A MAIDEN'S HEART IS HARD TO FATHOM

Seeing how Nie Li was looking at him, made him feel uncomfortable, for Fang Yun, Nie Li was like a danger sign, in fact after what he discovered about himself in the last days, he felt that if possible he shouldn't be related with him no matter what, Nie Li is basically an old monster, what if he covets his cheat? He didn't have much, but the little he had was good enough for him to worry about this secret...

Noticing the tension building up between them, Xiao Ning'er looked at Fang Yun and started wondering what he could have done to attract Nie Li's attention in such a serious way, in her eyes, the way Nie Li and Fang Yun looked at each other resembles how two army offices would look at each other after a conflict in how to deal with an enemy. Both sides wouldn't agree with each other and wouldn't be willing to try the other's method.

Fang Yun might not be the most dazzling cultivator nor the most talented and cold one, but he had his fair share of fights back in his previous life when dealing with bullies when protecting his best friend and gang leaders in his neighborhood, first of all, don't show your back! You are asking to get hit if you do so, and don't be a coward, even if you don't stand a chance at winning, you must show you are prepared to strike back if they try anything. Even a rabbit would show its fangs when cornered by the tiger!

Soon the whole class noticed the tension between the two, they couldn't understand how these two suddenly had a grudge, but the confusion was even greater for Lu Piao and Du Ze, since they stayed with him all the time, they never saw the two interact.

But before anything could happen, teacher Shen Xiu entered the class and frowned when she saw Nie Li and Fang Yun facing each other from distance.

"Sit down all of you! Especially you four!" she said when noticing that Lu Piao, Du Ze, and Nie Li were about to stand up. Today a few VIPs would be observing her lectures, naturally, she wouldn't dare to be rash.

"Today I'm going to talk about Inscription Patterns. Whether if it's fighters or demon spiritists, Inscription Patterns are very important. Inscription Patterns are separated into two parts, respectively the Enchanting Patterns and the Battle Patterns. Enchanting Patterns can be inscribed on armors and weapons. As it can greatly enhance the combat abilities of those armors and weapons, especially if it's used by a Demon Spiritist, they can make use of weapons and armors with Enchanting Patterns on it to release far more power than their base strength. As for Battle Patterns, they are used with Inscription Pattern Scrolls. By inscribing it onto the scroll and then activating it, can have a sudden burst of fighting power!"

The shocking thing is, Shen Xiu began saying substantial content today.

"Inscription Patterns are extremely profound and mysterious. They have been around since the Snow Wind Empire's age. They are being continuously improved as time goes by. But during the Age of Darkness, the mainland was under the attack of many demon beasts. Glory City only managed to inherit a small portion of them, coming from three categories. Snow Wind Patterns, Sacred Flaming Patterns, War Prime Patterns. Which are the Snow Wind attributes, Fire attributes, and Neutral attributes."

"Today we will be talking about Enchanting Patterns." Shen Xiu said softly, her tone became more gentle compared to the usual tone.

Outside the classroom, three elderly men sat together, listening to the lecture.

"The knowledge from the members of the Sacred family is quite profound. Having her teach these students is definitely more than enough!" one of the elderly men said with a smile. He is Ye Sheng, the vice-principal of the Holy Orchid Institute.

"A few students in this class are quite good, no matter if it's Ye Ziyun, Shen Yue or Xiao Ning'er," one of the elderly men said sounding very pleased. He is a professor at the Holy Orchid Institute named Lu Ye.

Other than Ye Sheng, a grey-robed, elderly man sat beside them. Lu Ye doesn't know this grey-robed elder's identity. This grey-robed elder just casually sat down but he gives off a powerful, prestigious aura, causing Lu Ye to be careful with his words when he spoke. He didn't dare to make a slight mistake with his speech.

"How is it?" Ye Sheng asked, looking at the grey robe elder.

"Mhm," Grey robed elder non-committally replied.

While the students were paying attention to the class, Fang Yun who was bored and thinking of other matters suddenly felt something the moment the Grey robed elder looked at him. He turned to see what was that but after seeing no one there he frowned slightly and slowly turned back to Shen Xiu.

"Oh!" The Grey robed elder exclaimed making both the teacher and Ye Sheng look at him.

"Did you found something interesting?" Ye Sheng asked curiously.

"You could say so." The Grey robed elder replied.

After that, the class continued, Shen Xiu was talking about the sacred flaming patterns, she would boast about how advanced her family research in this pattern was from time to time, she then proceeded to talk about the scarlet sunburst pattern.

While she was talking about that, Fang Yun was recalling his knowledge of inscriptions, he knew quite a few of them and also the theory behind how to create new patterns since it was written in the books of the institute, however, he couldn't understand how there were so many problems with them up to this date, seriously, even if it is difficult to learn them all, couldn't they simply translate everything and put in one book? She said that other patterns were lost, but there were quite a few of them in those hundreds of thousands of books, they just weren't translated.

Of those, the one he was the most interested in was a legend rank battle pattern with a quite amusing name... the nuke! He didn't know who created it, only that it was created in the snow wind empire era, supposedly it is a long-range battle pattern that can be used as a trap or to destroy enemies fortress! It was a simple but effective explosion, he wondered if it would also create a mushroom cloud...

In fact, he was so bored that instead of looking at her, he grabbed his quill and started drawing the legend rank nuke pattern, thankfully it wouldn't work without the blood of a few beasts, imagine how tragic it would be if he ends up exploding the classroom...

Just after he finished he heard Shen Xiu shout.

"Nie Li!" Shen Xiu spoke in a deep voice as she walked towards him.

Nie Li was sleeping happily as he hadn't had any good sleep for the past week. He barely opened his eyes, seeing as he's still quite sleepy, and said, "What's the matter?"

Seeing Shen Xiu wake Nie Li up, a bunch of noble kids secretly laughed. They wanted to see Nie Li in trouble the most. Who asked him to steal the goddess of their heart from them?

"He's doomed this time!"

Du Ze and Pu Liao smiled bitterly at each other. No matter what, sleeping in class is something they didn't dare to do.

Nie Li's attitude made Shen Xiu even more furious. She said in a deep voice, "You are actually sleeping in my class. Do you already know all of this stuff?"

"Yeah," Nie Li calmly said.

At that moment, Fang Yun finally remembered what was about to happen, knowing that Shen Xiu would be refuted once again he sighed and shook his head, he would try to speak with Nie Li later, he blames her for a lot of things and despises her for her lack of knowledge. But what could she do about this? This was what she learned in the sacred family, how could she know that sacred flaming patterns had more the 600 foundation patterns instead of 66, or that the first generation patriarch stole something? Since no one noticed this for years it also means that Glory City inscriptionists were extremely bad at this as well, they didn't even check the other volumes of the Book of Divine Lightning Fire.

Their discussion kept going until the moment the boy sitting beside Fang Yun took out a copy of the Divine Lightning Fire book. Knowing he would take a lot of time to find the page, something that actually would only happen when Nie Li told him where it was, he said to the boy. "Flip thirty pages backward from volume seven. The sixth diagram on page thirty. Compare it with the Scarlet Sunburst inscription pattern."

Hearing this Nie Li, and others looked at him in surprise. This once again made him remember that before reincarnating this boy spent almost all of his time in the library. Thinking about this, he remembered that Fang Yun disappeared six months after enrolling in the Holy Orchid Institute. Could this boy in front of him, be something different from what he imagined? Maybe he also had his own fortuitous encounter?

Seeing Shen Xiu's face show traces of fear, Nie Li secretly smiled. The Sacred family's fame mostly came from being the bearer of the Sacred Flame inscription patterns, which was claimed by many past house masters, to have been self-created inscription patterns. Their extraordinary talent is what saved the Glory City from distress. However, truth is, the Sacred family is just a bunch of hypocrites!

"Page thirty, sixth diagram?" The commoner student murmured. After being guided, he found the Lightning Fire inscription pattern.

"Ya!"

The crowd of students lets out a sound of surprise. The Lightning Fire Inscription Pattern consisted of two-parts. with one part looking exactly like the Scarlet Sunburst inscription pattern. The Scarlet Sunburst inscription pattern was much more simple compared to the Lightning Fire inscription pattern, which was the same as cutting out half of it.

Nie Li is actually correct!

Shen Xiu clenched her fist tightly, her fingers turned white. When Shen Yue who was among the crowd of students, looked towards Nie Li, his eyes became full of hatred. Nie Li is discrediting their Sacred family!

Shaking his head, Fang Yun leaned back in his chair and stopped paying attention to the rest of the world, in his eyes there were only the countless books he had copied, if possible he didn't want to waste any of his time with this situation, so he decided to once again look for useful knowledge, and while the others kept discussing the sacred family plagiarism, he started to practice inscriptions, based on his knowledge he tried to draw things based on what he wanted to do and after he finished he would write bellow it possible ingredients that could be used with the patterns he created.

While that was happening the Grey Robed elder eyes seemed to glint as he looked at both Nie Li and Fang Yun, the knowledge of those youngsters was monstrous, to say the least! Both seemed to know with precision things that others wouldn't even notice, not only that, while the others were wasting their times with that discussion, Fang Yun acted like that didn't have anything to do with him, and started drawing extremely complex inscriptions in his notebook, a few of them had almost a thousand of patterns! Although he couldn't understand the more complex ones, the others that were more simple had just a few hundred at best, actually seemed to be something that could work!

"Such great talents..." He silently muttered

At this moment outside the classroom, Lu Ye hastily ran towards the grey-robed elder and the vice principal's direction and passed the Book of Divine Lightning Fire to the grey-robed elder.

Vice-Principal Ye Sheng repeatedly directed his attention to the grey-robed elder's expression.

The grey-robed elder flipped the Book of Divine Lightning Fire to page 30, diagram six. Seeing the Lightning Fire Inscription Pattern on the book, then comparing it with Scarlet Sunburst Inscription Pattern, his face became sullen and did not say anything.

Ye Sheng dared not speak. This truly is a scandal of the Sacred family. This matter involved the upper level of Glory City, therefore on this matter, he dared not say anything.

The Grey robed elder looked at the Book of Divine Lightning Fire. The words on it are very complex, he could only recognize a small part of the words. Nie Li and Fang Yun actually had such profound knowledge, causing him to be astonished. He remained silent for a moment before saying. "Tell me the innate talent of Nie Li and the boy who pointed out the page where the Scarlett Sunburst Pattern is."

Ye Sheng looked at Lu Ye. Regarding such a nameless student, the Vice-Principal wouldn't know much about the student.

Lu Ye hastily replied. "I just looked at Nie Li's, he only has a red soul realm. As for the other boy, no one knows..."

Seeing the grey-robed elder looking at him he gulped and said. "It seems that they didn't manage to discover after using the Soul Crystal, so he was simply accepted."

The grey-robed elder thought for a moment, he then turned to Ye Sheng and said. "Bring this student to your office after the class and test him using an intermediate soul crystal."

Ye Sheng could only nod, but he was surprised hearing his next words.

The Grey robed elder nodded his head and continued. "About Nie Li, it's such a pity, this child is so well educated, exactly like Fang Yun. A pity that his innate talent is only this much, otherwise his future would be promising. Ye Sheng, arrange for him a library clerk position!"

"Yes!" Ye Sheng hastily nodded his head.

A few minutes later Shen Xiu ended the class and everyone started leaving the classroom, at some point, there were only Fang Yun and Shen Xiu inside the classroom.

She frowned at him and said, "What are you still doing here!? Get out!"

Blinking his eyes, Fang Yun finally noticed that the class had ended. Seeing Shen Xiu enraged red face, he was startled. When he stood up he approached her and looked her in the eyes.

"What are you doing?" She backed away.

Unknown to her, Fang Yun was only looking at something that made him feel sad, sad for her. Others might not have noticed, but she had tears on the corner of her eyes. Seeing this he decided to ask something.

"Teacher Shen Xiu, can I ask you something?"

She was still enraged but still nodded, she was wondering what he had to say.

"Do you truly like the Sacred Family?"

Hearing this question her face sunk.

"Of course I like them! I was born in the Sacred Family why wouldn't I like them?" She frowned as she shouted at him. "Do you think I would come here to teach commoners for no reason? I'm only here because my nephew decided to study here!"

Hearing this, he looked at her with pity and asked.

"Then when was the last time you smiled? The last time that something related to the sacred family made you genuinely happy?"

Looking at the way Fang Yun was looking at her, she felt wronged, she felt humiliated, her entire life she was taught to disdain the commoners, but it was not like she hated them for real, she just felt that she was above them and couldn't stand someone looking down on her...

But his words made her think. When was the last time that she was happy... Recalling her memories, she remembered a day when she was 5 years old, her parents had died a few years prior to that event when she was only 3. But that day for the first time she was truly happy because instead of being locked inside some library and being taught countless things she was outside together with her old brother, he had a son called Shen Yue, she still remembered carrying him while playing around showing the territory of the sacred family... Unlike her other nephew Shen Fei, she truly liked the little boy, she even felt responsible for him and wanted to help him get stronger in the future, which was why she became a teacher in the first place.

Her whole life was based on serving the sacred family and being trained as another weapon for the family. Besides that, there was nothing, she couldn't recall a single moment her brother spoke gentle words for her or treated her well, all she had was the servants and her nephew... There were no warm memories, only cold ones...

Tears were threatening to fall from her eyes, however, at that moment she felt something completely new and unexpected, when she opened her eyes she saw Fang Yun hugging her and patting her back.

Fang Yun could more or less feel her pain, he once had a best friend like her who was basically treated like a tool by his family, the poor guy was so depressed and sad all the time, when he became friends with him, it was too late, there wasn't much he could do besides standing at his side and trying to help him get out of that curse. But a year later, just a day before the summer holiday, this friend sent him a letter, saying how sorry he was of what he was about to do, and how happy he was for having a friend like him. Later that day he received the news that his friend committed suicide by jumping in front of a train.

He cried for weeks, he couldn't believe what happened, the only thing that made him feel happy was that a few weeks later, the police knocked on his door to ask some questions, turns out that his family was encouraging him to suicide, saying that he was useless and a piece of shit... In the end, they were sued and the police arrested them, his uncle who even killed his friend pet in cold blood in front of him and was the one who mainly tortured him physically and mentally was later sent to the death corridor.

Although he didn't know if suicide was a thing in cultivation worlds, he felt the same vibes coming from her, right now what he wanted to do was to truly help her, he wanted her to feel warm and know that she could have him as a friend or something more, he wanted her to smile and be happy even if it's only a little.

After some time she started crying and hugged him as well, he could feel her tears falling on his shoulder as she cried. Her body was trembling and felt weak, he was basically carrying her. Not everything was flowers and happiness in a world like this, he couldn't even imagine how the rest of her life would be in the future if he didn't appear here in this world. Perhaps she would end up exactly like his friend and commit suicide. After all, based on the comics he read, after Nie Li dealt with the sacred family, all she was left with was indescribable pain, a broken family, broken relatives, and a cell since she was captured.

One could argue about her personality being arrogant and all, but she wasn't at fault here, besides she never did anything too serious, in the end, all she wanted was to help her family, and get revenge on the person who was basically destroying her life. At least, this was how he interpreted things, even if he didn't like the sacred family, at least he wanted to try and save this poor girl in front of him.