The rain seemed a little lighter than before...
Chu Huai Xu had been a gaming companion for so long, and a virtual male model for so long, ranking second on the must-eat list, that he had long since grown used to women lusting after his body.
After encountering enough lustful women, one's mindset would inevitably change.
Heh, women, he sneered inwardly.
A Cultivation Cauldron?
You wanted one that badly?
At first, Chu Huai Xu was slightly startled when he saw the woman holding an oil-paper umbrella.
After all, who knew whether there were female players in the Patrol Office?
But after taking a closer look, he felt that the woman looked somewhat familiar.
And the more he looked, the more familiar she seemed!
She was definitely an NPC he had seen in Borrowed Sword!
After she spoke, even her voice sounded familiar to Chu Huai Xu, and a vague guess began to form in his mind.
Of course, none of that was the point right now.
His current situation was what mattered most—could she be planning to absorb me?
The highest-grade Cultivation Cauldron?
Me?
"Damn it, is the male-model aura on me really that strong? Did she identify my profession at a glance?" Chu Huai Xu began to doubt himself inwardly.
Could he really have been in the industry so long that his temperament had become tainted?
Could she smell the dust of the pleasure quarters on him from this far away?
In fact, what Chu Huai Xu found most unbelievable was that lines like these usually came from certain women who rode male demons. If this woman really was her, how could she say something so shocking?
"Could all those rumors about her actually be true?" Chu Huai Xu felt that he might be about to uncover some explosive gossip.
Explosive gossip about one of the most important female characters in Borrowed Sword!
"Don't think I won't recognize you just because you're wearing a veil," Chu Huai Xu thought.
"One of the four World Protagonists in Borrowed Sword—Han Shuangjiang!"
Every game definitely had its own story and its own background.
And if there was a story, then there would certainly be protagonists within it.
In some of the game's main storylines, these World Protagonists often played crucial roles, driving the tides of the era ever forward.
There was one thing people loved to mock in period dramas: as long as someone casually covered their face and hid half of it, nobody could recognize them.
But in reality, if someone familiar put on a mask, you could still tell who they were.
Han Shuangjiang had been born on Shuangjiang, one of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms, just as her name suggested.
She was both a World Protagonist of Borrowed Sword and one of the most beloved female characters among the players.
Among the four World Protagonists, she was the youngest.
Yet, paradoxically, she had the strongest "big sister" aura.
She exuded an intense mature-woman charm—noble and icy.
Combined with those astonishingly long legs, she could make certain perverts blurt out, "Step on me, big sister!"
They were probably afraid that if she really stepped on them, they would still be grinning through it.
Based on her figure, the features visible beyond the veil, and her voice, Chu Huai Xu was already one hundred percent certain that she was Han Shuangjiang.
A sensational piece of gossip that countless people had discussed on the game's Forum flashed through his mind.
When that incident had first been exposed, some threads had reached tens of thousands of replies just from people fighting with each other!
Because Borrowed Sword was a game with a high degree of freedom, players had to explore much of the important information themselves.
Some players, somehow, had obtained information claiming that Han Shuangjiang had been sold into a Brothel as a child and raised to become the next Top Courtesan.
The childhood of girls like that was certainly different from that of ordinary people.
Their lessons would surely include the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting, but they absolutely would not lack classes in physiology and hygiene. Those classes would even make up a huge portion of their education.
Everything a high-level professional needed to learn before entering the field was something they had mastered in theory.
They knew everything, and they could do everything.
They could make you very comfortable.
Put simply, they possessed an innate allure.
Once these girls reached a certain age and their bodies had matured, they would begin putting what they had learned into practice.
In the Xuanhuang Realm, whether in the Mirror Kingdom or the Moon Kingdom, sects all had industries of their own.
It was just that in the Mirror Kingdom, they paid less tax to the Imperial Court and more to the sects.
The Moon Kingdom was the opposite.
Under normal circumstances, these pleasure houses would mostly belong to organizations like the Joyful Sect or the Hehuan Sect.
Sometimes, the lower-level cultivators from those sects might suddenly feel playful or urgently need money and go work shifts in such places.
At times like that, some mortals would truly cling to the pursuit of dying beneath peony blossoms and being a ghost in pleasure, waving banknotes and paying to have themselves drained dry. They would even fight to become Cultivation Cauldrons, unafraid of shortening their lives.
It was said that the experience of a cultivator working a shift was truly wonderful.
In the year before Han Shuangjiang was to be presented as the Top Courtesan, she happened to be discovered by people from the Joyful Sect, who found that her cultivation talent was unexpectedly excellent. They took her back to become a candidate for Saintess.
Then, disaster struck.
The Joyful Sect was a subordinate sect of Spring Autumn Mountain, one of the Four Great Sects of the Mirror Kingdom.
Spring Autumn Mountain was as famous as the Dao Sect and was incomparably powerful.
As a subordinate sect, the Joyful Sect had committed multiple major taboos.
First, tax evasion and tax fraud!
Second, it had not merely evaded taxes and committed tax fraud—it had also acted lawlessly in secret.
It was like agreeing to provide only half a service to mortals, then secretly daring to provide the whole thing and damage their physical foundations. The nature of the offense was exceptionally vile!
As a result, its superior sect revoked its "business license" as a legitimate sect and directly classified it among the evil and demonic paths.
These dual-cultivation sects were essentially focused on finding a Dao Companion, then improving together as mutual Cultivation Cauldrons, using yin to supplement yang—drawing from one another and supplementing one another.
That was not against the rules.
However, once the difference in cultivation between two people became too great, the weaker party would completely degenerate into a Cultivation Cauldron, suffering damage to their foundation!
As long as low-level cultivators did not go too far with mortals, the worst they would suffer was a few days of weakness and kidney damage.
But some transgressors in the Joyful Sect had been too greedy.
—How dare you secretly add more time!
After the matter blew up, the Joyful Sect was erased from existence. Some cultivators were sentenced, while others fled.
As a candidate for Saintess, Han Shuangjiang had only been taught the sect's signature Cultivation Method, Joyful Entanglement, a few days earlier. Her theoretical knowledge was already much greater than it had been in the Brothel—she had essentially gone from college to postgraduate studies.
Later, no one knew what had happened, but she somehow escaped from her sect.
She had escaped catastrophe twice.
Only her temporarily "useless knowledge" kept increasing!
The breathtakingly beautiful woman left just like that, becoming the Yellow Moonlight whom many young men from the sect would never see again in their lifetimes, able to preserve her only in the depths of their hearts.
"When this gossip was first exposed, I didn't believe it either," Chu Huai Xu thought as he stood in the rain.
"But now that you immediately mentioned a Cultivation Cauldron after opening your mouth, it's hard for me not to believe it."
Wasn't she practically confirming it herself?
Back then, if this matter had been proven true, her popularity among the male players—
Wouldn't it have skyrocketed?
A woman with such a shocking contrast—could anyone withstand that?
Han Shuangjiang looked at the handsome man with the Fox Face before her, a trace of confusion in her heart. Why had she, as if possessed, blurted out what she was thinking?
Yet she had to admit that the heavens had indeed given this Fox Face an impeccable appearance.
The Joyful Sect had no shortage of handsome men and beautiful women.
But if this man joined them, he would probably crush even the male disciples in appearance!
Still, after saying those words aloud, Han Shuangjiang herself felt embarrassed on her own behalf.
She had no idea that Chu Huai Xu was excitedly devouring gossip, and even less idea that he felt no discrimination toward her.
You never entered the profession. I'm a real male model.
However, there was a hint of amusement in the way he looked at her.
Meeting that amused gaze, Han Shuangjiang realized that she had misspoken and sneered inwardly:
Heh, men.
As the two stood facing one another in silence, a light laugh suddenly rang out from the Ninth Heaven above the rainy night. Then a voice drifted down from on high:
"Huh? Why is there still a fool out here getting drenched?"
The instant the voice rang out, Chu Huai Xu and Han Shuangjiang both abruptly raised their heads and looked toward the night sky.
Someone was coming through the air!
In the next moment, not another drop of rain fell on Chu Huai Xu.
But the rain had not stopped.
No, it could also be said that the rain had stopped!
Within this area, every raindrop descending from the sky had halted in midair!
Before you continue