Grace Brooks sat on the sofa with his legs crossed, watching the interview on TV, grinning as he turned to Professor Brooks beside him and said, “This guy is pretty funny…”

Professor Brooks glanced at him calmly and said nothing.

Grace Brooks didn’t mind, raised his hand to check the time, then looked outside at the weather. The rain showed no sign of stopping for now; according to the forecast, it would last at least until next week.

It was now April 30th, almost May.

The universal calendar in this world was the calendar of the Yi Kingdom, established by the Holy Ancestor Emperor:

A year had twelve months, each with exactly thirty days, and every five years, the first month had one extra day compared to the others. There were also twenty-four solar terms and a series of festivals like Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn, and Qingming, all of which felt familiar to Grace Brooks. Overall, it was similar to the lunar calendar of his previous life.

May was already midsummer.

Autumn would arrive in July.

“The evening of the sixth…”

Still several days to go.

Grace Brooks thought for a moment, opened Feixin, and clicked on Lily’s chat window. The chat background was a photo of Lily, taken several years ago—she still looked quite young back then—

Grace Brooks: Lily, want to go traveling?

Lily: Ning classmate? /smile

Grace Brooks: Hm? I want to go to Haishou Port to see the sea

Lily: Show off your legs? /smile

Grace Brooks: People say watching the sea is the most romantic thing

Lily: Freedom to dress? /smile

Grace Brooks: I don’t know what you’re talking about…

Lily: You’re going to be famous /smile

Grace Brooks: Are you coming or not? I have a graduation party tomorrow, and a flight the morning after. I’ve already checked the tickets.

Lily: Let’s talk in person /smile

Grace Brooks: It’s raining so hard, no need for that

Lily: The big exam is over, you’ve worked hard, let me treat you to a meal

Grace Brooks: The rain is too heavy

Lily: It won’t rain tomorrow morning

Grace Brooks: How do you know?

Lily: Just a guess

Grace Brooks: What about tomorrow night?

Lily: It will

Grace Brooks: You know again?

Lily: Just a guess

Grace Brooks: Send me your ID number, I’ll buy the ticket for you. It’s cheaper if you buy early.

Lily: [picture]

Grace Brooks: Why did you blur your profile picture?

Lily: You only need the ID number

Grace Brooks: …

Putting down his phone, Grace Brooks went to take a shower, then spent four hours cultivating in his room before going to sleep.

Don’t think four hours is short—cultivators in this world aren’t immortals; they can’t just sit there and ignore everything else. For students like Grace Brooks, the pressure of studying during the day is already heavy, plus he has to joke around with Lily, and then cultivate at night—it’s really tough.

Not studying isn’t much better; you’d have to work.

But there’s one good thing about cultivating at night: when you’re exhausted, you fall asleep right away, and the sleep quality is excellent.

April is the time of locust blossoms, May is when the birds sing.

Sure enough, it wasn’t raining this morning. When Grace Brooks pulled back the curtains and poked his head out, he could even faintly hear the sound of cicadas. Maybe once this stretch of rain ended, there would be a string of sunny days, and the weather would quickly become as hot as summer should be.

He got up and went out.

An hour later.

Three people walked down the street, each holding a cup of milk tea. Grace Brooks kicked at a small stone on the ground and said with a sense of relief:

“Finally free, it feels so good not to have classes. If I’d known, I would’ve joined that competition and gotten recruited early too.”

“You just can’t let go of campus life.” Lily Carter glanced at him coolly.

“Maybe.”

“Your art exam the day before yesterday, you had to sing, right?”

“Yeah, and play an instrument too.”

“What song did you sing?”

“‘Rice Field.’”

“‘Rice Field’? Who wrote it?”

“Jay Chou.”

“Who sang it?”

“Forgot who.”

“Does Princess Zhusha have nice legs?”

“Not as nice as yours.”

Trying to test my reflexes? Not a chance.

After saying that, Grace Brooks sneaked a glance at the person beside him—

Lily Carter still wore a blank expression, holding her milk tea, walking steadily.

Sophie, walking on her other side, was focused on biting her milk tea straw, oblivious to her sister and brother-in-law’s conversation.

Princess Zhusha was a celebrity, very popular right now.

Grace Brooks had been quite fond of watching this young lady lately.

No wonder—she was youthful, pretty, adorable, and always wore short skirts or shorts when dancing. Those long, fair legs were hard not to like. But the celebrities Grace Brooks followed never lasted more than a few months; after a while, he’d just switch to another.

After all, there was never a shortage of pretty girls.

That’s just how fickle he was.

As for Jay Chou’s “Rice Field”…

There was no other way—cultivation was expensive. Buying this and that, as a student, where would Grace Brooks get the money?

He could only sell out his fellow countrymen.

If conditions allowed, maybe he’d even become an online singer or something, earning a bit more as long as it didn’t interfere with his cultivation plans—the more, the better. Of course, the original songwriter’s name would still be credited; he’d just sing anonymously at most.

Even the Holy Ancestor didn’t plagiarize poems or lyrics.

But the conditions just didn’t allow it—

The Yi Kingdom in this world was just too awesome, leading the world in culture. The songs from Huayu’s music scene in his previous life didn’t even compare.

He could only take the very best songs from his past life, sell them for some money, and scrape together a bit of cultivation funds.