Chapter 53 - Challenging Her

After Shen Yue finished her song, everyone was naturally mesmerized by it. Women with outstanding Guqin skills would be liked wherever they went, especially when this woman was quite good-looking. In the men’s section opposite, many of the young men in the second and third grade looked over. Although in Guangwen Hall, Qin Qing was more beautiful, she was arrogant and could not compare to Shen Yue.

“Your sister is really good at playing.” Feng Anning said reluctantly, “I wonder where she learned it from. I’ll ask my mother to find a famous Guqin master to teach me tomorrow.”

They were all young and competitive. For example, when Shen Miao just became the empress, she didn’t care about anything, but she cared a lot about Fu Xiuyi. As long as Fu Xiuyi treated other women nicely, she would be worried. She was the type of person who would immediately get back at someone for something they did to her, and that made her plenty of enemies. Now, her personality had not changed at all, but she would choose to do it a different way.

“Second Miss of the Shen family is truly both talented and beautiful.” Everyone loved beauty, and Prince Zhou was also stunned by Shen Yue. He said, “What a pity.”

What was the pity? Others might not understand, but the princes did. Shen Yue was beautiful and talented. If one could have this girl by his side, it might be the greatest thing in the world. Unfortunately, Shen Yue did not come from First Branch of the Shen family, but Third Branch.

However, Shen Xin, who was leading the troops, gave birth to an idiot like Shen Miao. Even though she surprised everyone today, their impression of her didn’t change much. They believed that Shen Miao was only able to perform well with the help of someone. They still saw her as a useless idiot.

After Gao Yan got off the stage, Pei Lang gradually calmed down. This was the first time he had encountered such a scene in his life. Although he did not understand, he tried his best to relax. At this moment, when he heard Prince Zhou’s words, he could not help but look at the purple-clothed girl in the women’s section opposite him.

She held the chess piece and turned her head to the side, deep in thought. Her eyes were deep and unfathomable. How could such a person be an idiot?

However, people would not change overnight. Then, was Shen Miao just acting stupid? Why would she do that?

Even someone as smart as him could not figure out what was going on.

The “Choose” of the women’s group ended with Shen Yue’s “Ode to the Moon”. Shen Yue naturally got first place. However, not only was she not happy about this today, but she also felt a little embarrassed.

She glanced at Shen Miao. Shen Miao was obsessed with the chess game and did not look at her at all. Chen Ruoqiu noticed her daughter’s expression and reminded her in a low voice, “Yue, you’re losing your composure.”

Chen Ruoqiu asked her daughter to be calm no matter what happened. No matter if she was really calm or pretending, she had to make people see her calm side. Once a woman was calm, her temperament would attract men. Chen Ruoqiu’s way of teaching her daughter was indeed not bad, and she did it quite well. Unfortunately, Shen Yue was still young and had never experienced failure, so she naturally couldn’t see the merit of being calm.

Hearing Chen Ruoqiu’s reminder, Shen Yue put away her anger. The maid beside her handed her a cup of tea. “Miss, have some tea to moisten your throat.”

Shen Yue took the tea and looked at Shuxiang. Shuxiang smiled at her. Shen Yue smiled smugly and said, “I’m very looking forward to the Challenge session later.”

Because Shen Qing had just won first place, she was in a better mood. She smiled and said, “Students are not divided by gender this year but by grades. The competition will definitely be more intense.”

Challenge was the most anticipated of the three categories. Because in Draw, you might not draw the subject you were best at. In Choose, one could pick a subject they were best at. However, in Challenge, what normally happened was two people competing on the subject they were both best at, which made the competition intense and interesting to watch. Young men liked to compete. At this age, the desire to win was the strongest, so every year during Challenge, it was the most intense.

This year, students were allowed to challenge people of different gender or grade. However, although that was the case, it was unlikely to see a man challenging a woman.

As expected, no one challenged the literature category this year, so the highlight naturally fell on the martial arts category.

This almost cut off the possibility of the woman participating. Although there were many daughters of martial artists present, the woman was much weaker than the man, so it was naturally impossible for the woman to win.

In the men’s section, Cai Lin was the first to stand up and walk to the stage.

When the examiner asked him what he wanted to challenge, he pointed at the target and said, “Archery.”

Cai Lin, this little tyrant at Guangwen Hall, knew nothing about literature, but he was considered outstanding in the martial arts. Among them, he was the best at archery and won first place in archery last year too.

Who was he going to challenge today? In the entire venue, there was no one better than him.

Cai Lin raised her head and suddenly pointed at the women’s section.

When everyone saw that he was actually pointing at a woman and not a man, they were shocked. When they saw who he was pointing at, they opened their mouths in surprise and stopped talking.

He even deliberately shouted, “I want to challenge her, Shen Miao!”

The girl in purple, who was immersed in the chess game, raised her head and looked straight at the person on the stage. Her expression did not change, and she didn’t show any signs of panic, as if his challenging her meant nothing to her.

Chen Ruoqiu frowned. She put in a lot of effort to teach Shen Yue to stay calm, but Shen Miao seemed to have learned to be calm and collected on her own.

In the distant pavilion, the handsome young man spat out his tea and looked surprised. “Is Cai Lin crazy?”

Shen Miao stood up. On the chessboard on the table, a black chess piece crossed the border and was marching towards her.

She picked up the white piece to capture the black piece, throwing it into the chess basket.

“I’ll accept his challenge,” she said.