy was just a country boy from Xining Town. So it had to be the girl.
That was why his tone was serious and solemn when he asked.
Luoluo ignored him. She walked over to Chen Changsheng, crouched down, opened the lunchbox, wiped the chopsticks clean, and handed them to him.
Watching this scene, Tang Thirty-Six's eyebrow twitched.
A bit embarrassed, Chen Changsheng handed the chopsticks to him and introduced him, "His name is Tang Thirty-Six."
"I know, Teacher," Luoluo replied.
Of course she knew Chen Changsheng knew Tang Thirty-Six. More precisely, before her, he had only known Tang Thirty-Six.
Chen Changsheng thought that since Tang Thirty-Six was a young expert on the Azure Cloud Ranking and Luoluo wasn't an ordinary person either, it was no surprise she recognized him.
Luoluo understood what he was thinking. "I know who he is, but I don't know him," she said.
Chen Changsheng said, "I thought if you knew Zhuang Huanyu, you'd know him too."
Luoluo glanced at Tang Thirty-Six. "Zhuang Huanyu was sitting right next to me. It was hard not to know him. He... was sitting a bit far away."
Chen Changsheng felt like he'd heard that line before, but he still didn't understand. Tang Thirty-Six didn't get it either, but he could sense the girl's disdain, which annoyed him. So he grabbed the most expensive dishes from the lunchbox and wolfed them down.
Luoluo was very displeased.
Xuan Yuan Po ate his meal quietly on the side, not saying a word.
After lunch, Tang Thirty-Six shamelessly snatched the Anxi black tea that Luoluo had handed to Chen Changsheng and took a few sips to rinse his mouth.
Luoluo gave him a cold laugh.
Chen Changsheng was exasperated. He asked Tang Thirty-Six, "So what do we do now?"
"I have to participate in the third night. I don't believe the academy will treat me like this again."
"Why are you so sure?"
"This time, four of the Seven Laws of the Divine Kingdom are coming. Can Zhuang Huanyu handle them alone?"
Chen Changsheng was confused. "What?" he asked.
Tang Thirty-Six put the black tea down on the floor and looked at him. "You don't know? The Southern Envoy will arrive in Kyoto early this year."
Chen Changsheng remembered what Priest Xin had said about the so-called variable and realized this was it. Curious, he asked, "Don't they usually come after the Winter Solstice? The Grand Examination is still a long way off. Why are they coming so early?"
Tang Thirty-Six said, "At first, no one understood. But now, the entire continent knows."
Chen Changsheng asked, "What's the reason?"
Tang Thirty-Six said, "The Southern Envoy wants to formally propose marriage on the night of the Qixi Festival."
"Propose marriage?" Chen Changsheng asked.
Tang Thirty-Six said, "Yes. Xu Yourong... is finally getting married."
Chen Changsheng was stunned. Then he was silent for a long time.
Suddenly, he stood up and walked toward the library door.
"Teacher, where are you going?" Luoluo asked.
Chen Changsheng didn't look back. "The food was a bit salty. I want to go find some quiet."
Today's food was a bit salty.
His voice was a bit faint.
These words were a bit chaotic.
Because his heart was in chaos.