The carriage moved forward, with Lie Sisi probing Yue Jinghua incessantly along the way, trying to glean some information about Yue Jinghua and Divine Court.
Yue Jinghua half-squinted her eyes, answering vaguely. After leaving the city, she closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep. Having refined Elixir Pills all of last night, her spiritual power was astonishingly depleted – there couldn't be a better time to rest.
Hearing the slight snoring sounds coming from Yue Jinghua, Lie Sisi raised her jade hand in anger, a fire-red Dark Light shining from her hand.
"Dying like this would be too easy for you. Letting you die in the Outer Court will give me a reason to take down the Outer Court as well," Lie Sisi whispered, and then extinguished the Dark Light.
While Lie Sisi was not paying attention, Yue Jinghua's tightly closed eyes opened a crack.
After leaving Polo City, the carriage traveled for a while and then entered a valley surrounded by mountains on three sides, forming a basin. The valley was named Pipa Valley, shaped like an upside-down pipa.
"Cousin Jinghua, we're approaching the fork in the road leading to the Inner and Outer Courts. From here, it isn't appropriate for me to escort you further. If you need anything on ordinary days, you can come directly to the Inner Court to find me, just ask for my name," Lie Sisi woke Yue Jinghua and delicately asked her to alight from the carriage.
Getting off the carriage, what first caught the eye was a thriving thicket of branches and leaves, with ferns about half a person's height, giving off the impression of a place rarely visited – indeed, the Outer Court was as desolate as expected.
Yue Jinghua searched for a moment before she discovered a hidden path beneath the ferns.
In contrast, the road to the Inner Court was wide and smooth, allowing two eight-horse carriages to run side by side.
Such a comparison made the difference between the Inner and Outer Courts starkly apparent.
Parting the obstructing ferns, Yue Jinghua proceeded forward.
The ferns grew denser and taller, starting from half a person's height to eventually engulfing her head.
An itch on her neck; a poisonous snake as thick as a finger fell from a tree and crawled onto Yue Jinghua's neck.
Without a wrinkle of her eyebrow, Yue Jinghua's index and middle fingers moved as quick as lightning, pinching the snake at its vital point.
The snake's head and body were twisted apart into two sections, and then she flung them away.
Angry hissing sounds came from all directions, and from within the ferns crawled out various sizes of venomous snakes.
Yue Jinghua had not expected to encounter so many snakes at this moment, and it was too late to escape the thicket.
Seeing their companion killed, the group of snakes hissed and screeched incessantly, their bodies shooting towards Yue Jinghua like javelins.
In this life-or-death moment, Yue Jinghua's palm flipped, and between her fingers appeared several shiny steel needles.
The needles tore through the air, each one as if having eyes of its own, accurately hitting the venomous snakes, two or even three to four at a time, pinning them together and nailing them clean to the trees in the blink of an eye.
"You've got some nerve, harming my Xuanshe?" The ferns shook, and a stunning girl in an orchid dress emerged from the thicket.
Yue Jinghua sneered, "Ridiculous, are you suggesting I should have just stood here and let these cold-blooded creatures bite me?"
"Yue Jinghua, with that ghostly appearance of yours, even if I gave you to my Xuanshe, they wouldn't bother to swallow you. My eighteen Xuanshe have been raised for half a month to reach their current size, and you've ruined them all. Let's see how I deal with you," said the girl, her face darkening as she looked at the dead Xuanshe and took out a copper whistle to blow.
The whistling sound was piercingly sharp, cutting through the thicket of ferns.
A massive python with patterns of thunder flowers on its body clambered over like a heavy road roller, flattening the ferns to the ground wherever it went.
Seeing someone intruding on her territory, the girl in the orchid dress was full of hostility; this area must have been where she bred her Xuanshe.
Combining the earlier behavior of Lie Sisi deliberately "pointing the way," Yue Jinghua wasn't hard-pressed to guess that she had been tricked by Lie Sisi.
When the thunder python appeared, the orchid-dressed girl suddenly felt bolstered in confidence. The spoon-like sounds from her mouth sharply increased in pitch, the thunder python stood up, bared its fangs, and from its throat issued a rumbling sound akin to thunder.
Yue Jinghua snorted. She had already used up all her steel needles.
"Thunder python, swallow it,"
"Shalman," just as the venomous snake was about to strike, a middle-aged man in a brown robe carrying a bamboo basket appeared.
"Old Man Qiu, she killed my Xuanshe, wasting months of my hard work," seeing the middle-aged man, Shalman knew she no longer had the chance to strike and would not let it go.
"Wasted? How could it be wasted? Snake soup, oh snake soup, Xuanshe turned into snake soup, with a delicious taste, warming and nourishing for the stomach. I've been drooling over it for a long time," the man's eyes shone, he chuckled, with a movement technique swift as wind and thunder flash, he bypassed Yue Jinghua and the girl called Shalman. With a flick of his wrist, the steel needles that sank inches into the wood drifted down like hair strands, and dozens of venomous snakes of various sizes were all tossed into the bamboo basket on his back.
In his basket, there were also stuffed various fungi and Spirit Grass.
"You're called Yue Jinghua, right? The first student recruited by the Outer Court in three years, and also the third student of the Outer Court so far. Introduce yourselves. Shalman, your senior disciple. Yue Jinghua, the new student. As it happens, the two of you are really fated to meet - one being 'First Ugly Woman' and the other 'snake girl'. I am your Dean, Qiu Chuzi. Don't just stare at each other; you two will be sharing a room, so you must get along amicably," Qiu Chuzi said grinningly, nodding vigorously at Yue Jinghua.
In her surprise at the name, Yue Jinghua clearly heard the latter part of his statement.
"Her? No way." Yue Jinghua and Shalman said in unison.
Soon, Yue Jinghua discovered that wanting to not share a room with Shalman was nothing but a dream.
Because in the entire Outer Court, there were only five houses, one side of which was made up as a bamboo fence.
There was one dining hall, one Cultivation Hall that was sealed all year round, and among the remaining three houses, the larger one was where the Dean and Vice-Dean lived. Of the other two houses, one was for male students and one for female students.
The scarcity of houses also implied there weren't many students.
Five houses, three students, two teachers - that was the total number of personnel at the Royal Academy's Outer Court.
Even Yue Jinghua, who had mentally prepared herself for this beforehand, couldn't help but feel a little surprised. Although she was here to simply get a diploma, the situation before her was still rather dismal.
What surprised Yue Jinghua was Old Man Qiu's introduction of Shalman earlier. "Yue Jinghua" was indeed Polo City's First Ugly Woman, but why was Shalman referred to as the "snake girl"?
The families in Polo City with the surname Sha were not many, and considering the special nature of the Outer Court's student recruitment, it wasn't hard to figure out Shalman's background.
Shaloman came from the well-regarded Sha Family in the city, a family with a long history, one of the founding families of the nation. Over several centuries, many women from the Sha Family had married into the Shang Kingdom's Royal Family, and Shalman's aunt was currently the Imperial Concubine.
With such excellent lineage, Shalman's looks were naturally not too shabby, and her temperament was no better, showing nothing but cold eyes and cold words towards Yue Jinghua.
As a ritual to welcome the new student, Qiu Chuzi, who also doubled as a cook, prepared a pot of fragrant snake soup.
Watching Yue Jinghua relishing several large bowls of snake soup, Shalman ground her teeth with a crunching sound.
As for the other student and the Vice-Dean that Qiu Chuzi had mentioned, neither showed up even as the sun set.
When Yue Jinghua inquired about their whereabouts, Qiu Chuzi replied nonchalantly, "Rest well tonight, there are still long days ahead."
Yue Jinghua acknowledged with a sound and returned to her room.
Old Man Qiu finished off the pot of snake soup and took out a toothpick to pick his teeth, "It's a pity the old ape isn't here, otherwise we could have made a bet to see how long this new student can last?"