Chpater 2: Embarrassment

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He had just confirmed with his own hands that something was there, yet now it was gone. Just like a barbie doll, he was the same down there.

It had to be that old man’s doing. That deceitful old swindler had stolen his proof of manhood!

Overwhelmed by sheer terror, Zhuang Yue completely forgot that the old man had done this to help him pass inspection undetected. Right now, he was utterly shocked.

“What happened?” “Who screamed? What’s going on?”

A few voices called from outside, and soon, the door was pushed open.

In his daze, he saw several young girls rushing inside. His instincts kicked in, and he reflexively clutched his clothes around himself.

“Was that you screaming?” A delicate-looking girl, a full head taller than Zhuang Yue, glanced at his disheveled state. Seeing his miserable appearance, she immediately stepped forward to help straighten his clothes. “What happened? Why are you like this?”

It wasn’t surprising that the girl looked so concerned. Zhuang Yue’s current state was exactly like someone who had just been assaulted.

Another girl quickly checked the surroundings, afraid that an intruder had snuck in and harmed him.

“Someone go call the female attendant!” The delicate girl frowned and issued a command.

“No!” Zhuang Yue snapped out of his panic and hurriedly stopped the girl who was about to leave. “I’m fine, really! Nothing happened.”

The delicate girl eyed him with suspicion. “You don’t look like nothing happened. Did someone bully you? Don’t worry, the female attendants would never tolerate such behavior. They will definitely stand up for you.”

Zhuang Yue took a deep breath, shook his head, and forced a smile. “No one bullied me, really. I just… accidentally fell into the water earlier. I just got back and was about to change clothes when I saw a huge rat run past, and I—”

In his desperation, Zhuang Yue couldn’t worry about whether his excuse was full of holes. The most important thing was preventing them from alerting the female attendants.

This group of young girls might be easy to fool, but the female cultivators of Mingguang Palace were not so easily deceived.

“There’s a rat in here?” One of the timid girls shrieked, looking around in alarm.

“Where? Where did it go?” The braver one rolled up her sleeves, grabbed a drying rod, and prepared to hunt it down.

The delicate girl was also unsettled, but she still put on a tough front. “You’re too timid. It’s just a rat… but I do remember that the kitchen has a tabby cat. We should bring it over and keep it in the room for a while.”

The brave girl searched the room and returned. “It must have been startled by this little sister’s scream and ran off somewhere. Still, getting a cat is a good idea. It’ll scare it away.”

The timid girl hugged her arms anxiously and quickly headed for the door. “I’ll go to the kitchen now and ask the cook about borrowing the cat.”

“Alright, go ahead.” The delicate girl pressed Zhuang Yue’s shoulders and guided him to the center of the dormitory, seating him at the bedside. “So, you fell into the water?”

Zhuang Yue guessed that this must have been the original owner’s bed.

"Mm." Zhuang Yue’s mind was much clearer than before. As soon as his rationality returned, he quickly came up with an excuse. "I was careless for a moment. Fortunately, an older sister passing by helped me. Thanks to her, I didn’t have to come back soaking wet."

"You still need to be careful not to catch a fever. Tomorrow is an important day for us to enter the inner sect, we can’t let illness delay it," the delicate-looking girl said.

Zhuang Yue took the opportunity to say, "Please help me get a bowl of medicine. If I sweat it out, it shouldn’t affect tomorrow."

The delicate-looking girl remained seated and made no move to leave. Instead, she turned to the bolder one and said, "Dong Wan, go to the dining hall, borrow a stove, and make a bowl of ginger soup for Zhuang Yue."

Dong Wan was a chubby, round-faced girl. She nodded. "I’ll go right away."

With only the two of them left in the room, Zhuang Yue saw that the delicate-looking girl wasn’t leaving, so he lifted the blanket and lay down, hoping to escape the conversation by pretending to sleep.

However, the delicate-looking girl stopped him and scolded, "You’re not even taking down your hair or changing out of your clothes, how can you sleep comfortably like that?"

Zhuang Yue had no choice but to clumsily remove his robe under the blanket, then take off the hairpins and accessories. He had no idea how to untie his hair, so he gave up on that.

Seeing his awkward movements, the delicate-looking girl looked at him with sympathy and said, "You don’t have to feel embarrassed. Before, when we had to eat rough grain and vegetables, conditions weren’t good. But once we enter the inner sect, you can ask the older sisters in the alchemy hall to prepare some medicinal tonics for you. I guarantee that in just a year or two, your body will start to grow properly."

Zhuang Yue was momentarily stunned, not immediately grasping her meaning.

The delicate-looking girl cleared her throat and explained more explicitly, "At your age, you’re already developing a bit late. If you want to grow into someone like us, it might be too late."

As she spoke, she straightened her already upright back.

Zhuang Yue covered his face, wishing he could pull the blanket over his head. This was so embarrassing! Was this the kind of conversation girls had in private?!

She actually thought he was feeling inferior and ashamed in front of her.

He was perfectly fine as he was! If he actually "developed," that would be the real nightmare! He’d rather die!

Seeing that Zhuang Yue was even more dispirited, the delicate-looking girl finally dropped the topic. "By the way, you really don’t remember my name, do you? We introduced ourselves before. I’m Zhong Yunyi. Don’t forget again."

"After we enter the inner sect, we will have to get along for several years. We can't let our fate of living in the same room end."

Zhuang Yue then realized that Zhong Yunyi took care of him not out of pure kindness, but to win people's hearts.

After finally waiting for everyone to come back, Zhuang Yue drank the ginger soup, which was spicy and even had a little sugar in it.

The girl who had taken the cat outside also came back. Zhong Yunyi left his bedside, and the three girls began discussing where to tie up the cat so it could scare away the nonexistent rats.

As soon as Zhuang Yue relaxed a little, fatigue came over him and he closed his eyes unconsciously.

After a short nap, he woke up with a strong urge to urinate. Declining the well-intentioned offer of company, he resolutely walked to the latrine, which was built separately to one side.

To his relief, the latrine had several stalls inside. Though they were only separated by wooden partitions with cloth curtains at the front, they still provided sufficient privacy.

Zhuang Yue lifted a curtain of an empty stall and stepped inside. It was more upscale than he had expected—there was a toilet seat with armrests, a round chamber pot placed underneath, and a small platform on the wooden partition, holding a stack of soft, light-yellow paper.

Lifting his clothes, feeling both embarrassed and awkward, he had yet to fully process his grief before he touched a familiar shape.

In that instant, Zhuang Yue nearly burst into tears of joy. He wasn’t missing any parts. It was just an illusion.

He didn’t care how that old man had done it. As long as he was still a complete man, forget the Sea Spirit Silk Robe, even if that perverted old man wanted the stars in the sky, Zhuang Yue would find a way to send him there!

When Zhuang Yue returned to the room, he found that many people had come back and were talking to Zhong Yunyi.

Keeping his head down, Zhuang Yue quietly avoided the crowd and returned to his bed.

After an evening of overhearing snippets of conversation, he had a rough understanding of Mingguang Palace's structure.

Every year, Mingguang Palace selects a batch of disciples. They first scouted for suitable young girls from various places, gathering around a thousand of them to bring back to the sect.

This thousand was just the initial selection. Each girl would be tested for talent, and if her physique was suitable for cultivation, she could enter the inner sect.

Girls who failed the initial selection weren’t immediately sent home. Instead, they stayed in the outer sect for two years, learning basic skills like sewing, cooking, weaving, and embroidery.

With a skill in hand, these girls would then be allowed to leave. Those who wished to return home could do so, while those who wanted to stay would be assigned to various businesses under Mingguang Palace.

In the minds of these girls, Mingguang Palace had a reputation as a benevolent and prestigious sect.

The idea of favoring boys over girls is still the majority in this world. Their families would often spend their fortunes sending their sons on long journeys to seek immortality, but few were willing to make the same investment for their daughters.

Most immortal sects also preferred to accept male disciples.

But Mingguang Palace had created opportunities and conditions for women who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to cultivate. Unlike other sects that waited for disciples to come to them, they actively sought out recruits in towns and cities.

Girls from well-off families could sign up, while those from impoverished backgrounds struggling to survive were directly taken in. Because of this, Mingguang Palace was widely known among commoners for its acts of kindness.

For daughters of poor families, being taken in by a female cultivator from Mingguang Palace was akin to being granted a bright future.

Those with the right physique could pursue immortality, while those without could still learn a trade and gain a respectable status. Whether they chose to find their own path or work within the sect’s businesses, they would have a promising future.

Lying in his bed with his eyes closed, Zhuang Yue knew that since he had fallen into the water earlier that day, the others were being considerate and letting him rest.

Gradually, the girls’ chatter quieted. The female attendant did a final check of the room, and the lights were extinguished.

In the darkness, Zhuang Yue stared at the blurred ceiling beams.

It was said that tomorrow’s assessment was extremely strict and it will be the final test to enter the inner sect. For the original owner of this body, who wasn’t actually female, this was an obvious point where he could be exposed.

On top of that, he still had to infiltrate deeper into Mingguang Palace to retrieve the mysterious Sea Spirit Silk Robe. Forget the original boy who owned this body, even Zhuang Yue, who considered himself mentally strong, felt immense pressure.

Zhuang Yue had reason to suspect that the old man had given him this treasured artifact not just as a favor, but as a warning and a means to shackle him.

Think about it, if the original owner wanted to complete his mission, it wouldn’t be a short-term task. Surrounded by beautiful women in a country of females, how could he possibly endure loneliness?

No matter how he looked at it, he would inevitably see his own body as something unnatural. And so, he would be forced to submit and work obediently for the old man.

That stingy, untrustworthy old liar always spoke in vague, self-serving terms. His words dripped with calculation, utterly indifferent to his disciple’s struggles. No wonder the weak-willed original owner had been unable to bear the burden.

The old liar claimed that the original owner had thrown himself into the river just to scare him, but Zhuang Yue believed it had been a real suicide attempt.

If not for Zhuang Yue taking over at the last moment and climbing onto shore, that old man’s grand plan would have been completely ruined.

“Ah, let’s just take things one step at a time.” Zhuang Yue sighed silently and forced himself to sleep.

The next morning, as dawn broke, the girls in the dormitory got up.

Zhuang Yue followed their lead, learning how to dress, wash up, and clumsily tie his hair. He wished he could just tie it in a ponytail, but since everyone else was carefully styling their hair into buns, he couldn’t stand out.

Beside him, Dong Wan nudged him. “I’ll help you do yours, and you help me with mine.”

Naturally, having someone else do it was much faster, especially since the hairstyles in this world were quite complicated.

Zhuang Yue eagerly handed over the comb.

Dong Wan quickly finished his hair, but when Zhuang Yue imitated the steps and did hers, the result was a complete disaster.

Sitting in front of the dressing table, Dong Wan stared at his “masterpiece” in horror. In the end, she had no choice but to take it apart and redo it herself, watching Zhuang Yue sneak away with an aggrieved look.

“Where are you going?” Zhong Yunyi, who had woken up first, had styled her hair differently today and even applied makeup.

Zhuang Yue didn’t know where he was going. He just didn’t want to stay in the room, feeling guilty toward Dong Wan.

“Wait for Dong Wan. We’ll go together,” Zhong Yunyi instructed.

A while later, Dong Wan and the timid girl, Liu Xiangruo, came over.

“Let’s eat first, then find the female attendant,” Zhong Yunyi naturally took charge.

As they walked together for a while, Zhuang Yue suddenly realized that among the twenty or so people in their dormitory, only the four of them had passed the root bone testing.

After finishing the meal in silence, he joined the others and walked along the cobblestone road in a mighty procession. 

The entire team has about 140 to 150 people, and the selection and elimination rate of Minguang Palace is close to 85%, which was quite high.