I have the best bloodline

Su Yan had only ever seen such a style of home decoration at the West Sea Dragon King's Winter Retreat. Of course, the Dragon Father's aesthetic was actually also inclined towards maximalism, but later the Fox Mother found it cumbersome and threw it all away.

These flashy but impractical things are piled up so densely in the house that even the maids cry and dare not touch them or clean them, for fear that if they break a single one, they will have to spend the rest of their lives as slaves in the fox mother's house to pay off their debts.

The fox mother threw everything away, so when Su Yan was born, the house wasn't decorated with many fancy things.

………………

The group walked along the colorful marble path, crossed a small bridge to admire the glittering gems at the bottom of the pool, and arrived at the main hall where the Grand Tutor usually handled government affairs. Stacks of documents were casually piled on the floor, and the Grand Tutor sat behind the long table in the center of the hall.

Two slender shelves form an encircling shape, surrounding Grand Tutor Jin from behind. They are piled high with objects, and the roof above the books is covered with glazed tiles. Sunlight shines on the books, amplifying the visual effect and giving those who have just entered a sense of oppression, as if Mount Tai were collapsing.

"Please sit down!"

Grand Tutor Jin was not working; he was merely sitting in his usual office seat and spoke calmly:

“I am aware of your demands, and there is no need to repeat those matters. What I want to say is that you will receive my guidance and be taught the universal secret method of strengthening the human form of the dragon race.”

What are your opinions? Has anyone decided to withdraw?

Su Yan glanced at Grand Tutor Jin discreetly, sensing that something was amiss, but couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Faced with Grand Tutor Jin's affirmation of the previous rewards, his willingness to guide everyone in cultivation, and his gift of the Dragon Clan's secret techniques, no one had any objections. Even Zhou You, who had complained a few days ago about wanting to take the spirit stones and run away to continue traveling the cultivation world and creating the Compendium of All Things in the Cultivation World, couldn't utter a word of objection in the face of the Grand Tutor's increased rewards.

"Hahaha"

Grand Tutor Jin chuckled twice and said, "Then all of you, go to the left garden and begin your cultivation!"

"By the way, Su Yan, please stay here for a moment. There is a file here that you need to deliver to the Ministry of Rites."

Su Yan not only knew the facilities inside the imperial city, but also possessed the Red Jade Hairpin Sword, which allowed him to move freely throughout most of the imperial city. Therefore, Grand Tutor Jin asked Su Yan to stay and deliver a file.

"Why is your gaze so strange?" Grand Tutor Jin took out a file and gave it to Su Yan, but Su Yan did not leave. Instead, he had a strange, hesitant expression on his face.

"There's nothing strange about it. I don't like to keep servants in my residence. The only ones who stay here for long are a dozen or so maids who have no cultivation."

Grand Tutor Jin smiled and said, "The Xia Yu ancestral worship ceremony next year will be in mid-January. Don't you understand yet?"

"Oh!"

After thinking it over carefully, Su Yan suddenly exclaimed with an exclamation mark above his head, "Xia Yu is going to seal the accounts!"

Grand Tutor Jin's explanation may be a bit convoluted, but the reasoning is actually very simple: in a while, Xia Yu's Hall will start collecting debts, gathering all the taxes and donations obtained by officials from various regions into Xia Yu City.

At that time, the Ministry of Revenue would have to handle astronomical amounts of taxes, tributes, and land from the Xia Dynasty, and could not afford to make a single mistake.

The Ministry of Personnel also needed to tour the country to provide guidance and, based on the accounts provided by the Ministry of Revenue, begin to assess local officials at the grassroots level.

The Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Works also needed to prepare for the celebrations, and during the Xia Dynasty, quite a few officials died suddenly at the end of the year due to the large number of accounts to keep and the need to inspect the whole country.

Clearly, with the six ministries of the Xia Yu court busy, Grand Tutor Jin would naturally be busy as well.

Combining this with the significance of the spring outing—selecting loyal young men to serve Yu the Great—and the fact that Grand Tutor Jin usually disliked using servants, we can draw the following conclusion.

One of the reasons why Grand Tutor Jin guided students in cultivation and taught the Dragon Clan methods to strengthen their physique was that the students who could participate in the spring outing were all Xia Yu's own people, and they could have some contact with Xia Yu's internal affairs.

Thus, a month later, when the Xia Yu Dynasty was busy with sealing accounts, Grand Tutor Jin had already trained "soldiers" who could handle the continuous stream of documents collected by the officials of the six ministries.

To put it bluntly, the secret techniques and cultivation methods being taught now are all for the students' physical health, so that they won't suddenly die when they are handling high-intensity official duties.

"Don't worry. Yours isn't included in this. Your parents are currently preparing for the wedding banquet, and you might have to go home when the Xia Yu Dynasty is at its busiest," Grand Tutor Jin said. "Just focus on your cultivation here with me."

Su Yan: "."

Are you a nesting doll? How come you said you could receive a prize at the end of the spring outing, but now there's one trap after another?

Aren't you taking advantage of the students' honesty?

………………

Su Yan left the Grand Tutor's mansion with a heart full of complaints. He summoned the Red Jade Hairpin Sword from the sky and used it to hail a carriage in the imperial city. He then boarded the carriage and headed towards the Ministry of Rites.

Although the term "Three Divisions and Six Departments" is used together, the offices of the Three Divisions and Six Departments are not located in one place on a daily basis.

The Ministry of Rites occupied an extremely large area and was in charge of rites and music, academies, religion, diplomacy, and later, the function of setting up a trading post for Yu the Great, which was secretly granted to him by Grand Tutor Jin.

Before Su Yan came to the Ministry of Rites, he always thought that it was full of talented women from the Jiaofangsi (a type of music and dance academy) who were researching singing and dancing skills, rehearsing performances, or teaching at the Ritual and Music Academy.

But Su Yan, who came to deliver the message, did not tour the thousands of rooms in the Ministry of Rites, nor did he visit the lake next to the Academy of Rites and Music to admire the talented women practicing their dances. Instead, he went to the most profitable department in the Ministry of Rites.

"Six rooms, six rooms! The betting odds of the Crimson King's Mansion, five black dogs versus five red foxes, all from flower-growing regions, a little demon in the Body Refining stage, with no history of using medicine, calculate the odds, we need to get the results in three incense sticks."

Inside a walled building, a glass canopy was erected above the open courtyard to shield it from the sun and rain. A stage stood directly above the courtyard, and more than twenty girls dressed in beautiful dancer costumes stood on the stage. However, they did not perform dances or sing. Instead, they each held a bunch of communication jades and listened to messages.

After listening to the information in the jade slip, the girls, having diligently practiced their singing skills, opened their mouths and sang out steady, high notes:

"Fourth and Sixth House, Fourth and Sixth House, a life-or-death situation. The second young master of the Jiang family of Qingcheng is challenging the third son of the Hu family from the same city. The Ministry of Rites does not have information on the Qingcheng clan, so an application needs to be made to the Ministry of Personnel. The outcome needs to be determined by the afternoon of the next day."

"Ah, okay, okay."

A small head peeked out from the eighteenth room, frantically copying and calculating. The news was delivered in triplicate: one copy was used to calculate the winning probability for the girls in the room, one copy was used for reporting when collecting materials, and one copy was kept on file for auditing and correcting errors if the loss mechanism was triggered.

"Is this really the Ministry of Rites? Are you sure this isn't just a place called 'Outrageous'?"

Su Yan, who came to deliver the documents, listened to the sounds of abacuses coming from various rooms and looked at the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites, who was dumbfounded, and then made a comment.

"Hahaha"

The Left Vice Minister of Rites chuckled twice and said, "This is the secret to our Ministry of Rites' consistently profitable betting operations. We use metaphysical methods to determine auspicious and inauspicious directions, and then use numerical algorithms to calculate the winning probability through a special formula."

"Or perhaps the final reward will be determined through statistical methods."

"The girls who could go to the Jiaofangsi (a government-run entertainment institution) were proficient in all eight arts: music, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, wine, flowers, and tea. Moreover, quite a few of them also knew arithmetic."

Girls born into official families would be sent to the Ministry of Rites if their elders committed illegal acts or fell from power. Some would be sent to music academies if they were good at singing and dancing, while others would be sent to special training in arithmetic if they were good at arithmetic and also skilled in singing.

The remaining families of those sentenced to death and those exiled or imprisoned were selected and then assigned to brothels or pleasure houses based on their character and skills.

Since Su Yan was able to bring Grand Tutor Jin's documents to the innermost building of the Ministry of Rites, he must be one of their own.

Although the Vice Minister of Rites was too busy to take Su Yan for a stroll around the area, he still gave him a general explanation of what the girls in the Jiaofangsi (a type of entertainment venue) were doing.

They are currently dealing in spirit stones, earning enormous profits for the Xia Yu Dynasty!

Su Yan was dumbfounded the whole time, and left the Ministry of Rites in a daze, taking a carriage back to the Grand Tutor's Mansion.

"Auntie, Xia Yu's gambling doesn't rely on metaphysics, it relies on statistics. You'd better stay out of it in the future!" Su Yan came back to her senses with a look of surprise. She had every reason to suspect that what was happening inside the walled building was known only to a small number of people in the Xia Yu court.

Otherwise, officials wouldn't have gone to participate in the betting with such happy faces.

........................

On his first day working at the Grand Tutor's mansion, Su Yan was so shocked that the whole fox was in a daze.

The first thing Su Yan did after get off work was to risk being kissed and hugged by his wife and rush back to Ruchun Garden. He pulled his aunt into a corner of the dormitory and secretly told her not to go to Xia Yu's gambling den unless absolutely necessary.

The Ministry of Rites' gambling dens disregard martial ethics, resorting to underhanded tactics!

"Lose? Auntie, would I be afraid of losing a bet?"

Upon hearing this, the aunt scoffed, grabbed the little fox, and lifted it high, saying, "Underhanded tactics? They probably haven't seen what true luck is!"

"Nephew! Let's go now and teach their arrogant attitude a lesson at the Ministry of Rites' checkpoint!"

My aunt held the little fox aloft as she entered the entrance of the Ministry of Rites.

An hour later, Auntie and Little Fox dragged four large sacks out of the Ministry of Rites' betting area.

………………

Time passed slowly. Under the guidance of Grand Tutor Jin, Su Yan occasionally ran errands to deliver documents to the six ministries of the Xia Yu Dynasty, and actively began to prepare for the Nascent Soul stage tribulation.

"Gurgle, gurgle"

As late autumn approached winter, the temperature in the Xia Yu Dynasty suddenly rose, launching a counterattack. Su Yan was so hot that he manifested his true form, the entire fox, and jumped onto the steps of the gem pool in Grand Tutor Jin's mansion.

Su Yan lay on the steps of the Gem Pool, most of her body submerged in the mountain spring water. With each breath she took through her nose, small bubbles rose to the surface of the water, while the right half of her body dangled below the steps, swaying back and forth.

"It's so hot!"

Zhou You ran out of the garden under the scorching sun, untied her sash, took off her thin long robe, wrung it out, and dripped sweat from her clothes onto the ground, evaporating in no time.

Zhou You glanced at Su Yan, who was soaking in the pool, listlessly blowing bubbles, and then at Grand Tutor Jin, whose cultivation had reached the point of being impervious to heat and cold, yet who was leisurely eating jam with shaved ice. She then asked:

"Grand Tutor, is the temperature normal now? It's almost early winter, yet it's so hot."

"The temperature rise now is abnormal. If you have any objections, you can try drawing your sword, pointing it at the sun in the sky, and saying 'stinky black chicken.'"

While eating shaved ice, Grand Tutor Jin responded to Zhou You slowly and deliberately.

The midday temperature in the Xia Dynasty was already easily over 40 degrees Celsius. Even if the temperature rose, it was unlikely to rise back to over 40 degrees Celsius by early winter.

The abnormal temperature is actually related to the nine-tailed fox and the three-legged golden crow.

They are using the power of the heavens to dissolve the lingering chill at the bottom of the cliff in the North Sea, intending to pull the self-imposed nine-tailed fox deity out from the bottom of the cliff.

"Will scolding cool things down?"

"You'll die if I curse you, and after you die, your body should be very cool."

"."

Grand Tutor Jin, with a smile on his face, told a lame joke, which frightened Zhou You so much that she felt cold all over and suddenly stopped feeling hot. Cold sweat dripped down her forehead.

"Glug glug glug."

Su Yan, whose belly was icy cold and whose back hair was scalding hot, silently rolled over in the gemstone pool, letting his cool belly bask in the sunlight while his scalding back hair soaked in the water.

Is the little fox coming?

Give it a try! It's really amazing.

【call out--】

A strange feeling, like a sound or a sensation, surfaced in Su Yan's mind.

It was gently teasing Su Yan, telling him about the mysteries of the Nascent Soul stage.

This strange situation was something Su Yan had experienced twice since he started following Grand Tutor Jin. The strange feeling that arose in his heart was not from a voice or from someone tempting him, but from the fact that the bloodline in Su Yan's body was clamoring to evolve to a higher level.

His bloodline instincts were urging Su Yan to immediately summon the Nascent Soul Heavenly Tribulation and become a Nascent Soul cultivator.

Of course, Su Yan didn't pay much attention to it. In the words of Grand Tutor Jin, the heavenly tribulation would come naturally when it was time, and there was no need to do anything extra.

Unless you think you're tough enough and want to make things harder for yourself by defying the laws of nature.

The calamity will occur at noon on the second day.

Just as Su Yan was ignoring the temptation of his instincts, a chill suddenly ran down his spine. A sentence appeared in Su Yan's mind, each word like a blazing flame, imprinted on Su Yan's heart, unforgettable.