Chapter 875 The Women Are Absent
Equivalent to a crystal vase, of the highest quality.
Although Lu Jinghong wasn't quite sure why it was called "Lu's Medicine Bottle"—the name sounded strange—the quality of this bottle was already sufficient.
At this moment, Lu Jinghong became the focus of everyone's attention in the cave's main hall.
He noticed the gazes coming from all around him, and felt his breathing quicken.
Lu Jinghong tried to compose himself, then glanced discreetly at Liu Aliang, Sha Ergou, and their group of friends. He noticed that Brother Liu and "Silly Dog" seemed to be looking at him with curiosity, and some of the other teenagers even looked on with envy.
"The Lu family of Fanyang? The Lu family's medicine bottles?"
The Yue women watching from the sidelines also looked surprised, and many of them began to whisper among themselves.
At this moment, they, like Uncle Tang, noticed Lu Jinghong's effeminate appearance, as if they had remembered something.
Under the spotlight, at this moment, Lu Jinghong suddenly gained a profound understanding of the meaning of life:
To be a good person, you have to show off! If you don't show off, wouldn't you have wasted your life?
His chest heaved with excitement.
However, a straightforward Yue woman in the audience spoke her mind:
"The Lu family of Fanyang belongs to the Five Surnames and Seven Noble Families. They are a prominent and prestigious family and do not meet the three conditions for not accepting them. Therefore, they should be excluded."
Lu Jinghong's excited expression immediately changed.
"It's just entering the Bamboo Hall."
At this moment, the cold-faced Senior Sister Yuan spoke up and said something in his defense:
"The ladies know him. His presence at this assessment is at the behest of those above. Your ladies must have other considerations."
The upright female cultivator pursed her lips and remained silent.
Lu Jinghong immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
At this moment, Uncle Tang, who was presiding over the ceremony on the high platform, spoke up, delivering the final verdict:
"Okay, next one."
"Thank you, senior."
Lu Jinghong solemnly clasped his hands in greeting to his Uncle Tang:
"Thank you, senior!"
He gave a polite greeting, then turned and walked off the stage.
At this moment, Lu Jinghong, whose steps were unconsciously light and unsteady, did not notice the complex and strange gaze that his Uncle Tang, who possessed all the secrets of the fetal bottle, was casting at his back.
The remaining youths lined up one by one, climbed onto the high platform, and underwent the "Immortal's Touch" test from Uncle Tang.
As soon as Lu Jinghong stepped off the platform, he immediately went to Ouyang Rong and Sha Ergou's side.
Pretend to be nonchalant, give a polite fist bump, and greet them casually.
"Brother Liu, Brother Sha, please excuse my poor performance."
Ouyang Rong shook his head: "Young Master Lu has amazing talent, no wonder he comes from a prestigious family."
Lu Jinghong couldn't stop smiling when Liu, who had been the star of the day and had overshadowed him, praised him sincerely.
He had just suppressed a laugh and was about to speak when Sha Ergou's loud voice rang out from the side:
"Making a fool of himself? Isn't Young Master Lu supposed to be a top-quality placenta? He should be very powerful. I saw that everyone was shocked by Young Master Lu. He should be showing off. What is Young Master Lu trying to make a fool of himself? There's no such thing."
He finished speaking with a hint of envy, then muttered to himself:
"I understand now. No wonder that monkey liked to bite Young Master Lu. It's probably because Young Master Lu's placenta is of the highest quality, truly different..."
Lu Jinghong's eyelids twitched as he listened, and he couldn't help but correct her:
"What placenta? It's a placental vial."
Sha Ergou scratched his head: "Oh, oh, 'fetal bottle,' they're pretty much the same thing, hehe, anyway, it's something you're born with, something you bring from your mother's womb..."
Lu Jinghong was somewhat expressionless. Although Sha Ergou's words of envy seemed genuine, something about them sounded strange to him.
It always felt like Sha Ergou was cursing, but as a member of a distinguished scholarly family with generations of officials, he couldn't very well argue with an illiterate brute.
In short, Lu Jinghong felt that talking to Sha Ergou was really difficult. This guy seemed to be specifically targeting him, like a scholar encountering a soldier—he couldn't reason with him.
Judging from this, the slightly dull-looking Brother Liu next to me is more "handsome and refined," making him more comfortable to talk to and get along with. He doesn't overstep any boundaries and is a good person to deal with.
Just as Sha Ergou and Lu Jinghong were exchanging messages across channels, Ouyang Rong turned his gaze toward the high platform.
The senior Uncle Tang was very fast at examining the remaining youths; he could tell them their embryonic stage almost the instant his palm touched their foreheads.
However, the Yue woman behind him, who was responsible for taking notes, was a little slow, and her writing speed was somewhat sluggish...
The test was completed after about an incense stick's time.
Apart from Lu Jinghong, who possesses top-grade Qi refining aptitude equivalent to the 'Jade Bottle', none of the other youths have top-grade aptitude.
However, there are four people in the superior-grade embryo bottle, including Ahong.
There are ten people with mid-grade embryonic bottles, the same level as Ouyang Rong and Sha Ergou.
There are three more teenagers who are a level lower, and they are low-grade embryonic bottles.
However, among the dozen or so teenagers on the field, Ouyang Rong's fake body, with a bone age of nineteen, is the oldest.
In the center of the cave, Senior Sister Yuan ascended the high platform, took the scroll recording the aptitudes of each young boy, put it into her sleeve, politely bowed to Uncle Tang, and said goodbye.
She turned her head and said coldly to the group of teenagers below:
"Silence, follow me."
Senior Sister Yuan led the way towards a passageway on the northwest side of a karst cave.
Those who had finished the second stage followed.
Ouyang Rong glanced at it and saw that it was the passageway that Song Zhian, Yu Mili, and their group of Yue women had entered not long ago.
The assessment of this batch of Zhutang prospective youths was indeed conducted separately and at different times from the assessment of Song, Yu, and the other new Yue women.
Or rather, this batch of Bamboo Hall trainees was only slightly included, and was secondary. For Yunmeng Jianze, the most important and valued task was to select a new batch of Yue women.
Moreover, Ouyang Rong had heard Senior Sister Yuan casually mention this on the way with his companions.
In the past, Bamboo Hall did not accept inexperienced young people like them who were like blank sheets of paper. Those who could enter Bamboo Hall were all talented sword cultivators who came from all over the world and the ten major martial arts sects. They were all swordsmen who were already famous in the martial arts world on the mountain, or top sword cultivators recommended by the direct relatives and guest forces of Yunmeng Sword Swamp at the foot of the mountain.
Those who enter the Bamboo Hall are not distinguished by gender; they simply practice swordsmanship together, allowing talented swordsmen to learn from the strengths of various schools instead of remaining stagnant. This also applies to the Yue women of Yunmeng Sword Marsh.
This was the original intention behind the establishment of Zhutang, so its entry requirements are very strict; it does not accept seedlings or waste.
However, as time went by, Bamboo Hall gradually became a branch of Yunmeng Sword Marsh. Apart from a few ungrateful people and those who turned against each other, the sword cultivators who had studied at Bamboo Hall were all the most loyal to the Yunmeng faction after they went down the mountain and returned home.
The sword cultivators of different ranks in the Bamboo Hall used to assist Jianze in handling matters down the mountain. Even those who had left after removing their plaques would still do things for Jianze... as if they were spreading their influence down the mountain and branching out.
Not long ago, the battle for the Tiannan Jianghu Buddha attracted worldwide attention. The sword cultivators of the Bamboo Hall participated in the battle and had fierce conflicts with the Qi Refining Masters of the Imperial Court on battlefields including the Xingzi Lake Buddha.
The Zhutang swordsmen suffered severe losses.
This time, the female rulers made an exception and allowed the Bamboo Hall to recruit new young talents like them, not to directly register them as Bamboo Hall sword cultivators, but to inherit the mantle of some of the Bamboo Hall sword cultivators who died in battle.
The disciples are accepted by the Yue female sword cultivator or the sword cultivator friend of the sword cultivator who died in battle and is now in the Bamboo Hall.
Because some Bamboo Hall sword cultivators are all alone, without relatives or friends, each person is their own sect, and the sword techniques and mental arts they comprehend are either niche and eccentric, or completely passed down through a single lineage.
If no one inherits their skills after they die in battle, their skills will truly be lost.
This was something the Sword Maidens couldn't bear to see, so they made an exception and recruited these young men, as a way to continue the lineage of the Bamboo Hall sword cultivators who died in battle.
When Ouyang Rong overheard Senior Sister Yuan chatting on the bamboo raft, he raised an eyebrow and suddenly realized that although Miss Zhi Shuang and the others were quite unethical in their dealings with the embroiderers, these women from Yunmeng Yue were quite principled and humane in matters of principle and minor matters.
Furthermore, being among the exceptional group of young people undergoing the Bamboo Hall examination, he also felt a sense of感慨 (gǎnkǎi, mixed feelings):
The battle against the Giant Buddha at Xingzi Lake was the first major battle between the Great Zhou Dynasty and the cultivators of Tiannan Jianghu led by Yunmeng Jianze, and it was also the battle that completely broke off relations.
On that day, the "rebels of Tiannan," including the female ruler Yue Nu and the sword cultivators of Zhutang, ambushed and killed the Buddha's head on Qingyang Heng Street outside Xingzi Lake, resulting in a bloody battle.
Ouyang Rong was not present that day; instead, he was writing poetry in a drunken dream at the Xunyang Restaurant, a hundred miles away. On that day, the people in charge of the great battle on the imperial side were Rong Zhen, Lin Cheng, the Third Young Master Wei, and Wang Lengran.
Later, thanks to this great battle between the two sides, he, who had been "disillusioned and demoted" by the Empress, took advantage of the chaos to reap the heads of Lin, Wei, Wang, and others, and also burned down the Xingzi Lake Buddha, which had cost the people a lot of money and resources...
Later, Ouyang Rong was persuaded to leave the mountain by Rong Zhen and Granny Song as a lifeline. When he went to Xingzi Lake to clean up the mess, he passed through Qingyang Hengjie several times. Ouyang Rong, who was passing by in a hurry, could only smell the strong smell of blood in the air after the Xuanwu Guards and female officials had cleaned up the scene. He did not see with his own eyes the mountain of corpses of the sword cultivator Yue Nu and the armored female officials...
In retrospect, the battle on Qingyang Heng Street was indeed fierce enough. Coupled with the subsequent fighting and manhunts that continued throughout Jiangnan until the battle at Xunyang Grottoes, these rebels from the south suffered heavy losses under the "restriction on Yue women order".
In the latter half, Ouyang Rong serves as the acting governor of Jiangzhou. Although he is a "weak scholar," he oversees the construction of the Donglin Buddha, issues the "restriction order on women from Yue" in accordance with the imperial decree, and also assists the female historian Rong Zhen behind the scenes, acting as her strategist and devising plans...
Well, in the eyes of the rebels in the southern Jianghu, Ouyang Lianghan may not be the ringleader, but he is still an accomplice who makes people grit their teeth.
That is, the Fang sisters' initial attitude towards him.
Ouyang Rong, who currently greatly admires Yunmeng Jianze's initiative to pass on the mantle of the fallen sword cultivator, does not feel guilty or indebted at all.
If the lives of you Yue Nu and the Bamboo Hall sword cultivators are precious, then the lives of the people of Jiangzhou under my rule are not?
Ouyang Rong has a clear conscience regarding these matters of good and evil, gratitude and resentment, right and wrong.
In one's position, one should fulfill one's duties; in one's jurisdiction, one should strive for the well-being of that jurisdiction.
Even when the giant Buddha he personally built became an obstacle to the future safety of the people of Jiangzhou, and a source of chaos and a tool for the extension of the Empress's power, Ouyang Rong could still nod and destroy it without blinking an eye...
While Ouyang Rong was lost in thought, he had already walked with the main group and Senior Sister Yuan through the passageway for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.
As he had expected, the terrain of the passageway sloped upwards as he went further in, seemingly leading to a high point in the mountains.
Like everyone else, Ouyang Rong didn't ask any questions. He walked quietly for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn before finally passing through the passage and standing on a flat area.
Ahead, the colorful sun shines brightly, and a whistling mountain wind blows in your face, bringing the fresh air you haven't had all morning.
The group of teenagers, panting and supporting themselves on their knees, watched as Ouyang Rong pretended to wipe his sweat and looked ahead. They had arrived at one of the exits of the cave.
The cave entrance is huge, with blue sky and white clouds outside, and a mirror-like lake in the distance.
From their perspective, there seemed to be no path outside the cave entrance; it appeared to be suspended in mid-air, with a cliff below.
At this moment, at the edge of the cave entrance, eight Yue women and some familiar young girls were standing.
Every now and then, several young girls would be led out of the cave by the Yue woman and disappear from sight.
"Brother Liu."
Just then, Yu Xiaoniangzi's voice came.
Ouyang Rong, Sha Ergou, and Lu Jinghong turned to look, and sure enough, it was her.
Song Zhian also stood beside Yu Xiaoniangzi, staring blankly at the cave entrance, as if she hadn't seen them. Only Yu Xiaoniangzi, who was looking around and secretly eating, had her eyes looking back at the back of her head.
This group of new girls was closer to the cave entrance, and it's unclear what they were looking at outside.
While Senior Sister Yuan went to chat with her companions, Lu Jinghong immediately went over, and Ouyang Rong and Sha Ergou followed in tacit agreement.
As Ouyang Rong approached the cave entrance, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the area outside the cave was not entirely a sheer cliff, nor was it a dead end. There was another path to take: a rugged mountain path, like a graceful serpent, extended along the right side of the cave entrance, climbing higher and higher, though he didn't know if it was the top of the cliff.
Soon, the five-person team reunited.
Miss Yu asked curiously:
"Brother Liu, did you pass the second test?"
Before Lu Jinghong could speak, Sha Ergou laughed:
"It's just touching a head, not as hard as the first challenge yesterday. By the way, what are you waiting for? Is the third challenge here? Haha, you're not going to jump down, are you...?"
Song Zhian withdrew her gaze from outside the cave and gently shook her head, saying:
"The third test is up there. We arrived late and will be in the last batch. The senior sisters told us to wait here. Most of the girls have already gone up for the test. I wonder how it went."
"I heard from my senior sisters that the third trial takes place in a place called the Hall of Mental Cultivation, which is located on this cliff. The third trial seems to be more difficult than the first two, and it takes even longer than the first. There's a limit to the number of people who can go up each time; they have to come in small groups..."
The pretty young woman pointed to the top of her head, her expression serious, and continued:
"A senior sister said that this place used to be a forbidden area, and no one was allowed to enter except for the Queen or those who had been specially permitted to break through their mental state... According to custom, it is opened once every few years, presided over by the Queens, specifically for the third stage of the new Yue Maiden's assessment. However, this time, the First Queen suddenly went into seclusion, and the Second Queen had something come up and neither of them came. It seems that the Sixth Queen is presiding over it..."
Upon hearing this, Ouyang Rong, who was standing behind the four, had a slight glint in his eyes.
He looked up at the cave ceiling and murmured softly:
"The Hall of Mental Cultivation..."
(End of this chapter)
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