Going Berserk

"Stop, don't come any closer. If you come any closer, I'll take my pants off! The Pants-Stripping Fiend isn't just a name for nothing!" Xiao Ning'er's aggressive tone suggested that no less drastic measure would subdue her. Xian Wu grabbed the waistband of his pants, making as if to pull them down.

If it were a tomboy like Hu Yan Lan Ruo, this tactic wouldn't only be useless, but it would actually be playing right into her hands.

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

She was a young maiden just beginning to understand love, with a delicate disposition. Naturally, she wouldn't say something like, "Take them off if you want to."

Of course, the above was just Xian Wu's personal guess. He wasn't sure what kind of person Xiao Ning'er truly was.

The result was as Xian Wu had predicted.

Xiao Ning'er stopped. She didn't want her eyes to be sullied by something indecent.

Besides, Xian Wu was capable of such a vulgar act as taking off his pants. After all, he had already done it in front of her once the day before yesterday.

"Stop! If you dare, I'll kill you with the Azure Peak Sword!" Xiao Ning'er threatened, dragging her Great Sword, her voice fierce but weak.

Xian Wu was truly the most despicable, shameless, and vulgar scoundrel in the world!

To think she had once considered him a rival. Now, it seemed he wasn't worthy!

"As if you wouldn't try to hack me with your Great Sword even if I didn't take them off," Xian Wu pouted. Why were all the girls he met like lunatics? He was utterly speechless.

"Be good, listen to me, and put down the Great Sword," Xian Wu said, pulling his pants down a bit further, coaxing her. "If you don't want to live in my shadow forever, then do as I say."

"Leave. Don't appear before me again, or I really won't be able to resist killing you."

Although Xiao Ning'er gritted her teeth in hatred, she was helpless. Facing a scoundrel like Xian Wu, she felt a sense of powerlessness, like punching cotton.

To be so completely controlled by a shameless man was a complete failure.

"Really? Then I'm leaving!" Xian Wu promptly bolted.

"Wait!" Xiao Ning'er remembered something.

"What? Want to go back on your word? No way!" Xian Wu didn't stop walking.

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

And so, Xian Wu disappeared in a flash.

It was impossible for him to return it anyway. Xiao Ning'er's short sword had already been decomposed into Iron Atoms and Carbon Atoms by him.

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

Arriving at his campsite, Xian Wu bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for air.

The amount he was sweating now was comparable to practicing the Six Character Mantra fifty or sixty times.

He placed the dry firewood he had picked up that morning into the stone bonfire. Xian Wu took out a Fire Starter to light it, while listening intently to the sounds around him, afraid Xiao Ning'er would come back to settle the score.

"Heh, the little chick is feisty, I like feisty," Xian Wu said, his memory short-lived as he started thinking about her body again.

Hadn't he just resolved to "have no women in his heart, and his sword will naturally be divine"? Yet, less than a day later, he had forgotten it completely?

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

"Sunrise in the East, magnificent great light..."

His thoughts, guided by the incantation, stirred, and an invisible vortex seemed to form above his head.

Strands of moonlight essence descended from the heavens, entering the vortex. Following the Baihui acupoint, they surged into his Sea of Consciousness.

Although moonlight was essentially sunlight, the absorption and cultivation effects of moonlight essence were completely different from those of sunlight essence.

Under the effect of the Seven Star Divine Curse, the tiny, stardust-like moonlight essence was gradually converted into Soul Force.

Cultivating Soul Force felt like being doused with cold water, not a whole basin, but like a spray, spreading over the entire body, cool and refreshing.

Xian Wu thought this might be a special effect of the moonlight essence, as he felt warm when cultivating during the day.

Without a low-grade Soul Crystal, he didn't know how much his Soul Force had increased, so he could only focus on his cultivation.

The Seven Star Divine Curse, to put it politely, was the most basic method for cultivating Soul Force. To put it bluntly, it was a common, run-of-the-mill method, so its cultivation effects naturally wouldn't be particularly good.

Several hours later.

Xian Wu slowly opened his eyes, intending to go to the restroom and then continue cultivating.

"Strange, I've stopped cultivating, so why do I still feel so cold all over?" Xian Wu scratched his head, attributing it to inertia, and didn't pay it much mind.

But after he finished relieving himself and had been warming himself by the bonfire for a long time, his body showed no signs of warming up. Instead, he felt even colder, as if he were possessed by a ghost.

"What's going on? Why am I so cold?" Xian Wu shivered, tightening the clothes on his body, but it was useless.

Xian Wu vigorously added more firewood to the bonfire, causing the flames to leap up over a foot high.

Despite the intense heat of the fire, his body temperature didn't rise at all.

There must be something wrong with the Seven Star Divine Curse, Xian Wu guessed in his mind, though he didn't know what the specific problem was.

Perhaps his understanding of the later verses was flawed, leading to a deviation in cultivation.

Even though he wasn't cultivating the Seven Star Divine Curse, the cold sensation brought on by the cultivation intensified.

The cold air, like slippery ice eels, wriggled into the seams of his clothes.

No, he couldn't just sit here and wait for death. He needed to find a teacher on duty at the academy for help.

Quickly dousing the campfire with damp earth, Xian Wu ran off in a hurry.

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

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

What did he want? To take liberties with her?

Xiao Ning'er cautiously drew her Qing Feng Greatsword, gripping it tightly. While she didn't want trouble, she wasn't one to be bullied either.

Xian Wu's figure emerged from the darkness.

"You..." Before Xiao Ning'er could finish speaking, Xian Wu rushed past, not even acknowledging her.

Watching Xian Wu leave, Xiao Ning'er was astonished to discover that his hair had turned silver-white.

If not for his sleazy running style, she would have hardly believed it was Xian Wu.

What happened to him?

Running out of the Trial Grounds with sparks and lightning, Xian Wu headed straight for the academy's administrative area, where there were night shift tutors.

The chill grew heavier, Xian Wu's teeth chattering, his legs trembling.

If the previous cold was like a spray of cold water, this was now Niagara Falls.

Even though he was clothed, it felt as if he were standing naked in a world of ice and snow, shivering from the cold.

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

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

Fortunately, it was him on duty tonight.

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

Ye Sheng placed his quill on the pen stand and asked doubtfully, "Who are you?"

???

What was going on? Why didn't this old man recognize him? Was his eyesight failing? Or had he studied too much English with the female tutors?

"It's me, Xian Wu, Godfather!"

"Xian Wu?" Ye Sheng frowned. "That's not right. Xian Wu isn't as fat as you, and his hair isn't this white..."