A Tenacious Spirit

Su Yan gave a satisfied sigh. Ah, this was such a good new first scene! Taking his time really had been so worth it. Furthermore, it was also a scene that was long enough. Well, for a romance novel. If this was a real xianxia novel, then the readers would probably jeer him for calling this a scene.

Well, whatever. He didn't need to think about that. What he needed to do now was adjusting his previous first scene to fit with the new one. Mn, maybe he should even add another scene?

He pursed his lips but even after pondering it for a bit he wasn't too sure. Well, he still had some time so it wouldn't be too late to decide later. Thus, he just started to write the part about Ziju An's time in the Jin He City. Whether or not this would be a whole scene or just the first part of the scene in which Dou Fang Hai went up to the stage … Who cared? He'd see about that.

[Ziju An sat at the window of the second floor of a teahouse.]

Su Yan blinked. Eh? This was … Couldn't he just skip a few days and summarize them? Then this could really be the first part of the scene he had already written. And it wouldn't take so much time for the story to get to the part when Dou Fang Hai would become Ziju An's disciple.

With a smile, Su Yan added a bit more to the sentence.

[a teahouse that was overlooking the market square of the Jin He City. He was holding a cup of tea in his hand but his attention was on the wooden stage that had been erected on the square and the three disciples in white robes that were hurriedly preparing the test they would soon conduct.

This was just a pretest to filter out those that had no aptitude at all. After all, one still needed spirit veins to become a cultivator. Testing for them wasn't difficult and there were seldom cases where the result could be misunderstood so the sect had mostly sent the older disciples to conduct these tests. Elders had only been dispatched to the bigger cities when the Jin Shan Sect felt like they should give the heads of these cities some face.

Right now, the disciples were distributing some spiritual energy detection orbs. As long as the person who touched them had even a sliver of spiritual energy in them the orb would light up. And everyone who had spiritual veins and lived for a few years would at least accumulate a bit of it. It would be enough to light up the orbs.

While the disciples carefully distributed the orbs on three platforms the people of the Jin He City slowly gathered in front of the stage and started whispering. Since their city was situated right at the foot of the mountain they knew the cultivators from the Jin Shan Sect and had often seen them conduct these tests on the market square.

Ziju An listened to their conversations for a while but there was nothing to take note of. They were just guessing how many possible recruits would be found and how many would be sent back after the admission test in the sect. Surprisingly, they were even able to detail the numbers of the previous tests and could even tell which of these children had managed to become part of the inner sect by now.

While the people started to consider which of the young children in their city was similar to those that had managed to achieve something in the Jin Shan Sect a small figure jumped up and down behind them and tried to see what was happening on the other side. Naturally, the child still couldn't see anything.

Ziju An watched how the boy tried to circle around the crowd but there were already so many people that all ways to the stage had been blocked. The boy stood there for a moment, looking around as if he was searching for another way.

Finally, the boy stepped forward and tugged at someone's sleeve. The man turned around, frowned and just shrugged him off. The child didn't stop, though. He tugged at the man's sleeve again and looked up at him with big eyes. "Uncle …"

"Shoo, shoo!" The man didn't look happy. He had just wanted to tell the story he knew but now this child was bothering him. If he didn't hurry, one of the others would manage to tell it before him!

"Uncle!" The boy just smiled at him and pointed ahead.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the man's full attention. "Yes, yes. Go back to your parents. I can't play with you now." He turned back to the other men. "You certainly haven't heard the story I know of!"

The boy pursed his lips now that his third approach hadn't worked either.

Ziju An in the teahouse started to smile and slowly sipped his tea, his full attention on this boy. This child sure was interesting. Just for the sake of finding out what was happening in front, he would actually try all this. This little one was probably very curious.

Just then the boy started his fourth try. He crouched down and crawled around behind the people until he found a slightly larger gap between them. As fast as he could he crawled inside and vanished from Ziju An's sight. The cultivator didn't have any trouble telling where the boy was, though.

People were constantly twitching, stumbling and screaming in places that formed a sinuous line together. The boy was obviously making his way toward the stage in a rather … unorganized manner.

Ziju An laughed and poured himself another cup of tea without taking his eyes off the child. Ah, this one seemed like it'd be really fun to have around and he wasn't that easily detracted from pursuing his goals. If he had spirit veins, then maybe he would be the right one. At least, he was the only one that had been noticeable in this city up until now.]