"Girls are naturally more sensitive. What would a brute like you know about it?"

"Oh?" Shen Bai smiled. "So you actually think of yourself as a girl?"

Qin Shuang immediately puffed out her cheeks and retorted, "How am I not a girl? Tell me what part of me doesn’t look like a girl."

Their lighthearted banter did a lot to dispel the earlier mood.

Shen Bai finished the last wonton and narrowed his eyes. "But seriously, you’ve taken that internal examination before. Is there anything I should watch out for?"

When he was talking with Liu Wufeng earlier, Liu Wufeng seemed to have complete faith in him, certain that he would achieve great results, so Shen Bai hadn’t asked about the details.

Since Qin Shuang was here, Shen Bai decided to ask her.

Qin Shuang took a sip of soup, pursed her rosy lips, and then said, "There’s nothing special to watch out for, really. It’s just everyone competing against each other. They’re all the top experts from their respective departments and prodigies of the younger generation. No one is willing to yield to anyone else. Basically, in that place, might makes right."

Hearing this, Shen Bai rubbed his chin. "I see. In that case, it sounds pretty good."

He liked this kind of directness and disliked overly complicated things.

If it were too much trouble, he wouldn’t even want to go.

"Might makes right"—that was a principle he was very fond of.

After all, when it came to sheer strength, no one from the younger generation had been able to beat him, from his time in Shengyun County until now.

Even those in the Meridian Realm were nothing special in Shen Bai’s eyes.

Their late-night snack took a full half-hour.

When they finished eating, Shen Bai and Qin Shuang finally left.

Before they parted, Qin Shuang suddenly opened her arms and gave Shen Bai a warm hug, catching him completely off guard.

Shen Bai only snapped out of it after Qin Shuang’s figure had disappeared down the street. He shook his head and headed for home.

...

Nothing unusual happened on Shen Bai’s way home from the food stall.

He lit the oil lamp on the desk, sat down, and poured himself a cup of tea to cut through the grease from his meal.

After a short rest, Shen Bai began to take stock of his recent gains.

’I have twenty-one wisps of Evil Qi now, so I’m set in that department for the time being. I need to hurry up with my Skill Level,’ Shen Bai thought.

Twenty-one wisps of Evil Qi seemed like a lot, but for Shen Bai, it was only enough to induce a Secondary Qualitative Change in two of his Level 4 Skills.

Of course, grinding a Level 4 Skill to its Secondary Qualitative Change was also difficult. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

’So what I need now is time.’

Looking at the Skill Level panel before him, Shen Bai thought for a moment and then scrapped his previous plan.

He had originally planned to get a good night’s rest and take a break from grinding, but with the internal examination approaching, and the fear that the Wild Taoist Sect and Wild Buddha Sect might stir up more trouble, he decided he couldn’t relax tonight after all.

"The grind is endless. I am the man they call Gan Di," Shen Bai declared, having a small, dramatic moment to himself.

In any case, he was the only one here. Amber couldn’t talk, so no one would see his cringey display.

Amber had been playing by itself on the desk.

It was a very self-aware Deceitful Beast, knowing when to curry favor with its master and when not to disturb him.

But then it suddenly saw Shen Bai clenching his fist, looking like he was pumping himself up. The little beast was completely bewildered.

’Well, I’ll be. So my master, who’s as powerful and terrifying as a fiend, has this kind of boyish side to him. I can’t believe my own cat eyes.’

As all sorts of little thoughts ran through its mind, Amber meowed and rolled over to expose its soft belly to Shen Bai.

Shen Bai buried his face in the cat’s fur for a moment, then roused himself and began circulating the Qi in his body.

In an instant, a white light, as flawless as jade, enveloped Shen Bai—the glow of the Bright Jade Evil Body.

The Skill Level of his Bright Jade Evil Body began to increase rapidly.

The entire night passed in this state of frantic grinding.

After reaching the Five Organ Realm, Shen Bai found he needed less and less rest.

Sleep had become optional for him.

After all, the vast amount of Qi in his body was enough to eliminate most of his fatigue.

As the Bright Jade Evil Body’s Skill Level continued to rise, Shen Bai became even more engrossed in his grinding.

...

Time passed, and a long-awaited peace settled over Fenglin State.

The mass "Entering the Dream" incident had been completely resolved by the Observatory.

Although the citizens who had been forced into the dream experienced some initial panic, the mundane realities of daily life gradually caused that fear to fade.

Fenglin State returned to its usual routine, and its people went back to their lives.

During this time, however, the hunt for the Wild Taoist Sect and the Wild Buddha Sect had not ceased for a single moment.

The previous incident had thoroughly enraged Liu Wufeng. He set aside all other miscellaneous tasks, leaving them for Long Yan to handle, and dedicated half of Fenglin State’s personnel specifically to targeting these two factions.

Under the full force of Liu Wufeng’s wrath, the two factions were barely clinging to life, scurrying like rats in the street, exhausted from constantly being on the run.

Although it was impossible to completely uproot the two factions from Fenglin State, the members of the Wild Taoist Sect and Wild Buddha Sect within the state were all living in constant fear, which in itself caused them significant losses.

In his room, Shen Bai gazed at the mist before him, a look of delight on his face.

After such a long period of frantic grinding, his Bright Jade Evil Body was finally ready to undergo its Secondary Qualitative Change.

’Begin the qualitative change,’ Shen Bai commanded inwardly.

Following his command, ten of his twenty-one wisps of Evil Qi vanished.

Shen Bai felt a painful sting as he watched the Evil Qi disappear.

But after the sting came a brand-new improvement.

Before Shen Bai’s eyes, the mist swirled and distorted, forming new lines of text.

The Bright Jade Evil Body had finally reached its Secondary Qualitative Change.

"This is..."

Shen Bai stared at the text, stunned for a moment. "This thing’s naming sense is even worse than mine!"