The Abandoned Wife’s Rebirth - Chap 148

Click here for content warningsUrinary incontinence by minor child character, mild ableism (toward minor characters)

The Yan family’s clan leader said, smiling: “The rules of the ten major families’ competition has always been such that after registrations are completed, there cannot be any changes. On top of that, the members of our families don’t object to Lord State Tutor participating in the first level practitioners’ competition. Therefore, Lord State Tutor, you can rest at ease and participate in the competition.”

The Ling family’s clan leader said, laughing: “Lord State Tutor, everyone’s watching. You had better not run from the competition. After the competition begins, you have to wait for a joss stick’s period of time before you can forfeit. I believe with Lord State Tutor’s capabilities, you definitely won’t forfeit, isn’t that right?”

The Lu family’s clan leader watched, suppressing his amusement, as Wu Chenzi’s expression kept changing and said: “Alright, the competition is about to begin. We won’t disturb Lord State Tutor from participating in the competition anymore.”

The Yun and Wen family’s clan leaders nodded, laughing, and left the Wu family’s sub-hall with the three other clan leaders.

The Wu family’s clan leader asked in a small voice: “Lord State Tutor, what do you intend to do?”

Wu Chenzi glared coldly at the juniors who were tittering and snorted coldly: “Don’t they just want to see me be humiliated, going onto the competition platform? Then I’ll go and show them.”

The Wu family clan leader’s eyes widened: “You’re really going?”

“Of course, otherwise, do you want me to dodge the match? I’m a dignified ninth level practitioner, how could I possibly dodge the match?”

“Then please go up to the platform, Lord State Tutor.” The Wu family’s clan leader looked at the children: “All of you should go up to the platform as well.”

The children were still young, so they didn’t understand the true nature and significance of the competition. Everyone happily held hands and walked out of the sub-hall. Only Wu Chenzi’s expression was foul as he followed behind them.

The Wu family’s clan leader said to the rest of them: “You can all go and spectate now. When it’s time for the next competition, second level practitioners, remember to come back to the sub-hall to verify your attendance.”

“Yes, sir.”

Everyone dispersed.

Wu Ruo asked: “Clan Leader, what about me? I registered for the first level practitioners’ competition, was my name not there?”

The Wu family’s clan leader pretended to flip through the booklet, sweeping a few looks across the pages: “No. The second and third level competitions don’t include your name either. Perhaps the disciple in charge of registrations missed out your name. It’s better this way anyway, then you won’t have to compete. However, when it’s the fourth level competition, you had still better come back to the sub-hall to check.”

“Alright. I hope my name isn’t in the later competitions. I won’t be able to hold out for a joss stick’s time.”

The Wu family’s clan leader said: “It probably won’t be there. The competition’s about to begin, go ahead and watch it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wu Ruo returned to Wu Qianqing’s side.

Wu Qianqing immediately asked: “Why wasn’t your name on the list?”

Wu Ruo shook his head: “I don’t know.”

Wu Chenliu said: “It’s better if it isn’t. Let’s go and watch the competition. I’m quite interested to see how Wu Chenzi will handle that group of little children.”

Saying this, he couldn’t hold back his laughter.

Wu Xi tugged at Wu Ruo’s hand excitedly: “Erge, let’s go quickly and watch the competition!”

They walked out of the main hall and came to the competition grounds. The vast and massive arena was packed full of members of the major families who were here to spectate. However, the people who had spent money to buy tickets were seated on either side of the competition platform. The royal family and government officials were seated directly across the main hall.

The judge on the platform announced: “The competition begins. First level practitioners, please come onto the platform.”

A large group of children rushed onto the platform like a swarm of bees. Because some of the children were too young, they could only climb up the steps to the platform using both hands. Once all the children had gotten onto the platform, Wu Chenzi walked up with a dark expression.

Those who were already aware of the situation were fighting for their lives, trying to hide their laughter by covering their mouths. The people of the Yan, Wen, Lu, Yun and Ling families were especially indiscreet about it. When they saw Wu Chenzi standing in the middle of all the children, they howled loudly with laughter.

Those who were unaware of the situation were all sweating bullets.

“What’s Lord State Tutor doing on the platform? Does he have a speech to make?”

“Probably? He couldn’t possibly on stage to compete with the kids, could he?”

At the royal family’s spectating platform, the Emperor looked at Wu Chenzi who was on the competition platform and he raised an eyebrow: “Is the Lord State Tutor going to chant a whole string of solemn well wishes before the competition begins?”

Ling Mohan jeered: “I hope his well wishes will be concise. He’d better not make me fall asleep.”

The second imperial prince and the royalguifeisilently glared at him.

Who would’ve thought that with the sound of clanging, the judge on the platform would knock on the gong and declare: “The competition begins!”

Those who were unaware of the situation were all frozen in shock.

Closely after, the children started fighting as though they were playing with each other. They simply couldn’t differentiate which major clan anyone else was from. They only knew that they weren’t supposed to fight with people that they recognized. However, the children of the Wen, Yan, Lu, Yun and Ling families had been instructed before they had gone onto the competition platform that they were only to fight with the adult on the competition platform. As such, a huge group of people surrounded Wu Chenzi and attacked him.

The other children saw that everyone was attacking Wu Chenzi, so they all copied their actions and started attacking Wu Chenzi.

At this moment, Wu Chenzi’s expression was even blacker than an iron wok. It wouldn’t be right if he fought back against them, but it also wouldn’t be appropriate if he didn’t defend himself. He could only set up an array to block off the children’s attacks.

The spectators watched dazedly.

The Emperor said doubtfully: “What’s going on here?”

His personal eunuch hurriedly went to enquire about the situation, and it was only then that he found out that Wu Chenzi had actually been registered for the first level practitioners’ competition. Although everyone knew that this was a mistake but they still couldn’t hold back from laughing out loud.

When some of the children realized that magic couldn’t attack Wu Chenzi, they climbed onto his body, opening their mouths and biting.

“Ah! You little beast!” Although a child’s strength wasn’t much but Wu Chenzi was still in quite a bit of pain after being bitten. He quickly picked the child up. When the other children saw that biting Wu Chenzi proved effective, they also imitated the biting one after another. They threw themselves onto Wu Chenzi; if they weren’t biting his thighs, they were biting his arms. It was so painful that Wu Chenzi was hissing.

Today was the most pathetic he’d ever been since he’d become the State Tutor.

The child who had been picked up by Wu Chenzi suddenly wailed, sobbing: “Dad, Mum, I’m scared!”

Following this, the child was so frightened that they wet themselves. In an instance, their pants were completely soaked. The urine dribbled onto Wu Chenzi’s robes.

“You…!” Wu Chenzi’s expression was already as black as it could be. He really wanted to beat this child up. Of course, in front of the eyes of so many people, a dignified State Tutor like him couldn’t possibly bully a child.

When everyone saw this, they were all rolling around with laughter.

“Haha! Lord State Tutor’s look of wanting to hit the child but being unable to is really hilarious!” Wu Xi laughed until she was sprawled against Wu Ruo: “He must be really angry right now but he still can’t vent his frustration on the children.”

Wu Ruo laughed, his eyes curving into crescents, as he looked toward Wu Chenzi, his lips curling upward.

On the day that they had gone for evaluations and registrations, after he had returned home with his dad, he had left Hei Manor again and gotten onto the horse carriage. Afterwards, he had used his ‘Shadow Conceal’ technique to hide himself and infiltrated back into the main hall for registrations and evaluations. He had waited until registrations had ended, and it was time for a change in shifts. Unexpectedly, he had seen the disciple in charge of recording registrations actually erasing his name and writing him into the eighth level practitioners’ competition.

At that time, Wu Ruo had really been angered beyond belief. He didn’t even have to think to know that someone wanted to harm him. As for the person who wanted to harm him, he didn’t even need to guess and he already knew that it was the Wu family’s clan leader. Otherwise, why would the Wu family’s clan leader have shown up just when he was registering, and not any other time? However, there wasn’t much enmity between him and the Wu family’s clan leader. The person who meant to target him was probably Wu Chenzi. It was most likely that Wu Chenzi had instructed the Wu family’s clan leader to do so.

He had taken the opportunity before the name booklet had been sealed to secretly tamper with the name list, placing Wu Chenzi into the first level practitioners’ competition, so that this old fogey could play around with the little children. Therefore, only letting Wu Chenzi be humiliated right now was really letting him off too easily.

Wu Chenzi suppressed his fury and put the child down. Then, he pulled off the other children who were endlessly climbing onto him. He flightily retreated to a spot without anyone else around and exerted spiritual energy, pushing all the children over onto the ground. After that, he shouted at the judge who was laughing uncontrollably: “The children have all fallen over, so I’ve won. Aren’t you going to knock on the gong quickly?”

“Oh, yes, of course!” The judge laughed as he knocked on the gong: “Lord State Tutor, wins!”

“Haha——!” The entire grounds were filled with resounding laughter: “Today’s competition is really interesting!”

Wu Chenzi came down from the competition platform with a dark expression.

The children crawled onto their feet and pointed at Wu Chenzi: “You’re a big bad egg! A big bad egg!”

The other children also shouted along: “You big bad egg!”

The corners of Wu Chenzi’s lips twitched, then he snorted coldly and left with a toss of his sleeves.

The judge hurriedly coaxed the children off the platform.

Wu Chenzi returned to the Wu family’s sub-hall.

The Wu family’s clan leader ran over and asked: “Lord State Tutor, are you alright?”

“What do you think?” Wu Chenzi glared at him irritatedly. He held up the back of his hand, which was covered in the teeth marks of small children: “I’m going to medicate this. Arrange everything else properly.”

Curses, his thighs were probably also entirely covered with children’s teeth marks. Who exactly was the one messing with him?

Wu Chenzi immediately thought of Wu Ruo, but then he also felt that it was unlikely. Wu Ruo had no authority or power here. Who would listen to him and modify the name list? Even if it was the Crown Prince, changing the name list would still prove to be a relative challenge. After all, the disciples in charge of recording the name list were from the Wu, Shang, Zhang, Song and Yao families. They wouldn’t listen to the Crown Prince’s commands, and it would’ve been even harder to take action after the seal had been placed onto the name list.

No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t think of who could’ve messed with him, so he could only keep this grievance to himself.

The first and second level practitioners’ competitions were extremely simple. In less than half ashichen, both competitions had ended. It very quickly came time for the third level practitioners’ competition.

The majority of the Gaoling City Wu family members were third level practitioners; when they heard that they could go up for their match, they were all very happy. They had absolute confidence that they would be able to win the competition.

The group of them who were missing arms and legs very quickly attracted everyone’s attention. Everyone was discussing what their final outcomes would be like.

Being the center of everyone’s attention felt extremely good. The Gaoling City Wu family members were even more excited. It was only after the competition began that they realized things were not as simple as they had thought it would be.

The attacks in the third level practitioners’ competition were a lot fiercer than that of the previous two levels. On top of that, the disciples of the Huangdu City families all had many years of competition experience. The moment the battle began they would form alliances with their own clanspeople, then they would team up with the other clans they got along with to attack opposing family clans.

The Gaoling City Wu family members clearly knew that they only had a chance of winning if they cooperated with each other, but they were not united enough. They all wanted to snatch the spotlight by demonstrating their flashiest skills. In the end, it resulted in each individual fighting their own battles.

The members of the other clans quickly identified this about them, and so they first quickly got rid of these lone fighters. On top of that, the third clause of the rules had stated, if the competitors were injured or killed, there would be no follow-up or consequences. As such, their attacks were especially fierce, every person who could be killed was killed.

Before a joss stick’s time had passed, there were already twenty coprses on the platform. A huge majority of them were members of the Gaoling City Wu family.

The Gaoling City Wu family members who had yet to go up for their competitions saw their relatives falling to the ground one after another, and they were so frightened that their expressions changed. Their previous joyful and arrogant expressions disappeared without a trace in an instance, turning into expressions of fear.

Wu Bofang anxiously shouted: “It’s been a joss stick’s time! Come down quick! All of you, come down quickly!”

Alas, all kinds of shouts and yells overpowered his voice. Only a few of those close to Wu Bofang hastily ran off of the competition platform. Although some of them knew that it had already been a joss stick’s time and wanted to run off of the platform, but before they could even run off of the platform, they had been struck dead in a single move by someone else. It was still as intense as ever on the competition platform.

Those clans who knew that they couldn’t win all left the competition platform with self-awareness, letting the other family clans fight for victory amongst themselves.

After roughly twokeof time, the third level practitioners’ competition ended. The final victor was someone from the Yun family. Everyone cheered, but Wu Bofang and the Gaoling City Wu family members were gloomy and dismal. Over thirty of them had gone up to compete, but only eight of them had come down from the platform.

“Grandfather, we don’t want to go up and compete anymore!” Someone said, sounding like they were about to cry.

“That’s right. Going up there is simply looking for death!”

“We won’t go up to compete!”

Wu Bofang’s expression darkened: “I don’t want to let any of you go up to compete either, but the competition rules do have a clause that disallows evading the competition. Even if you don’t compete, you still must go onto the competition platform.”

“But if we go up onto the competition platform, it will only lead to death. Grandfather, you also saw for yourself, so many people died in the competition just now!”

Wu Bofang: “…”

In just a single competition, so many of his descendants had died. How could he possibly not be aggrieved?

Wu Qianqing, who was a little further from Wu Bofang, was also extremely worried because Wu Xi would also be going up to compete in a while’s time: “Xiao-Xi, you have to be careful later. You absolutely cannot be cocky, do you understand me?”

Wu Xi nodded in understanding: “Alright.”

Wu Chenliu lowered his voice and said: “Someone wants to get rid of you Gaoling City Wu family members.”

Wu Qianqing was stunned: “You mean…”

His attention just now had entirely been on the people who had died, so he hadn’t noticed that there were other problems.

Wu Ruo, who had naturally also noticed this, said: “Someone wants to use the competition as an opportunity to annihilate us Gaoling City Wu family members.”

Just now, during the competition, the members of the Song, Zhang, Yao and Shang families clearly should’ve allied with the Wu family members to go against the Ling, Yan, Yun, Wen and Lu families. However, they had taken the opportunity during the chaos to use their magic against the Gaoling City Wu family members. If it had been just one or two mistaken injuries, it wouldn’t have been alarming. However, a huge majority of the attacks had all been directed at the Gaoling City Wu family members. It was clear that they were under orders from someone to get rid of the Gaoling City Wu family members.

Wu Qianqing had also roughly guessed what was going on.

The members of the Gaoling City Wu family hadn’t offended the other family clans either. The only one who would want to get rid of them was probably Wu Chenzi. This way, in the future, he wouldn’t need to provide a huge amount of medicinal herbs to cure the Gaoling City Wu family members.

It really was a good scheme. He actually made use of the competition to kill people.

When Wu Qianqing thought of this, he trembled all over. Of course, it wasn’t because he was afraid but because he was angered.

Wu Chenliu pressed down on Wu Xi’s shoulder: “Xiao-Xi, listen to me carefully. Later, when you go up onto the platform, don’t bother with the Gaoling City Wu family members. They are overly selfish and eager to prove themselves. They don’t know how to work together against their enemies. Therefore, after you go up onto the platform, you must stick close to the Huangdu City Wu family members. Get through one joss stick’s time and then quickly get off the platform.”

He liked this personal disciple of his very much. She had brought much joy to his dry and dull life. He already took her almost as his own daughter, so he didn’t want this disciple of his to have any mishaps.

Wu Xi nodded vigorously.

Wu Ruo patted Wu Xi’s shoulder: “You must be careful.”

Wu Chenliu said: “Go back to the sub-hall to report.”

“Alright.”

Wu Xi and Wu Ruo returned to the sub-hall.

The Wu family’s clan leader was currently checking the competitors’ attendance, and was just calling out Wu Xi’s name.

Wu Xi hurriedly responded out loud.

The Wu family’s clan leader looked at Wu Ruo: “Wu Ruo, the fourth and fifth level competitions don’t have your name either. Come back again later during the sixth level competition.”

Wu Ruo nodded: “Yes, sir.”

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