Medicinal Hall, Late Evening.

When Zeng Fei awoke, he found himself back in the same room he had been in a month prior. The pang in his gut informed him why he was there before his memories were given an opportunity to.

Still, he had to rack his mind to remember what exactly had happened just before he’d fallen unconscious.

He had won, right? He could have sworn the audience had been exclaiming Pingu’s name at the end there, which had to mean victory… but why Pingu’s? Wasn’t it his victory? So why not his name?!

Fuck, if only he’d had friends in the audience, they would have begun chanting his name right after the win and everyone else would have followed suit.

On reflection, Zeng Fei could finally see that just like the original, he’d fallen into the trap of chasing a goal to a fault and isolating himself as a result. But at least now that the messy vengeance business was all dealt with, he could more freely put in the active effort to socialise.

And once he had friends, he could get his name promoted before future matches and afterwards!

It was a few minutes after he’d awoken that Senior Sister Dai attended to his room.

She looked as before in her light green robes and bone-tired expression. “Ah, you’re up now, Junior Brother Zeng.”

“Yes, many thanks for your treatment, Senior Sister Dai.” Zeng Fei tried to sit up but winced at the pain from his midriff, so he gave a partial bow instead. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Mm, I certainly didn’t expect to have to treat you so soon after last time for similar injuries, nor for them to be inflicted by the same person, only this time with you having sought out the quarrel. I see you made good use of my advice.”

“Ah…” Zeng Fei gave an awkward chuckle and scratched his head, wondering if there were any excuses he could give. He could claim he’d only cared about entering the tournament and not facing up against Dong Fu, but it didn’t seem she’d buy it.

“It was fated to happen?” he eventually offered.

She sighed and shook her head. “You battle-obsessed cultivators are little different from barbarians, treating violence as the solution for all of life’s problems and giving headaches to everyone else.”

Of all things, Zeng Fei hadn’t expected to hear his complaint about cultivators to be voiced by someone else about him… and for him to be unable to refute it either!

Feeling a flush of shame, he lowered his gaze.

“Still, who could have guessed that in a mere month, you’d be able to battle it out with Dong Fu and come out on top? With growth like that, I suppose you’re not wrong that it was fated for you two to clash sooner or later.”

“Right, right!”

“But even then, you should have just accepted the loss instead of committing the idiocy that you did.”

She was clearly referring to how he’d continued to sustain Pingu’s summon towards the end by pulling qi out of his flesh and bones; any cultivator could tell you that doing so was immensely dangerous and stupid, making it all the more surprising that he felt fine now (except for in the gut, of course).

Seeing that he was going to ask about this, Dai Xinyue waved her hand dismissively. “You’re only okay right now because of the Elder in charge of the tournament, Elder Ma, who rushed in and stabilised your condition.”

Zeng Fei sighed in relief, causing her to squint and add: “But if it’d been a real fight, you would have faced qi deviation and lost your cultivation base or, worst case, perished.”

He half-bowed once more. “I’m very sorry for my recklessness, Senior Sister. I’ll avoid from ever doing that again.” Of course he knew it’d been dumb thing to do even then, but that was just how badly he’d wanted to clinch the win.

“Good. Besides, it’s typically a futile action anyway, so you were incredibly fortunate that it actually helped out, fortunate in that Junior Dong is an even bigger battle-obsessed fool than you, refusing to finish you off so that he can prove himself to be a man… to a summoned beast.”

“In that way, his condition right now can be considered the heavens’ punishment for severe cranial impairment.” She scoffed. “Though the real tragedy being how no amount of blows to head is going to get through that numbskull’s brain to change his ways. I just hope that your petty feud with each other is over now.”

Although Zeng Fei wanted to answer her stern finger-wagging, he couldn’t as he was unsure himself whether it was over yet.

Before anything else, it had to be said that he didn’t feel so much like he’d beaten Dong Fu as much that both he and Dong Fu had been beaten by a certain dastardly penguin who’d stolen their thunder to emerge victorious.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Nonetheless, this was a result that made Zeng Fei feel he’d gotten back at Dong Fu: he had, after all, fucked over Dong Fu’s chances of ascending to the Inner Sect, a negative several times more severe than the beating he’d received a month prior.

This was why Zeng Fei no longer felt motivated by his dislike for Dong Fu: he believed he’d already gotten back for the initial transgression.

But therein lay the problem: in solving his grudge, he had given Dong Fu plenty of reason to form a grudge against him! And the feud wouldn’t be over until both of them agreed to bury the hatchet, so it wasn’t something Zeng Fei alone could decide.

Which reminded him. “By the way, Senior Sister, is the Outer Sect Tournament still going?”

“No, it wrapped up a little while ago. In normal circumstances, they would have healed you up to have you continue onto the next round, but given the qi backlash your body was enduring, it wasn’t something they wanted to gamble with.”

“That’s understandable. Do you know who won then?”

“That would be Wang Li.” She wasn’t surprised to see his confused reaction. “He entered the sect in the cohort before yours, actually, and his name spread shortly afterwards from the news that he’d gone from being a mortal to third layer within a month. He was acclaimed as being a cultivating genius despite having False Spiritual Roots.”

This only confounded Zeng Fei further. “So has he been in closed-door cultivation during my time at the sect? I’ve never heard his name come up.”

“Not at all. Wang Li would continue his groundbreaking pace until he reached the fifth layer of Qi Refining. As you know, there are two notable bottlenecks in the Qi Refining realm: the minor one at the fifth layer, and the major one at the seventh layer. Everyone expected Wang Li to pass through this minor bottleneck like it didn’t exist.” Senior Sister Dai gave a sad shake of her head.

“Do you mean to say he’s been stuck at the fifth layer this whole time? For almost eight years?”

“It’s as you say.”

“Ah…” The cogs revolved in Zeng Fei’s mind, confusion turning to understanding. “So I imagine people went from calling him a genius to calling him trash.”

Senior Sister’s polite smile remained, though her tone dipped. “It breeds envy when you have a peer who is far beyond your reach and praised by all. Naturally, should their talent then fail, it follows that this envy evolves into contempt. Junior Brother Wang’s treatment has not been kind, no. His betrothed even broke off their years-long engagement, declaring that she didn’t want to marry a useless weakling like him.”

Hearing this, Zeng Fei felt a sense of kinship with Wang Li due to the original’s experiences of also getting ostracised. “I see, so he had already become a nobody by time my cohort joined. Could it be he won the tournament then with his cultivation still at the fifth layer?”

“No. Just a week ago, he finally broke through the bottleneck, and progressed through all of sixth layer, all of seventh, and to the peak of eight in one go.”

With this, Zeng Fei’s suspicions were confirmed - a genius getting stuck and overtaken, everyone treating him poorly, then out of nowhere him rising leaps and bounds.

There was no question of it in Zeng Fei’s mind: Wang Li had a spirit adviser by his side.

Wang Li clearly possessed an Immortal Physique or ancient bloodline, unknown by others and most likely himself too, which explained why he had a blazing quick cultivation speed despite having inferior roots.

As for the lack of progression for almost ten years, this was because the celestial grandpa inside him had been draining his cultivation gains to recover from their wound. And now that the old geezer had recovered, naturally he was paying Wang Li back by offering to be his spirit adviser.

It went without saying that Zeng Fei did not want to end up on the bad side of someone with such potent protagonist qualities. Hell, even if an overpowered enemy attacked Wang Li, all that would happen is that Wang Li would fall into a pocket dimension, inherit another super legendary immortal legacy whilst in there, train up for a few centuries, then come out powerful enough to squash the once overpowered enemy with a fart.

Zeng Fei addressed Elder Sister Dai. “Wang Li sounds like an inspiring character who has been through a lot. I hope to meet him at some point. Besides him, do you know who else was selected to become Inner Sect Disciples?”

“The other finalist was Junior Sister Sun Ru, so her. And then there’s Dong Fu.”

“What!” Zeng Fei sat up in shock, before gasping and dropping again from the pain in his gut. “But how? He lost to me!”

“Yes, and—”

She was interrupted as a middle-aged Elder in off-white robes and a pencil moustache appeared in the doorway - Zeng Fei recognised him as the one who’d been officiating the tournament.

Elder Ma smiled gently towards the disciples. “Disciple Dai, could you give me a moment with Disciple Zeng please?”

Dai Xinyue nodded and got up to leave. “I’ll speak to you later then, Junior Brother Zeng.”

Once she was gone, Elder Ma took the seat she’d been using and clicked his finger, silencing any sound from outside. “I’ve set up a sound-cancelling array to prevent anyone from listening in on us, Disciple Zeng.”

This abrupt action strung Zeng Fei’s nerves so tight you could play the violin over them; fearing what was about to follow, he had to force himself to present as unconcerned an expression as he could manage.

Elder Ma didn’t appear to notice and placed his hand on Zeng Fei’s shoulder. “Before anything else, I would like to congratulate you - the other Elders and I were highly impressed by your ability to eke out a win over Dong Fu while being two minor stages below. In case you weren’t aware, he was one of the favourites to win the tournament, expected to reach the semi-finals at the very least. And because of your accomplishment, you have been selected to ascend to the Inner Sect.”

Zeng Fei’s self-composure fell apart as he couldn’t help but beam at the news. Although he had intended to impress the Elders, he hadn’t thought it possible for him to ascend given how low his cultivation was; if entering the tournament had been the raffle ticket, then this was the unexpected lottery prize.

Although he’d succeeded one of his aims for the tournament by beating Dong Fu, he’d thought the other of attracting attention from the sect had failed due to his disappointing performance of dropping out after his bout.

“But before that, we’re going to have to discuss your… special circumstances,” Elder Ma continued without a change in tone as though he were mentioning a minor matter.

“You see, the sect suspects that you inherited an ancient immortal’s legacy about a month ago. Now, would you be so kind as to relay to me whose legacy it was that you received, as well as how it played out?”

At that moment, Elder Ma’s gentle smile looked frightening actually, rather frightening indeed.