Are You Insulting Me?

When the Professor received the call from the hospital, he was completely dazed. "What? The Soul King was injured by two old men? He's lying in a hospital right now?" You've got to be kidding. That was the Soul King. How many people in the whole country were a match for him? Could a man like that actually be beaten and hurt? Soon a report on the two old men's identities was placed on the Professor's desk. "Wenchang True Lord and Dong Yunzi. So it was the two of them!" These two were quite famous in the cultivation world. Mingwang Wenchang True Lord's path of the literary Dao being cut short, and the chivalrous thief Dong Yunzi being caught by a surveillance camera—these two were inescapable textbook cases. Senior Tan's failure to adapt to modern society after emerging from closed-door cultivation stood as a separate case. Their cultivation realms and their fame rose in proportion. If their realms had been insufficient and they had been nameless nobodies, then no matter how poorly they adapted to modern society, how many people would have paid them any attention? The Professor ordered men to fetch the Soul King from the hospital at once and bring him back to headquarters for treatment. Headquarters had superpowered people who specialized in healing, and the effect was far stronger than a hospital's. The only good news for the moment was that Wenchang True Lord and Dong Yunzi had moved too fast. The Soul King had been injured before he could react. He had not used his superpower, and had not exposed his identity as a superpowered person. When a superpowered person was not using a special ability, they were no different from an ordinary person. "Wenchang True Lord, Dong Yunzi..." The Professor muttered the two names over and over, gnashing his teeth. However great their abilities, they were still no match for the Organization. Taking revenge on them would not be hard. The problem was that these two were not friendless and alone. They had a wide circle of friends in the cultivation world. Once the Organization had taught them a lesson, the next item on the program would be a crowd of immortal cultivators crossing the ocean to settle the score. No matter who won the fight, the ending would be the same. The Organization had spent so many years developing quietly and painstakingly, and all that effort would come to nothing. "Just wait until I get the Human Dao supreme treasure. You two just wait!" The Professor dialed a number. "Red King, come here." The Red King's ability was called Red Yang, the extreme of yang qi and flame. He was not specialized in countering vengeful ghosts the way the Soul King was, but he still counted as half an expert. As for the problem of being unable to see vengeful ghosts, over the years the Organization had reverse-studied the Soul King and produced a kind of lens that could see them. The process was complicated, and they had only been able to make a few pairs of glasses. Giving the Red King one pair would do. …… "Isn't that Zhou You from Class Three?" "What's he doing under the tree?" "So weird." During the break in evening self-study, Zhou You stood beside the pine at the foot of the teaching building. He had rolled his sleeves up to his shoulders and his pant legs into cropped trousers, and he stood stiff and straight beneath the pine, not moving at all. It rather resembled performance art. Classmates who used the break to buy snacks at the school store or out by the school gate all shot him a glance or two as they passed the entrance of the teaching building. When the bell for evening self-study rang, Zhou You ran quickly back to the classroom. "Done getting bitten by the mosquitoes?" Chu Xiaoyao looked at Zhou You with a strange expression. This was the latest cultivation method Zhou You had worked out: the mosquito body-refining method. Mosquitoes were densest around the trees. During the break Zhou You ran under a tree to let them bite him, baring as much skin as he could. Afraid of scaring the mosquitoes off, he could not even move. To anyone else, it looked thoroughly bizarre. "Don't bring it up. Why were there so many people downstairs during the break?" Zhou You wanted to cover his face, but he did not want to put on a look of being ashamed, so his hand rose halfway and dropped again. Although Chu Xiaoyao had taught that an immortal cultivator should remain unmoved by honor or disgrace, Zhou You felt his state of mind was nowhere near as formidable as the Empress's. With people coming and going, he simply could not bear it. Shameful as it was, the effect was striking. Zhou You was covered in mosquito bites from head to foot. "Some floral water?" Chu Xiaoyao offered kindly. "No." Zhou You's resolve in seeking the Dao was firm. He was determined to attend evening self-study, hold back from scratching the itches, and refine his skin, all at the same time. Studies and cultivation, neither would be neglected. That night, after school let out and he got home, Zhou You lay on his bed scrolling through short videos. The Empress had taught him well. Cultivation called for a proper balance of work and rest. He had been up early that morning and had thrown himself tensely into studying and cultivating. In between he had occasionally chatted with Nuomi and listened to Chu Xiaoyao tell of her thrilling experiences on the Hongmeng Continent, but taken all together, his day had been a busy one. Before sleeping at night he would not cultivate. He was rewarding himself with a little while to relax. These days everyone clutched a phone and scrolled short videos. The livestreaming business was booming, and there were livestreams of every kind. Zhou You kept swiping upward, refreshing the livestream rooms. Most of them he watched for a glance or two and then swiped away. None of them particularly drew him in. One female streamer caught Zhou You's eye, and he lingered in her room. "Family, it's this weight-loss medicine. Sixty jin off in two months. Your host has tested it herself, and it works. Not 399, not 299—only 199. Two bottles of weight-loss medicine, and you take them home." The streamer had an oval face, a full chest and a narrow waist, and a voice full of allure, like a small hand stroking you until you shivered with pleasure. She stood up to display the results of the weight loss, and her figure along with them, drawing countless viewers to watch. Orders kept coming in. What had drawn Zhou You was not the streamer's looks, but her weight-loss medicine. Sixty jin in two months, one jin a day. What weight-loss medicine was that outrageous? He was not the only one to realize it. Doubts kept appearing in the bullet comments. "This is a scam, right?" "How could it be real?" "Wanna hook up?" The streamer smiled faintly, her voice stirring. "Family, you can go look at my homepage. It records my weight in detail for every single day. This weight-loss medicine really works." Zhou You had a strong habit of checking the facts. He opened the streamer's homepage. There was only one video on it. In the video the streamer stood on a scale. At the start she was 180 jin, with Xinwen Lianbo playing behind her to prove the time. After that the picture kept cutting among the streamer, the weight, and Xinwen Lianbo, set to cheerful background music, and finally froze on a frame from two months later. A thick, barrel-like waist had slimmed into the supple waist everyone envied. It was enough to tempt anyone watching. Zhou You paused the video several times. The times and the weights all matched. It did not look fake. Many viewers, hearts stirring after the video, placed orders in a frenzy. After all, the streamer was thin and frail, and did not look as if she had slimmed down through working out. If taking medicine could make someone lose weight this fast, why not order right away! But Zhou You kept feeling that something was off. It did not look like a photoshopped picture, and it did not look like an AI effect. Pausing the video here and there at random, he noticed scales growing at the streamer's ankle, and pupils gone vertical. A demon? At that thought, Zhou You carefully sent Su Tingxue the livestream link and the video to verify, along with screenshots of the scales and the vertical pupils. "Is this a demon?" Zhou You had thought it would be a long time before Su Tingxue replied. To his surprise, she answered very quickly. "Yes. This is the snake demon Lin Ling'er. She's a repeat offender." "She uses a transformation art to change her figure and her weight, then livestreams to sell weight-loss medicine. She's cheated quite a few viewers and raked it in." "The demon race and immortal cultivators often use spells to scam people in livestream rooms. It's pretty common." "Hang on. I'll handle it." Then there was no further word. Just as Zhou You was wondering what Su Tingxue meant by "handle," he casually opened Lin Ling'er's livestream again and found the room had been banned. ? This efficient? Behind the screen, Lin Ling'er gnashed her teeth. "Who has nothing better to do than report me!" After banning Lin Ling'er's account in passing, Su Tingxue lay on her bed holding up her phone. She hesitated, wanting to message Zhou You and ask him to do something, but she was too embarrassed. In fact she had already been wavering over whether to message Zhou You, and had never made up her mind. Zhou You suddenly speaking to her had given her a start. She wrote the message and deleted it, deleted it and wrote it again, and still could not decide whether to send it. Zhou You watched Su Tingxue's window keep showing "typing..." and wondered what she was doing. At last Su Tingxue made up her mind. She felt that putting this sort of thing in writing was not quite right. She might as well do a video call. "Is a video call all right?" What answered Su Tingxue was Zhou You calling her on video directly. Su Tingxue hurriedly neatened her appearance and accepted the call. On the video, Su Tingxue sat on the edge of the bed in her pajamas, perfectly upright and proper. "Um... there's something I'd like to ask you to do." For Su Tingxue, the matter was hard to speak aloud. "What is it?" Zhou You was curious. "Earlier today someone commissioned me to exorcise a ghost, but I ran into a problem. That ghost isn't easy to deal with. Of the people I know, you're the only one who can handle this ghost." Catching ghosts? Zhou You's interest rose. Come to think of it, he hadn't had a taste of meat in days. "You can't catch it? Another Eye-blocking Ghost?" "Not an Eye-blocking Ghost. I can handle Eye-blocking Ghosts myself now." Su Tingxue said it with considerable pride. Her Yin-Yang Heavenly Eye had broken through to the heart-eye level, and an Eye-blocking Ghost could no longer block her. "Then what kind of ghost is it?" "Have you heard of a Poverty Ghost?" Zhou You went blank. "Are you insulting me?" Seeing that he had misunderstood, Su Tingxue hurried to explain. "No, no. A real Poverty Ghost. A ghost that can make people poor." "In terms of cultivation attainment, a Poverty Ghost isn't high. But it has one trait: anyone who comes near it automatically has money deducted." "I was thinking you seem unafraid of having money deducted, so you'd have no scruples about dealing with a Poverty Ghost. Could I ask you to step in?" Zhou You was silent for a moment. You just want to call me poor, don't you. And without even using a dirty word.