However, Shang Hanjiao had previously said that there had been many abnormalities in the Qinglong Forest recently. Even the Yin Sha Soul and the White-haired Ape in the middle had appeared on the periphery. The forest was more dangerous at night than during the day. If he left this injured woman with limited mobility here, there was no guarantee that she would not encounter any accidents.
Shang Hanjiao tried to persuade him several more times, but seeing that he was determined not to leave, she was almost in tears. Luo Jiujiang was driven to despair by her and knew that he had made a mistake.
For someone like him, who had already experienced the turbulence of time and space, trained in death zones, and walked the brink of life and death several times, joining the Azure Dragon Academy was certainly a great opportunity, but missing out was only a slight regret. He came to the Azure Dragon Realm primarily to find Qianling and return home. Compared to this goal of "finding Qianling", the rest were all trivial matters.
Training himself was not only one of his goals, but also a daily task. So, with the help of the academy, he might be able to progress faster, but without it, it didn't matter if he was slower. His speed was already much faster than most people in the world. If even he felt he was too slow and incompetent, and didn't know how to improve himself, then countless people in the world would be ashamed.
But compared to Luo Jiujiang, who has experienced life and death several times, touched the artistic conception many times, and is now on the edge of the sword, Shang Hanjiao is older than him, but her experience is simpler. She has almost never experienced any hardships since she entered the martial arts world at the age of ten, and is almost a child who grew up in an ivory tower.
Qinglong Academy was as big as the whole world to her. If someone missed the chance to join Qinglong Academy just because of a few hours' delay, in her eyes it was equivalent to missing a great opportunity. It was a tragedy that would make anyone who saw or heard about it cry.
He had good intentions in staying to protect Shang Hanjiao, but for this girl, the life-saving favor was already difficult to repay, and adding this favor to the mix made the burden so great that she was terrified and unable to bear it. If he insisted on staying, Shang Hanjiao would probably have to bear the debt of conscience for the rest of her life.
But he could do both with this little thing, protecting Miss Shang's safety without putting her in a difficult position.
"Okay, you're right. I should be able to catch up if I go there now." Luo Jiujiang agreed. "But sharpening the knife does not delay the chopping of wood. Fellow Daoist, can you tell me roughly what the assessment will generally include?"
After hearing what she said, Luo Jiujiang nodded repeatedly, thanked her for the advice, and quickly set off under Shang Hanjiao's pleased eyes. After he was out of her sight, he quietly circled back and settled down on a large tree behind Shang Hanjiao.
Shang Hanjiao turned her five hearts toward the sky, closed her eyes and regulated her breathing. She was completely absorbed in herself and indeed did not notice anything unusual.
Being able to concentrate in such a short time was certainly due to the good teaching of Qinglong Academy, but this alertness... Luo Jiujiang rubbed his brows with a headache, thinking that when they met tomorrow, he'd better remind the other party that it was very dangerous to be completely absorbed when a person was alone in the forest.
His perception was hundreds of times greater than Shang Hanjiao's, and it stretched over a vast area. But precisely because of this, he could clearly sense the "abnormality" of Azure Dragon Ancient Forest: if this place were less than a day's journey from Azure Dragon Academy, it would be practically the outer reaches of the outer reaches. Yet, the strength of the demonic beasts active at night here was simply not what one would expect from a peripheral demonic beast.
After a night of this, he couldn't help but feel thankful that he had chosen to stay. Shang Hanjiao's cultivation was only at the fifth level of Qi Refining, and the smell of blood from her wounds made her a precious prey to the monsters. If he hadn't been discreet and careful, the girl would have been seriously injured at best, and at worst, nothing would have been left.
When the sun rose, the active monsters gradually retreated back into the depths of the forest. Luo Jiujiang was still worried, so he kept quietly following Shang Hanjiao until he sent her out of the forest safely. Then he avoided her eyes and walked along the avenue paved by Qinglong Academy to the place he had agreed with her in advance.
Along the way, he paid close attention to the words of the disciples around him, and through speculation and conjecture, he restored the specific content of this assessment to a near-perfect degree.
When Shang Hanjiao arrived at the agreed location and met Luo Jiujiang, the first thing she asked was, "How was it? Were you chosen?"
"I'm ashamed. I've passed the test in both my cultivation and my physical skills, but Senior Brother Ning said my character wasn't up to par and I could only be a Baoyu disciple. I came here for the position of Xuanzhu disciple, but since I can't become one, I might as well not join. I'll just become a single disciple and come and go as I please."
Luo Jiujiang had already prepared a script in his mind, and when Shang Hanjiao asked him, he recited the lyrics calmly.
Shang Hanjiao didn't notice anything was wrong. She just stamped her feet repeatedly in regret. "Oh, why did you have to run into Senior Brother Ning... He has a very conservative personality and doesn't like young people to be aggressive. And you only wanted the position of Xuanzhu disciple. He must have seen this and deliberately demoted you."
After circling around for a while, she took a deep breath and tugged at Luo Jiujiang's sleeve: "You, you come with me... I, I told Senior Brother Ning about what happened yesterday. You are a good kid who helps others when you see injustice. How could there be a problem with your character?"
Shang Hanjiao's wrists were shaking when she said this. It was obvious that as a student of Baoyu, she had to jump two steps and explain this matter to the student of Tingzhu, which scared her to death. But even so, Luo Jiujiang could still clearly feel the considerable force she applied to his clothes.
"Okay, Miss Shang, there's no need to be like this." Luo Jiujiang took his sleeve back from her hand, his heart softening, and he said in a gentle tone, "It will only delay me for a year at most. If I want to take the exam, I can come back next year."
In Luo Jiujiang's mind, he just missed an entrance exam by accident, but compared with the life of the girl in front of him who could cry and laugh, it was nothing.
If he didn't become a disciple of Qinglong Academy in this life, he could save the lives of a hundred innocent people like Shang Hanjiao who had good hearts. Then what would it matter if he never set foot in the academy in this life?
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