I am collecting entries in reincarnation

Chapter 595: Things in the Courtyard

"I think what the servant said may be groundless, Brother Yun'er." Li Ming said.

Fang Yun said calmly, "It's okay. It's just a matter of fighting back. We just need to do our homework. How can they dominate the academy? With all the saints in the Confucian Temple here, we can't let them harm us so blatantly."

Seeing Fang Yun so calm, Li Ming was naturally quite impressed. Fang Yun was a clear-headed man. He was not the kind of blindly confident son of luck. He clearly had nothing to rely on, but he relied on his courage and the aura of the protagonist.

Fang Yun also knew that although he was of low status now, as long as he followed the rules in this place, he would never be in danger of his life.

After that, the two of them settled down in Yichengju, Yinlong Lake, and attended classes and lived normally. No one bothered them. They were in the same class and also made some good friends from the same class.

During the day, Li Ming read and practiced calligraphy to cultivate his literary spirit, and at night he secretly practiced martial arts in the house. The two complemented each other and he made rapid progress.

Fang Yun was very unusual. He was the first in the Jiyuan County case and defeated Xu Gongwang. He was right in all the answers and his poems were published in newspapers, which made him famous as a literary figure. Many people knew him, and many people wanted to stare at him.

During this period, many things happened around Fang Yun, such as provocation every three days, literary competition every five days, and poetry meeting every seven days.
Naturally, he became a celebrity in the academy, and Li Ming hid under Fang Yun's glory. Even though his learning progress was far beyond that of ordinary people, he seemed nothing special compared to Fang Yun. But if you look closely, you will find that this fellow countryman of Fang Yun is also an extraordinary person.

January has already come in a blink of an eye, and today is the day when the results of the first exam for new students after admission are announced.

The internal assessment of Guangyuan Academy is extremely strict. Although the management is relaxed during study and class, it is like a completely different academy when it comes to exams. Every monthly exam divides students into four grades: A, B, C, and D based on their scores.

A D grade once will result in a warning, and the treatment in the academy will be one grade lower. A D grade three times will result in direct expulsion from the academy. Many students who originally lack the ability and knowledge will spend a lot of money to get a place, but in the end they can only stay in the school for three months.

Of course, there are also some students who study hard and can make progress, but they are a minority after all. Now is the time when the number of students in the college is the largest. In three months, the first batch of people will be expelled from the college. There will be new people every month thereafter. By the end of the year, the number of people will be reduced by 30% to 40%.

Since Li Ming could avoid getting involved in those things with Fang Yun during this period, the relationship between the two, although not distant, was not close either. It was more like the feeling of roommates. Today, the two went to see the list together. As soon as Fang Yun arrived, he was immediately surrounded by a large group of students.

All of them were students who had become good friends with Fang Yun during this period of time. Li Ming was very self-aware and took two steps back, allowing Fang Yun to be surrounded by the crowd and become the focus of everyone's attention.

Seeing them talking and laughing, Li Ming also responded a few times, but it was not noticeable. Fang Yun was able to get to this point, so he must be really capable. In just one month, he wrote three poems, each one better than the last. He never lost to others in literary competitions. Even the scholar was defeated by him. He even said that he would pass the scholar examination in May and become a scholar of the same year.

If it were someone else, most people would say it was wishful thinking, but when Fang Yun said this, it was about 80% to 90% credible. However, he himself is still studying in the class for young students, so it is no wonder that he has become a star-studded figure.

However, Li Ming was not jealous at all, and was even secretly delighted. Now that Fang Yun was in front of him, no one cared if he performed a little bit out of the ordinary, which really attracted a lot of firepower for him.

Just as everyone was chatting and laughing, another group of people slowly walked to the bulletin board where the results were announced. This group of people was different from Fang Yun and the others. It could be seen from their attire. Although they all wore the standard scholar uniform of Guangyuan Academy, the people who came later all wore belts and pendants, and looked very noble. The difference could be seen in their words and actions.

In fact, although they were all studying in Guangyuan Academy, just as Fang Yun and Xu Gongwang were not from the same class, the wealthy and powerful families, the famous and the poor were naturally different.
However, the struggles between the children of wealthy families and those of poor families in Guangyuan Academy had always ended with the poor families losing. The situation had only improved after Fang Yun came, so Fang Yun was able to gather popularity in a short period of time. However, Fang Yun also knew that because of his background, he had been branded from the very beginning.

There will definitely be no good end if you play both sides, so you deliberately make friends with these children from poor families, and even have the tendency to be elected to be the boss. In this way, you will naturally get the support of the poor family, but you will also arouse the disgust of those children from wealthy families.

Although Xu Gongwang never showed up, the power of the aristocratic family represented by the Xu family has grown from small to large. In the past month, the conflict has intensified several times. Now it is no longer just a matter of the Xu family.

The leader of this group was a student named Wang Pan. He was the same age as Fang Yun and had passed the examination last year. He was a descendant of the prestigious Wang family. The Wang family had quite a bit of influence in the surrounding area, so Wang Pan had a lot of lackeys under his command. In addition to the children of famous families, there were also some ordinary students who were willing to serve as servants for their aristocratic families.

He provoked Fang Yun several times and was taught a lesson two or three times. His face had long been beaten red by Fang Yun, but he still enjoyed stretching out his face for Fang Yun to hit.

Today was an important day. Those who could appear around Wang Pan were all people of status. The two sides were evenly matched in numbers. Wang Pan quickly walked up to Fang Yun and snorted coldly, "Fang Yun, do you remember our bet?"

This was a grudge between the two of them, so naturally no one came forward to talk to them at this moment.

Fang Yun smiled faintly and said, "Brother Wang, what you said was just a joke before the monthly exam. We can encourage each other academically, but expelling us from the academy is a bit too much."

Wang Pan immediately sneered, "So, Mr. Fang is afraid?"

Fang Yun couldn't help but shake his head and sigh, "Why is it so?"

After that, the two of them started arguing with each other again. Of course, Fang Yun won in the end. The two sides even signed a document, stipulating that whoever ranked lower would leave Guangyuan Academy.

A moment later, several faculty members came over to post the list, revealing only the first line of words. Wang Pandeng's face turned pale, because Fang Yun was at the top of the list.

There was no need to look any further at this point. Wang Pan believed that his knowledge was the best among the students, and he had studied for one year longer than Fang Yun. This time he performed extremely well, and he only believed that he had a chance of being in the top ten. However, Fang Yun had only been in school for one month, but he had already jumped to the top of the list. There was no need to ask who was better between the two.

As the list scrolled down, he saw himself in seventh place. This was actually his best performance ever, but unfortunately, Fang Yun was even better. The words "Fang Yun, top-class, first-class" seemed to emit a blinding light, causing his blood to surge. He fainted with his head tilted. "Brother Wang! Brother Wang!"

"How are you doing!"

"Are you okay?!"

Amid the exclamations of the children from the aristocratic families, Wang Pan was carried away. As to whether he had truly fainted from shame and anger, or was feigning unconsciousness to avoid the attack, no one cared. All they knew was that Fang Yun, representing the humble family, had once again triumphed over the aristocratic family!
Not only did he beat Wang Pan, but he also topped the list of all the other students from aristocratic families, and Xu Gongwang was second!
As for Li Ming, his ranking was not low. Although he was not in the top ten, he at least got an A-level evaluation. How many people in the whole Jeju could achieve such a result?

Because the students trained by Guangyuan Academy are all for participating in the provincial examinations, the monthly examinations here have similar specifications and formats to the provincial examinations, which are naturally very different from the boy's examinations. Both the test questions and the scores are very difficult for the new students who have never been exposed to it. Even Wang Pan only got a grade of C in that year. Although Fang Yun is a genius, no matter how talented he is, he will suffer some losses in the beginning.

That's why Wang Pan decided to force Fang Yun to make a bet with him during the first monthly exam and drive him away. He was afraid that Fang Yun would become familiar with these tricks and then really rise to the top. He never expected that Fang Yun was so extraordinary and achieved such results in just one month. No wonder he could be so proud of being a scholar of the same year.

Just because he ranked first in this monthly exam, if he failed, it would make Guangyuan Academy look like a waste.

Seeing Fang Yun being so sharp, his fans immediately shouted for the top man to treat them to a feast tonight so that they could enjoy his banquet.

Fang Yun also invited Li Ming, but Li Ming used the excuse of reviewing his lessons to avoid going with them. Fang Yun did not force him. In fact, this had become the norm during this period. Li Ming would occasionally attend activities in the academy, but he would repeatedly refuse things that would take up too much time if he went out.

Seeing Li Ming slowly walking away, a student who was familiar with Fang Yun said, "Huh, this guy is so arrogant! If he and Fang Quan were not from the same hometown, I would have beaten him up long ago."

Although no one responded to this, several people said, "Yes, yes, Brother Fang. He is young and naive. We have been very tolerant of him, but he has repeatedly ignored your invitations. He is able to live in Yicheng Residence thanks to you. How dare we refuse your kindness like this?"

Fang Yun shook his head and said, "He's naturally gifted. Living with me, he naturally has aspirations. Although he rarely talks to me, I know he has lofty ambitions and doesn't want to waste his time on such things. Don't underestimate his young age; he received an A in this month's exam. Everyone, don't let up."

After hearing these words, the people who had spoken ill of Li Ming at the beginning immediately felt ashamed. Fortunately, Fang Yun quickly changed the subject, and everyone went to the restaurant chatting and laughing.

At Fang Yun's banquet, he happened to meet a senior teacher from the academy. Fang Yun's frequent golden sentences made the senior teacher very happy, and he even proposed to take Fang Yun as his disciple.

But Fang Yun refused on the grounds that he already had a mentor, which made others sigh in regret. Although he was just an old teacher, his identity was not ordinary. The current Minister of Culture was a disciple trained by him. He himself was also a second-rank official, but he was old and had less energy. He had fought bravely on the front line and later injured his literary skills, so he voluntarily retired to teach in this academy. His status in Guangyuan Academy was also very transcendent, almost as high as that of the dean.

If Fang Yun really took him as his mentor, it would be like adding wings to a tiger and would help him rise to prominence.

Of course, all this had nothing to do with Li Ming. He had returned to Yichengju a long time ago, and knowing that there was no one around, he hurried to take advantage of the time to train. During this month, Fang Yun had also seen Li Ming boxing slowly twice, but both times Li Ming covered it up by claiming to be keeping fit.

Whenever Fang Yun is not around, Li Ming will still quietly practice martial arts. After all, even if the brain knows it, the body still needs familiarity and training, otherwise there will always be a slight difference at the critical moment.

When Li Ming thought the time was almost up, he stopped what he was doing, took out two books and read quietly.

Guangyuan Academy has the largest library in Jeju. Although there are no rare and precious books, it has a complete collection of mainstream classics on the market. After all, Li Ming died young in his previous life, and there are still many books he has not read. If he wants to reach the peak of literature in this life, he naturally cannot slack off and must work hard.

It was just a little unexpected that Fang Yun had not returned at midnight. This was very unusual. Although Fang Yun would sometimes go out for literary gatherings, poetry gatherings or banquets, he would always return to Yicheng Residence before midnight. After washing up, he would read for another hour, sometimes even two hours, and then take a light nap before getting up to continue the next day's classes.

So others only saw how talented Fang Yun was and how he always amazed everyone with his skills. Only Li Ming understood Fang Yun's efforts very well. He was definitely not someone who relied solely on talent or any cheats or golden fingers. His unremitting efforts were also an important reason.

In fact, he is a very self-disciplined person, so Li Ming was really surprised that this happened this time. However, he didn't have that much energy to look for Fang Yun. He just kept this matter in his heart. If Fang Yun did not return all night, Li Ming would report it to the lecturer and let the teacher handle it.

As the sky was about to brighten, Li Ming opened his eyes and heard footsteps approaching. Although he was inside the house, his five senses were now sharper than those of ordinary people. He felt that one of them should be Fang Yun.

Li Ming immediately got up from the bed and looked carefully through the crack in the door. There were indeed two people, a man and a woman. The man was naturally Fang Yun, but the woman looked very unfamiliar.

Fang Yun seemed to be unconscious or drunk. He did not seem to have any self-awareness and most of his body was leaning on the woman. The woman gently sent Fang Yun to his room.

Li Ming felt relieved when he saw that Fang Yun was not seriously injured and her life was not in danger. A moment later, the woman walked out of Fang Yun's room again.

But contrary to Li Ming's expectations, the woman's breath disappeared so quickly that even he didn't notice it.

"It looks like I've gotten into some terrible bad karma!"

PS: Thanks to book friends 20220521185315232, Pour Coffee into Milk, Lin Wumeng, book friend 20210316224831650, Magical Girl Gokawa Fran, and Breeze is Just Right and the Sunshine is Warm for their monthly tickets. Thank you very much.

(End of this chapter)