As Fusheng left the group of stunned people, she made her way to the Martial arts ground. She initially wanted to go look for Xueying, but she remembered that according to the rule book, the medicine department of the academy are more punctual with their lessons and their complex is located in a very quiet and serene environment far from the cultivation and Martial arts departments.
According to Master Jiang, Fusheng needed to meet with the head of the Martial arts department and then the head would proceed to instruct her on what she needs to do.
As Fusheng got to the Martial arts department, she asked for directions from the people that she saw standing around looking at her and they directed her to the Martial arts master's office. Before going inside the office she secretly wished that the meeting would go smoothly, but her gut feeling told her that, that was just her wishful thinking.
As the door of the office opened, Fusheng took in the full layout of the office, the office was put in order and it befitted the title of being the Head office of the Martial arts department, unlike the scattered admission office, Fusheng gave a slight nod of satisfaction at the orderliness and decor of the room.
Her gaze settled on the man sitting in the office, he was middle aged, judging from a glance he did not give the feel of someone good at martial arts, but life has taught Fusheng not judge a book by it's cover. She figured that he was the Headmaster of the Martial arts department, so she hurriedly bowed and greeted him "Greetings Master"
The man scoffed and did not release Fusheng from her bowing position "I heard so much about our prized student, I even came out on time to meet the famed Meng Fusheng and I am met with this. You even made me wait."
Fusheng narrowed her eyes slightly but chose to remain silent and in her bowing position.
The man was a bit surprised that Fusheng maintained her bowing position, because he has heard from fellow teachers that Fusheng was arrogant. The day that she came to register into the Academy, he was away on a trip and missed her. So today he personally woke up on time and set out for the academy only for Meng Fusheng to come in late, he had already made up his mind that Fusheng was arrogant and he planned to teach her a lesson and put her in her place. The man sneered at Fusheng's still bowing position and said
"Anyways, I am Master Shi, the Headmaster of the Martial arts department. You can rise."
With that Fusheng stood straight with a cold face and narrowed eyes, she already knew that the martial arts department is going to be very hard for her now. It seems they had already poisoned her teacher's mind against her and her late coming further cemented their accusations about her, she regretted not slapping Meilan earlier.
Fusheng straightened up and stared at Master Shi straight in the eye and said "Meng Fusheng greets Master Shi"
This was something she remembered her grandfather say to her, he told her that if she was meeting someone that planned to intimidate here especially with martial arts that she should maintain clear eye contact with the the other party, as that would make her seem tough too. She decided to use this method to let the man know that could not be bullied.
Master Shi was surprised at her boldness, but he thought that she was just bluffing so he said "I knew your grandfather General Meng Wanning, he once instructed me. He was an inspiration to me and many other soldiers. Your mother too was my commander and General after your grandfather, I expected you to at least match up to half of their greatness, but I never expected you to fall to these depths."
Fusheng looked straight at Master Shi and said "I disagree with what you just said, I think that you do not know my grandfather or even if you did know him, you were not instructed by him, because if you were, you would know that it is not right to judge someone based on hearsay. That was always the first thing my grandfather said. You have not met me before, yet you allowed your mind to be clouded by other people's opinion of me."
Master Shi was definitely was not expecting Fusheng to respond to his claims not to talk about calling him out for his lies. In truth General Meng Wanning did not instruct him, in fact he was rejected by the General and as much as he wanted to deny it Fusheng was right, he had never even met her before, but he had already judged her. Master Shi realized that maybe this Meng Fusheng was not as simple as people said.
He cleared his throat to dispel the awkward atmosphere, he put on a stern face and stood up saying "You came late and so training has already began which is why the place feels empty. I will take you to meet your seniors."
With that he stood up and left the office through a different door from the one Fusheng used to previously enter into the office. Fusheng followed after him, marveled at the sight before her. They followed a pathway into a large bamboo groove, the place alone made her feel at home. She really wished Feilong was here with her to see this place.
Master Shi suddenly spoke "This is the place for our practice, just beyond this groove. There is a large land clearing especially for Martial arts." He was quite proud when talking about this place. He continued "This entire place is older than us all, even your grandfather and mother all practiced in this place. Some of their personal weapons are kept here, but before you get access to them you have to prove yourself as worthy."
He paused as they got to the bamboo groove "Beyond this groove is a whole new world, there are different people that have varied opinion about you and most of them are not good. They are not like me, you easily got your point across to me with a few words and I decided to give you a chance to decide if you were like the rumors claimed, but those people over there are not going to be swayed by just a few words. Most them worked very hard to get there, most of them are not nobles and they definitely look down on nobles like you, and the majority think you do not merit your admission into this institute, that you relied on your grandfather's name to get in. So you are going to work hard to prove your worth to them, it is not going to be easy at all. This might just be the longest I will ever speak to you."
He did not wait for Fusheng to say anything to his words before going into the groove. Fusheng gave a small smile, she already knew that it was not going to be easy to win over the hearts of her fellow students, so she was not really concerned and was ready to receive a hard time here.
As they stepped into the bamboo groove they started hearing sounds from training and students. Fusheng was surprised because just now outside the groove she did not hear a sound, but suddenly it was so loud.
Master Shi replied as if he knew her thoughts "Our ancestors had the people from the cultivation unit to create a boundary between the training ground and the outside world, which was why you did not hear a thing earlier."
Fusheng nodded in understanding and continued walking with the Master. Soon they came to the cleared grounds. Fusheng's eyes widened slightly, she did not expect there to be many students in the martial arts, they were of different age. They were all busy training when Fusheng and the Master came in. Immediately they saw Master Shi, they all stopped whatever they were doing stood in a straight line and bowed to Him.
Fusheng and Master Shi walked and stopped right in front of the students, Master Shi released them from their bowing position and said "I can see that you all are training well."
One person from the midst of the students stood out and said "Master is mistaken. We are just testing to see if we improved during the holidays."
Master Shi nodded and pointed to Fusheng, many pairs of eyes followed Fusheng and there was a chatter in the midst of the students.
Master Shi said "I am here to introduce your new classmate, Meng Fusheng. She is going to be starting at the grassroot of the class, so everyone should be nice to her."
As Master Shi was speaking, Fusheng noticed that there was not enough girls in the martial arts department.
Master Shi continued to Fusheng "Student Fusheng these are your seniors, address them as ShiXiong (Older brother) and ShiJie (older sister) respectively regardless of their age. They all started practice before you."
Fusheng nodded and bowed at the students, Master Shi continued and pointed to the young man that stood out to speak to him "This is your ShiZhang (Head disciple)"
Fusheng bowed to him and Master Shi continued and turned to the students "This is your Shimei (Younger sister), You all should guide her and help her when she encounters a difficulty."
The students nodded and bowed to Fusheng, Master Shi nodded and said "Okay you can all continue with your practice, don't cause any trouble. I will be leaving you now." With that he turned and left.
Immediately he left, the entire ground became very noisy with whispers and murmurs. Many eyes openly stared at Fusheng's and whispered to their neighbors.
The ShiZhang turned and walked up to Fusheng, he said "My name is Cheng Chi, but you should call me ShiZhang. Since you are starting from the grassroots I am guessing that you don't really know much about Martial arts. We don't have any official practice today, we are just revising on some skills we learnt before the holiday. So I think you should just find a corner to practice on your Horse stance... "
He paused asked Fusheng "Wait you do know the horse stance right?"
A few snickers sounded at that question, but Fusheng expressionlessly nodded, ShiZhang continued "So while you do the horse stance, you should also work on your breathing techniques."
Fusheng nodded and bowed slightly, earlier as the boy was speaking, she did not detect any aggression toward her, but she did not know if the boy liked her or was just mocking her.
The boy turned to the others and said "You all should go back to your practice." Then he left to do his own activities.
Fusheng then went on to find her spot, anywhere she went, she heard mocking sounds from the students and none of them allowed her to stay close to them always claiming that the spot next to them was occupied. Fusheng walked expressionlessly to a spot close to the dense forest and started her practice. She did the horse stance and tried to control her breathe. In truth, these was very similar to the First steps of practice that her grandfather ever taught her, but it's just that it's been so many years that she had practiced, so her joints were already hurting her. The two weeks that Feilong trained her, did little to stop her joints from hurting.
As ShiZhang did not tell her when to stop or even told her to stop, she continued to hold the horse stance position till the bell went. They all probably wanted to see her fall or complain that it was difficult, so that they can mock her for it, but Fusheng endured several hours of maintaining the horse stance position on an empty stomach and did not say a word of complaint shocking all of them. Although some sneered thinking that Fusheng was just acting tough.
As they bell rang many of the students left for the politics class. Now this politics class was the only class that the three departments have in common, this class was just as it's name implied. It was for teaching them the political system in the Kingdom, the different wars, maps and so on. It was quite boring, but it was considered as a free period by the students.
As everyone was busy heading to Politics class, Fusheng slowly straightened up, a slight frown in her face, her legs were soft like Jelly, and she felt incredibly dizzy with black dots appearing in her vision. She really wanted to fall, but she told herself that she could not afford to fall down now because they would all laugh at her and be more determined that she did not deserve to be at the Academy.
She forced herself to walk to the venue for the politics class. As she got to the venue, she saw Meilan and her gang standing at the gates of the venue seemingly waiting for her. She had a smug smile as she said to Fusheng "Older sister, how was your first practice? I am sure that you would be ok after all you are the genius of the capital."
Fusheng did not respond and was just standing there looking at her blankly, Meilan still continued "Sister, why are you not saying anything? It can not be that you are so tired that you can't even talk... No, no, no, my sister is super strong and brave so this is nothing."
Fusheng gritted her teeth and looked around, seeing that none of the onlookers were going to help her, she chuckled slightly and said "Meilan, don't you have something better to do than to stand here and speak nonsense."
Immediately Fusheng said that, her vision was already spinning, but she noticed that everyone because silent even Meilan's gang. She slowly heard them whispering "That's the first prince! That's definitely him! He is wearing a mask "
It seemed like the person was coming from Fusheng's back, as Fusheng turned to see the person coming, Meilan hurriedly came and held Fusheng. Everything happened so fast, when everything cleared the people watching the drama saw that Fusheng fell down, but not to the ground. No, she fell on someone's embrace, that was the First Prince, while Meilan's position was as if she pushed Fusheng down.
To Meilan it felt as if she prepared for a role only for someone to steal her script and act it out.
To Fusheng, the sudden action from Meilan made her already weak body fall, but immediately she was caught by the warm embrace of someone and in the next second she was covered with the smell of agar wood and then she felt something sweet enter mouth.
To the First Prince, he was startled upon seeing the girl he came to see very weak and when she fell he did not even know that he had rushed to catch her.
He then turned the freezing stare to Meilan..
~~~
This Author has something to say: geez my fingers hurt *cries*
I'm so tired I don't have much to say..
I am currently listening to "Graduation by Juice World" quite ironic because this is the first day of school in the book.
Please enjoy..