Chapter 100

Chapter 100 – Escort (2) Translated by NEETEdited by Ilesyt, Oberon

At the start, there might have been some people who still refused to give up. After all, Ye Lang was still only a student just like them. But when faced with the facts and the negative effects it brought to them, people had no choice but to admire and respect Ye Lang’s judgements without reservation.

However, Ye Lang’s judging was unlike everybody else's, which used schedules. He would only attend whenever he felt like it, there were no set times.

If there were any special times, it would be Zhen Xiaoyan’s examinations. He attended them all and would escort Zhen Xiaoyan to ensure that she would advance smoothly. Of course there were people who said he was biased, but Zhen Xiaoyan did have some ability. Up until now, she hadn’t left any openings for people to exploit.

Today, Zhen Xiaoyan was being tested again. Right now, the tests had already progressed from basic alchemy knowledge, techniques etc. to competitions between two people.

This was the same as the magic examination, use basic knowledge to start off and eliminate some people before moving onto a 1 v 1 elimination format. Of course, under normal circumstances, the academy would seed the brackets fairly and separate the experts to ensure that the experts would not immediately kill each other off.

Of course, those who considered themselves to have the strength to reach the highest leaderboard had opportunities as well, but the prerequisite was to not lose to somebody who would place above them first.

Of course, this was not the big competition, but a method to select the strongest members of the academy!

After many trials, today’s trial would be the deciding point of whether Zhen Xiaoyan would be able to enter the team for the big competition. Naturally, her opponent today wouldn’t be weak.

But relatively speaking, her opponent was on the weaker side compared to the rest of the remaining students. This was Ye Lang’s bias shining through, he had specially picked her opponent since he had the power!

Of course, many people objected, but there was still nothing they could do…

“Hmph, you treat her as a treasure, sooner or later you’ll regret it!” Within the alchemy academy, a person ground out those words through clenched teeth.

Perhaps, nobody imagined that with the events to come, this little bias would end up amounting to almost nothing.

“Begin!” Ye Lang shouted, indicating the start of the match between the two.

The two of them picked up the items laid out in front of them and started —

*Cough cough* This wasn’t a battle but only a contest to build an alchemy item!

The alchemy trials were not as intense as the magic trials. They tested technique, imagination, life and death situations would not happen during the trials.

What the two people were competing in right now was a contest to assemble a prototype of an assigned alchemy item out of the alchemy materials in front of them in a designated period of time. All of the assigned items had a lot of thought put into them. They all required broad knowledge, as well as the aforementioned imagination and ingenuity.

For this reason, if you created an interesting avant-garde item that demonstrated great imagination, they might receive special treatment and not be eliminated for losing. However, you still had to make the assigned item.

Ye Lang had entered the competition area at the start. Apparently, he had come to supervise the competition between the two. This was a scene that had often appeared in the previous competitions. However, those had always been other people’s competitions, Ye Lang had yet to come down to the competition area for Zhen Xiaoyan.

Consequently, what he was doing now was a bit unusual, it’s just that nobody noticed.

“Fatty… Look, look…” Ye Lang kicked Zhen Xiaoyan and curled his mouth as he tried to guide Zhen Xiaoyan.

“…….”

F**k, this brat was too obvious with his help, did a referee like this exist?

Even though Ye Lang’s movements appeared small, as if he thought nobody would notice, he was in the middle of the field and there were only 3 people. With so many eyes on them, even the smallest movement would be noticed!

What’s more, Ye Lang’s movements weren’t small. Moreover, they didn’t contain intentions of being hidden. They clearly showed he was helping Zhen Xiaoyan!

Thus, after Ye Lang’s actions, it seemed that everybody had confirmed the rumors. This brat was siding with Zhen Xiaoyan and constantly escorting her through the competitions.

“??” Zhen Xiaoyan seemed to not understand what Ye Lang was saying and became confused for a second. She didn’t expect that Ye Lang would do this, moreover, do it so overtly.

“Stupid, hurry up and pick that up…” Ye Lang said.

“Oh…” Zhen Xiaoyan agreed on reflex, it seemed she hadn’t come back to her senses yet and was blindly listening to Ye Lang and doing whatever he told her.

“Ye Lang, he already took it, what do I do?” Zhen Xiaoyan foolishly asked. Her opponent had grabbed that item before she could.

While she was dazed, her opponent wasn’t sitting still. Since Ye Lang was directing Zhen Xiaoyan, couldn’t he also be directed as well? Moreover he was intelligently grabbing the items first, worrying about what to do with them later!

“Forget it, grab those, they’re all the same anyways.” Ye Lang pointed at some items and said.

“Oh… Wait, that’s wrong, Ye Lang, you’re a judge, I’m a participant, you can’t tell me these! This isn’t the time to act normally!” Zhen Xiaoyan finally came to her senses.

“Who said judges couldn’t help, I like to help, who dares stop me!” Ye Lang said as if he didn’t care.

“… “ Zhen Xiaoyan was quiet, this caused her progress to slow as well. Ye Lang ended up slowing her down instead, so much so that her opponent seized the initiative.

In the end, Ye Lang ended up doing more harm than good!

“I’m not talking with you anymore! I’m about to lose, stop worrying about me. I can do it!” Zhen Xiaoyan suddenly realized she couldn’t sit around. She had already fallen behind the other person, therefore she yelled at Ye Lang and hurriedly lowered her head down to search for parts.

“What can you do, hurry up and start doing what I say, otherwise you’ll lose!” Ye Lang directly crouched down and picked up an item and threw it to Zhen Xiaoyan.

“… No, go away!” Zhen Xiaoyan seemed to have a headache as she said, “I will rely on myself!”

“What rely on myself, your whole body from head to toe is the result of my help, it’s not like there’s anything shameful about relying on my help, other people want my help but can’t get it!” Ye Lang directly began pulling on Zhen Xiaoyan’s hair and very rudely lectured her.

“I know, but… I still… It’s all your fault, look at him, he’s almost done! It’s all your fault…” Out of the corner of her eye, Zhen Xiaoyan saw that her opponent had almost finished and started freaking out on Ye Lang.

“…” at this time her opponent was almost finished while Zhen Xiaoyan had not made much progress. It looked like even if Ye Lang were to personally take over, he still wouldn’t be able to win.

To add insult to injury, if Ye Lang was to take over, he would violate the most basic rule of the competition – Use your own hands. Even Ye Lang would still take note of this point.

At this crucial point, Ye Lang suddenly did something that caused everybody’s jaws to drop…

They could only watch as Ye Lang ran to Zhen Xiaoyan’s opponent and kicked apart what he was building and then proceed to stomp on it several times before chasing him off…

“That settles it, fatty, you can continue on!” Ye Lang clapped his hands and said.

“……..”

The area completely fell silent.

Even though Ye Lang had already shown he was biased, and in a very obvious manner, nobody could’ve expected that he would go this far and directly destroy the opponent’s work!

This had already sunk to the lowest one could go. This completely ignored the rules of the contest and his own identity. He was using his position as a judge for his own benefit to escort Zhen Xiaoyan like royalty!

This would definitely cause a public outcry!!!

“Ye Lang!! What the hell are you doing? I let you favor Zhen Xiaoyan, but you’re going too far this time!” The contestant who had the victory in his grasp became angry!

“Sorry, I was careless and accidentally knocked it over.” Ye Lang very politely apologized.

“…….”

You were careless? Is that possible? Did you view the other person as a 3 year old child, or did you assume they were as stupid as you!

“Who do you think you’re fooling!!” That contestant angrily roared.

“Ah, you saw through me, truth is, I did it on purpose!” Ye Lang very obediently said what everybody already knew.

“…….”

“If you admit it, then you ought to declare my victory!” That contest said.

“No, I refuse!” Ye Lang very bluntly refused.

“Why?”

“As a judge, I have principles…” Ye Lang very solemnly spoke. Those words earned the disdain of many people, but he didn’t care and continued: “No matter what the cause, you haven’t completed the trial. Therefore, you can’t be considered to have won!”

“Isn’t the cause you!”

“Let me say it again, no matter what the cause!” Ye Lang once again stressed his words and then continued in a deep, yet, a faked voice, to continue speaking:

“Child, remember this lesson, no matter who, even if it’s your close friend, even if it’s a person who appears upright and honest on the surface, they can still trick you and destroy your future. Never trust anyone!”

“……..”

Everybody fell silent, everybody agreed that those words were correct, but they still had a weird feeling. Ye Lang’s actions did have an educational component within them, but it still felt like he was just using this noble sounding excuse to hide his evil intentions.

“Ye Lang, are you saying that you are an upright and honest person on the outside?” Zhen Xiaoyan’s voice traveled over.

“Yep!” Ye Lang nodded.

“That is to say, you’re only a good person on the surface!” Zhen Xiaoyan continued.

“No, I appear to be an upright and honest person on the outside. That refers to me appearing to be honest on the outside, but in truth I’m not that honest and it doesn’t refer to me being an honest person on the surface. In truth I’m still a good person!” Ye Lang started explaining himself. Everybody became confused and were unable to understand what he was saying. [TL note: Yeah, I don’t quite get what he’s saying, I don’t think it’s supposed to make sense tbh.]

What and what?

But regardless of what particular details one understood, eventually everybody understood one thing, Ye Lang called himself a good person!

You count as a good person? You actually did something so shameless!

Who said that good people can’t be shameless? This definitely wasn’t a good character!

“You… You aren’t a good person, you broke the rules of the competition!” That person pointed at Ye Lang, barely able to speak.

Ye Lang waved his hand and said: “When did I break the rules? Is it written in the rules that judges can’t be biased? Does it say that judges can’t interfere with the results of the competitions? It doesn’t!”

“……..”

It definitely didn’t say that, because everybody felt that the judges were fair. Even if they were biased, they wouldn’t be as excessive as Ye Lang!

Consequently, there were no special rules regarding the judges. These were all treated as unwritten rules!