In the Sishui courtyard, surrounded by many ancient trees, everyone slowly dispersed to leave a space for Fang Yun and Meng Linyu.
Except for the relatives and friends of those who entered Shengxu, the people who could come to Sishuiyuan were all scholars, and all of them were in high spirits. This battle of literary courage between Juren and Jinshi might not be seen in person for decades.
A civil servant stationed in Kongcheng of Jing State asked in a low voice: "Lord Li, what do you think of the result of this literary duel?"
"If Fang Yun doesn't fight, he will win. If he fights, he will win!" Li Wenying's voice was steady and powerful, which inspired every Jing countryman.
"Since Lord Jianmei said so, Fang Yun will definitely win!"
"Fang Yun will win!" The Jing people around him immediately cheered for Fang Yun loudly.
Meng Linyu is from Wu, a big country with far more people in Sishuiyuan than Jing. However, apart from the Meng family, there are only three or five people from Wu cheering for Meng Linyu at this moment.
Those people were shouting, and suddenly they stopped.
Someone nearby asked with a smile, "Why don't you shout anymore?"
"How embarrassing." The Wu State scholar looked ashamed.
The difference in the number of people supporting the two sides was so great that Meng Linyu looked extremely unhappy. He was just about to stabilize the literary talent when suddenly, shouts of cheering for Fang Yun came from all directions. Although they were not uniform, they continued one after another without interruption.
People from all over the ten countries hope Fang Yun will win!
Meng Linyu was so angry that his face turned blue.
A Hanlin from the Confucius Academy came over and said, "I will judge this literary contest. Does anyone have any objections?"
Fang Yun and Meng Linyu immediately called him "Sir".
The Hanlin said, "This literary contest is not to encourage bravery and violence, but our human race has emotions and desires. It is human nature that it is better to release than to block. This is the strategy of human race to encourage. I will ask you one last time, do you two really want to have a literary contest?"
"I've made up my mind." Fang Yun and Meng Linyu said.
"Alright. The battle of literary courage not only tests your toughness and tenacity, but also your brains! If you can't even know yourself and your opponent, then it's only natural that you lose! Since both of you have confidence in yourselves, I declare that the battle of literary courage begins!"
As Hanlin spoke, he pointed at the position between Fang Yun and Meng Linyu. The official seal on his body emitted a faint light, and the power of the holy temple descended. An inverted transparent light shield appeared where Fang Yun and Meng Linyu were. If anyone of them used any power other than that of Wendan, they would be killed without mercy.
Fang Yun and Meng Linyu slowly retreated.
Fang Yun was wearing a dark blue scholar's uniform with bamboo leaves embroidered on the collar and sleeves.
Meng Linyu was wearing a white robe of a Jinshi, with small silver swords embroidered on the collar and sleeves.
The surroundings were very quiet, and everyone tried to suppress their breathing, fearing that the noise would be too loud and they would miss the excitement.
Meng Linyu bowed to Fang Yun and said, "Fang Yun, I didn't want to get too entangled with you. My Meng family kindly exchanged the great scholar's treasure for a piece of animal skin for you, but you didn't know how to appreciate it, and you even tried to exchange it for a treasure like the Wuhou Chariot! After that, you insulted my Meng family's daughter in front of the whole world, saying that she is not as good as your child bride. Today you are aggressive again. I just mentioned the lowly child bride casually, and you want to fight with me. In this case, don't blame me for being rude! Everything today is your own fault. It's not that I bully the weak!"
"Have you finished? If you have, let's have a literary duel." Fang Yun was calm and composed, like a pine tree standing on the top of a mountain or a crane flying among the clouds.
"You... you forced me to do it." Meng Linyu took a step back, his mind connected with the literary courage. An invisible force of literary courage surged from his brows and rushed towards Fang Yun like a gust of wind.
Many people were secretly shocked when they saw this scene. This Meng Linyu was indeed the descendant of a semi-saint family. Even if he had not reached the first level of literary talent, he was not far away. He was indeed qualified to be proud.
The strong wind was about to blow Fang Yun, but suddenly it stopped, as if it had encountered a huge wall that connected the sky and the earth and could withstand all the forces in the world.
"Boom..."
A slight roar was heard, and a force of literary courage like a river bursting its dam surged out from between Fang Yun's brows, easily tearing apart Meng Linyu's literary courage and hitting Meng Linyu's body hard, hitting his literary courage.
Meng Linyu screamed and flew backwards. Then everyone heard the sound of the literary tablet breaking, as crisp as a glass cup falling to the ground.
Meng Linyu fell to the ground, blood flowing from the corner of his mouth. His eyes moved slightly, trying hard to see Fang Yun clearly, but Fang Yun in front of him was always blurry and as far away as the sky.
The Hanlin in charge of judging couldn't help but exclaimed: "This... This is the second level of Wendan! You... You are already a candidate for the Imperial Examination!"
The whole audience was in an uproar, and after a moment the crowd was noisy!
Earlier, when Fang Yun said he wanted to compete in literary courage, everyone had already realized that Fang Yun might have become the legendary candidate before the Holy Emperor. However, being a candidate before the Holy Emperor would be fine, but he had also reached the second level of literary courage, which was really unbelievable.
"No wonder he dared to enter the poisonous snow. I was not mistaken. He was already at the second level of Wendan at that time." Li Fanming said.
"This doesn't make sense! He just became a candidate for the Imperial Examination, how could he have reached the second level of Wen Dan? Even the strongest genius can't do it, it's absolutely impossible! The power of Wen Dan is nothing else, there is no shortcut, you can only keep honing it, honing it again and again, no matter how talented he is, it won't have any effect on Wen Dan."
"Does he have a way to temporarily increase his literary power?"
"He must have had an adventure in the Holy Ruins. For example, he entered a place like the Long River of History or the Spring and Autumn Period, which gave him more time to hone his literary talent."
"That makes sense."
"Yukong, I'm afraid you can't keep your position as the top scholar."
"When Fang Yun became a saint before he passed the imperial examination, I was no longer the top candidate." Yan Yukong felt a little disappointed, but he quickly regained his spirits and was not affected by this incident.
Zong Wude said: "Yan Yukong has been in power for thousands of years, and Fang Zhenguo has been in power for tens of thousands of years. I don't know whether it is a blessing or a sorrow to be in the same era as you two. It's a pity that my talent is too poor. Even if it is a little better, and the old man in my family teaches me carefully, I don't know if I will become a genius that appears once in thousands of years!"
"Stop bragging. You only know the power displayed by Fang Yun and Yan Yukong. How do you know that they don't have other secrets? How do you know their true strength? Can you come back alive from the Demon Saint?"
Zong Wude looked at Fang Yun, was silent for a moment, and said: "Then I will still be Zong Wude for a hundred years."
Everyone laughed.
Fang Yun looked at Meng Linyu lying on the ground, flicked his sleeves and said, "Yang Yuhuan is not humble, it is you who is humble! Tell the evil king for me that I am back from the trip to the Holy Ruins. He didn't!"
After Fang Yun finished speaking, he walked towards Yan Yukong and the others. On the way, he nodded to the people of Jing State and exchanged glances with Li Wenying. Everything was said without words.
"Fang Yun, why are you willing to show your strength today? Don't you always like to hide it?" Kong Delun said with a smile.
"What I showed, the demon world already knows." Fang Yun's tone was somewhat helpless. Those demon saints were not pushovers. Since some aspects could not be hidden, it would be better to show them openly.
"Oh? Do you have some strength that the demon world doesn't know about?" Kong Delun asked.
Fang Yun said, "De Lun, didn't you say that we should go visit the temple of Duke Huan of Lu? Why are you still standing here? Why don't you send a letter to ask the Kong family for help?"
Seeing that Fang Yun did not answer, Kong Delun had to take out the literary treasure and send a letter via carrier pigeon.
At this time, many relatives and friends came over, and everyone separated temporarily. Fang Yun was surrounded by the Jing people.
The people of Jing were extremely excited and asked a lot of questions, but some things were really inconvenient to say, so Fang Yun could only give vague answers.
Li Wenying asked: "Are you satisfied with the results of this trip?"
"Satisfied." Fang Yun thought to himself that he was extremely satisfied. He probably had the best things in the Holy Ruins in his hands.
"That's good." Li Wenying nodded.
Fang Yun understood what Li Wenying meant. Back then, Li Wenying had fought his way out of the Holy Ruins and laid the foundation for today.
From time to time, someone came up and asked Fang Yun if he had seen those who did not return, and Fang Yun answered truthfully.
Fang Yun was chatting with the others when a group of people suddenly came over angrily. The middle-aged woman in the lead asked with a dark face, "Did you kill my son Weng Ming?"
"Weng Ming?" Fang Yun immediately recalled that this man had provoked him, and later on the floating ice river, he called him stupid and followed his route. As a result, the ice broke, and later Xun Ye pushed Weng Ming away to protect himself, resulting in Weng Ming's death.
"What? You dare to do it but not to take responsibility for it?" the mother-in-law asked angrily.
Fang Yun glanced in the direction of Xun Ye and said, "You've got the wrong person. When Weng Ming died, I was very far away from him. He had nothing to do with me."
"Xun Ye said that he and Weng Ming followed your route to choose the ice floe, but you deliberately destroyed the ice floe, causing the two of them to fall into the river. Xun Ye barely escaped, while Weng Ming fell into the river. Xun Ye kept apologizing, saying that if there was a way, he would definitely save Weng Ming, and he had no choice!" said Weng's mother.
"Oh, so you heard it from Xun Ye, then why didn't you ask other people? What we saw was that Xun Ye pushed Weng Ming into the river in order to protect himself!" Fang Yun said.
Mother Weng said contemptuously, "It's just as Xun Ye said! You colluded with the demons and made a demon say that he saw him push Weng Ming into the river, but apart from that demon, no one else saw it with their own eyes! I have asked a few people, and they all said that they heard it from the demon and did not see it with their own eyes."
"They certainly didn't see it with their own eyes, but did anyone see me destroying the ice floe?" Fang Yun suddenly asked back.
The mother-in-law was speechless.
"Aunt Weng, you are such an adult but you can't even see through this little trick. You are being played around by others without even realizing it. I really don't know what to say to you. I will pretend that what happened today never happened. If you, the Weng family, are willing to be used as someone else's pen to harm me again, I will never tolerate it!" Fang Yun finally glanced coldly at everyone in the Weng family, and the three words "Weng family" were particularly heavy in his voice.
Li Wenying nodded slightly. The Weng family might have thought of this, but their genius was dead, and the Gu Kingdom where the Weng family was located was in opposition to the Jing Kingdom, so taking the initiative to go to the door to ask for an explanation was the best choice. If it was really done by Fang Yun, then they would argue with reason. If it was not done by Fang Yun, then no one would blame the Weng mother because she was a woman and because her son had just passed away.
As a woman, Mother Weng might not understand this matter, but other people in the Weng family and Xun Ye must have instigated it, which led to Mother Weng's going to great lengths to hold her accountable.
Li Wenying commented on the Weng family in his heart.
His crime can be forgiven, but his heart is despicable!
Some people nearby suddenly looked at the Weng family with strange eyes. They knew that what Weng's mother did was wrong, but they didn't stop her. Instead, they instigated and encouraged her. This was extremely despicable and a disgrace to the Semi-Saint family. (To be continued...)