Revelation of the Way of Heaven

"I'm busy." Guo Shiyi's indifferent voice came out again.

She didn't even glance at the ticket in Qin Xiaochuan's hand.

In fact, he should have expected this outcome long ago. Whether it was her refusing to answer his calls from the beginning or her not saying a single unnecessary word from beginning to end, all of this clearly and explicitly told him that she would not give him any more chances.

He should have thought of that long ago.

But he still felt resentful, even angry.

"You think I'm definitely going to lose, right?" He looked at Xia Ruoyi angrily, and the latter turned pale with anger after hearing his words.

"Incomprehensible!" she finally said angrily.

Qin Xiaochuan felt that his nerves had reached their limit. "She didn't say a single proper word to me from beginning to end. Why? If she had said even one word, I would have known that she wasn't completely indifferent to me." He thought painfully.

Someone once told him that he would become outspoken when he got angry. Qin Xiaochuan did not deny it, because he had just offended Han Kexin not long ago, and then, because of this flaw, he did something that he would feel extremely ashamed whenever he thought about it.

His voice was actually quite loud at the time, so much so that it attracted the attention of everyone in the restaurant.

"Who's being unreasonable?" he shouted at Xia Ruoyi. "Tell me why you're treating me like this! Isn't it because you've never believed me? In your eyes, I'm a student majoring in ancient mythology, completely different from you, a finance major. You just think Su Chen has a brighter future than me, so you..."

"Slap!" A crisp slap interrupted his words. The burning pain on his face gave him a brief moment of disorientation, but at the same time, this disorientation brought him completely back to his senses.

Xia Ruoyi was trembling with anger. "Qin Xiaochuan, you have disappointed me so much," she said, shaking her head.

Tears welled up in her eyes instantly, sliding down the sides of her nose to the corners of her mouth, and then down her chin before dripping down. However, she didn't care about these tears, but stared intently at him. After saying those words, she kept biting her lip tightly with her teeth to keep herself from crying out loud.

Qin Xiaochuan wanted to say "I'm sorry," but his throat muscles twitched and he couldn't utter a single word. He knew that no matter what he said, it would be useless. In this situation, even if she could forgive him, he couldn't forgive himself.

Xia Ruoyi seemed to want to say something, but as soon as she opened her mouth, tears began to well up in her eyes. In the end, she could only cover her face and run out of the restaurant.

He stared blankly at her retreating figure, stared blankly as she disappeared through the door, stared blankly at the unfamiliar gazes before him, and Qin Xiaochuan felt as if he had lost his soul.

***********

The sun was shining so brightly today that it was almost blinding, but he couldn't feel any warmth at all. He had forgotten how he got from school to this competition venue and how he sat on the preparation bench waiting for the teams from other countries to take their seats.

He had been in a daze since noon yesterday. After stumbling back to his dormitory, he lay on his bed and didn't get up until the next morning when Ma Qichao and Gao Xiang pulled him out of bed. Then, in a daze, he followed Xu Yafen to the outskirts of the city, where the competition venue was specially built by XY City for this competition.

"Xiao Chuan, look over there!" Guo Shiyi's surprised voice suddenly came from beside him.

Qin Xiaochuan stared blankly in the direction she pointed. It was the entrance to the preparation area. A team was walking towards the preparation area from the entrance. A coach was leading the team, holding a Japanese flag. Guo Shiyi had shown him that coach because he was the same middle-aged man they had met at the St. Mary's Church that day.

If he had seen the other person at any other time, he would have been very surprised, but at this moment he felt only a daze in his mind and did not have much emotional fluctuation at all.

The middle-aged man had obviously noticed them, but he only gave them a meaningful look before turning his attention away and busying himself with leading his team to the stands.

"How did he end up here?" Guo Shiyi asked, puzzled.

"I don't know," he replied indifferently, having no interest in guessing at the moment.

Noticing that he was acting strangely today, Guo Shiyi turned to look at him with a puzzled expression. "What's wrong with you? Why have you seemed out of sorts all day?"

"It's nothing." He spoke in a calm tone, not wanting to say anything more, but the image of Xia Ruoyi's tear-streaked face from yesterday kept flashing through his mind.

Seeing that he didn't want to talk, Guo Shiyi also kept quiet. Time passed quietly, and when Xu Yafen's voice woke him from his daze again, he had no idea how much time had passed.

"The draw is about to begin. Remember your opponents and observe them closely to prepare for tomorrow's match," Xu Yafen instructed them.

Qin Xiaochuan looked up at the arena. There was a large screen at each end of the arena, displaying the names of all the teams. Someone on the field made a gesture to the control panel, and the team names on the screen began to scroll. After a few seconds, the order of the matches for all the teams was determined.

The inaugural Asian Supernatural Ability Exchange Competition featured 15 teams from five countries, with the final champion determined through an elimination tournament.

The competition lasted four days in total. The first day was for advancing to the quarterfinals, the second day was for advancing to the semifinals, the third day was for advancing to the finals, the third place was decided on the morning of the fourth day, and the champion and runner-up were decided in the afternoon.

Since there are only fifteen teams in total, one lucky team will get a bye on the first day, and this lucky team happens to be the War Soul team, which they will face in the finals.

He checked the match schedule for the two teams and realized that if they wanted to face off, they would have to wait until the finals, which would satisfy both teams' wishes.

Qin Xiaochuan glanced towards the War Soul Team, whose captain happened to be looking at them as well (or perhaps he had been watching Guo Shiyi the whole time). Upon seeing Qin Xiaochuan's gaze, he triumphantly gave the two of them a victory sign.

He then looked towards the team they were about to face, a team from India. Since the team name on the screen was in Sanskrit, he didn't know what their team name was. Of course, he wasn't in the mood to care about their name anyway.

"No matter what, the competition is tomorrow, you have to cheer up no matter what," Guo Shiyi suddenly patted his shoulder and said, it was clear that she was very worried about Qin Xiaochuan's condition.

"I understand." Qin Xiaochuan nodded gently, then secretly opened his Heavenly Eye to look at the team. He was immediately relieved to see that the highest spiritual power level in the team was level 5, and there was only one of them. The other two were level 4.

He then looked at the other teams and found that the fifteen teams were of varying quality. Many of them were about the same strength as the Indian team he had just met, and some were even weaker. After all, the elites of each country are few and far between, and these elites are naturally concentrated in one team, while the other teams are just put together.

Of course, besides these relatively weak teams, there are also some teams with abnormally strong abilities. Among them, the one that he was most concerned about was the Japanese team led by the middle-aged man. Two of the three members had reached the level 6 of spiritual power, while the other had reached the level 5 of spiritual power.