Chapter 357: The Situation Greatly Changes
The applause was like the tidewaters, wave upon wave, not ceasing for the longest time.
Jiang Chen hadn’t thought that such a scene would happen either. When he walked down from ring, he saw Liu Wencai and Fatty Lu furiously applauding, their faces beet red with emotion, almost as if they wanted to clap until their hands fell off.
“Damn straight Brother Boulder!”
“We’re so proud of you Brother Boulder!”
The corners of Liu Wencai’s eyes were red, it was obvious that he was so emotional that he wanted to cry. Fatty Lu also wiped surreptitiously away at the corners of his eyes with his sleeve.
“Brother Boulder, look! A just cause enjoys abundant support while an unjust cause finds little support. The Purple Sun Sect manipulated the matches and has aroused public anger. Such perverse acts will not gain public acceptance in the end! Hai Tian brought down destruction on himself!” Liu Wencai was almost yelling in his high charged state, and the blood vessels on his neck pulsed like worms traveling through mud.
Indeed, what Liu Wencai had said was what most candidates were thinking.
Even though these candidates were all sect geniuses and may not necessarily wish to see a secular disciple hogging too much of the limelight or see someone else rise in front of them, they were still rational in the end.
Once the initial envy of realizing that this secular disciple’s potential and strength was much higher than the others wore off, they would slowly accept it.
And when the Purple Sun Sect started manipulating the matches, things became completely different then.
If even the challenges could be manipulated at will, then what was the point in the other three sects competing? How would they even compete then?
It could be said their slight bit of repulsion towards secular cultivators was born out of the desire to win from a competitive spirit. But their hatred towards violating the rules and disgusting acts such as openly manipulating the matches, was a sentiment from the depths of their hearts and a matter of principle.
If even principles could be changed, then there was no point to the matches at all.
It was because of this hatred towards the Purple Sun Sect that the scales of their hearts all tilted towards Jiang Chen.
When they saw Jiang Chen destroy Hai Tian in an incredible way, they felt greatly vindicated and applauded mightily as a result.
This was a display of power to the Purple Sun Sect, and a protest released from the depths of their hearts.
If it’d been before, under Master Shuiyue’s despotic power, they might not have done so. But now, she’d lost two disciples in a row and was shocked senseless at the moment.
This secular cultivator had surprised Master Shuiyue again and again. He’d pulled her down from her pedestal in one go, making her appear no longer irrefutable and invincible in candidates’ hearts.
Once her authority was questioned, collapse would be fast.
It could be said that Jiang Chen had chipped away at Master Shuiyue’s authority, bit by bit.
She’d fully calmed down by now.
She placed a finger beneath Hai Tian’s nose and discovered that he’d long since lost all signs of life.
“Ah….” Master Shuiyue suddenly threw her head back and screamed lowly. Layers of frost shimmered into existence on her face, as beams of white mist spread at high speed around the surroundings with incredible speed.
“Swine, you injured two of my disciples in a row. One’s dead and the other’s crippled. Good, good, good!!”
Master Shuiyue gritted her teeth as her raging fury began to expand along with her aura, roiling towards Jiang Chen through the air.
“Master Shuiyue, what are you doing?”
The other examiners were immensely alarmed. They discovered that Master Shuiyue had the first signs of going berserk. Please, you’re the keeper of this quadrant. Are you going to raise a hand against a candidate?
The other examiners weren’t pushovers either. When they saw Master Shuiyue thus, they all jumped out to stop her.
“You want to stop me?” A layer of frost covered Master Shuiyue’s face.
“Master keeper, although you’re the one in control, we won’t sit idly by when you want to publicly flaunt the rules.” The other examiners all spoke up.
Are you kidding me? It was shameless enough for you to manipulate the matches, and now you want to raise your hand against a candidate? If we let you succeed, won’t the matches of the earth quadrant become a colossal joke then?!
“Get out of my way!” Master Shuiyue roared lowly as she pushed her aura forward again.
“Master Keeper, turn back from the wrong path, awaken back to your senses!”
“Manipulating the matches and ignoring the rules, and now you even want to publicly injure a candidate. You have no respect for the law! We should report this to our own forefathers.”
“Right, we must protest this. If this continues, the earth quadrant will become a joke.”
Master Shuiyue laughed in cold succession. “Censure? Do you think that I would be afraid of your criticisms? So what? Do you think I care about the identity as a keeper of the earth quadrant?”
“Get out of my way, or don’t blame me for showing no mercy!” Master Shuiyue’s rage was out of control. It looked like she was completely going berserk.
The other examiners looked at each other with determined expressions.
The candidates on all four sides all surged over at this time, forming a crowd.
“If you want to do as you wish, then go ahead and kill all of us as well!!”
“”Right, this earth quadrant isn’t a place in which you reign supreme. Do you think you’ll be able to stopper all our mouths by killing someone?!”
“Everyone rise up and denounce her!”
“Right, this dominating woman has always been biased towards the Purple Sun Sect. Is this kind of person worthy of being a main keeper? I’ve put up with her long enough!”
Joint anger was written all over their faces. Their expressions were full of rage and explosive emotions.
Jiang Chen hadn’t thought either that matters would escalate to this extent. He sighed in his heart, ah, this old woman has angered the heavens and people on the earth.
And I thought I was unpopular enough as a secular cultivator.
Compared to her, I’m practically an angel!
Jiang Chen was actually rather happy to see the situation develop thus. He wasn’t the sort to delight in the miseries of others, but he was bizarrely excited to see Master Shuiyue being publicly condemned by the crowd.
He knew that this woman was domineering and was publicly defying the rules. This was indeed a matter that would easily give rise to public fury.
When things had developed thus, his role as the person in question was no longer important.
The situation now was one of everyone publicly condemning the keeper.
“Brother Boulder, do you see this? This is the cry of the public. This woman is too tyrannical and finally incited public fury in the end.”
“Indeed, choosing her to be the keeper was a real mistake alright.”
Fatty Lu and Liu Wencai were all standing to the side, pointing their fingers at what was going on. They were happy to see such a scene as well. Those who watched a good show were never afraid of the show becoming bigger.
Their mindsets were even more so when it came to the Purple Sun Sect. Of the four great sects, the Purple Sun Sect had always been domineering and self-styled themselves as the head of the four sects.
This situation hadn’t been formed overnight either.
A crowd would be enough to push down a wall!
Even those who were watching the show now couldn’t help but give it a few shoves as well. After all, they’d all had enough of Master Shuiyue.
She obviously hadn’t thought that the situation would suddenly take a turn for the worse. She’d always had a high opinion of herself and thought that she was a goddess in the hearts of the candidates.
She hadn’t thought that she’d become a public enemy all of a sudden!
The hubbub of yells with a cries of “old woman” mixed into them made her completely flabbergasted.
Me? An old woman?
To someone as exceedingly narcissistic and full of themselves as Master Shuiyue, someone with utmost confidence in her appearance, for others to address her by this title was worse than killing her!
Honestly speaking, although Master Shuiyue had been famous for around a hundred years, and she was over two hundred, she had maintained appearance well. She only looked like she was in her thirties right now. And for a cultivator at her level, her body processes were quite efficient and strong, making it seem like there was no difference between her body and that of a young person’s.
Therefore, although Master Shuiyue seemed quite like a frosty beauty and presented herself with a noble, luxurious front, she actually yearned for the attention of the young folk and even craved to be loved by them.
She even made it so that most of her disciples were males.
However, others usually never knew of her thoughts.
Thus, when she heard others criticize her as an “old woman”, she was so angry that she was almost shaking. She emitted a long whistle as her beautiful face twisted. She screamed like a harlot yelling on the streets, “Are all of you trying to rebel?”
This voice rolled outwards like thunder as a formless aura surged and crashed outwards, shaking the candidates around her so that no one could maintain a steady footing and their bodies grew cold.
When Master Shuiyue truly lost her temper, it was still a very frightening thing with her level of cultivation.
However, of the hundreds present, there were still three to four hundred other sect disciples, excluding the Purple Sun Sect disciples. Were any of them pushovers?
When they saw Master Shuiyue trying to maintain control with brute force, they were filled with righteous indignation and started yelling.
“Trying to bully us with force?”
“She’s just one person and is trying to suppress all of us?”
“Everyone complain about her! We’ll refuse to participate if she’s not removed!”
“Right, let’s censure her! Sue her! We’re all going on strike if she continues to be the keeper! Just choose the winners from her Purple Sun Sect in the future then!”
“Right, we can’t take this anymore! I said that something was amiss last week already. Out of the ten promotion slots, five of them were taken by the Purple Sun Sect. Do you believe that there was no cheating involved in any of this?”
“Right, as an examiner, she cheated to benefit herself and to settle private grudges! She even abused her power for private matters!”
“Haha, too bad she picked up rocks to smash her own foot. She lost two disciples in a row.”
Public furor was hard to quell once aroused. The other examiners had quickly contacted the heavyweights of their sect.
“What? The earth quadrant has greatly changed, and the candidates all want to censure Master Shuiyue?” The head of the Purple Sun Sect, Zixu Zhenren, was completely stunned when he heard this.
“Forefather, can this be false?” Zixu Zhenren asked hesitantly.
Sunchaser’s face was darkened as he too rather regretted his decision at the moment. He could’ve sent someone else to oversee the earth quadrant exams.
The spots for keeper had been equally divided up amongst the four sects, with the earth quadrant being given to the Purple Sun Sect.
Forefather Sunchaser had wanted to reward Master Shuiyue for finding Long Juxue and let her further build up a name for herself and increase her visibility.
But, to think that this Shuiyue had allowed things to develop to this point?
The candidates had formed into groups to publicly condemn her, just how badly had she bungled things?”
“Zixu, come and take a look at the earth quadrant with me. I trust that the other old monsters won’t let go of this opportunity to criticize our sect!”
Sunchaser’s tone was a bit dejected.