Swordsmanship Tournament

The swordsmanship tournament the next day didn’t turn out to be anything too exciting.

Maybe it was just because Meng Mei didn’t understand swordsmanship but she found herself extremely bored. Since both Meng brothers were competing along with Zhu Huiqing she had nobody to talk to.

She watched each round with barely any interest.

The one saving grace was her new ability to talk to the second transmigrator. She didn’t have to speak to the system out loud in order to send messages so while she was sitting there she could find out more about the other transmigrator.

They decided to exchange real names since that was the real value of knowing another transmigrator. They were the only one who understood what it was like to not actually be… well who everyone thought you were.

The other transmigrator’s name turned out to be Min Jing. He was a businessman in the real world. He’d died in a car crash and woken up to find himself in a world he barely knew.

But he did have a basic grasp on what Seasons of Sorrow was, his wife was the author after all.

Meng Mei had been shocked to find out that information. Her idol’s husband was now in the same situation as her. He was decidedly less pleased about it however.

In return Meng Mei told him a little about herself. She mentioned that she was a university student who had been a superfan of the novel when she was alive. SHe didn’t mention her death though, it was a little too personal of a topic for someone she had only just met.

Instead she told him that she didn’t remember how she died.

He took her words at face value and moved on.

When he found out that Meng Mei had basically begged to be transmigrated he said that she was crazy.

[Min Jing: I would never ask for this. Everyone is so strange here.]

She’d disregarded that message. He didn’t know what it had been like to leive with a wall that separated Meng Mei from building connections in the real world. He couldn’t understand how her desire had been born from desperation.

Meng Mei held off on asking if he was struggling with learning how to wield a sword. After finding out that he was nearly double her age she felt too embarrassed to go through with the question.

Instead she asked if he had been transmigrated into a body that was the same age. Even though they had decided to keep their new identities to themselves, she was still unbelievably curious.

[Min Jing Yes, I’m only a few years younger than I was in the real world]

[Meng Mei: Lucky. I’m eleven years younger]

[Min Jing: Must be nice to relive your youth]

[Meng Mei: I barely experienced being an adult]

One thing about Min Jing that Meng mei couldn’t overlook was his insistence to refer to their old lives as ‘the real world’

They’d left those lives behind, there was no use in pretending that this was one long, elaborate hallucination. This was Meng Mei’s second lease on life, she wasn’t going to ruin it by pretending that none of it was real.

Messaging Min Jing was just as relieving as Meng mei thought it would be. Finally she had someone who understood her. Someone she could actually talk to without pretending to be a spoiled young mistress.

Meng Mei spent most of the day of the sword tournament arguing back and forth with Min Jing about the optics of this world. She was adamant that he just didn’t get the magic of it all yet while he said that she was too much of a fan of the world to see this as anything other than perfect.

As the swordsmanship tournament drew to an end Meng mei reluctantly closed her messages with Min Jing. She couldn’t be distracted anymore. Especially not since Meng Weiyuan was one of the two finalists.

By some cruel twist of fate, the final round was a faceoff between Meng Weiyuan and Zhong Qingling.

Both Madam Meirong and Meng Guoyao were practically falling out of their seats in anticipation.

Zhong Qingling and Meng Weiyuan were both geniuses in their own right. It made sense that so many people were eager to see the results of such a matchup.

And that’s without going into all the messy details of their very public and very well known called off engagement.

Meng Mei was still hopeless when it came to analyzing sword movements so the fight just looked like a lot of fast movements and sword glares to her.

She tried valiantly to pay close attention but she simply wasn’t able to keep up.

The fight lasted for nearly twenty minutes, with the crowd’s anticipation growing with every second. Finally, the two of them jumped away from each other. They stood there, panting and holding eye contact. A moment later, Zhong Qingling collapsed to the ground.

Meng Weiyuan had won.

The crowd let out a roaring cheer as he held up his fist in victory.

Zhong Jiayi and her assistant medic rushed onto the training ground to check over Zhong Qingling. The crow held their breath as they waited for the results.

Finally Zhong Jiayi gave the all clear. Zhong Qingling was fine, just wounded.

The crowd let out another thundering cheer as Zhong Qingling was helped back onto her feet. She and Meng Weiyuan exchanged a handshake before she was escorted off the grounds. Even if she was just exhausted, she would still need to be examined in the medical tent.

The feast they held in Meng Weiyuan’s honor that night was extremely loud. Since it was a feast, the two main families joined all of the contestants for dinner and everyone was still high off the excitement of battle. They all congratulated Meng Weiyuan loudly with many toasts in his honor. All of the guards acted like Meng Weiyuan was just any other man.

That night was the first time Meng Mei saw Meng Weiyuan smile.