Chapter 141: Your Goal Is My Goal
Wei Nan put down his chopsticks.
He looked Lin Yi up and down.
His eyes held a hint of bewilderment.
After a moment, Lin Yi finally said, "What are you looking at? Is there something on my face?"
"Nothing on your face, but your personality... I feel like I don’t even know you anymore."
"What do you mean?"
Lin Yi asked in confusion.
"We’re childhood friends, right? Grew up together.
Remember back in elementary school, when those middle schoolers cornered us and demanded money? You were so scared you cried!"
"And that time in middle school, when some kids in our grade were giving you trouble, and you came crying to me?"
"Even in high school, your personality didn’t change much. You were still just as timid and afraid of trouble.
How is it that I go into seclusion for just two months and your personality does a complete one-eighty?"
"And now you want to test into Xingwu and the Martial Alliance? You want to go to the battlefield?"
After Wei Nan finished speaking,
Lin Yi’s expression didn’t change at all.
He simply lowered his head and continued eating his noodles.
A long while later, when the bowl of hand-pulled noodles was nearly empty,
he finally put down his chopsticks and said, "Don’t people only learn to grow after going through one experience after another?"
"Getting into a Martial Arts University and moving to the New District isn’t my ultimate goal!"
"I want to go further on the path of Martial Arts!"
"My coach once said that the highest realms are forged through repeated, real combat!"
"If you just rely on talent and tedious training without much combat experience, your talent will eventually dry up, and your cultivation path will hit a bottleneck!"
"So, whether it’s the Demon Hunting Bureau or the Martial Arts Alliance,"
"as long as it can help me improve my cultivation, that’s all that matters!"
Lin Yi’s casual words left Wei Nan utterly stunned.
After a long moment, he nodded, picked up his chopsticks, and went back to his noodles.
When he finished his bowl, he wiped his mouth. "I really underestimated you. It’s not just your personality that’s changed; your ambition has grown, too!"
"Alright, we already agreed anyway. Wherever you go, I’ll go.
You want to go Demon Hunting, so I’ll go Demon Hunting with you!"
"You want to go to the battlefield? Then we’ll fight side-by-side!"
"My goal has always just been to bring my parents to the New District and let them live a good life without worrying about food or clothing!"
"As for the rest... your goal is my goal!"
"And like I said before, if one day I can’t keep up with you, just remember to turn back and give your bro a hand. That’s all I ask!"
After Wei Nan finished speaking,
he waved to the owner and said, "Sir, the check, please!"
As soon as he spoke, the owner came over with a smile.
"Two bowls of hand-pulled noodles, one side dish, and two sodas. That’s twenty-eight yuan in total!"
Wei Nan nodded, pulled thirty yuan from his pocket, and handed it to the owner.
After getting two yuan back in change, Wei Nan stuffed it into his pocket.
"Let’s go, Lord Scroll God. Back to the Martial Arts Hall to train!"
Lin Yi smiled and nodded.
He stood up and walked outside with Wei Nan.
Arriving at the bus stop, the two of them sat on a bench to wait.
They were just heading in different directions.
Lin Yi was returning to the New Star Martial Arts Hall.
Wei Nan, on the other hand, was going to the Quanhai Martial Arts Hall.
The Quanhai Martial Arts Hall wasn’t well-known in Xinghai City.
It was just a small Martial Arts Hall, not very large in scale.
It had one 3-star coach and fewer than twenty students.
The main reason was its low price.
In this Old District, where money was hard to earn and life was shit,
finding a Martial Arts Hall that charged only five hundred yuan per class was already a great feat.
Lin Yi had originally thought about getting Wei Nan to come train with him at the New Star Martial Arts Hall.
However, Wei Nan had refused.
It wasn’t an issue with the tuition fee; he simply didn’t want to go.
In his own words, at the Quanhai Martial Arts Hall, he was the gifted student, the senior brother.
The other students looked at him as if he were a star they worshipped, and the coach also valued him greatly.
The Xinghai Martial Arts Hall was a different story.
There were too many talented students there. If he went, he would just seem ordinary.
"Better to be the head of a chicken than the tail of a phoenix!"
"You know what kind of person I am, don’t you?"
"I just like being the center of attention. I can be that at Quanhai, but not at your place!"
"A place like that is suitable for someone as talented as you, not for me!"
Those were Wei Nan’s exact words.
Seeing that his mind was made up, Lin Yi didn’t press the issue.
Wei Nan had always had this kind of personality.
He lived more freely and unrestrained.
He had no lofty ideals or ambitions, no goals that stirred his blood.
Even his reason for taking the Martial Arts exam was just to fulfill his brother’s wish of bringing their parents to live in the New District.
That was all...
Now, after two months in seclusion,
all his body’s stats had improved drastically.
His realm had already reached 1-star, 3rd-rank, which was more than enough for the Martial Arts exam.
Now, he was just waiting for the day of the Martial Arts exam.
He would bet his eighteen years of effort on this one chance.
If he could get accepted into a Martial Arts University, he would have no regrets in his life.
It was just as he had said at the noodle shop.
Once they reached the New District, Lin Yi’s goal would be his goal.
"My bus is here! I’m heading out. See you at school tomorrow!"
Not long after, a bus pulled up.
Wei Nan smiled and waved goodbye to Lin Yi before boarding the bus.
Lin Yi watched the bus depart, then waited silently for his own.
Before long, the bus to Xianghe Road arrived.
...
The afternoon training session felt somber and oppressive.
Perhaps it was because the Martial Arts exam was only two days away.
Every person about to take the exam was silently pouring out their sweat.
They were working harder than ever before.
The THUMP THUMP sounds from the Martial Arts Arena echoed endlessly.
No one spoke, and no one whispered to each other.
Even the younger underclassmen didn’t dare to make a ruckus.
They were afraid that any loud noise would disturb their senior brothers who were about to take the exam
and affect their training...
「In Yang Yong’s office.」
The old man had also appeared at the window, from which he could directly observe every student in the Martial Arts Arena.
His gaze, however, was locked onto Lin Yi.
He was in an empty, unoccupied area,
repeatedly practicing the Tai Chi Boxing Technique.
And as his understanding of the boxing technique deepened,
each exertion of his power now produced a bolt of starlight.
However, the bolt of light didn’t last long, vanishing in an instant...
This further confirmed the old man’s suspicion that Lin Yi had already established a Heart Spirit Domain through that boxing technique.
"Heart Spirit Domain?"
"Teacher, are you saying that Lin Yi established a Heart Spirit Domain just through a boxing technique?"
Yang Yong said in disbelief.
As he finished, the old man nodded.
"Correct. I saw it with my own eyes. Do you remember telling me that he has a type of punch that can bring forth the Power of the Starry Sky?"
"But even he himself doesn’t know how it works!"
"And how to actually throw that punch isn’t something he can control?"
Yang Yong nodded. "That’s right. I specifically asked him about it, but even he couldn’t explain it!"
"Teacher, could that Heart Spirit Domain you just mentioned be related to this?"
The old man nodded slightly. "I went to see Old Qiao before and asked a few things about the Heart Spirit Domain."
"It is an ability that only the ’Chosen One’ can possess.
Since the rise of Martial Arts, only one person has ever established a Heart Spirit Domain through a boxing technique!"
"Only one person? Who?"
"The Martial God!"
At these words, Yang Yong sucked in a sharp breath.
He instinctively turned his head and glanced at Lin Yi in the Martial Arts Arena outside the window.
The meaning behind the old man’s words was already crystal clear.
Could he be saying that this Chosen One is the next Martial God?
But Yang Yong still found it hard to believe.
The Martial God was simply too distant a concept for them.
He was a supreme, unparalleled existence.
Ever since the first Martial God led the Ancient Martial Families to repel the invading beasts
and established the Restricted Areas to keep them sealed out,
the Martial God had roamed the cosmos, searching for more suitable planets to live on.
In a flash, more than three hundred years had passed.
And to this day, a second Martial God had yet to appear.
The story of the Martial God had long since become a legend.
Now, today, the old man was telling him that Lin Yi was the Chosen One, perhaps even the future Martial God.
How was Yang Yong supposed to accept that?
The sheer amount of information was too much for him to process.
If Lin Yi really did become the new Martial God in the future, as the old man said,
then wouldn’t that make him the Martial God’s coach? His master?
"This... this is too sudden, isn’t it?"
Yang Yong couldn’t help but say.
As he spoke, the old man glanced back at him.
He frowned and said, "What’s so sudden about it? The signs were there all along!"