As night fell and the day was coming to an end, Wei Xu put away the book and walked alone along the lakeside. Just like when he came, he looked like an ordinary scholar.
Xie Nandu thought for a moment and also walked along the lakeside. She stood by the lake for a long time, listening to Wei Xu's lesson. Although there were students passing by the lakeside from time to time, no one could see her thanks to Wei Xu's technique. Now that Wei Xu had left, the students by the lake finally noticed her.
The current Xie Nandu was already famous in the academy. The legend of this Xie Family's girl had been circulating in the academy for a long time, but because she hardly ever left that small courtyard, the students in the academy also found it difficult to see her. At this moment, having met by the lakeside, they naturally took a few more looks at her.
However, regardless of gender, no one at the lakeside took the initiative to walk up to Xie Nandu and greet her. It was not because her title as the disciple of the academy's dean was too great, but because of her friend who had caused quite a stir in the academy a few days ago, which caused this academy's students to have some complex emotions towards this girl. When they met at this moment, naturally no one would say anything.
She walked along the lakeside and finally passed through many study rooms. Many students stopped to look at her after seeing her.
It was not until she was almost reaching the library that someone stopped in their tracks as they passed by Xie Nandu, wanting to speak but swallowing the words back.
Just as the person hesitated, Xie Nandu already took a step forward and the distance between the two grew.
"Miss Xie!"
The person gathered their courage to speak, but received no response. They gritted their teeth and hurriedly left without saying another word.
Xie Nandu soon arrived at the entrance of the library, but someone was standing in front of the door. It was precisely Xia Yuan, the young man who had almost fought with Chen Chao by the lake a few days ago.
That night at the banquet, this young man from the Xia Family had almost no presence. All of the limelight was stolen by that young man. After returning to the academy, he had not done anything, nor had he visited the small courtyard by the lake again.
Today, they met by chance in front of the library. Xia Yuan looked at the young girl in front of him with a complicated expression. Back then, the Xia Family wanted to seek marriage for him with this young girl, but he rejected it himself in the end. After the imperial banquet that night, Xia Yuan's thoughts had changed somewhat. But in the end, Xie Nandu's actions towards Chen Chao made it very easy for others to give up hope.
The two of them met in front of the library and Xia Yuan took the initiative to call out, "Junior Sister Xie."
Although Xie Nandu was the dean's disciple, they were all students of the academy, so calling her junior sister based on age was not a problem.
Xie Nandu stopped and glanced at Xia Yuan.
She did not speak, but this action meant that she was waiting for his next words.
Xia Yuan said, "About what happened at the South Lake that day, could Junior Sister help me apologize to him?"
His voice was not soft, all the students present could hear him clearly. Upon hearing this, many of them knew about what had happened at the lake that day, and they were all quite shocked.
The Myriad Willow Convention had yet to start, why did this senior brother already lower his head first? Could it just be because of what happened at the imperial banquet?
Xie Nandu said, "It's not like you misjudged me. If you want to apologize, go and tell him."
Hearing this, the students were also stunned. They never expected Xie Nandu to respond in such a way. They originally thought that since Xia Yuan had already lowered his head, she should at least show some kindness to him since they were classmates after all. However, they never expected such a stiff answer.
Xia Yuan frowned, but he was not angry. After experiencing the imperial banquet, he already knew that Xie Nandu was the kind of person who would even reprimand an outsider, let alone care about his thoughts.
That night, although Chen Chao was the one who stood out the most, those who truly experienced the imperial banquet knew that Xie Nandu's spirit and composure displayed at the imperial banquet was not what they could compare to. If not for that her cultivation realm was lacking, there probably would not have been any chance for Chen Chao to stand out.
Without Chen Chao, even if the foreign cultivators had defeated all the Great Liang Dynasty's young people on that night, Xie Nandu's reputation would probably have risen to a higher level. She would not be forgotten as she was now and people would remember what she had done.
"Junior Sister's words are reasonable. I wonder if he is in the academy right now?"
Xia Yuan thought about it and said with a gentle tone.
Xie Nandu shook her head and said, "He's not here."
Xia Yuan felt a bit helpless.
However, Xie Nandu did not say anything more. Instead, she walked past this top scholar of the academy and entered the library.
She came to the library today to read and did not want to waste time on other things.
……
……
Walking into the library, it was extremely quiet.
Although it was already nighttime, it was bright as day inside the library. Countless priceless luminous pearls hung on the roof beams, illuminating every corner of the library. In the center of the first floor, there were densely packed bookshelves, containing countless ancient classics and cultivation methods for the students of the academy to browse. Here, the students either sat on the ground to read or leaned against the walls. Every one of them was extremely focused, with only the occasional sound of turning pages breaking the silence.
This was the first time that Xie Nandu had entered the library. Before, when she was studying, she would send her maid Liu Ye to the library to fetch it for her. As the dean's disciple, her treatment was naturally different from that of ordinary students. Bringing books away was normal too.
It was just that Xie Nandu headed to the second floor after lingering on the first floor for a moment.
Previously, Wei Xu said that if she wanted to train in the sword, she should wait for him to write a letter to that senior brother in the north. It would not be too late to train in the sword after getting a reply. Xie Nandu also felt that it was good at that time, but after listening to a lecture, she felt that she wanted to take a look at those sword cultivation methods, so she came here.
This was an extremely natural thing to do and there was nothing strange about it.
Senior Brother was right, she also thought that it was correct at the time. But after a while, she felt that she wanted to take a look. She was not necessarily going to cultivate it, so of course it was good too.
If she wanted to start cultivating after taking a look, it would likely not be a problem too.
Xie Nandu arrived on the second floor where there were significantly fewer students compared to the first floor. The books here were almost all related to cultivation and not all the students who were admitted to the academy were suited for cultivation. Therefore, there were naturally much fewer students here.
As she walked through the shelves, Xie Nandu did not immediately start browsing through the daoist techniques. Instead, she released her qi and soon noticed a sense of sharpness coming from a particular shelf.
She walked over to it and found a row of bookshelves. At a glance, there were several hundred volumes of daoist techniques that were all sword cultivation techniques.
In the world of sword cultivation, same as Daoism, there were two main lineages: the Heart Sword lineage and the Hidden Sword lineage. These two lineages each took up half the world of sword cultivation back then. But over time, the Heart Sword lineage became stronger, while the Hidden Sword lineage gradually declined. Nowadays, when people talked about sword cultivators, they only knew about the Heart Sword lineage. The Hidden Sword lineage was only left with a Sword Sect in the world, with very few disciples. The Hidden Sword lineage's sword cultivators tended to keep a low profile and there had been no news from the sect for a long time. Nobody knew if that Sword Sect still had any successors or not.
Currently, the sword cultivation techniques circulating in the world were mostly the cultivation techniques of the Heart Sword lineage. As for the techniques of the Hidden Sword lineage, even if one were to search through those few Heart Sword cultivation sects, there were probably only a few dozen volumes at most.
The academy claimed to have all the books in the world, but even in the library, there were no Hidden Sword lineage's sword cultivation techniques.
Xie Nandu reached out to take a volume of sword cultivation technique. The bamboo slip which had probably been sitting there for many years was immaculately clean, with a few small seal characters on it. It was titled "Qi Controlling Myriad Swords," a technique for controlling swords with one's qi.
After a moment's thought, Xie Nandu put this volume of sword cultivation technique back.
She picked up the second volume. This one was titled "Grass Sword."
Then the third volume, the fourth volume...
For each volume, she did not open it to look inside. She just put it back on the shelf after reading the name.
After a stick of incense had burned, Xie Nandu had already looked through more than a hundred volumes of sword cultivation techniques, but she only knew the names and nothing more.
After some time had passed, Xie Nandu lowered her head and looked at her sleeve cuff, it was already in tatters. Every time she took a volume, there would be sword qi emanating from it. These scrolls were not written by the original sword cultivator who created this sword cultivation technique, but no matter who transcribed those sword cultivation methods, after so much time had passed, the sword intent had already permeated the bamboo slips.
Furthermore, it was the cultivation method itself that produced the sword intent.
In other words, whichever scroll's sword cultivation method was stronger, the retained sword intent would be sharper and more abundant.
Xie Nandu was going to pick the strongest scroll.
But after a moment, she stopped and reached for a bamboo slip that had been placed in a corner.
When she picked up the bamboo slip, the thin string tied on the bamboo slip suddenly broke, cleanly and evenly.
Then, her fingers felt a stinging sensation and some tiny drops of blood seeped out.
But she did not retract her hand, instead taking out the bamboo slip without even looking at what the name of the sword cultivation method was, and just opened it up.
There were already many cracks on the bamboo slip and each crack was extremely sharp, as if it had been cut by someone with a sword.
Just the words on it were so powerful, indicating the strength of this volume's sword cultivation method. Xie Nandu was very satisfied, so she began reading it carefully.
After just a moment, her eyes began to hurt.
She ignored it and silently continued reading.
After an unknown amount of time had passed, she became a bit tired and looked away.
But the contents of the bamboo slip were already imprinted in her mind and the qi in her body began to circulate involuntarily.
Rubbing her forehead, she looked out the window and realized that it was already late at night.
There were no other academy students around her anymore.
Her mind stirred slightly and a hint of sword qi suddenly overflowed from her fingers.
She lowered her head to take a look, it was unknown what she was thinking.
There was no one around at this moment and nobody knew about her experience as well. Hence, she did not know what it meant.
If there was a sword cultivator standing next to her at this moment and saw the sword qi emanating from her fingers just by reading one scroll of sword cultivation method, they would probably scream in disbelief!
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