48 Volume 1 Chapter 48: Divine Bird

"Unbelievable! To give up your future and join the Music and Art Hall just because of a Ye Yong! Women are so unreasonable!" a male cultivator complained angrily.

The cultivator behind him asked, "And why are you lining up here? Is it not to get close to those 'unreasonable' women?"

The female and male cultivators who were interested in joining the Music and Art Hall lined up in two lines, waiting for their turn to show their talents in music or art.

"Of course not! To tell you the truth, I'm actually a talented artist. I chose to join the Heavenly Luo Sect because of the Music and Art Hall," the male cultivated said.

"Oh really?" It was obvious that the bystanders did not believe him at all.

Soon, it was that male cultivator's turn to demonstrate his talents.

The senior female disciple from the Music and Art Hall asked him whether he wanted to demonstrate his talent in music or art.

"Art!" the male cultivator said confidently.

The female cultivator handed him a pen, ink, and paper.

The male cultivator picked up the pen and ink and drew violently on the paper.

"Phew." After he was finished, he wiped away the nonexistent sweat from his face, as if he had just completed some extremely difficult task.

Everyone took a look at the drawing.

A crudely drawn chicken was pecking at rice.

"Please look! This is the Divine Bird Phoenix that I drew!" as soon as the male cultivator finished speaking, a senior female disciple from the Music and Art Hall slapped him away using spiritual energy.

The senior female disciples were in a bad mood as they had already tested dozens of male cultivators, but not a single one of them actually had talent. All of them just wanted to join the Music and Art Hall for the female cultivators in the hall, just like the past male cultivators, which was why the Music and Art Hall consisted purely of female cultivators.

"If any one of you dares to draw and show off some Divine Chicken Phoenix or Flying Insects in the Sky¹ again, don't blame us for not being polite!" With these words, the amount of male cultivators that were lining up instantly decreased by a lot.

Though they hadn't found any male cultivators with talent, they had found some female cultivators who had good musical or artistic talent.

"Xiao Xiao, why do so many people want to join our hall this time?" the senior female disciple at the 8th layer of the Golden Core Realm asked Lu Xiao Xiao after seeing that the situation had been stabilized. The other senior female disciples also gathered around for the answer.

"Because, because of him," Lu Xiao Xiao said, blushing and pointing at Ye Yong, who was looking at the male cultivators' performances.

"Him?" The female disciples from the Music and Art Hall had already noticed Ye Yong when they had arrived. After all, his handsome face, combined with his divine physique, made it hard for people to not notice Ye Yong.

Lu Xiao Xiao explained the events that happened before.

"Could it be that you were simping so hard for him because of his handsome face that you mistakenly took ordinary music as amazing and beautiful?" a female cultivator asked, clearly not believing Lu Xiao Xiao.

"It's not like I was the only one who heard it. Everyone present here heard it. If you don't believe me, you can go and ask Liang Xiao Rou from the Sword Pavilion Hall; she was the one who made Junior Brother Ye Yong perform."

Lu Xiao Xiao was a reserved and shy girl. She loved to read books and wasn't the type of person to lie. As such, the female cultivators from the Music and Art Hall discussed and decided to test Ye Yong again.

After all the male cultivators who wanted to perform had performed, the female cultivators from the Music and Art Hall asked Ye Yong to perform again.

When he had read the novel, Ye Yong had only read a few basic things about the Music and Art Hall, like how it was the only place in the Heavenly Luo Sect without male cultivators. However, the novel didn't talk much about the Music and Art Hall as it mainly focused on the heroine in the Music and Art Hall, the hall master, Mu Qing Yin.

When he had previously decided to join the Music and Art Hall, Ye Yong hadn't thought about how the hall was filled with pretty female cultivators. Now that he had seen them, his resolve to join the Music and Art Hall was strengthened.

"Since it's the request of senior sisters, then I will fulfill it," Ye Yong said. He knew that it was time for him to show off again. He took out his flute, spun it around in his hand a few times, put the mouthpiece on his mouth, closed his eyes, and started playing.

Compared to the soft, relaxing song from before that fitted very well with the night, the current song was lively and upbeat. It could paint a picture in people's minds that Spring was arriving and that all the different animals and living beings were waking up from their long nap. The sound of the flute was so gentle and traveled so far that even birds resting in the montane forests began to chirp in response to it.

Ye Yong didn't have a very high cultivation, but his understanding of music could rival that of a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator. Cultivators began to understand the Dao once they reached the Nascent Soul Realm, which was why the Fallen Immortal Elder had praised Ye Yong for his understanding of the music considering his age and cultivation.

After he finished the song, Ye Yong put away his flute and smiled lightly. In reality, however, he was screaming inside his mind as he had once again shown off successfully.

"Senior Sister Yi Bai!" The female cultivators of the Music and Art Hall all looked at the female cultivator at the 8th layer of the Golden Core Realm.

Yi Bai knew exactly what they wanted. Not only them, but she herself strongly wanted Ye Yong to join the Music and Art Hall. This handsome face, this talent; he must have been made by the Heavens to be our junior brother!

However, as the senior disciple with the highest cultivation and the oldest age at 200 years old, Yi Bai knew that she had to remain calm, or at the very least, appear calm, so she just expressionlessly nodded her head, saying, "Good banging."

However, the obvious misuse of words exposed how shocked she was. The flute wasn't played by banging on it; it was played by blowing air into it. However, no one corrected Yi Bai, as the female cultivators were still immersed in the song Ye Yong had played, while the male cultivators' minds were occupied with envy.

If only I had half of Ye Yong's musical talent, then I would have easily been able to get into the Music and Art Hall.

The male senior disciples from the other halls also hated Ye Yong. It's okay that you're handsome, but why do you have to be so good at music, too? Don't you know that being good at music and having a handsome face is a killer combination to women's hearts? But just wait. The Music and Art Hall's hall master's assessment will definitely make you ashamed and ruin your reputation. Thinking that, the senior male disciples felt much better.

To understand why they thought that, one had to know that in the past, there had been many male cultivators who had tried to join the Music and Art Hall. While some of them did have talent for music or art, they had to go through the hall master's assessment, and as for the assessment… well, it was a consensus that no normal man could pass the assessment. The past male cultivators who tried and failed all became a laughing stock.

"Senior sister, senior sister, I think he also knows art, too," Lu Xiao Xiao said, remembering how Ye Yong had said that he knew a bit of both music and art. If knowing a bit of music is this impressive, then his art skills must be pretty good too, right?

"Oh?" Yi Bai focused on the Dao of Art, so she was interested. She looked at Ye Yong with her beautiful eyes, saying, "You've passed the music portion, but I would like to your art skills. Can you satisfy this little request of mine?"

Alas, Ye Yong silently sighed in his mind. It's not that I want to show off, but that the people around me are forcing me to show off.

"Of course." Ye Yong took the ink, pen, and paper from the shy Lu Xiao Xiao, rolled up his sleeves, thought for a bit, and started drawing.

As the contents of the drawing started to slowly reveal themselves, the gazes of the surrounding people were filled with shock, seriousness, envy, and worship.

Yi Bai didn't watch the painting as Ye Yong drew- she was waiting for the final result. This was because for a good piece of art, if one watched it get created from start to finish, the surprise they would get from seeing the finished artwork would be much lower compared to if they only saw the finished artwork.

The female cultivators who understood art all waited without watching the painting as it was being drawn, but it was getting hard for them to resist the temptation of looking at the painting. They wished for Ye Yong to finished drawing quickly so that they could see the finished artwork.

Swoosh! As Ye Yong made his last stroke, the onlookers all sucked in a breath of cold air.

There's no way it's another Divine Chicken Phoenix or Flying Insect in the Sky, right?

"Finished? Let us take a look?" Yi Bai and the other female cultivators who were waiting for the finished painting walked over and were immediately attracted to it.

"This- this is our Heavenly Luo Sect?"

24 summits, towering into the clouds like giant beasts in the sky, with a majestic and immortal aura. This was only the macro part- the bigger picture. Looking at the micro part, the details, one could see that in the montane forests, there were living beings, with some of them sleeping and some of them catching food. They were lifelike, as they were actually alive and living. Words were simply not enough to describe everything.

After looking at the painting for a while, Yi Bai felt as if she was about to break through. What kind of joke is this? I have been doing art since I was a child, and I've done it for over 200 years already. My cultivation had been stagnant at the 8th layer of the Golden Core Realm for a few decades, and now I'm having signs of breaking through just because I looked at a painting made by a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Realm? Doesn't this mean that Ye Yong's understanding of art is even better than mine?