"Hmmm …" Shao Hai furrowed his brows and stared into the air. He had indeed managed to get through the first few hours of the following day without the Elder noticing that something was wrong and had finally gone to sleep for the rest of the day. Afterward, he put all his energy into trying to come up with a way of discouraging Jing Yi from doing these tasks for his senior martial brothers and sisters.

Actually, this shouldn’t be too hard. Jing Yi wasn’t the kind of person that was too stubborn. As long as he had good arguments, he was sure that Jing Yi would stop doing this useless thing. It would probably be best if he could come up with something else that Jing Yi could do. After all, Jing Yi’s dream was to become a hero and he wouldn’t give up on that dream easily. No, he had to find something that he could let Jing Yi do instead of the tasks his seniors were giving him. It had to be something that could somehow be justified as having to do with being a hero.

"Hmmm …" Shao Hai furrowed his brows even further. He didn’t know too much about heroes. In fact, he had only heard a few stories from his father when he was younger. He should probably try and go with that. And, well, he had told Jing Yi the last time that there might be steps to learning how to be a hero. So it would be best if he could find something like a second step for Jing Yi to do. If he had a story to back his claims up, that might be even better. But if he didn’t have one … Well, Jing Yi trusted him. So as long as he said that it was the second step, it should work out.

Thus, Shao Hai finally went over to Jing Yi and tested the waters. "Xiao Yi …"

Jing Yi looked up while continuing to rake the leaves on the ground. "Didn’t you train today?"

"Uh …" Shao Hai awkwardly cleared his throat. "Well, I figured you might be tired of having to watch me train every day so … I just had Xiao Dong watch today."

"Oh." Jing Yi nodded and continued to rake the leaves.

Shao Hai furrowed his brows. It really couldn’t go on like this! "Xiao Yi, say, don’t you think it might be time for you to take the next step? I mean you’ve done for a rather long time what your senior martial brothers asked you to do."

Jing Yi looked at the heap of leaves on the ground and pondered. "Well, I guess that’s true."

Shao Hai’s face lit up. Could it really be this easy?!

"But then again, they didn’t tell me that I could stop. Don’t you think they’d tell me when I’m good enough to do other tasks?"

"Uh …" Shao Hai opened his mouth only to close it again. How would he know? He had never thought about this! In fact, he was pretty sure that the seniors never intended for Jing Yi to learn how to become a hero just by doing this kind of thing. No, they just wanted him to do their work. These were only things they didn’t want to do so they let Jing Yi do it and were probably happy that they had found an idiot who was willing to listen to them. He definitely couldn’t let this continue!

Shao Hai cleared his throat. "Well, maybe they could but I think there might be more to this. Imagine: If you are a hero one day and you’re out doing some kind of mission where you suddenly see people in need, then you can’t rely on somebody to tell you what to do. No, you’ll need to be able to see just what needs to be done on your own. So I’d say that this might be a test your senior martial brothers are giving you. They probably want to see if you’re able to figure out on your own that you’re good enough to take the next step."

Jing Yi thought about it and felt that this sounded quite convincing. The only question was … "Then what is the next step?"

Shao Hai coughed. Was Xiao Yi serious?! He wanted him to answer even this? Well, it might be good that he did. That way, his Xiao Yi couldn’t come up with anything weird.

Once again, Shao Hai cleared his throat and tried to look serious. "Well, it’s just like the test. You’ll have to decide for yourself. So … basically, you need to go and search for your own tasks. After all, a real hero will need to see where his help is necessary to be able to actually help."

Jing Yi nodded. "You’re right. It’s really a good idea. Then I’ll go and see who needs help." With that, we went and searched around for people who needed help.

Shao Hai heaved a sigh of relief. It seemed Jing Yi would finally stop doing these odd jobs and could concentrate on his cultivation. That was good. This way, he wouldn’t miss out on any more precious time for his cultivation.

While he was considering this point, Qiu Ling was pondering something else. If his beloved wanted to help people … Maybe he should lie down on the road and pretend to be injured? He had already tried that with Jing He back then and it hadn’t worked too well but maybe his mortal reincarnation was different. At the very least, it couldn’t hurt to try it, could it?

Thus he went to look for a good spot where he could pretend to be injured. Unfortunately, before he could find one, Jing Yi had already found his task. "Senior martial sister, that looks really heavy. Where do you have to bring it? Maybe I can help to carry it over?"

Qiu Ling who had had great expectations of this plan felt disappointed at this. Ah, it seemed he wouldn’t be able to fulfill the part he had thought he’d have in this plan. It really was a pity!