"Friends, I'm sorry."
"I'll hold him off. Run, all of you, if you can!"
Realizing the situation was dire, Bull Terrier decisively untied the rope binding Yu Xian.
The next instant, a chop to the neck from Yu Xian knocked him out cold. Yu Xian caught him by the arm before he could hit the ground, then slowly looked up at the man standing atop the boulder.
Without a sound, the man's body simply disintegrated. To his dying breath, he never knew what killed him.
Supporting Bull Terrier with one hand, Yu Xian waved casually. The two wounded men Bull Terrier had saved were instantly teleported into a medical clinic somewhere in Longqin City; Yu Xian couldn't be bothered to care about what happened to them after that.
With Bull Terrier in tow, he took a single step, and in the blink of an eye, they appeared inside a cave somewhere within the Wanzu Mountain Range.
With another light flick of his wrist, the stuffy air in the cave cleared immediately, and a campfire sprang into flame. Setting Bull Terrier down beside the fire, Yu Xian sat cross-legged on the ground and summoned the Heavenly Dao Doggy out of the Primordial God World.
"Look at you, picking such trash for protagonists. Look at mine—this is what a proper protagonist should be!" Yu Xian pinched the Heavenly Dao Doggy's cheeks and tugged playfully before continuing.
The Heavenly Dao Doggy glanced at Bull Terrier's face and instantly wore an expression of deep disgust. Back when it was still the Heavenly Dao, a face like that wouldn't have even qualified as an extra, let alone a protagonist; at best, he'd be cannon fodder.
"Judging a book by its cover, stupid dog," Yu Xian scoffed, reading its thoughts.
Then he looked at the still-unconscious Bull Terrier, a grin spreading across his face. "This guy is a rare breed. You just don't know how to appreciate quality."
Bull Terrier's real name was Song He. When he was five years old, a great drought struck. To keep him from starving, his parents secretly gave him what little food remained, and both ended up starving to death, one after the other.
After learning the truth, he didn't run away from home; instead, he lay down between his parents' corpses and waited to die.
Yet just as he was on the brink of death, he was fortunate enough to be saved by a daoist priest. From then on, he traveled the martial world with the daoist, witnessing every facet of human nature.
Normally, someone with a background like that would turn out exceedingly slick or cunning. But because of the memory of his parents, Song He had grown up open, honest, and filled with genuine kindness. Even though his hideous looks frequently subjected him to disgust, suspicion, and humiliation from others, he remained eager to help people, his heart fundamentally pure.
Still, he was no naive saint. The daoist who adopted him had been a third-rate martial artist in his own right, so Song He, having practiced martial arts from a young age and possessing immense natural strength, was no slouch in combat. Whenever he encountered bandits or highwaymen, he adhered strictly to the principle of stamping out evil root and branch, slaughtering them without mercy.
His kindness was reserved only for good people; his cruelty was dealt only to the wicked.
If a guy like this didn't deserve to be the protagonist, who did?
Compared to him, what was Yue Feng? Aside from possessing a prettier mortal vessel, he wasn't even fit to carry this man's shoes.
Yu Xian made up his mind. Song He was his handpicked protagonist. He would make Song He a child of fortune and let him shine brilliantly in this world.
He plucked a few tufts of fur from the Heavenly Dao Doggy, then blew lightly toward Song He. The dog hairs drifted onto Song He and slowly sank into his body.
This was the fortune of the Heavenly Dao. Until it was fully depleted, this guy would be blessed by divine favor and couldn't die no matter what.
Yu Xian stood, preparing to leave so he could watch the drama unfold from behind the scenes. Before departing, though, his thoughts drifted to Song He's appearance. Although Song He had long accepted the fact that he was an eyesore, he occasionally wished he could be as handsome as Pan Lü, the young master of Dragon Sword Mountain Villa.
"Consider it your lucky day. I'll grant you that wish."
Remembering how the fellow had resolved to perish together with the man on the boulder just to buy the others time to flee, Yu Xian gave the matter a little thought.
Then, he carved a cultivation manual onto the cave floor.
The *Divine Art of Graceful Elegance* could only be cultivated by men.
The more one cultivated it, the more handsome one became. The more handsome one was, the greater one's strength; the greater one's strength, the more handsome one became; and the more handsome, the stronger.
This technique was truly a feedback loop of stepping on one foot with the other to ascend straight to heaven. It could no longer be considered a manual of a mid-tier martial world—it belonged purely to a high-tier martial realm.
Having arranged everything, Yu Xian headed straight home to watch the show.
***
Two hours later.
Song He slowly regained consciousness, feeling a dull ache at the back of his neck, not unlike waking up with a stiff neck from an awkward night's sleep.
He sucked in a sharp breath of cold air and rubbed the nape of his neck. Suddenly, he froze in place as the memories before he blacked out rushed back.
The question was, why had he suddenly lost consciousness?
And why was he inside this cave? Had someone rescued him? What about the others?
Song He sat there for a long time before letting out a lengthy sigh. Overthinking wouldn't help now; he could only hope everyone had survived. He had already done everything within his power.
After a moment, he pushed himself up from the ground and looked around. The campfire was still burning, and strangely enough, the air in the cave wasn't stuffy in the least.
Soon, he noticed the text etched into the stone floor. After reading through it carefully, an expression of utter shock washed over his face.
"This manual... is incredible!"
Thanks to the daoist's teachings, he could tell at a glance just how formidable it was.
It was vastly superior to the Hands of Total Disfigurement. Moreover, cultivating this manual actually made a person more handsome—wasn't that the exact opposite of the Hands of Total Disfigurement?
"Could this... could this have been left by the senior who saved me?"
After reading the entire piece, Song He felt certain that someone had indeed come to his rescue.
Taking a deep breath, he knelt decisively before the manual and knocked his head against the ground three times in reverent kowtows. Then, with absolute solemnity, he declared, "Junior Song He thanks Senior for saving my life and bestowing this manual upon me! If I succeed in mastering this divine art in the future, I will surely champion the weak, punish the strong, do good deeds, and accumulate virtue, never failing Senior's expectations!"
In a certain courtyard, Yu Xian was holding the Heavenly Dao Doggy while watching Song He on a screen of light.
Upon seeing this, he chuckled. "Look at that. What a smart kid! Look at the rubbish you picked—did they have a ten-thousandth of his wits?"
"..."
The Heavenly Dao Doggy remained silent, merely wearing a look of disdain.
Either way, it only liked good-looking humans; ugly ones were unconditionally rejected.
Over the days that followed, Song He diligently cultivated in the cave. When hungry, he hunted game nearby; when thirsty, he drank from the mountain spring, pouring all his heart and soul into practicing the divine art.
As he achieved preliminary mastery of the Divine Art of Graceful Elegance, his appearance finally began to shift. He gradually transformed from looking like a bull terrier into looking like the actor Sun Honglei. Though still somewhat homely, he at least finally looked like a proper human being.
Meanwhile, the martial world outside was in an uproar.
Driven by the imperial court's encirclements, manhunts, and relentless extermination campaigns, the surviving martial artists launched retaliatory strikes, assassinating local officials and targeting the families of high-ranking courtiers.
All at once, blood and slaughter swept across the land.
Imperial warriors and martial world fighters alike fanatically cultivated the Hands of Total Disfigurement, and at least thirty percent of the empire's population had turned grotesquely ugly.
Bands of earth-shatteringly hideous people frequently came to blows in city streets and open country. As a result, commoners began developing the habit of keeping their distance whenever they saw an ugly person.
Ugliness, it seemed, was equated with trouble.
Yu Xian found going outside to be a hassle, so he altered his features to take on a thoroughly unremarkable, ordinary face, continuing to blend in among the common folk to eat melon and watch the drama unfold.
Chapter 660