Going Berserk

"Stop! Don't come any closer! If you do, I'll take my pants off! I'm the Pants-Stripping Fiend, and I've earned that name!" Xiao Ning'er was pressing him hard. It seemed he wouldn't be able to subdue her without resorting to drastic measures. Xian Wu grabbed his waistband and pretended he was about to pull his pants down.

If this had been someone like Hu Yan Lan Ruo, that tomboy, his move wouldn't just have been useless—it would have played right into her hands.

But Xiao Ning'er wasn't Hu Yan Lan Ruo.

She was a young woman just beginning to fall in love, and she was modest. Naturally, she wouldn't say something like, "Go ahead and take them off if you want."

Of course, that was only Xian Wu's personal guess. He wasn't sure what kind of person Xiao Ning'er really was.

The result was just as Xian Wu had expected.

Xiao Ning'er stopped. She didn't want anything unsightly to dirty her eyes.

Besides, Xian Wu was shameless enough to do something as lewd as taking off his pants. After all, he'd already done it in front of her once the day before yesterday.

"Stop! If you dare take them off, I'll kill you with the Azure Peak Sword!" Xiao Ning'er dragged the Great Sword behind her and threatened him, putting on a fierce act that was almost cute.

Xian Wu was the most despicable, shameless, lowlife bastard in the whole world!

She'd once considered him a rival. Now, she realized he wasn't even worthy of that!

"You say that like you wouldn't swing that Great Sword at me even if I kept my pants on." Xian Wu pursed his lips. Why were all the girls he met such lunatics? This was just ridiculous.

"Good girl. Be a good listener and put the Great Sword down." Xian Wu tugged his pants down a little and coaxed her patiently. "If you don't want to live in my shadow for the rest of your life, do as I say."

"Go away. Don't ever show your face in front of me again. Otherwise, I really won't be able to stop myself from hacking you to death."

Xiao Ning'er was grinding her teeth in anger, but there was nothing she could do. Facing a scoundrel like Xian Wu left her feeling powerless, as if she were punching a cloud.

To think she'd been completely manipulated by a shameless man. What a failure.

"Really? Then I'm off!" Xian Wu took off without hesitation.

"Wait!" Xiao Ning'er suddenly remembered something.

"What? Changed your mind? No way!" Xian Wu kept walking.

"Stop! Give me back my Azure Moon Short Sword!" Xiao Ning'er wanted to chase after him, but she was afraid he'd shamelessly take his pants off again.

And just like that, Xian Wu disappeared in a flash.

There was no chance he'd give it back. He'd already broken Xiao Ning'er's short sword down into Iron Atoms and Carbon Atoms.

The Iron Atoms were probably still lying on the ground, but the Carbon Atoms had most likely turned into Carbon Dioxide and blended into the air.

Back at his campsite, Xian Wu bent over with his hands on his knees and gasped for breath.

He was sweating enough to rival someone who'd practiced the Six Character Mantra fifty or sixty times.

He tossed the firewood he'd gathered before leaving that morning into the stone fire pit. As he pulled out his fire starter and lit it, he pricked up his ears and listened carefully to the sounds around him, afraid Xiao Ning'er might come back to settle the score.

"Heh, that girl's got a real temper. I like spicy ones." Xian Wu never learned his lesson, and he was already thinking about her body again.

He'd said, "With no women in your heart, your sword will be divine," and less than a day later, he'd completely forgotten it?

After drying his sweat-dampened clothes by the fire, Xian Wu sat cross-legged and began practicing the Seven Star Divine Curse.

"The sun rises in the east, its brilliant light..."

As the incantation stirred the thoughts in his mind, an invisible vortex seemed to form above Xian Wu's head.

Strands of Moonlight Essence descended from the sky, entered the vortex, and flowed through his crown point into his Sea of Soul.

Although moonlight was essentially sunlight, the way Moonlight Essence was absorbed and cultivated was completely different from that of Sunlight Essence.

Under the influence of the Seven Star Divine Curse, tiny specks of Moonlight Essence, as small as stardust, were gradually transformed into Soul Force.

Cultivating Soul Force felt like having cold water poured over his head—not like a whole basin being dumped on him, but more like a fine spray spreading over his entire body, leaving him cool and refreshed.

Xian Wu thought it might be a special effect of Moonlight Essence, since when he practiced during the day, he felt warm all over.

Without a Primary Soul Crystal, he had no way of knowing how much his Soul Force had improved, so he could only keep practicing.

The Seven Star Divine Curse was, in a tactful person's words, the most basic method for cultivating Soul Force. In a less tactful person's words, it was a common, run-of-the-mill cultivation method. Naturally, its effects weren't going to be impressive.

Several hours later.

Xian Wu slowly opened his eyes, intending to go to the bathroom and then come back to continue practicing.

"That's strange. I stopped practicing, so why am I still freezing?" Xian Wu scratched his head. He figured it might just be an aftereffect, so he didn't think much of it.

But after he finished relieving himself and returned to the fire to warm himself for a long while, his body showed no sign of warming up. Instead, he felt even colder, as if a ghost had possessed him.

"What's going on? Why is it so cold?" Xian Wu hunched his shoulders and tightened his clothes around himself, but it didn't help at all.

Xian Wu frantically piled more wood onto the fire, sending the flames leaping more than a foot high.

Even with the roaring flames blazing against him, his body temperature didn't rise in the slightest.

Something must have gone wrong with the Seven Star Divine Curse, Xian Wu guessed, though he had no idea what exactly.

Perhaps he'd misunderstood one of the later lines, causing his cultivation to go awry.

Although he wasn't practicing the Seven Star Divine Curse anymore, the icy feeling brought on by the cultivation continued to intensify.

The cold seeped through his clothes like strings of icy loaches wriggling through the seams.

He couldn't just sit there and wait for help. He needed to find a teacher on duty at the academy.

He hurriedly smothered the fire with damp soil and took off running.

Meanwhile, Xiao Ning'er was fully focused on cultivating her Soul Force when she suddenly heard hurried footsteps.

Without even thinking, she knew it had to be that shameless Xian Wu.

What was he planning to do? Take advantage of her?

Xiao Ning'er warily drew her Azure Peak Sword and gripped it tightly. She didn't want trouble, but she wasn't going to let anyone push her around, either.

Xian Wu appeared out of the darkness.

"You..." Xiao Ning'er hadn't even finished speaking when Xian Wu hurried past without so much as acknowledging her.

As she watched him leave, Xiao Ning'er was astonished to see that his hair had turned silvery white.

If not for that lecherous running gait, she would hardly have believed it was Xian Wu.

What had happened to him?

With sparks practically flying from his heels, Xian Wu ran out of the Trial Grounds and headed straight for the academy's administrative building, where a mentor was on duty at night.

The chill kept growing more intense. Xian Wu's teeth chattered, and his legs trembled.

If it had felt like a cold-water spray before, now it was like standing beneath Niagara Falls.

Even with his clothes on, he felt as cold as if he were standing naked in a snowy wasteland, shivering uncontrollably.

"Knock, knock, knock..." Xian Wu shivered as he knocked on the Vice Dean's office door.

"Come in," came Vice Dean Ye Sheng's voice from inside.

Fortunately, the old man was here tonight.

"Lord Ye Sheng, please, you have to save me!" Xian Wu burst through the door.

Ye Sheng placed his Ram Horn Pen on its holder and asked in confusion, "Who are you?"

???

What was going on? Why didn't the old man recognize him? Was he going senile? Or had he studied English with the female mentors so much that it had gone to his head?

"I'm Xian Wu, your godson!"

"Xian Wu?" Ye Sheng frowned. "That can't be right. Xian Wu isn't this fat, and his hair isn't this white..."