Chapter 61: All Weaklings
In the palace, Emperor Zhengde was meditating and practicing martial arts with his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth, his eyes slightly closed, and his hands hanging naturally on his legs.

After an unknown amount of time, he slowly opened his eyes and felt that his inner strength had become even stronger.

Gu Dayong immediately came forward with a warm towel, wiped the sweat off the emperor's forehead, and said distressedly: "Your Majesty is already a master of martial arts, unrivaled in the world, why do you have to practice so hard!"

"Gu Banban, you don't understand!" Emperor Zhengde grabbed the towel himself and wiped his face while saying, "Practicing martial arts is like sailing against the current. If you don't advance, you will retreat. Only by constantly improving can you remain undefeated."

"I see Your Majesty handling state affairs every day and insisting on practicing martial arts. I am worried that your Majesty's body will be exhausted!" Gu Dayong bent his waist, with a bit of earnest advice in his words.

"It's just a little bit of government affairs, not worth mentioning. Oh, right!" Emperor Zhengde suddenly thought of Ou Zanghua, and asked, "Has my handsome and capable Ou Qing been practicing martial arts recently?"

Gu Dayong lowered his head and said calmly, "Your Majesty, the results of the imperial examination were announced recently. Ou Zanghua ranked second in the examination. He has been attending various banquets every day. I am afraid..."

When Emperor Zhengde heard this, his face suddenly darkened and he said in a cold voice: "Humph! This bunch of literati, I was just playing skating sumo and raising small animals, but they chased me and scolded me for several years. They held banquets and drank wine, and they were having fun!"

"Yes! The literati are pedantic." Gu Dayong followed up decisively and cursed these literati who looked down on their profession.

"Eh~"

Emperor Zhengde thought for a moment and looked at Gu Dayong and said, "Gu Banban, change your clothes. Let's go find Ou Qing and go with him to see what the tribute scholars are doing at the banquet."

"what??"

"Ah what? Go now!"

Ou Zanghua sat in the carriage and couldn't help sighing. He had been drinking outside for five consecutive days.

Originally, he thought that the wine of the Ming Dynasty was just so-so. Could something with a few or ten degrees of alcohol be considered wine?
However, this group of tribute scholars were indeed not simple, as they were able to obtain distilled liquor with an alcohol content of more than 30 to 50 degrees.

With Ou Zanghua's physical condition, he basically went there sitting and then pretended to lie down when he came back. If he didn't pretend, that group of people would never let him leave easily.

Yang Shen has a good family background, so no one will really force him.

So, the unlucky ones became Ou Zanghua, Zou Shouyi, Yu Ben and Xu Chengming.

Only Ou Zanghua reacted quickly, the other three were in a worse situation.
Today, several classmates jointly invited everyone to a banquet. Ou Zanghua originally refused, but one of them was Yu Shouguan, the senior brother who had taken good care of him, so he had to go.

Halfway through the journey, the carriage suddenly stopped.

Ou Zanghua was still a little confused when a figure came in. "Hey, Mr. Ou, what a coincidence! I can meet you here."

"Brother Zhu, what you are doing is not called coincidence, it should be called coercion." Ou Zanghua looked at the cheerful Zhu Shou and said helplessly.

"I was taking a walk and saw your carriage. Isn't this a coincidence?" Zhu Shou sat down next to Ou Zanghua and asked in a familiar manner, "Last time I asked my servant to bring you a few internal skills manuals. Which one did you choose?"

Speaking of this, Ou Zanghua bowed to Zhu Shou and thanked him, "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. Zhu. I am very grateful and chose "The Divine Art of the Five Dragons"."

"Oh! I've practiced that too, but I felt the progress was too slow. I got bored so I changed to another book." Zhu Shou nodded, then scolded, "Since you chose "Five Dragons Divine Art", the progress of that thing is slow, so you have to practice it well. Why do you just play around every day?"

"Brother Zhu is right. I will go home early to practice today." Ou Zanghua was stunned, then accepted it humbly.

He passed the imperial examination and became a tribute scholar these days. His status is different now and he is admired by more people. He is indeed a little flattered.

"It's okay to admit your mistakes!"

Zhu Shou smiled with satisfaction. So this is what it feels like to advise others?

What a refreshing sense of accomplishment!
No wonder those old guys like to stare at him and persuade him all day long, it turns out they do it for their own pleasure. He patted Ou Zanghua on the shoulder and said with a smile: "You are a teachable kid. How about this! I have nothing to do today, so I will accompany you to the party."

"Okay!"

Ou Zanghua agreed immediately. He also wanted to see how the candidates who persuaded Zhu Shou to drink would react when they walked into the Hall of Supreme Harmony and found that the person sitting up there was an acquaintance.

By then, everyone will be so scared that they will lose their minds, won’t you be safe?

This is called all is fair in war!
When we arrived at the banquet venue, there were more than forty tribute scholars, mainly from Jiangxi and Huguang.

Ou Zanghua's heart suddenly tightened. Would this move bring trouble to the people of his hometown?

Although everyone was a little puzzled as to why Ou Zanghua brought a friend from a different class from everyone else, after all, he was one of the top five candidates in the imperial examination and had a bright future, so they didn't say much and just greeted Zhu Shou with a smile.

Various ways of playing are arranged, including flying flower orders, analyzing words orders, hand gesture orders, and couplets.

When it comes to word games, Zhu Shou is naturally no match for these test-takers who immerse themselves in books every day, but Ou Zanghua sits next to him and whispers reminders from time to time, which makes him have fun.

When it was Zhu Shou's turn to use hand gestures, it was as if he had entered Zhu Shou's home court, and he single-handedly defeated the entire audience. To put it bluntly, this was just rock-paper-scissors. How could these people holding pens react as quickly as those holding guns?
Finally, Zhu Shou looked at Ou Zanghua and asked drunkenly, "Mr. Ou, would you like to join us?"

Ou Zanghua's eyes were dull and he fell on the table with a thud.

“Hahaha, you are too weak, you are really vulnerable!” Zhu Shou looked around and found that he was the only one still standing. He put his hands on his hips and laughed as if he had won a battle.

Ou Zanghua lay on the table, listening helplessly to Zhu Shou's laughter. This silly boy could drink so much that he must be careful when drinking with him next time.

At the same time, in the treacherous and dangerous mountains of Mount Hua, Gentleman Sword Yue Buqun was watching his second disciple Lao Denuo demonstrate a set of sword techniques.

This set of sword techniques was discovered by Lao Denuo when he went to Qingcheng Mountain to apologize. He accidentally discovered that the disciples of Songfeng Temple were all practicing them, so he wrote down a few moves. After returning to Huashan, he told the matter to the leader Yue Buqun.

After reading it, Yue Buqun immediately recognized it: "This is the "Evil-Defeating Sword Technique" of the Lin family of the Fuwei Escort Agency."

Lao Denuo asked hesitantly, "Master, is the Lin family's "Evil-Defeating Sword Technique" very powerful? Why do the people in Qingcheng Sect practice it so diligently?"

Master Yue closed his eyes and thought for a while, then asked, "Denuo, before you joined our sect, you had been wandering in the martial arts world for many years. Have you ever heard what people in the martial arts world think of the martial arts of Lin Zhennan, the chief escort of the Fuwei Escort Agency?"

Lao Denuo said quickly: "I have heard that Lin Zhennan is very generous and loyal to his friends, so everyone believes in him and does not touch his darts. As for his real kung fu, I am not sure."

Yue Buqun smiled and said, "So the Fuwei Escort Agency has been thriving over the years, mostly because of the respect given to it by friends in Jianghu. Have you ever heard that Master Yu's master Chang Qingzi was defeated by Lin Yuantu's sword when he was young?"

"Lin Yuantu? I have never heard of this disciple."

Lao Denuo was somewhat shocked. Chang Qingzi was known as the "best swordsman west of the Three Gorges" back then. How could he lose to a guy who ran an escort agency?
"Lin Yuantu is Lin Zhennan's grandfather, and he also founded the Fuwei Escort Agency."

Yue Buqun slowly said, "Back then, Lin Yuantu founded the escort agency with the 72-stroke Sword Technique to Exorcise Evils. He was truly invincible in the underworld. Some heroes in the white world saw that he was too impressive and went to challenge him in martial arts. As a result, Chang Qingzi lost a few moves to his Sword Technique to Exorcise Evils."

When Lao Denuo heard this secret, he continued to ask with a bit of curiosity: "In that case, isn't the "Evil-Defeating Sword Technique" very powerful?"

Yue Buqun sighed and said with an expression reminiscing about the past: "Senior Chang Qingzi was a good friend of your master. He once told your master that he considered this the greatest humiliation of his life, but he thought that he could not defeat Lin Yuantu, so this revenge could not be avenged."

"Your master once disassembled the "Evil-Defeating Sword Technique" with him, hoping to help him find the flaws in this sword technique. However, although these 72 sword techniques may seem ordinary, they contain many mysteries that others cannot guess. Suddenly, they will become extremely fast. The two of them studied it for several months, but they still have no clue to crack it."

"At that time, I had just entered the sect, and was only a teenager, serving tea beside. I was familiar with it, and when you tried to perform it, you knew it was the "Sword Technique to Exorcise Evils". Alas, time flies, that was many years ago."

Yue Buqun was still lamenting the passing of time, but Lao Denuo beside him had a different idea. His master Ning Qingyu, who was once as famous as Feng Qingyang, was unable to crack the "Evil-Defeating Sword Technique".
(End of this chapter)