These attendants were fawning over him like he was the best thing since sliced bread. And the youth was eating it up with a smug expression like it was ambrosia.
All sorts of praise flew into this youth’s ears nonstop, and it seemed to make his chest puffed out higher.
While walking on the path, anyone who didn’t walk ten feet apart from him, the attendants fawning expressions would turn savage, and use the wooden bamboo sticks in their hands to ruthlessly beat that unsuspecting person.
After leaving those people beaten to a pulp, their savage expressions would turn to smiles as they looked back at the youth. As if they were saying, ‘look, look, young master, I served you well!’
The youth didn’t even show concern that his attendants were going around beating people on the Sword Pavilion mountain. Even though most of these disciples were worker disciples, they were disciples nonetheless.
“Oh my god, it’s Fuangu! He’s going around assaulting us worker disciples again!”
“How can he be so shameless?! Just because he’s the grandson of the 7th Elder he thinks he owns the sky and earth.”
“Hey let's turn around, I don’t want to walk past him and get targeted.”
“Yeah, he’s cruel and shameless, but we can’t go against him.”
Suddenly the path Xi Shen was walking on was clear of disciples.
Fuangu smirked at seeing this but his expression changed when he saw Xi Shen still walking on the path.
“Ugh!”
Fuangu let out a disgusted sound, and his face scrunched up like a crumple-up paper as if he had smelt the most horrendous scent in this world.
Looking at Xi Shen’s plain attire and his bare feet, he used one of his wide glittering golden sleeves to delicately cover the lower half of his face before he pointed at Xi Shen and said, “Oh my god, why is there a child beggar here? Who the hell brought this foul wretch onto the Sword Pavilion?! He must be lost, how pitiful, someone grab him and throw him off the mountain.”
“Yes, young master!”
His attendants seeing a chance to suck up to him more shouted and then eagerly rush towards Xi Shen.
“Who is that kid? He’s so dead.”
“Look, I think those are the Inner Academy’s robes, why is an Inner Disciple here? And he caught the ire of Fuangu you, how unlucky can he be?”
“Poor kid, he won’t live to see good tomorrow.”
A bunch of disciples in the area said as they witnessed this scene.
The four attendants stepped in front of Xi Shen and blocked his path.
“Huh?”
Xi Shen who still had his head down in thought saw four pairs of feet in front of him. Looking up to see these four people in front of him, Xi Shen wore a confused expression.
“Can I help you, senior brothers?”
“Kid, don’t blame us.”
“Yeah, blame the fact that you were stupid enough to be here.”
“...Huh?” Xi Shen said even more confused.
He didn’t understand what was going on, or what these people were talking about. He looked around and he saw that disciples were crowding up some distance away looking in this direction. He also saw the arrogant-looking youth covering his face.
‘Just what the hell is going on...’
While Xi Shen was asking himself that, one of the four youths raised his bamboo stick and swung it at Xi Shen's back.
In his eyes was excitement.
He himself was a worker disciple and didn’t amount to much, but because he was following Fuangu, he gained the ability to beat disciples higher in rank than him and not receive any backlash from it. It was like a dream job, and all he had to do was suck up to some spoil dumb-ass.
As he was anticipating the feeling of his stick whipping across Xi Shen’s back, that attendant was taken aback when Xi Shen suddenly twisted out of the way, causing him to stumble forward.
It was the first time someone dare dodge him.
“The hell are you attacking me all of sudden?”
Xi Shen said as he glared at the person who quickly recovered his posture.
The youth didn’t answer Xi Shen's question, but instead only began laughing slowly with a half angry expression.
“Ha..haha..hahaha! You actually dodge my attack, and here I was going to go easy on you.”
“What, should I have stood still and allowed you to hit me?” Xi Shen asked with a rather dumbfounded expression.
“You're going to wish you had, GET HIM!!”
The attendant shouted at the others, and they all rush to gang up on Xi Shen.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on but you attack me first.”
As Xi Shen said that, he dodged the bamboo stick of one of the attendants before grabbing his hand and easily yanking it away from him.
"Huh?" It was their time to be confused.
With an audible swoosh, the bamboo stick in Xi Shen's hand transformed into a flexible whip that struck all four of them across the face.
Four loud smacks and wretched screams echoed out into everyone's ears, before they saw four bodies flying into the air and landing on the ground with loud thuds.
Xi Shen frowned as he looked at these disciples, their cultivations haven’t reached the Foundation Realm so it was rather easy for him to beat them.
“Bastard! What are you doing to my men?! Do you know who I am?!”
The arrogant-looking youth pointed and shouted furiously at Xi Shen.
“No, am I supposed to know?”
Xi Shen asked as he casually toss the bamboo stick behind him.
He was starting to realize what was going on with this situation.
Xi Shen's experiences within the Academy so far were different from normal disciples given his identity. He hadn’t really interacted with people like this youth before.
“My grandfather is one of the Elders of the Sword Pavilion in the Conclave Academy! If you don’t kneel down and kowtow to me then I’ll make you suffer!”
Yup, it’s like Xi Shen had thought. This youth who looked around his mid-teens was some of a high in status in the Academy. Else he wouldn't be qualified to be Conclave Disciple.
Within the Celestial Academy or just any cultivation institution in general, you have two types of disciples.
Disciples who weren’t born into affluent backgrounds, and usually focus on cultivation for the purpose of gaining strength to achieve their goals, which are either to gain wealth or power. And there’s the second type of disciples, who are born into power and only view cultivation as an accessory as well their status, which they focus more on to flaunt around than actually cultivating.
Now, these aren’t the only types of disciples but they are two ends of a spectrum that anyone can be categorized in.
Disciples like Fei Yin and Fang Chen were on the far end of the first spectrum. And these are the people Xi Shen was mostly seeing and interacting with up until now.
Now this youth in front of him, he’s one of the people who were on the far end of the second spectrum. No, actually, from the lines he just uttered, Xi Shen speculated that he was so far on that spectrum that he might as well be at the start of it if it was flipped around.
All the ones on the second spectrum originated from him. He was the one true Ancestor of all the young masters, the arrogant debauchee ones, the everyone-needs-to submit to my status ones, the I-can’t-see-mount-tai ones, and the fear-the-strong-bully-the-weak ones.
He was just a bundle of them wrapped into one.
Well, to be fair, even with Xi Shen being the second prince he wasn’t recognizable to everyone. After all, it wasn’t like there was a portrait of him that was hung everywhere for people to see. The Disciple Selection Ceremony was actually the first time most people outside of the Imperial Palace saw his face.
However, Xi Shen smiled.
He wasn’t unfamiliar with dealing with this type of mentality exclusive to this era. He had first encountered it when he met the Weasel Legion in the Imperial Palace back then.
To solve this situation he could, emphasis on the word could, reveal his identity and then watch this person’s soul leave his body when he realized he had told the Emperor’s son to kneel and kowtow to him.
But where’s the fun in that?
Why not dig a bigger hole for him?
With a smile still on his face, Xi Shen said, “My father wouldn’t approve of me doing such things, maybe you should…”
“Bah! Shut the hell up, do I look like I care what your dog of a father thinks?! This piece of shit, get on your knees and grovel or else I’ll make you suffer!”
Xi Shen’s smile became wider.
Updat𝓮d from freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.co(m)