The First Summoner - Chapter 14

At the Shen family library, Shen Yan presented her token to the middle-aged gatekeeper.

The man knew who she was, but this was the first time he had seen her behave normally.

She gave off an air of cold detachment. Her bright black eyes seemed able to see straight through a person, sending an involuntary jolt through him.

“Are you finished checking it?” Shen Yan asked mildly. “I want to go inside.”

The man came back to himself and was about to answer when several young men and women approached behind her.

One of the boys grinned maliciously.

“Well, if it isn’t Shen Yan. Gone for several days—were you fooling around with some wild man?”

The other disciples burst into laughter.

“She’s an idiot. How would she understand what you’re saying?” another boy asked.

“And what is an idiot doing at the library?”

After Shen Yan returned yesterday, the family head and the elders had suppressed all news of what happened in the main hall to protect Shen Xue’s reputation.

Many members of the family still did not know that Shen Yan had regained her senses.

Nor did they know she had received a month of access to the library.

Shen Yan turned and looked at them coldly.

Her stare made their skin crawl.

“What are you looking at us for?”

Her voice was perfectly flat.

“Insult me one more time, and I’ll tear your mouth open.”

They froze.

Then they glanced at one another and burst out laughing.

“She says she’ll tear our mouths open! That’s hilarious!”

A disciple with a mean face stepped closer and jeered, “Did the man you were fooling around with give you courage, you worth—”

“Aah!”

No one saw Shen Yan move.

She seized the corners of the disciple’s mouth with both hands and pulled hard.

His screams rang out as the corners of his lips split and blood poured down his chin.

Shen Yan abruptly wrenched his body lower and drove a knee into his chest.

Thud!

His face contorted in agony, and he howled.

Then she closed one hand into a fist and hammered it into his cheek again and again until he lost consciousness.

Shen Yan released him.

The disciple collapsed to the ground like a lump of mud.

It had happened too quickly.

Barely ten seconds had passed.

Every Shen family member watching stared in open shock.

How could a good-for-nothing like Shen Yan move so fast?

Even the two guards assigned to protect her were stunned.

Shen Yan drew a handkerchief from her sleeve and slowly wiped the blood from her hands.

“Insult me again,” she said without hurry, “and your mouths will end up like his.”

Ignoring their complicated, shocked gazes, she turned back to the middle-aged gatekeeper and held out the token again.

“The family head granted me one month of access to the Shen family library.”

Everyone came back to themselves.

One month?

How was that possible?

Even disciples who made enormous contributions to the Shen family could not obtain a full month inside the library.

How could a useless good-for-nothing like Shen Yan possess such a privilege?

And why did she no longer seem simple-minded?

The disciples erupted in outrage.

“Shen Yan, what right do you have to spend a month in the library?”

She looked back at them.

“Ask the family head. He gave me the privilege.”

The reply left them speechless.

Who would dare question the family head?

“Shen Yan, you aren’t an idiot anymore?” one disciple asked, eyes wide.

She gave a mocking laugh.

“That’s right. I’m not. Insult me again, and I’ll tear your mouths open. Bully me again, and I’ll be able to explain every detail to my father with perfect clarity.”

The disciples’ expressions changed drastically.

They did not fear Shen Yan.

But they feared the Young Master.

In the past, Shen Yan had met every insult and act of bullying with vacant confusion. She could not tell kindness from cruelty, much less complain to Shen Tianhao.

Their gazes drifted to the unconscious disciple with both corners of his mouth torn open.

The wounds were real, raw, and bloody.

A young woman could not bear the sight.

“Shen Yan, how can you be so vicious?”

Shen Yan’s voice remained cold.

“Of course. You’re the least vicious person here. Where were you while they insulted and bullied me?”

The girl choked, her face flushing scarlet.

Shen Yan had no desire to waste more time on them. Once the gatekeeper finished checking her token, she walked into the library.

Only after her back disappeared did the others begin reacting.

“How did Shen Yan stop being an idiot?”

“Someone call a physician! Shen Xi’s mouth is torn open!”

The disciples dissolved into panic.

…

A covert guard soon reported the incident to the Shen family head.

His expression turned unreadable.

“You’re saying Shen Yan knocked a disciple at the third level of the Yellow-rank realm unconscious with her bare hands—and tore open his mouth?”

The guard lowered his head respectfully.

“Yes, Family Head. The Second Young Miss took less than ten seconds.”

The family head’s deeply wrinkled face twitched.

After a long silence, he sighed.

“What a pity…”

Shen Yan had no spiritual power.

Her speed and physical strength might be impressive, but against a stronger opponent, she would be unable to move, much less fight back.

That was reality.

Someone without spiritual power had no future.

“Keep watching her.”

“And the matter of the Second Young Miss injuring someone?”

“Consider it a lesson for that loose-tongued disciple.”

The family head feared that punishing Shen Yan would provoke Tianhao into doing something irreversible.

“Yes, Family Head.”

The covert guard withdrew.

Soon afterward, another piece of news reached the family head.

The Qiutian Sect would hold a competition in Lingyan Forest, and young cultivators from nearly ten kingdoms would register to take part.

The Qiutian Sect!

It was an upper-middle power of the Pingze Western Region, a force anyone would yearn to join.

If the Shen family formed a connection with the sect, their name would spread far and wide—and they would gain a powerful backer.

Joy surged through the family head.

He decided to send every outstanding member of the younger generation.

Especially Xue’er.

She would surely bring glory to the Shen family.

The news gradually spread throughout Nanxiao Kingdom, stirring a wave of excitement.

Young cultivators waited eagerly and began preparing for the competition.

…

Inside the Shen family library, Shen Yan found three floors.

The first and second were open to all disciples.

No one could enter the third without the family head’s personal permission.