Chapter 1366

To avoid affecting the progress of the competition, Huoerde gave a slight reminder to Lin Cheng's family on the side. Yet Valkyrie Ailin and Miss Qianhui still went on snatching sovereignty over Lin Cheng as they pleased.

"Ahem, ahem." Huoerde deliberately made his cough louder.

This time, he was actually heard.

"Old man, are you having an attack?" Little Red turned her head and glanced at him, not paying much attention, then said, "Cut the crap, you keep your distance too, so you don't infect my master."

"Ugh…" Chairman Huoerde nearly choked on a single breath, almost unable to recover from Little Red's retort.

"Do spirit pets nowadays all show no respect for the old and the young like you?"

Chairman Huoerde really wanted to ask that question, but he was afraid that once he asked, this spirit pet's age would turn out to be older than his own.

That would be terribly awkward, so he chose to shut his mouth.

Switching tactics, he cast a meaningful glance at Lin Cheng from time to time, hoping he would notice. Whether Lin Cheng noticed was unknown, but Miss Qianhui did notice, and shot back a sharp glare.

"Old man, is your eyesight not so good? You keep glancing our way—is that a lack of respect for your age?"

"Uh, no I'm not, I didn't, don't talk nonsense."

Chairman Huoerde was feeling miserable inside, clutching his chest. Wasn't he just trying to remind Lin Cheng to mind his personal and family image?"

How did he end up getting retorted twice in a row, crying with no tears.

Fortunately, that elf seemed to know her manners.

"I also suspect there's something off about this old man—the way he stares at us is so blatant… Lin Cheng, let me swap seats with you." Valkyrie Ailin hesitated for a moment, but still brought it up with Lin Cheng on her own initiative.

"Alright then."

Lin Cheng gave Chairman Huoerde a look full of question marks, his eyes brimming with incomprehension and confusion, then swapped seats with Valkyrie Ailin.

Big eyes stared at small eyes.

"Chairman, could it be that you…"

"Could it be my head."

Chairman Huoerde was so angry his white beard trembled; had he not restrained himself, he probably would have coughed up blood from rage.

The young people nowadays truly have no manners at all.

"Lin Cheng, mind your image! You cannot act like your family members and make a scene."

"You're the one making a scene, your whole family makes a scene!"

Before Lin Cheng could answer, the three women retorted in unison.

Huoerde's eyes went dark, his head tilted to one side, and he fainted from anger on the spot.

Lin Cheng was completely dumbfounded—how could a perfectly fine person suddenly collapse like that?

"Oh no, Chairman, what's wrong with you?"

"Someone come! The Chairman seems to have had an attack and fainted."

"Elder Zhai, have your son come and take a look at the Chairman."

Chairman Huoerde, who had fainted from an unknown cause, was urgently carried away by Doctor Zhai, Elder Zhai's son who had been summoned, along with others, and sent to the medical hall.

Lin Cheng was still present at the scene, so the competition had to continue.

Once the commotion ended, Lin Cheng announced that the competition would proceed.

In just that short while, the incident caused by the two big shots had made quite a few forgers look up and watch, causing their equipment inscription to fail; some forgers even abandoned the competition just to step forward and check on Chairman Huoerde's health.

These people's results were naturally counted as failures without question. It was not that Lin Cheng was heartless—the rules of the competition dictated this: contestants had to complete the maximum number of inscriptions on their equipment within the allotted time. The moment they chose to do something else mid-way and put down the equipment in their hands, it was equivalent to forfeiting the competition.

Between legal principle and human principle, a choice had to be made; once human principle was chosen, the fairness of legal principle would inevitably be lost........

Many people did not understand—forgers should be united with one another, so why did Lin Cheng not give them another chance; some people expressed understanding, saying that giving them one more retry would be unfair to those still competing.

It would be unfair to those still in the competition.

The choice lay with oneself—to abide by the rules, or to choose common human sentiment.

No matter what everyone thought, the fact was that out of the several hundred people in the preliminary round on site, nearly a third had dropped out in an instant. When the preliminary round ended and all the statistics came out, the highest inscription count actually reached an eight-layer inscription, surpassing Lin Cheng's record at the Zaoshigong Society. Although there was only one such person, it proved that the other's ability was extraordinary.

Although Lin Cheng had not gone all out back then, this fellow was almost certainly going to be the champion. When Lin Cheng looked over, the other party was still wearing a mask, looking insufferably smug—who exactly was it?

Oh, quite the cocky one, huh.

On the surface, Lin Cheng's inscription record at the Zaoshigong Society was only seven layers, but in reality he had long since broken past a hundred.

But he said nothing, letting others guess what his true strength had actually reached.

If a level-eight forger truly only had seven-layer enchantment inscriptions, how could he have forged the legendary spirit weapon? Wouldn't that also prove that a forger who produced eight-layer enchantments in the competition could also become a level-eight forger?

How could the grading of a forger's rank possibly be judged based on a single enchantment inscription?

Only one person achieved eight-layer inscriptions, but dozens achieved seven-layer inscriptions, and nearly a hundred achieved six-layer inscriptions. These figures were far better than those of the Zaoshigong Society in the past—it was simply a historic new high..