Chapter 365: 338 Arrival

Tang Zhao was startled. He examined the other person carefully and asked curiously, "Who might you be?"

The youth was indeed very handsome, and there was a certain nobility between his brows. He looked like someone raised in luxury. In terms of age, he was a few years older than Tang Zhao, but still only in his early twenties. His face was definitely one Tang Zhao had never seen before; there wasn't even a hint of familiarity.

Yet, the way he spoke was full of the "Why did you only just arrive?" vibe of an old acquaintance.

He likely sensed his own abruptness, gave an awkward smile, and said, "Apologies, I was being abrupt. I am Li Cheng from Moyun City. I am just passing through on a small matter, and I am leaving after a brief rest..."

Li Lei sneered, "Do you know who we are? We are the garrison of Moyun City. This is our Sword Guest Captain. You are clearly from out of town, yet you dare to spout nonsense. Do you not know the severity of Qianjin City?"

That "Li Cheng" turned slightly pale upon hearing "garrison," and upon hearing the words "Sword Guest," he showed a look of disappointment. He sighed, shook his head slowly, and said, "So you are a Sword Guest of Qianjin City. My apologies for the rudeness."

Although he was disappointed, he did not show panic, clearly not fearing Sword Guests too much.

Tang Zhao said, "No matter. When traveling, strangers are strangers; being cautious is not a matter of rudeness. However, as we are the Town Guardians of this area, it is not rude for us to ask a secretive person like you to leave Moyun City and its surrounding vicinity."

"Li Cheng" hurriedly said, "Wait, please don't drive me away. I am not a bad person, I am..."

He paused, and Li Lei stepped forward, glaring at him in intimidation.

He had no choice but to sigh and say, "Forgive my rudeness. My surname is Ding, Ding Xu, the 'Xu' as in 'lifelike.' I come from the Xuanming Archipelago in the south."

Li Lei's expression turned cold. The Xuanming Archipelago was also one of the Six Great Factions, but it was not a local force; it had drifted from another distant Suiyu and had always been at odds with the major local factions. Generally, one had to be vigilant whenever the Xuanming Archipelago was mentioned, let alone this secretive person.

Ding Xu said, "I am just an ordinary Disciple of Xuanming Island. I was ordered to pass through Moyun City to deliver a letter to the Fire of All Stars, but I unexpectedly provoked... a female Sword Guest of the Fire of All Stars. She saw that I was handsome and wanted to make me her boy toy. I refused, so she chased and killed me all the way here. I used a Dharma Artifact as a trump card to escape, stumbling and fleeing to the mountains. I dared not go to Moyun City, nor could I return home, so I had to hide in this remote place."

Tang Zhao listened, half-believing. He could only say that this explanation generally made sense. The Fire of All Stars was also one of the Six Great Factions, but it was the most mixed and chaotic one. In the parlance of those stories, it was a "Loose Practitioner" faction.

Those Jianghu people and Loose Practitioners without sects or factions, if they wanted to go to the Qianxian to fight for a chance and reap some benefits, usually would not go through Qianjin City, but rather to the Fire of All Stars. Many Sword Guests who had committed crimes or provoked enemies would also settle in the Fire of All Stars. Over time, it had become a lawless place.

If one were to count the number of Sword Guests, perhaps the Fire of All Stars had the most, but their strength was mixed and impure, failing to be fully utilized, and they were a notch below other factions.

The key was that no one could say how many Sword Guests were in the Fire of All Stars. Perhaps there really were one or two female Sword Guests who loved handsome men and wanted to hunt for beauty?

Wait, if that were the case...

Tang Zhao smiled and asked, "You just said that seeing me was like seeing a savior. What did you mean by that?"

Li Lei realized what was happening and shouted, "You see that our Sword Guest Tang is better looking than you, so you want him to take the blame for you, right? Your intentions are truly sinister! And you still say you aren't an evil follower?"

Ding Xu was flustered and waved his hands repeatedly, saying, "No, no. Sigh, they don't kidnap Sword Guests. Sword Guest Tang is young and promising; even if I met her, I would only need to unsheathe my sword, and it would definitely be fine. Only I would suffer, so I hope you all will keep it a secret for me."

Wasn't this still trying to get someone to take the blame? It was just that it wouldn't work.

Tang Zhao was also quite displeased and said, "We naturally won't tell outsiders about your whereabouts, but this is a villager's home. They are all honest, good people, and it is not suitable for you to stay. Why not move along and go somewhere else?"

Ding Xu said, "I'm doing quite well here..." But seeing Li Lei had already drawn his blade and stepped forward, and Tang Zhao, a proper Sword Guest, was staring at him, he had no choice but to say unwillingly, "Can I disguise myself?"

The disguise Ding Xu claimed to have was, compared to the danger, at most just smearing some dirt on his face, which at most would make it hard for people to see what he looked like. Tang Zhao waited patiently for a while, and seeing he couldn't come up with any tricks, he simply took him away.

This uninvited guest was just a small interlude. Tang Zhao had no intention of intervening in his grievances with some female Sword Guest. It was just that the timing was wrong, and he couldn't stay here, so he would just move him to another place to keep him under watch so as not to delay the exam.

It was just that where to detain him took a little thought. Obviously, he couldn't be kept in the main camp. In two days, there would be no one in the main camp, and Tang Zhao would be out proctoring the exam; wouldn't that let him walk around as he pleased? What if he ran around the exam site and bewitched some student into taking the fall for him? Among the examinees, there were not a few handsome youths who surpassed him.

Tang Zhao immediately stuffed him into the "bandit" den, had the "bandit" soldiers watch him, and gave him the role of a hostage. He instructed him to work hard and play the role of the meat-hostage well, and after it was over, he would naturally arrange for him to go to another safe place to avoid the limelight.

Anyway, this was an exam site, and no one was allowed to trespass. If a female Sword Guest chasing him really broke in, she would be swept out all the same.

That Ding Xu was quite sensible; he honestly entered the "bandit den" and waited to be "rescued."

After arranging this small accident, Tang Zhao inspected the exam site again, confirmed that the surrounding Array was completely sealed, and returned to the main camp to sit in command.

Two days passed. Tang Zhao saw with his own eyes the Beast Charm taming the Fierce Beast it wanted, saw the Puppet Charm reclaiming a "puppet army," saw the Fighting Charm reshaping its body with the flesh and blood of Fierce Beasts, and saw a "Beast King" emerge among the Fierce Beasts...

It could be said that the entire exam site was filled with an atmosphere of "vibrant vitality, with all things competing to flourish."

It seemed this exam was quite a lot of fun.

Tang Zhao felt a little bit of anticipation.

By the morning of the third day, two fast horses galloped side by side from the mouth of the valley.

On the horses were a man and a woman, both seventeen or eighteen years old. Both were wearing campaign robes, and although they were full of exhaustion and wind-blown, their Spirit was very good.

"This is the last two stages. If we rush through, we reach the finish line. Brother Ouyang, we are definitely the first," the woman said with a smile.

Ouyang Zhou was not good with words; he only nodded on his horse and added, "It was clear from the front that each stage is harder than the last. This stage will definitely be even harder. Yu Guniang, we must not let our guard down."

The woman had a delicate and pure appearance. As she smiled slightly, shallow dimples appeared, and her black hair was tied behind her head, fluttering in the wind. Although the campaign robe on her was simple in style, it looked very elegant. She said, "With Brother Ouyang here, I am not afraid of any danger."

Ouyang Zhou raised his head slightly, rarely showing a bit of high-spiritedness.

"So fast?"

From afar, Tang Zhao had already noticed them. These students had arrived a whole day earlier than he had thought.

It seemed the students were even more outstanding than he had imagined.

Especially since there were his own students among the first to arrive, he was even happier.

Once the information gap of the sneak attack was leveled, his students were indeed more outstanding.

"But this kid Ouyang Zhou, why has he changed his personality? Who is this girl?"

Tang Zhao had always known that Ouyang Zhou had a lot of pride in his bones. Although he was not a handsome man, he was clean-cut and neat, and with his outstanding grades that stood out from the rest, he was still quite charming. In fact, there was no lack of girls in the Training Camp who admired him, including some quite excellent ones, but he hadn't looked at any of them.

How did he start exuding the sour smell of love after only a few days?

This girl... Tang Zhao didn't recognize her. She must be from another department, most likely the Jing'an Division.

The Jing'an Division not only had many handsome men and beautiful women, but they also had outstanding methods and had received professional training. It probably wasn't difficult to capture a student like Ouyang Zhou who hadn't seen much of the world.

This wasn't very good. If his own student was deceived by an outsider...

Tang Zhao frowned slightly, then immediately found it funny: I'm too nervous. Seventeen or eighteen-year-old boys and girls, about to graduate, all of them are talents who can stand on their own. Are their romantic affairs also under my jurisdiction?

If this girl really had bad intentions, she was just here to ride the coattails of the exam. Once the exam was over, she would leave, so it shouldn't matter. As for Ouyang, let him suffer a bit of heartbreak. This kind of fleeting heartbreak wasn't very deep, but it could teach him a lesson.

And from what he could see, this girl wasn't purely riding Ouyang Zhou's coattails. Ouyang Zhou's strength was indeed outstanding, but not so outstanding that he could ride roughshod while carrying this dead weight. Neither of their strengths would be bad; perhaps it was a strong alliance. That might even be considered a beautiful story.

Both of them only rode one horse each and didn't bring other horses behind them, but they were carrying more than one type of Art Tool on their backs, clearly having gained a lot from doing missions along the way. Seeing them looking so relaxed, they must have found their own horses.

In this way, they didn't need to ambush anyone, nor did they need more strategies; they just kept moving forward. The road ahead was flat, and barring any accidents, this would be first place.

... Still, be a bit more cautious. He who travels a hundred miles finds the halfway point at ninety; celebrating early never ends well.

Seeing Ouyang Zhou and that Yu Guniang go together toward a Fierce Beast valley ahead, Tang Zhao analyzed their path. They would probably encounter the cliffs of Red Stone Village, an ambitious Beast Charm, and a nest of bandits. They might even be able to do a hostage rescue mission; the difficulty was considered moderate. With their strength in the lead, he assumed it would be fine.

After these two passed, it took half a day for the first group of students to catch up one after another. Among them were Qin Yongcheng and Wen Caifei, whom Tang Zhao cared about, several squads from the Central Army, and the elites from the Jing'an Division and the Prison-Suppressing Division. Qu Huan, however, was not particularly far ahead; perhaps leading a team was not easy, and he hadn't been able to seize the initiative.

Tang Zhao observed with great interest, not paying particular attention to anyone; regardless of who made rapid progress or who encountered trouble, as long as it didn't turn the world upside down, Tang Zhao remained firmly seated on the fishing platform.

For instance, on the second day, some students encountered trouble.