Chapter 119: Another vest also fell off
Lu Heng's hunting practice at night continued as usual, but the difference from before was that instead of following stealthily, Gu Lingjun was now openly carrying a portable camera behind him.
Both of their skills had improved significantly.
Lu Heng's progress was naturally in combat skills. With Gu Lingjun by his side, he became more daring, taking on mutated creatures that were slightly stronger than himself, bold but not reckless. After getting injured a few times, his strength increased rapidly. Gu Lingjun was a man of his word. Even when Lu Heng got injured once and snapped a small tree as thick as a bowl in half, Gu Lingjun didn't intervene to help.
Gu Lingjun, on the other hand, improved in his filming skills. On the first night of filming, Lu Heng noticed that he was holding the latest model of a portable high-speed camera, operating it ultra professionally. At the time, Lu Heng thought, This Gu Lingjun looks like a martial arts fanatic, but he actually knows this technology. It seems I can definitely trust him with my registration video.
Lu Heng was lucky that day; he encountered a mutated creature that was a bit stronger than him. After a fierce battle, Lu Heng managed to slay the creature at the cost of a minor injury. Then, he happily went over to Gu Lingjun to watch the playback.
Upon viewing it, he realized that Gu Lingjun's skills were indeed impressive—so impressive that during the intense fight, he had only captured footage of Lu Heng, without even a trace of the mutated creature appearing in the video.
Fortunately, Gu Lingjun was quick to correct his mistake. After Lu Heng reminded him that this was a submission video for the National Ancient Martial Arts Exchange Conference, not a lick-the-screen video to be posted on the streaming platform, Gu Lingjun's ensuing filming skills made rapid progress.
Although the footage was still focused on Lu Heng, at least it was now clear what mutated creature he was fighting. Lu Heng was quite satisfied; after all, you can't expect too much from a newbie cameraman.
With both his own strength and a reliable cameraman in place, the biggest problem Lu Heng now faced was how to find a mutated creature that could guarantee his direct qualification for the finals.
Under the pretense of needing certain specific materials, Gu Lingjun had already informed the association to help keep an eye out for suitable mutated creatures. However, while the Ancient Martial Arts Association hadn't responded yet, the Zhou family unexpectedly provided Lu Heng with a good opportunity.
Standing in the small park's filming area, Lu Heng watched as Zhou Yishu, polite and respectful, conversed with the members of a Earth-tier Martial Artists live-streaming team. Feeling a bit bored, Lu Heng scrolled through his phone and saw a notification that Junlin had posted a new Weibo update. He opened it, and as expected, saw the one word: "Unhappy."
Just moments before, Lu Heng had been getting ready to start his nightly routine date, oops, I mean routine hunting practice with Gu Lingjun. However, he was interrupted by a call from Father Zhou, which made him rush to this small park. Gu Lingjun had come along as well, though he naturally stayed out of sight. At this point, Lu Heng had no idea where Gu Lingjun was hiding to post on Weibo.
"Gege, come over here. Let me introduce you," Zhou Yishu's voice pulled Lu Heng's attention away from his phone.
When Lu Heng walked over, he heard Zhou Yishu say, "Seniors, this is my twin brother, Zhou Yiheng."
"You two are twins? You don't look alike at all," one of the younger members of the team blurted out without hesitation.
"Yeah, everyone says that," Lu Heng responded good-naturedly, playing along with the persona of Zhou Yiheng, "Xiao Shu is much better than me, and he's way more talented in martial arts."
"What nonsense! Gege is way smarter than I am," Zhou Yishu laughed, casually putting his arm around Lu Heng's shoulder—only to feel a sudden chill down his spine, instinctively pulling his hand back. "Gege got into the directing program of S City[1] with the third-highest score in Province D."
After saying that, Zhou Yishu respectfully bowed to the group and added, "Gege plans to pursue this as his career, so I hope you seniors can give him some guidance and support."
Lu Heng also smiled and said, "Thank you all so much for taking the time to shoot Xiao Shu's competition video. We truly appreciate it."
The livestream team members were all deeply moved, thinking how strong the bond between these two brothers was, fitting of twin brothers. But only the two parties involved knew the real situation.
After wrapping up the introductions, Zhou Yishu went to lure the selected mutated creature over. Zhou Yishu's luck couldn't be denied—he somehow got wind of a mutated snake, which happened to be a Yellow-tier high-level variant to boot. Snakes were one of the trickier types of mutated creatures to deal with, though unlike mutated cats notorious for being rookie-killers, a low-level Martial Artist with flawless technique still had a chance to take down a mutated snake.
If Zhou Yishu could successfully kill this mutated snake, securing a spot as a seed contestant in the tournament would be guaranteed.
After a brief wait, the main characters in the filming were all in their positions. Zhou Yishu's psychic weapon was a long spear. His movements—thrusting, blocking, and leading—clearly showed his solid foundation in Martial Arts. Thanks to Gu Lingjun's guidance, Lu Heng had also developed a considerable understanding of this world's Martial Arts. Watching Zhou Yishu's skirmish with the mutated snake, Lu Heng began to notice something was off.
Zhou Yishu's spear fighting seemed swift and fierce, but there was a certain hesitation in it. This had a lot to do with his personality. Spear fighting demands bold, sweeping movements with an aggressive momentum, using attack as defense. A person with a broad mind and pure heart, using a psychic spear as their weapon, would be practically unstoppable. But Zhou Yishu didn't possess that kind of spirit, and as a result, his style clashed with his spear skills.
When a psychic weapon was condensed, it automatically chose the form most suited to the wielder. The issue Zhou Yishu was facing naturally stemmed from the fact that the heart and talents he possessed didn't originally belong to him.
After a little thought, Lu Heng understood why Zhou Yishu had progressed so rapidly in the original worldline. After winning the title of "Rookie King" at the National Ancient Martial Arts Exchange Conference, Zhou Yishu's rise was meteoric. He quickly became the most popular new streamer on the platform. This smooth journey gave Zhou Yishu indomitable momentum to a certain extent, which in turn aligned with the aggressive nature of the spear.
However, it was clear Zhou Yishu wasn't going to take down the mutated snake today. The spear's advantage lies in its attack range, but its speed is a bit slow. Combined with Zhou Yishu's hesitation, the spear's ability to adapt in combat couldn't keep up with the mutated snake's rapid movements.
Seeing that Zhou Yishus disadvantage was becoming more apparent, Lu Heng discreetly pulled out his phone and sent a message to Gu Lingjun.
"Put a psychic mark on this snake for me."
"Done."
Because of his previous live streaming on the OhMyMy platform, Lu Heng had developed a habit of routinely thanking his fans after receiving gifts. The common style among streamers on the platform was lighthearted, using phrases like "kisses, hugs, lift you high" to express appreciation. Naturally, Lu Heng did as the natives did, and as a result, his phone's predictive text automatically suggested "mwah" after typing "thank you."
Lu Heng was a fast typist, and since his attention was partly on watching Zhou Yishu's ongoing battle, he naturally typed this simple phrase mindlessly. Thus, the message that appeared on the screen of his messaging app read:
"Thank you, mwah."
By the time Lu Heng realized this, the message was already irrevocable. This time, it took Gu Lingjun a bit longer to reply—about three minutes.
"Mwah."
Lu Heng nearly burst out laughing at the thought of the blank-faced Gu Lingjun typing this word.
However, his amusement was cut short when he looked up and saw Zhou Yishu approaching with a gloomy expression, clutching his right hand. Lu Heng had to force down the smile tugging at his lips. Just as Lu Heng had anticipated, Zhou Yishu had failed, and his right hand had been fractured by the tail swipe of the mutated snake as it escaped. Though for a Martial Artist, a fracture like this was a just minor injury that would heal in a day or two.
But for the proud and arrogant Zhou Yishu, failing in front of the helpers his father had specially arranged was hard enough to bear. What made it worse for him, though, was failing in front of his trash older brother.
"Never mind, Xiao Shu, I'm sure you'll succeed next time," Lu Heng said, stepping forward with a concerned expression. As a good gege, he naturally had to show some care in a situation like this.
"Gege, I'm sorry I'm not in the best shape today. I'll head back first," Zhou Yishu forced a smile, but his eyes remained dark and brooding. Without waiting for Lu Heng to respond, he walked off to say goodbye to the others.
However, that "you'll succeed next time" Zhou Yishu was waiting for never came. By the time his injury healed and he was ready to hunt the mutated snake again, he saw that mutated snake on the official website of the National Ancient Martial Arts Exchange Conference.
The tournament's organizing committee posted the seed contestants' registration videos on the official site. This served two purposes: it promoted the contestants to build up their popularity, and it also maintained fairness. If viewers spotted any issues with a video, they could report it to the committee. If enough people raised concerns, the committee would reevaluate the contestant's seed qualification.
That particular video was trending.
The contestant in the video was named RuYueZhiHeng[2]. He did not reveal his true face, instead painting a strange totem on the left side of his face while wearing a white mask on the right. His psychic weapon was a pair of scimitars, and his movements were sharp and swift. The entire video was visually captivating. When the audience was still immersed in his seamless blade techniques and ethereal footwork, the mutated snake had already been pierced through its most vulnerable spot.
The tournament judges, however, saw much more. This mysterious young man's footwork was highly unique. None of the major Martial Arts families' styles that they were familiar with had anything like it. Could this be a lost form of Ancient Martial Arts footwork?
The video's popularity skyrocketed. Beyond the contestant's obvious strength and the video's watchability, there was another reason for its viral success—the video had been given an enormous amount of "little red flowers" by the same person.
The little red flowers were actually useless. At most, they were a way to express fondness for a contestant, but purchasing them required real money, so most fans typically sent one or two flowers to show their appreciation.
The official tournament page was linked to two livestreaming platforms—one was the Exorcist Martial Artists livestream platform and the other was the dominant OhMyMy livestreaming platform. Viewers logged in to the official page directly through the accounts of these two platforms.
The massive amount of little red flowers under RuYueZhiHeng's video quickly drew the attention of the keen-eyed netizens.
Soon, a trending topic emerged on OhMyMy's platform:
#Ancient Martial Arts Conference: Investigating the connection between Idol and RuYueZhiHeng, evidence points directly to the local tyrant fan SovereignGu#
Footnotes:
[1] I think this should be “..program at S University..” but the author used S City.
[2] 如月之恒: As Constant/Eternal as the Moon. Note that 恒(héng) in 如月之恒 is same as in 周一恒 (Zhou Yiheng), the original owner’s name.
Translator:
I'm thinking of using EternalMoon inplace of RuYueZhiHeng. Whaddya think?
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