Li Shiyin's Staff

"Join you?" Tian Wenjin was puzzled, "What are you doing?"

"Taking the assessment! Getting first place!" Long Qiqi raised her two little fists and clenched them tightly as she said to Tian Wenjin.

"Taking the assessment and getting first place?" Tian Wenjin looked at Long Qiqi, not understanding what the assessment had to do with her. "Shiyin wants to get first place?"

"Of course she wants to!" Long Qiqi said, "Don't you want to get first place?"

It would definitely be a lie to say she didn't want to get first place. Tian Wenjin looked at Long Qiqi and said, "I'm very confident in my own abilities, so I know I definitely can't get first place. Shiyin, Senior Brother Lu, Senior Brother Liu, they are all a level above me."

"The assessment relies on more than just abilities..." Long Qiqi said seriously to Tian Wenjin, "There is also luck and strategy. We can't control luck but we can manipulate strategy."

Tian Wenjin became interested and asked Long Qiqi, "What strategy?"

Long Qiqi waved her hand to gesture for her to come closer. When Tian Wenjin squatted down with her ear close by, she finally lowered her voice and said, "Gathering intelligence, predicting opponents, analyzing the situation, formulating preemptive strategies against enemies..."

When she finished, she stared at Tian Wenjin and raised her eyebrows, "What do you think?"

When Tian Wenjin heard this and thought about it carefully, she was surprised to find that what Long Qiqi said could really help them win. She couldn't help but look at Long Qiqi closely again, sizing her up and down, and said, "You can do that? Where did you learn it from?"

The Dao Sword Sect had been holding these knock tests for thousands of years, but no one had ever come up with such an ingenious idea before.

Although Long Qiqi was crafty enough, she still had some cunning. But this kind of thinking could only have been learned from Qin Ran. She didn't answer, only kept asking Tian Wenjin, "What do you think? Do you want to join? Do you? Do you?"

"How far have you guys gotten so far?" Tian Wenjin thought for a moment and asked.

"We're still gathering intelligence on the disciples," Long Qiqi replied.

"Then what would I have to do if I join?" Tian Wenjin said, "I mean, what's the cost?"

After struggling to survive in the cultivation world for two or three years, Tian Wenjin already understood that pie doesn't fall from the sky.

"What cost?" The sinister little loli glared at Tian Wenjin reproachfully and smiled, "We just gather intelligence together, analyze together, strategize together. We're all friends, just sharing information."

Tian Wenjin contemplated, "How many people do you have now?"

"There's you and Shiyin, then there's me and Chasing the Wind."

"Why aren't there others?"

"I'm not familiar with the others."

"Alright..." Tian Wenjin was successfully tricked into joining the group. She asked, "So what should I do now?"

"You go take over intelligence gathering from Chasing the Wind. His targets are too obvious, running around will easily attract other people's attention."

"Okay." Tian Wenjin nodded, then asked again, "Specifically, what should I gather?"

Long Qiqi told her one by one, and after she listened, she turned to go find Chasing the Wind.

"Wait!" Long Qiqi suddenly remembered something and called for her to stop again, gesturing for her to come closer and ask softly, "What's the number on your identity token?"

"One hundred and seventy-one..." Tian Wenjin said, taking out her identity token to look, then hesitated, "No, when did it change to seventy-seven?"

Long Qiqi's expression changed slightly when she heard this: "Your number changed?"

"What does that mean?"

"After the first round ended, some people's numbers changed, and some didn't," Long Qiqi replied. "For example, Shiyin's number didn't change, it's still sixty-seven; your number changed from one hundred seventy-one to seventy-seven."

"Do you know why?"

Long Qiqi shook her head, "There must be some pattern to this, but I haven't figured it out yet."

"I see..."

Following Long Qiqi's instructions, Tian Wenjin went to take over for Chasing the Wind. As usual, she recorded the names, numbers, occupations, levels, etc. of the two assessment participants. And as a cultivator, she naturally also recorded the details like the combat styles and habits of both sides in the battle.

The assessments on the first day lasted continuously from 10 AM to 8 PM. It wasn't until night fell that the liveliness on Master Peak gradually dispersed.

Qin Ran had served as a judge for a whole day and was already exhausted. As soon as he returned to Dan Peak, he collapsed into a chair and started to doze off.

But the four-person group who had also been running around the Forum Platform all day didn't feel tired at all. At this time, they were still sitting in a circle on the grass in front of the small wooden house, arguing vigorously.

Li Shiyin and Tian Wenjin sat with legs crossed, while Chasing the Wind and Long Qiqi laid on their stomachs. Chasing the Wind laid down to reduce the impact of his massive size, while Long Qiqi laid here, sticking her little butt up, chattering nonstop.

She spoke in a lowered voice, with a lot of breathiness, very much like a snake hissing "hiss hiss hiss".

Qin Ran couldn't sleep from the noise, so he got up and walked over. Using the light cast from the corridor, he saw Long Qiqi's elbow on top of a stack of thick paper, covered with grids and filled with numbers, names, descriptions, markings, and more - very messy.

When he came over, he saw Long Qiqi make a mark on the paper with her pen, hissing, "Of the Outer Sect disciples, these eleven are worth paying attention to. Comprehensive analysis shows they may have strong abilities, hidden abilities, strange skills, strange artifacts, and so on.

"The two who need special attention are Lin Yi and Xiao Bufan. Lin Yi's cultivation techniques are miscellaneous, so he likely has hidden strength; Xiao Bufan's fire is especially fierce, probably Heavenly Anomalous Fire, giving him the capital to win despite being weaker.

"That's the Outer Sect disciples." As she spoke, she handed the chart to Li Shiyin and Tian Wenjin to look at, then took out another chart herself and continued,

"As for the Inner Sect disciples... you can't underestimate most of the Inner Sect disciples' strength.

"There are seven who need special attention, they are...

"Among them, this one named Ximen Wushang needs extremely special attention. I feel he has strength comparable to the top ten arrogances. "

"Such a high evaluation?" Li Shiyin said in surprise, "Didn't everyone only show moderate strength in the first round?"

"I watched his match..." Tian Wenjin picked up the thread of conversation, "His opponent was Senior Brother from Sword Peak, who is extremely strong, not below me... but in the end he was defeated by Ximen Wushang."

"Oh!" Li Shiyin nodded in understanding.

As they were talking, they suddenly heard Chasing the Wind call out "Dad", and were shocked. Looking up, they realized Qin Ran had already been eavesdropping there for quite a while.

Discovering he had been exposed, Qin Ran glared at Chasing the Wind - so your eyes are pretty useful huh?

He awkwardly coughed and smiled, "Not bad, great work! Keep it up..." Then swiftly fled.

After Qin Ran left, the four-person group continued discussing. As they talked, they brought up the matter of the changing numbers again, but the pattern still wasn't cracked.

The more Long Qiqi thought about it the angrier she got. Suddenly she sat up and pointed at Chasing the Wind scolding, "This number pattern should be your responsibility, but look at the sorry state your math skills are in!"

The massive blob named Chasing the Wind just laid there, not even daring to breathe loudly while being scolded by the tiny Long Qiqi.

"The numbers must relate to the match order tomorrow. Without finding the pattern... Do you know how many opportunities we'll miss out on?"

"Alright, alright..." Li Shiyin quickly smoothed things over, consoling, "We've already collected so much information, it's enough. The number pattern and such, we'll know after watching a few more matches tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, tomorrow! If we knew today, we'd have so much more time to prepare!" Long Qiqi glared at Li Shiyin again and said angrily.

Li Shiyin and Tian Wenjin exchanged a look, both feeling helpless. If the three of them plus Chasing the Wind were added together, Long Qiqi's strength still wouldn't match one of their fingers. But...

Of course, scolding aside, in the end Chasing the Wind still didn't figure out the number pattern... That big head of his was useless after all.

That night, a certain big cat laid on the cat tree, blowing in the cold wind and sleepless with anxiety all night.