goodnovel Chapter 538 - 39: The Virgin’s Handbook
Chapter 538 - 39: The Virgin’s Handbook
The old researcher who was personally escorted to the Illusory Arena by Wang Jiu could no longer hear the sounds around him.
Looking at the handsome face before him, as if from a painting, and the childhood sweetheart leaning beside him, the 80-year-old old virgin felt a mix of emotions.
There was the happiness of mutual love for twenty years, the helpless confusion of a sudden emotional collapse overnight, and the humiliation when seeking an explanation... Yet, before he could clear his mind from this complex experience, he saw the man opposite raise his eyebrows and say with a tone of contempt, "Why don’t you get lost, or do you need me to teach you a lesson before you know what’s what? I heard you’re fond of reading, did your brain end up in a cesspool?"
Upon hearing such familiar words from over fifty years ago, the old man’s mind was even more disoriented, unsure of what to do.
The young man opposite, however, became increasingly aggressive, lifting his jade-colored longsword as a gentle sword wind brushed past the old man’s ear.
"You reckless fool, do you think I’m just bluffing?"
The woman beside him frowned slightly and tugged at his sleeve, "Don’t, don’t be too..."
"I know, I won’t kill him, at most break an arm. Anyway, he’s a scholar, he can still read with one hand, can’t he? Hahaha."
Amid a burst of extreme laughter, the jade longsword swung again, and that slender Sword Qi directly aimed at the old man’s scapula. If it hit, not just an arm, but half his body would be severed.
However, the old man instinctively shrank just in time, allowing the Sword Qi to narrowly brush past his upper arm, slicing through flesh and bone with a sharp pain.
"Ahhh!"
The old man cried out miserably, and the next moment the illusion realm shattered, the entire space breaking like glass.
Wang Jiu shook his head beside him.
This Illusory Arena directly extracts the participant’s memories to form the battlefield, so this scene was exactly the old man’s personal experience from back then.
According to the team member’s records he obtained, this researcher named Zhu He had been cuckolded by a second-generation immortal from a noble family in his youth. His childhood sweetheart was coaxed into bed by that person overnight, and when Zhu He went to demand an explanation, he was injured on the spot, becoming a lifelong shadow for him.
Decades later, this shadow remains heavy.
Though Zhu He was evidently not a combat expert, having cultivated for 80 years, he had reached the late stage of the Rain Cover Realm in True Essence Realm with a solid foundation in cultivation techniques selected from Cyan Lotus Academy, making him a top practitioner on Xiangzhou Continent.
The second-generation immortal appearing in the arena, on the other hand, was barely thirty, with a cultivation level barely reaching the Cloud Flipping Realm, and his swordsmanship was all show without substance. The jade sword in his hand was not properly refined... To the Celestial Sword Spirit, he seemed like a typical second-generation immortal from a three-tier town family. With Zhu He’s current strength, he could easily overwhelm a hundred and eighty of them with a raise of his eyebrow.
Yet that second-generation immortal effortlessly disarmed Zhu He, an absurd spectacle in the Immortal Cultivation Realm.
After losing an arm, Zhu He even cried out loudly.
"It hurts, it hurts so much, it hurts to death, ahhh..." Crying, the old man rolled on the ground, tears and snot flowing.
Although the Illusory Arena’s pain sensation was only a fraction of the real environment, and all pain connections would be cut off at the end of the battle — after all, it was an entertainment facility, not meant to cause real harm. But Zhu He acted as if his arm had truly been severed, in utter embarrassment and pain.
At this moment, the scholars watching showed sympathetic and compassionate gazes.
Though to most, this was an incomprehensible scene, colleagues from the academy empathized deeply. Young or old, they all experienced similar pain because, despite immersing themselves in studies and research, even dabbling in the Immortal Dao, they had zero practical skills. They couldn’t perform Sword-Controlling Flying Immortal or ritual blessings and were often bullied.
Not just peers in the Immortal Cultivation circle, even some Mortal World martial artists came to challenge them... Zhu He once lost an arm, although it was quickly reattached, the mental damage lingered forever.
"So, Principal, is this what you call the joy of Sword Dao?"
Looking at Zhu He rolling on the ground, her tears flowing, someone finally couldn’t help but ask.
Wang Jiu said, "Yes, don’t you see?"
The crowd looked at each other in confusion, finding it incomprehensible, what joy could be in such a degrading experience?
Wang Jiu felt sad for the lack of insight of these Sword Group researchers: "Isn’t the one holding the sword very happy?"
"... Principal, you mean the antagonist!?"
Wang Jiu said, "Of course, he used the Sword Dao not only to steal someone’s spouse but also to injure someone, leaving decades of psychological shadows. I think this perfectly fulfills human instinctual needs."
"That’s just too far-fetched..." The researchers present felt their worldview shatter, but unlike Elder Shang Miaoyu, they didn’t possess eloquence, and thus found it suffocating to have words stuck in their throats.
Wang Jiu said, "If you put yourselves in the shoes of Zhu He, you’d naturally think that the Sword Dao is all harm and no benefit, and that it would be best if it disappeared from the mortal world. However, if you switch roles and see from the perspective of the antagonist, as long as you know a bit of swordsmanship, you can steal others’ spouses and render them incapable of mating for decades. Doesn’t that sound fun?"
"That, that’s just too twisted, we civilized people can’t enjoy that..."
A young cultivator hadn’t finished voicing his rebuttal when Wang Jiu activated the Illusory Arena again, pulling the rolling Zhu He off the ground and throwing him back into the arena.
The opponent was still that second-generation celestial with a grudge for a stolen wife, still holding the lustful woman with signs of being in heat, wielding the Jade Sword single-handedly.
"You again? Haven’t you learned your lesson? Or do you get excited watching your beloved embrace another?"
The Illusory Arena, acquired at a great cost, offered highly advanced AI, allowing the projected opponent to adapt to circumstances and speak words that were extremely harsh and venomous.
Zhu He clutched his shoulder, feeling as if his heart were about to explode, yet he couldn’t muster the courage to face the psychological shadow that had troubled him for decades...
At that moment, Wang Jiu appeared beside him, handing him a pure white longsword.
In the next instant, the White Sword guided Zhu He to lunge forward fiercely.
"No!"
Zhu He instinctively wanted to resist, but the sword had an irresistible pull, forcing him forward until he crashed into the young man’s Jade Sword.
The slender green sword shattered with a boom, and the young man was sent flying over a hundred meters, rolling across the open ground until most of his face’s skin peeled away, exposing white bone, before finally stopping.
"Help, help..."
In an instant, the young man fell from the heavens to the abyss, bones fractured, unable to even get up, weakly crying out for help on the spot.
Zhu He looked in disbelief at the distant, dying opponent, then at the White Sword in his hand, unsure what to say.
Rationally, he knew that the young man across from him was no match for him; it was just his own heart demon that prevented him from striking. If external force broke the heart demon, the battle’s outcome would be no surprise.
However, seeing the young man begging on the ground, he did not feel a true sense of victory. After all, bullying a thirty-year-old as an eighty-year-old was hardly impressive...
Of course, in terms of satisfaction, it was indeed exhilarating. For decades, he had imagined that if he had exquisite swordsmanship back then, he would definitely...
Just as he thought of this, two more figures appeared in the Illusory Arena.
A stern-looking middle-aged Sword Cultivator, accompanied by a noble and elegant lady.
Seeing these two, Zhu He trembled uncontrollably once again.
The middle-aged man glanced at the young man begging on the ground, sneered, and a jade-colored sword light fell, decapitating the young man and ending his pain, then he raised his eyebrows and spoke solemnly.
"Zhu He, after 80 years alive, you’ve only learned to bully young folks? I heard you joined Cyan Lotus Academy of the Three Academies, thinking your skills might have improved, but it seems trash is still trash."
The woman beside him also said, "I once felt some regret towards you, but I didn’t expect you to be such a coward at heart. I’m really disappointed in you."
"I, I didn’t..." Zhu He tried to defend himself, looking at the middle-aged couple in front of him, yet he didn’t know what to say.
These two people were, of course, the later celestial second-generation and the childhood sweetheart.
The world doesn’t always reward good and punish evil. That second-generation celestial who took someone’s beloved later succeeded in advancing to the Peak of the Rain Cover Realm after decades of cultivation, thanks to family resources, skills of exploiting loopholes, and remarkable swordsmanship, possessing formidable magical treasures, almost a Mountain-Overturning Realm expert; meanwhile, the childhood sweetheart secured her position as the main wife with solid fundamentals, keeping any seductive witches out...
In simple terms, these two found happiness and success in their lives and did not suffer retribution for past misdeeds.
Thus, Zhu He never paid attention to those two, even though he was now a cultivator of Cyan Lotus Academy, his status much higher than that local bully. But he knew he couldn’t provoke the local bully who thrived on swordsmanship.
Now, facing his enemies, not only did he not dare to look envious, he didn’t even dare to look directly at them, wishing only to flee as far as possible.
Yet the White Sword in his hand rose again, unceremoniously drawing on his inner True Essence, unleashing an Azure Heaven Sword Seal with millions of intricate patterns.