Chapter 1948 - A Single Life (5) … … … As Lin Ming studied in Lin Academy, the rumors continued to spread. If Lin Ming let loose his divine sense he could easily hear many people criticizing him. Others said that the Lin couple condoned the overbearingly cruel and domineering acts of their adopted son. These discussions became increasingly fierce, even rising to the level of the Vermilion Bird Divine Kingdom’s ruling class. This surprised Lin Ming. A matter that he didn’t think was important to begin with seemed to have been purposefully stirred up and controlled by someone behind the scenes in order to guide public opinion. Was someone targeting him? Lin Ming immediately thought this. After living for several generations of mortal lives, he would think more about everything, even things like this. Vermillion Bird Divine Kingdom was after all the number one Divine Kingdom of the Sky Spill Continent, and those in power enjoyed the greatest authority of the entire continent as well as control of rich resources. If someone appeared that touched upon the benefits of these people, it was reasonable for these kinds of scenarios to appear. The situation became increasingly complex. But at this time, from the ruling class, someone stepped forwards to control the rumors. They started from several different points until the rumors began to gradually die down. Although some people were dissatisfied with Lin Ming, they had never been so blatant in their actions. The one helping Lin Ming was Vermilion Bird Divine Kingdom’s Eastern King, Lin Xiaodong. Lin Xiaodong was one of Lin Ming’s good brothers from his youth. When Lin Ming parted from Lan Yunyue, Lin Xiaodong had looked after him. After Vermilion Bird Divine Kingdom was founded, everyone that was close to Lin Ming, including his parents, Lan Yunyue, and Lin Xiaodong, all came here. Lin Xiaodong was given the title of King. During his youth he often accompanied his parents in business and possessed some skill in politics and communication. In addition to him being brothers with Lin Ming and their close relationship, very few people in court dared to offend him or speak out against him. While Lin Xiaodong wasn’t too strong himself, he had raised some guests that were masters. They were at the Life Destruction realm and some of them even ranked on the Destiny Decree. Thus, Lin Xiaodong became someone that was able to summon storms and rains in court and possessed a considerable amount of clout. “You little brat, why don’t you try to fight to give your parents a little face!” Lin Xiaodong saw Lin Ming in his own palace and punched him in the chest. In these 200 past years, Lin Xiaodong had put on a great deal of weight. He wasn’t tall to begin with and with his large elephant-like legs, he resembled an egg. Because of his stomach he couldn’t even see his own toes. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞 He maintained his health well and married three wives and had dozens of concubines. These concubines all had good cultivation backgrounds. In addition, he also had many maids serving him. This caused him to have droves of descendants. Currently, he had over 40 sons and over 30 daughters. He whacked Lin Ming’s chest and ruffled his hair, looking like an elder teaching a junior. His eyes weren’t large to begin with and in addition to his fat stature, his eyes disappeared into slits when he smiled. He looked like a shady 30-40 year old businessman. This left Lin Ming utterly speechless. He couldn’t help but recall that in the past, Lin Xiaodong had been a little brother that followed his rump wherever he went. Now, Lin Xiaodong had become Lin Ming’s elder and Lin Ming even had to call him ‘Uncle Dong’. Of course, Lin Xiaodong called Lin Ming’s parents aunty and uncle, thus the generational rankings between them had gotten a little chaotic. But Lin Xiaodong didn’t care much about this. No matter what, he didn’t want a hairless little baby boy like Lin Ming to call him big brother. In these past years, Lin Xiaodong had taken good care of Lin Ming. This was because Lin Xiaodong always felt that Lin An bore an uncanny resemblance to Lin Ming from the past. After Lin Ming was lectured by Lin Xiaodong he left the Eastern Palace. He naturally didn’t want his parents to be sucked into the vortex that was the struggle for power, thus he restrained himself a little and started to attend classes in earnest. On this day, the survival course in the dark forest was to begin once more. Because Lin Ming went missing last time the survival course was cancelled and many people weren’t able to obtain any results. This survival course was considered a make-up exam. After the tempering in the forest began, many people entered into the dark forest in groups of two or three. However, Lin Ming went in by himself. He aimlessly walked through the dark forest, casually killing some small vicious beasts. The edges of the dark forest had many low level vicious beasts and these vicious beasts were all divided into further ranks. Hunting and killing vicious beasts of different ranks corresponded to different scores. In 30 days when the survival course ended, if one could obtain a high enough score, then they would be assessed as having passed the survival course. If one’s performance was outstanding then their results would be graded from good to great to excellent depending on their score. Every year in the dark forest, those that passed only amounted to half the number of students. Most were good, several were great, and there was often only a single excellent student score. Lin Ming’s plan was to obtain a score that was somewhere between good and excellent. He wanted to give his parents some face but didn’t want his results to be too world-shocking. But at this time, he heard a loud cry in the forest. He looked deep into the forests and saw a young girl fighting with a blue-eye poison toad. This blue-eyed poison toad was one of the deadliest vicious beasts in the dark forest. By killing one, a student could obtain one of the necessary conditions to earn an ‘excellent’ score. Lin Ming recognized this young girl. She was Situ Mingyue. During this year’s survival course, the only one who could reach the ‘excellent’ rank would be Situ Mingue. She was extremely similar to a young Situ Yaoyue. She wore purple clothes and her stature was high. Her legs were long and slender and her skin seemed as luminescent as pearls, creamy and flawless. Although her expression was cold, she didn’t give off the feeling of an unapproachable icy woman. Instead, she emitted the light demonic charm of an enchantress, making others feel strange upon looking at her. Even when fighting the blue-eyed poison toad, Situ Mingye was calm, as if she were completely blended into her surrounding environment. Lin Ming and the Situ bloodline shared considerable karmic bonds. He had completely destroyed Situ Minyue’s nation – the Asura Divine Kingdom, and even several elders of Situ Mingyue had died in that catastrophe. Situ Mingyue’s aunt and mother were Situ Yaoyue and Situ Yaoyao. These two women were originally the proudest heavenly daughters of the Asura Divine Kingdom. With the support of a Divine Kingdom behind them, their futures should have been limitless. But because the Asura Divine Kingdom was destroyed, Situ Yaoyue and her sister were left to fend for themselves. From being proud daughters of heaven they had fallen from their high perch in the clouds, becoming miserable royal daughters of a defeated kingdom. The difference in status had been too great. The Asura Divine Kingdom could be said to have offended many people. Situ Yaoyue and Situ Yaoyao were beautiful in appearance and possessed an abundance of talent, thus they were desired by some Divine Sea powerhouses. Some people wanted to receive them together and because of this they struggled for a long time. From this aspect, it wasn’t too far off to say that the Lin Family had a grudge with the Situ Family. After rounds of violent combat, Situ Mingyue finally killed the blue-eyed poison toad. In the dark forest, her entire body was matted with blood and green mucus. Her chest lightly heaved up and down. It was clear that striking down such a powerful vicious beast had exhausted a good portion of her strength. Ca! Situ Mingyue thrust out her sword once more, piercing through the blue-eyed poison toad’s heart to ensure its demise. After she confirmed that the blue-eyed poison toad was truly dead, she turned around and coldly stared at Lin Ming. She had long ago discovered Lin Ming but didn’t care much about it. She squatted down and quietly sliced open the blue-eyed poison toad’s pustule-covered skin. She reached into it and plucked out a fist-sized monster core. This was a token proving she had killed the beast. Then, she looked at Lin Ming. Lin Ming could see a hint of hostility and contempt in her eyes. Although the Situ Family had fallen in these past years and had atoned for their mistakes in the past, everyone had to admit that the Situ Family produced amazing geniuses in every generation and that their bloodline was amazing! Lin Ming didn’t know that Situ Mingyue had always had an obsession in her heart. Because of Lin Ming, her nation had been destroyed. So, while she naturally hated the Lin Family, she was well aware that it was impossible to overthrow them. Thus she was hoping to frontally defeat a disciple from the Lin Family’s direct descendants and earn back some pride for the Situ Family. It had to be known that in the past, Situ Yaoyue had lost to Lin Ming and Situ Yaoyao had lost to Lin Xiaoge. They were suppressed by the Lin Family. But when Situ Mingyue was finally born into the world, when she wanted to defeat the juniors of the Lin Family and gain some honor for her mother, the talents of the Lin Family were actually on the decline, as if they would fall apart at the first blow. Besides Lin Ming and Lin Xiaoge, the Lin Family didn’t produce any more extraordinarily talented individuals. Even with the support of resources, the disciples of the Lin Family often only had ordinary achievements. Because Situ Mingyue couldn’t find battles she could fight, she felt as if she were punching against empty air. She had hopes that Lin An would be a little bit fiercer. This fellow looked alike to the Lin Ming that had ascended to the Divine Realm, so their natural talents should be at least a little bit similar. While defeating Lin Ming was impossible, defeating Lin An would be more than enough. There were even some people that said Lin An was Lin Ming’s reincarnation. However, she was left disappointed once more. Lin An was simply nothing more than a playboy young master, a bag of trash. She couldn’t summon even the slightest bit of interest to fight him. Situ Mingyue put away the monster core in her hands and turned to leave. But at this time, Lin Ming’s thoughts stirred. He looked far off into the distant depths of the dark forest. Situ Mingyue couldn’t feel it, but Lin Ming had discovered something strange in the air. A high level vicious beast was approaching! For such a high level vicious beast to appear in the dark forest, this was absolutely a disaster to the students of Lin Academy! How could this be? By any reasoning, Lin Academy should never have made such a mistake, allowing such a terrifying vicious beast to kill its way into the forest. Moreover, there was something off about this… This vicious beast was extremely fast. At this distance, the teacher sent to secretly protect him should have already discovered the change in situation. But how come there wasn’t any response? Could it be… Lin Ming frowned. He swept out his sense and discovered something else. This something else caused his face to darken completely. Lin Ming’s mental strength was incredibly formidable. It was so powerful that he could easily pierce through this high level vicious beast’s spiritual sea. There, within the vicious beast’s spiritual sea, he discovered a martial artist’s spirit mark! In other words, this high level vicious beast was being controlled by someone else. It was a high level martial artist’s contract beast! There was someone controlling this vicious beast to enter the dark forest and kill people. And now, looking at the direction the vicious beast was headed in, it was sent to kill either him or Situ Mingyue. As for who it was sent to kill, Lin Ming could easily guess this when he recalled the matters with the rumors earlier. “So there is someone who wants to harm me. They worry that my parents favor me too much and will give more precious resources of the Vermillion Bird Divine Kingdom to me. Are they afraid that even supreme authority will be passed down to me?”