Translator: GodBrandy Editor: Kurisu
But, when he raised his head, Song Shuhang discovered that Senior White Two was resting his chin in his hand, looking curiously at the characters he had written. “What did you write? Is that the new language that humans use?”
“…” Song Shuhang.
Well, that was rather awkward. From the looks of it, Senior White Two couldn’t read simplified Chinese characters…
Song Shuhang placed down his writing brush, and a sad look appeared on his face. If the opposite party couldn’t understand what he was writing, there was no point in writing that sentence!
He had even tried to use the secret sound transmission to communicate while in this special space, but it was all useless. From the looks of it, it had been disabled in order to prevent the examinees from cheating during the test.
“Hehe, have you given up already?” Senior White Two floated midair and laughed complacently.
Song Shuhang rolled his eyes.
Sometimes, it was better to help oneself rather than seek help from others. As such, Song Shuhang rubbed his eyes and prepared himself. The five minutes would be soon up, and the walls surrounding him would lower again.
Later, that dignified voice echoed again and repeated the same lines as before.
Song Shuhang quickly turned his head around, and looked with rapt attention at Su Wenqu’s test paper, comparing the content of the paper with the version of the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯ he had memorized.
Ten breaths later…
Dammit!
Song Shuhang grabbed the table once more and tried to flip it… however, it was still useless. Just as before, the table didn’t move.
It turned out that there wasn’t any mistake! He had relied on his powerful memory and transcribed the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯ written on Su Wenqu’s test paper without omitting a single character or stroke!
There were some characters that had tilde-like strokes, and Song Shuhang had carefully copied them as well, without omitting anything.
In other words, there was absolutely no difference between the version of the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯ he wrote on his test paper and the one Su Wenqu had written earlier. Such being the case… why was he unable to pass the test?
Was it possible that he had to silently chant in his mind the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯ while he was writing it down? But, he couldn’t even understand the meaning of the characters, how could he read it!
Twenty breaths quickly passed.
“Rumble, rumble, rumble~” The walls rose from the ground once again, mercilessly isolating Song Shuhang from the rest of the world.
Song Shuhang looked at Senior White Two, who was floating midair. At this time, he was ‘lying down’ on his side, seemingly asleep.
Song Shuhang stretched out his brush and poked Senior White Two.
Senior White Two opened his eyes and looked at him in puzzlement.
Song Shuhang pointed at his mouth and requested to be unmuted.
Senior White Two yawned, and said lazily, “Hehe, if you swear not to say those words again, I’ll unmute you.”
Song Shuhang nodded his head repeatedly.
Senior White Two stretched out his finger and pointed it at Song Shuhang, unmuting him.
Song Shuhang immediately said, “Senior White Two, let’s make a transaction!”
“Hehe.” Senior White Two laughed smugly. However, he started to ponder immediately after, and asked, “What’s the deal with this ‘ Senior White Rabbit1 ‘ thing?
“…” Song Shuhang clenched his teeth, and said, “My tongue just slipped, you don’t need to pay attention to it.”
Senior White Two faintly smiled, and nodded his head.
“Senior White, I can tell you some information about the current world if you wish. How about I reply to two of your questions if you help me pass this test?” Song Shuhang proposed.
Since he had been unable to pass this test by relying on his own skills, he could only ask for help to Senior White Two.
“Two questions? Deal.” Senior White Two stretched himself and sat up. “In that case, here is the first question… has the Heavenly City been destroyed already?”
Song Shuhang thought that Senior White Two would ask him information about ‘Venerable White’. He didn’t expect that he would ask him about the Heavenly City.
Luckily, he knew some information about the Heavenly City.
Song Shuhang nodded his head, and said, “Yes, the Heavenly City has been destroyed already.”
“As expected… sigh, it was destroyed really quickly,” Senior White Two muttered to himself. After a short moment, he asked another question. “Here is the second question… hmm, you are rather weak though, so I’m not sure if you know about this matter. Anyway, did the ‘Wielder… of the Will’ have some problems?”
Senior White Two paused a bit while mentioning the ‘Wielder of the Will’. One could pause for a moment, adding a moment of silence in between their words while mentioning the ‘Wielder of the Will’, or add some other random words in the middle so as to avoid getting discovered.
“I don’t know about this matter.” Song Shuhang shook his head. He was just a small cultivator of the Third Stage Realm, what could he possibly know about something as abstruse as the Will of the Heavens!
“Forget it. Let’s keep this question for the next deal. I’ll ask you this question at that time.” Senior White Two sighed, and then asked, “In that case, I’ll change the question~ you already transcended the tribulation of the Second Stage, right? How many waves of lightning of tribulation did you encounter?”
Senior White Two’s thinking mode was simply too bizarre. Now, he had unexpectedly asked something about him.
“Eleven waves,” Song Shuhang replied truthfully. After all, it wasn’t really a secret or anything.
Senior White Two held his chin, and nodded his head with a pensive look on his face.
Next, he asked, “Alright, the transaction is complete. Start writing down the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯. I’ll take a look at it.”
Song Shuhang suggested, “There isn’t much time left before the test ends. Shouldn’t I wait for the next round?”
Senior White Two replied, “No need. You can start writing immediately, and I’ll check if there is any problem with that you are writing.”
“That works too.” Song Shuhang nodded his head and started to write on the paper.
He drew all the content of Su Wenqu’s version of the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯ on the paper by relying on his memory, not omitting any character or stroke.
Just as Shuhang was writing, Senior White Two suddenly pointed at the tilde-like stroke of the ancient character he had just written, and said, “This character is wrong. This stroke should be horizontal (—). Why are you drawing wavy lines (~) instead?”
“Ah?” Song Shuhang blinked his eyes. That stroke had to horizontal?
What horizontal stroke! From what he remembered, when Su Wenqu wrote that character, the stroke looked like a tilde!
Since he was afraid of making mistakes, Song Shuhang copied even those tilde-like strokes when he was writing down characters like this one. But little did he expect that this was precisely the mistake he was making!
Song Shuhang had now understood the pain of illiterate people. Sometimes, it was really painful not being able to recognize characters.
“It must be due to the habit of that person that wrote the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯. Perhaps he practiced calligraphy, and unconsciously used that handwriting style while writing the text,” Senior White Two guessed. “He didn’t make mistakes while writing his version, but when you copied it, you stressed too much the angle of these tilde-like strokes that should have been originally horizontal. Therefore, the character was recognized as an incorrect.”
Song Shuhang: ?
“Aside from these horizontal strokes becoming tildes, there are several other similar mistakes,” Senior White Two explained.
At this time, Song Shuhang really wanted to hang himself.
Brother Su, why you do this to me!
“Forget it, just give me the brush. I also happen to know this ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯, and I can write it down for you so that you can memorize it.” Senior White Two stretched out his hand, and took the writing brush from Song Shuhang’s hand.
Next, he held the writing brush between his long and slender fingers, his posture extremely elegant and pleasing to the eye.
Then, he started to write very quickly. In around ten seconds, a complete version of the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯ had appeared on the paper in front of Song Shuhang.
“Good. Now, memorize it again,” Senior White Two said.
Song Shuhang didn’t waste time, and tried his best to memorize the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯ again, revising the wrong characters he had memorized earlier.
Speaking of which, Senior White Two has already written the complete version of the prose poetry on my paper. In that case, will I automatically pass the test once the five minutes have passed? Song Shuhang thought to himself.
After the five minutes were over…
The walls lowered and disappeared into the ground.
That dignified voice echoed again, stating that those that had passed the test could leave this place while those that had failed would have to take it again in twenty breaths.
Song Shuhang gave it a try and shouted, “Please, deliver me out of this place.”
…But nothing happened.
As expected, that space didn’t accept this blatant cheating, and the version of the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯ that Senior White Two wrote in his stead wasn’t recognized.
“This place really likes to follow the rules.” Song Shuhang clenched his teeth.
Then, just in this fashion, another twenty breaths passed.
❄️❄️❄️
The walls rose from the ground again.
Senior White Two had already retreated inside his sleeping bag, and was soundly sleeping.
As for Song Shuhang, he took the brush in hand and started to write the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯ again.
Three minutes later…
Song Shuhang heaved a sigh of relief, and put the brush in his hand down.
This time, everything should be fine, right? He didn’t make any mistake while writing this time.
Then, just as he placed the brush down, he felt as though he had been ‘enlightened’.
The content of the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯ written on the paper fused with his mind, turning into ‘simplified Chinese characters’ that Song Shuhang could comprehend.
Was it possible that as long as one wrote down the prose poetry correctly, it would automatically gain the translation feature?
Just as he was in deep thoughts, Song Shuhang felt his mental energy condense. The huge amount of mental energy he possessed had become somewhat easier to control and had condensed and solidified a little.
Was this the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯ influencing his body? It was the same as a ‘meditation technique’. No, its effects were even more wondrous.
After his mental energy transformed, the special space lifted the restrictions it had applied to him. Now, he felt that he could leave this place with just a thought.
So that’s how it was. From the looks of it, after one had transformed their mental energy through the ❮Self-Cultivating Prose Poetry of the Sage❯, they would finally conform to the standards of this special space.
Song Shuhang said happily, “Senior White, it was a success!”
“Hmm~” Senior White Two mumbled.
“Senior White, in that case, I’ll leave this place first. The other Senior White is still waiting for my return,” Song Shuhang said joyfully.
“Hmm, bye.” Senior White Two waved his hand.
Song Shuhang laughed and silently chanted the word ‘leave’. In the next moment, he finally left this damnable ‘infinite make-up test space’.
After Song Shuhang disappeared, Senior White Two silently gazed at Daozi’s statue.
“The thirteen Tribulation Transcenders disciple of the Sage… Daozi,” Senior White Two said in a soft voice.
The far-off statue gently shone, just as though it was answering to Senior White Two.
“Anyway, it seems that other ‘Senior White’ that Song Shuhang mentioned is now in the territory of the scholars…” Senior White Two said softly.
❄️❄️❄️
Song Shuhang’s consciousness finally returned to the real world.
In the next moment, he discovered that he was lying in bed. In the meanwhile, an exquisite writing brush had appeared in his hand.
At the side of the bed, Su Clan’s Sixteen was wearing black-framed glasses, reading a book.
