Chapter 187: A Letter from the Medical Valley

“Fellow Daoists, have you all received your exam papers and rankings? Master Yun said the top fifty will start taking turns teaching at the Celestial Master Hall next month. I didn’t pass, but I ranked twenty-eighth…”

“Sigh, don’t remind me! You’re twenty-eighth—you’re in the second batch. I ranked twenty-five—first batch to teach!”

“What do we do? Everyone think of something! Teaching is fine, but Master Yun will be there too. What if she gives us another test every single day?”

“Don’t jinx it! If you say it, it’ll happen!”

“What if I… pretend to be sick? Maybe I can skip it?”

“Don’t talk nonsense! Did you forget our master’s a spiritual healer? Ask the Yu patriarch from West City—he was half-dead under the Shaohua Curse and still wasn’t excused! He had to take the qualification exam like the rest of us!”

“Speaking of which, Yu patriarch, what was your rank?”

“Hahaha… fifty-first. Just missed the top fifty! You guys will have to do extra papers for me! Hahaha!”

Silence fell. Then—

“Shameless!”

“Despicable!”

“Beast!”

“Heartless!”

They cursed him until he regretted ever opening his mouth. Then the group chat resumed its original panic.

“Come on, we need a plan! We’re all too old to spend our twilight years buried under test papers!”

“Right! And where’s the culprit, Hall Master Xu? He’d better offer his life in apology! He’s the one who betrayed us! If he doesn’t give an explanation, my Tianyin Sect will never forgive him!”

“He wouldn’t dare show his face. After that exam he ran off before I could catch him. Coward!”

“Actually, maybe it’s not so bad! Master Yun only said we’d be teaching, not that we’d keep taking exams forever. Let’s not scare ourselves.”

“But are you sure? With her personality? If she doesn’t say it out loud, I’m not believing it.”

“What if we just tell her—fine, we’ll teach, but no more exams! If she insists on testing us every three days, we’re out!”

“I agree!”

“Me too!”

“Count me in!”

“Same!”

“…But who’s going to tell her?”

Silence. Again, longer this time.

Finally someone said, “This task can only fall to Hall Master Xu. They’re… close.”

“Yes! He’s always the one who contacts her.”

“I trust Hall Master Xu’s eloquence.”

“He’s virtuous and wise—sure to succeed!”

“Right! No time like the present—let’s do it today!”

The currently-lurking Xu Hall Master: “……” MMP!

Who was it calling him a beast a moment ago? Ready to hit him, even? Now they were all flattering him—how fast could people change?!

“Alright, it’s settled. Who knows where he is? Let’s inform him.”

“My Yao Lin Sect is closest to the Celestial Master Hall. I’ll go.”

“Good, make sure he convinces Master Yun!”

“Quietly, don’t let him escape!”

Xu Hall Master: “……” I didn’t even agree yet!

Σ(°△°|||)︴

Just as the chat was devolving into plans for an ambush, a familiar female voice chimed in—

“No need. I’ve heard everything.”

Everyone: “……”

Xu Hall Master: “……”

(д)b

The chat went dead silent.

Yun Jiao sighed, rubbing her forehead. How scared of exams are they, really? They were so easy! And honestly, how many times did she have to remind them—she was in this group too!

“Don’t worry,” she finally wrote. “For now, the top fifty teachers won’t need to take another qualification exam. However, your students’ advancement rates will be tracked.”

—No more exams!

A collective sigh of relief swept through the group.

“But…” Yun Jiao added, a beat later, “your students will still have to take tests. Meaning—you won’t be the ones taking exams, but you’ll have to write them.”

“……”

Utter stillness.

Had they heard that right?

Write exams?

Them?

(⊙_⊙)

Then chaos.

“Wait—what?!”

“Master Yun, did you mean it?!”

“We’re really allowed to write the exams?!”

“Yes,” Yun Jiao replied simply. “Really.”

A brief pause—then—

“Master Yun, when does term start? Can we go to the Hall today? I’d like to prepare early!”

“Don’t worry, Master, we’ll do our best to teach the disciples well!”

“Teaching? Hah! I’ve been doing that for decades!”

“I’m leaving now—headed to the Celestial Master Hall to write my first test!”

“Nothing else to say—I’ll start drafting questions immediately!”

“Me too!”

The group exploded again—this time with excitement.

After so many miserable exams, at last… it was their turn!

“Hahaha! Finally, retribution! Brothers and sisters, let’s go! Let those little brats suffer what we suffered!”

┗|｀O′|┛

Yun Jiao: “……”

Watching the once-noisy chat fade to silence, she couldn’t tell whether they’d already run off to the Hall or just fainted from enthusiasm. Either way, she was satisfied. It was rare to see this bunch of sect masters show so much “academic passion.”

She turned back to her work—carefully arranging symbols on the ground.

The old man entered just then, blinking at the glowing formation by the kitchen door. “Girl, why are you setting up an array here? What’s it for?”

“For peeling!” Yun Jiao pointed at the mountain of sweet potatoes, radishes, and lettuce piled beside her. “Ying Lun ruined Grandmaster’s pickles, so I promised to make more. Peeling by hand’s too slow, so I modified the Wind-Edge Formation a bit.”

As she spoke, she activated the array and tossed in a stalk of lettuce. A swirl of tiny wind blades instantly stripped off the skin, sliced it into perfect pieces, and dropped them neatly into a waiting jar.

The old man: “……”

He glanced from the hill of vegetables to the array on the floor. He couldn’t decide whether to comment on her absurd innovation—or on the Grandmaster’s ridiculous appetite.

Within five minutes, Yun Jiao had filled an entire jar. She swapped for another and finally looked up. “You needed something?”

That jogged his memory. He handed her a letter. “A message came for you. Looks like it’s from the south.”

“Oh, thanks!” Yun Jiao wiped her hands, took the letter, and pressed her thumb to the talisman mark at the corner. The hidden text shimmered into view. She skimmed it quickly, then set it aside.

“What is it?” the old man asked, curious.

“Nothing much,” Yun Jiao said, continuing to peel radishes. “It’s from Chang Yang of the Medical Valley. He’s asking me to make a house call.”

“The Medical Valley… is asking you to make a call?!” The old man nearly choked. “Has he lost his mind?”

The Chang Clan was a lineage of divine physicians—every spiritual healer in the Celestial Master Hall came from their valley! And Chang Yang himself was not only head of the clan but the current Valley Master.

Now he was inviting Yun Jiao to treat someone?

Wasn’t that the same as smashing his own signboard?!

(End of Chapter)