"Who is your partner, Fairy Fei?" The worker asked her.
Fei Yuyan pointed at Yuan who was still wearing his black jade mask and said, "My partner is a fellow disciple, Yuan."
The worker turned to look at Yuan with raised eyebrows.
’Her partner’s a man? What a lucky bastard,’ The worker cursed at Yuan inwardly, feeling envious.
After writing their names in a logbook, the worker handed them two tokens, both with the number 5163 carved into them.
"These tokens will indicate that you’re partners, and your scores will be added at the end."
When Yuan accepted the token, a notification appeared before him.
<You are now participating in ’Heaven and Earth Zither Competition’>
<Special event: Reach top 3 to receive special rewards>
’Top three, huh? Since I am already trying to achieve third place, this is perfect.’ Yuan smiled inwardly after seeing the notification, wondering what the game will give him for reaching the top 3.
"Now that we’re registered for the competition, we only need to wait for it to start. What do you want to do until then?" Fei Yuyan asked Yuan afterward.
"I would like to go somewhere where I can play the Soul Ensnaring Zither," Yuan responded after pondering for a moment.
"You want to play the zither? What about resting before the competition?" Fei Yuyan looked at him with raised eyebrows.
"I can’t help it. My hands have been itching to play the zither ever since I received the Soul Ensnaring Zither!" Yuan sighed.
"What are you? An addict?" Fei Yuyan shook her head with a hopeless smile on her face.
"Anyway, if you want to play the zither, I know a place, and you can even have an audience there."
"Really? Let’s go." Yuan quickly agreed.
Thus, Fei Yuyan left the gathering area before taking Yuan and the others to this large park in the middle of the city.
However, there were already people playing music in the park. In fact, there were many different instruments being played at the same time, almost like they were competing with each other.
"What’s going on here? Why are there so many people playing instruments here? And wouldn’t it be rude to play when there’s already somebody else playing?" Yuan asked Fei Yuyan.
"Normally that’d be the case, but this place is a little special. Musicians come here to receive recognition, and it’s almost like a competition for the people here to see who has the most audience."
"What do you get for doing such a thing, anyway?" Yuan raised his eyebrows.
"Well, it’s also considered training for many people since your concentration can be easily disturbed in this chaotic atmosphere with so many people playing at once. Getting recognition is just a bonus."
"I see..." Yuan nodded.
"Just find an empty spot and try it. You might be surprised by how difficult it is to play in this place."
A few moments later, Yuan took a seat before this stone table and retrieved the Soul Ensnaring Zither from his spatial ring.
After placing it down on the stone table, Yuan took a deep breath to calm his mind and took a long minute to get used to the loud atmosphere.
Meanwhile, Fei Yuyan and the others took a seat nearby, patiently waiting for Yuan to start with anticipation on their faces.
’This is nothing new for me. I have been trained to ignore my surroundings and focus solely on the instrument, even playing through a massive earthquake one time...’ Yuan thought to himself.
A few moments later, almost like there was a filter inside his mind, Yuan isolated the surrounding noises, and the only sound he could hear was his own breathing and the sound of his heart beating.
Ting~
Yuan began playing the zither a moment later, instantly filling the park with heavenly zither music.
When the others in this park heard this divine noise, they immediately began trying to locate where it was coming from.
"Who is playing this zither music?! I have never heard anything this beautiful-sounding before!"
"This... sounds too good to be true..."
"I must see for myself who is producing such magical notes even if it’s the last thing I do in this life!"
Very quickly, everybody in the park began approaching Yuan’s location, and even the other musicians in the park stopped playing their instruments to admire the music.
"Whoever is playing this must be a top expert! I cannot miss this chance to meet a top zither expert!"
Thus, even the other musicians in the park began making their way towards Yuan’s location.
A minute after Yuan began playing the zither, over one hundred people were already gathered at his location to watch his performance.
"W-Who is that? The mask is blocking his face so I cannot identify him, but he’s definitely a man! I don’t know of any male zither experts who can play the zither with such perfection— not even Master Zou! No disrespect to him, of course!"
"L-Look at the instrument he’s using! Are my eyes tricking me, or is that the Soul Ensnaring Zither?!"
"What?! The Soul Ensnaring Zither?! That’s impossible!"
The audience there quickly took notice of the beautiful zither Yuan was playing from, and they were in disbelief.
"That must be a replica! The Soul Ensnaring Zither cannot be played by anyone else other than the Zither Goddess! It has been like that for thousands of years!"
"Nobody that is currently living in the Lower Heavens has ever heard the Soul Ensnaring Zither’s sound before so there’s no way for us to tell whether that’s the real one or just a fake. However, even without any evidence, I can say with confidence that Soul Ensnaring Zither is fake!"
Although the audience did not believe even for a second that the instrument Yuan was playing was the legendary cursed instrument, they could not question his zither arts, and they quickly ignored the instrument and returned to focusing on the music.
And while everybody there was too immersed in Yuan’s music to care about their surroundings, a tall and slender figure wearing a veil over their head suddenly appeared behind the crowd to watch the performance as well.
’That’s definitely the real Soul Ensnaring Zither... But how...? Just who is this person?’ The veiled figure wondered, feeling extremely shocked by this abnormal situation they had encountered by mere chance.