Exploring Immortality Cultivation-Chapter 152 - 114: What Does It Have to Do with Me?

The porridge stall owner saw that Wang Qi wasn’t fond of the Green Fish Porridge and quickly brought over a bowl of mung bean porridge. Wang Qi took only two sips before setting it down again.

Wang Qi’s family in this life wasn’t extremely wealthy, but he never lacked clothing or food; ingredients like sugar were still within reach. But such small stalls were meant to cater to mortal artisans—how could they afford to stock up on such luxurious items like sugar in ample amounts? The mung bean porridge that Wang Qi had was lacking in sweetness, and he could only taste a faint bean odor.

Mao Zimiao watched as Wang Qi stirred the Green Fish Porridge with his chopsticks and frowned in disapproval, "Not good, Xiao Qi, you can’t be picky!"

The young man hummed in response and picked out a few pieces of fish from the porridge to eat.

The girl was somewhat dissatisfied, her cat ears twitched twice, "Drink your porridge obediently!"

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Wang Qi acted as if he hadn’t heard her and continued playing with his chopsticks in the porridge.

Mao Zimiao was a little unhappy, feeling that Wang Qi should not ignore her. But when she glanced at Wang Qi’s bowl, she remembered how engrossed he was when scraping rice just a few days ago. She couldn’t help but chuckle, "You’re really engrossed, meow!"

Hearing Mao Zimiao’s sigh, Wang Qi breathed a sigh of relief. His stirring of the porridge with chopsticks was simply a habit that came naturally. On the boat, he had tried to control his motion sickness using the Memory Storage Skill. Unfortunately, as his motion sickness was physical, the Memory Storage Skill had limited effect. Besides, after a long time visualizing the Flame Cloud Map, Wang Qi had grown accustomed to absent-mindedly sketching patterns. Realizing what his hands were doing, he had a flash of inspiration and attempted to use this as a way to avoid eating the porridge.

Looking solely at his picky eating, Wang the Scholar had no difference from a child.

There is a saying on Earth that a man who works hard is the most attractive, and in the Immortal Dao, it is customary to value earnest contemplation. Watching Wang Qi sketching in his porridge across the table, Mao Zimiao felt quite happy inside.

Thinking about it, it wasn’t often that the two of them had the chance to be alone together so quietly, meow!

Feeling the gaze from across the table, Wang Qi felt a bit stuck—he was playing with porridge, after all! Liquid food! No matter how much he stirred, it couldn’t be used as scratch paper!

But to admit that he was not thinking about a problem now—pondering over the porridge while eating was scholarly behavior, confessing he was showing off would be tantamount to acting cool only to reveal foolishness!

My style is not to be a clown!

Fortunately, the awkward situation of Wang Qi and Mao Zimiao’s contentment did not last long.

"Hey, this isn’t good..." From a distance, Wu Fan’s voice drifted over. Judging by the footsteps, there were several others with him. Wang Qi silently commended Wu Fan in his mind, then pretended he was disturbed from his thoughts and frowned in the direction of Wu Fan.

Mao Zimiao’s ears twitched, hearing Wu Fan’s voice, the girl quickly adjusted her expression to appear nonchalant, "Xiao Qi, look, Wu Fan has run into trouble, meow!"

Wang Qi nodded, "Mhm."

The ones following Wu Fan were three new disciples of the Xinyue Immortal Institute, all known to Wang Qi but not well-acquainted. Unlike Wu Fan, all three had sorrowful expressions. Upon seeing Wang Qi, one of them rushed over and threw himself on the table, shouting, "Senior Brother Wang! You must seek justice for us!"

Ah, what’s this... a classic face-slapping scene from the novels?

Wang Qi looked at Wu Fan with a puzzled expression. True to being a good lackey, Wu Fan understood right away what Wang Qi wanted to ask and explained with a wry smile, "We had a clash with disciples from the Langde Immortal Institute."

As it turned out, the new disciples of the Langde Immortal Institute had arrived at Jiongli City almost at the same time as Xinyue. The Spirit Boat from Langde Institute was also docked at this spaceport, just a few berths away from the Xinyue Institute’s. After some free time, it was inevitable for the disciples of both institutes to run into each other.

Langde had a fierce culture, and its young people even more so. A group of cultivators like that, how could they miss an opportunity to provoke opponents from their exam? Soon, someone from the Langde Institute had deliberately provoked Xinyue.

The disciples from Xinyue tried to endure it at the start, but the Langde disciples provoked them time and again, each time with harsher words. Eventually, one of the Xinyue disciples couldn’t bear it any longer and fought with a Langde disciple.

Wang Qi doubted, "Private duels are allowed within Jiongli City?"

"You really are out of touch with everything, aren’t you, Xiao Qi, meow?" Mao Zimiao, who was unconsciously leaning towards the image of a virtuous character, sighed and said helplessly, "Langde and Xinyue have different rules, meow. Some districts allow for contests."

Thinking it over, aside from himself, there were only two or three individuals in Xinyue Institute who might be considered scholars at best, and his good friend Wu Shiqin was a Law Enforcer, it didn’t make sense for him to participate in such a law-breaking private duel. With this in mind, Wang Qi asked, "So, you suffered a loss?"

Among the three individuals Wu Fan brought, the one leading nodded and said, "For literary contests, Brother Long and Senior Sister Liu can hold their own, but nobody can control those Sea Barbarians in a martial fight."

A Modern Cultivator’s so-called literary contest is when two individuals carve out an equal number of problems and then exchange the problems in their hands to solve the difficult ones posed by the other. The contestants must ensure they can provide a complete solution to any problem they pose. The one who finishes the opponent’s problems first is the winner.

On Earth, this kind of duel was once popular among scientists. However, with the perfection of the academic system in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, scientists’ way of dueling also became indistinguishable from celebrities—competing for headlines in magazines. The only difference is that scientists vie for the headlines of academic journals.

Wu Fan added, "They then begged me to come find you. This wasn’t my idea, I couldn’t resist them."

Xinyue’s number one scholar nodded his head and continued playing with his porridge, "Got it, not going."

"Great... Ah? What did you say?" Hearing the first part of Wang Qi’s words, all three showed relieved smiles, thinking that they were battered by the Langde disciples and overjoyed by Wang Qi’s intent to move. But Wang Qi’s latter half shattered their hopes.

"Why?" One among the three panicked, "This concerns the honor of the Xinyue Immortal Institute."

"It’s none of my business," Wang Qi said indifferently, "If I don’t fight them, does it mean they are stronger than me?"

The tone of the three disciples changed, but another was still unwilling to give up, "But they’re blatantly slapping our face..."

Wang Qi stopped his chopsticks and turned to look at the speaker, "Are you mistaken about something?"

"Eh?"

"My face is right here, if they want to slap a face, let them come slap it." Wang Qi’s expression was serious, "But the face of the Immortal Institute has nothing to do with me."