"Your so-called theory may just be based on a handful of exceptional cases in ancient texts that happened to succeed, while ignoring the thousands upon thousands who failed and died."
Su Yun pushed up his sunglasses and coldly spat out a term:
"Grandmaster, in statistics, that's called survivor bias."
"You're taking one survivor in a hundred million and promoting that as a universal rule? That's not academic research. You're treating people's lives like a joke!"
A barrage of questions rained down on Yu Xiaogang like machine-gun fire.
The Work-Study Students around them looked at him differently now. Their admiration turned to doubt, then finally to fear.
That was true. He wasn't a plant-type Martial Soul himself. How could he know it would work?
What if I'm one of the 99% who fail and explode? Who'll be held responsible?
Yu Xiaogang was backed into a corner, his face flushed and sweat pouring down his forehead.
Under the crowd's doubtful gazes, his mental defenses finally crumbled.
To prove he hadn't made it all up, to preserve what little remained of his crumbling dignity, he shouted hysterically:
"Of course I have evidence! I didn't make it up!"
"When I was young, I consulted countless precious texts from Spirit Hall! I've read thousands of notes by Spirit Hall elders and cultivation records belonging to Soul Masters! These are patterns I summarized from Spirit Hall's archives!!"
Hearing this, Su Yun's lips curled slightly.
Finally, he'd gotten him to spill the beans!
That shout plunged the entire Second Floor Cafeteria into deathly silence.
Even Tang San was stunned.
Su Yun raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth curling into a mocking smile as he murmured a single sentence.
"Oh... So the information came from Spirit Hall."
Su Yun rose to his feet. Yu Xiaogang's face had gone deathly pale as he realized he'd let the truth slip. Su Yun's voice wasn't loud, but every word struck home.
"I haven't read many books, but even I know one thing."
"Generations of people at Spirit Hall, tens of thousands of Soul Masters, accumulated those internal records with their blood and their lives. They're in Spirit Hall's archives."
"You used your position to sneak in and take a look, copied a few conclusions, then turned around and called them your discoveries? Your theories?"
Su Yun shook his head and delivered his final taunt:
"Grandmaster, that's not research."
"That's academic plagiarism!"
"Put simply, it's copying."
"You steal someone else's work, slap a new cover on it, and suddenly you've got your own Ten Core Competencies? Does Spirit Hall know you're this shameless?"
Boom—!
If they'd only been questioning his abilities before, now his character had completely fallen apart.
The students around them erupted.
"Seriously? So he copied it all from Spirit Hall?"
"He took someone else's records and passed them off as his own theory? That's so pathetic!"
"So this is Grandmaster? Isn't he just changing the title and putting his own name down as the author?"
Looks of contempt and mockery stabbed at Yu Xiaogang like swords.
The supposedly unrivaled Grandmaster of theory, who had stood above them all moments ago, now trembled where he stood, his face pale as paper. He looked like a clown stripped naked and put on display.
Tang San sat beside them, quietly withdrawing the respect he'd felt.
"So his so-called unmatched theories came from reading a few books he wasn't allowed to see..."
"Bah! I was so moved a moment ago I nearly cried!"
Wang Sheng was blunt by nature and quick-tempered.
He felt like his admiration for Yu Xiaogang had just been thrown to the dogs. He slammed the chicken bone in his hand onto the table, pointed at Yu Xiaogang, and cursed.
"My ma says thieves deserve to have their hands chopped off! Stealing someone's book is even more shameless than stealing their money! When scholars do it, it's not called stealing. It's called shamelessness!!"
"Shameless!"
"Hahahaha! Boss Wang Sheng may put it crudely, but he's got a point!"
"What theory master? He's a plagiarism master!"
"He uses someone else's records to act all profound, then gets angry when Boss Su exposes him. What a rotten character."
Even the noble students around them, who'd always held themselves above everyone else, now wore disgusted expressions as they pointed at Yu Xiaogang.
"Academic plagiarism is a serious offense at any academy. It gets you expelled."
"I'm embarrassed for him. He's this old and still doesn't understand intellectual property as well as a child."
Those cutting remarks landed on Yu Xiaogang's rigid face like a series of resounding slaps.
Yu Xiaogang trembled all over. His face turned from deathly pale to liver-red, then from red to green.
The dignity he'd prided himself on, the image he'd spent twenty years cultivating as a brilliant man unrecognized by the world, had shattered completely.
He wanted to argue, to loudly scold these ignorant children.
But he opened his mouth and found his throat blocked, unable to produce a single forceful sound.
Because Su Yun had spoken the truth.
All his theories really were based on summaries of Spirit Hall's records.
When it came to the source of his information, he had a stain he could never wash away.
"You... you..."
Yu Xiaogang's trembling finger pointed first at Su Yun, then at the students whose gazes had changed. In the end, all he could do was flick his sleeve helplessly.
"Fools are not fit to plot with! Summer insects cannot be spoken to about ice!"
He forced out the sour words to salvage his dignity, then turned and walked toward the stairs on unsteady legs, utterly humiliated.
His back no longer looked inscrutable and profound. Instead, he seemed especially hunched and panicked, like a stray dog fleeing with its tail between its legs.
"Hold it."
Su Yun's unhurried voice rang out, like a nail pinning Yu Xiaogang in place.
"Grandmaster, don't rush off. This academic discussion has only just begun."
Su Yun leaned back in his chair, pushed up his sunglasses, and stared at that rigid back as he asked one final, devastating question.
"Since you treat 'there are no useless Martial Souls' as the truth, let me ask you one last hypothetical."
Su Yun pointed to Tang San, who looked completely bewildered beside him.
"Suppose your beloved disciple awakened Blue Silver Grass just the same, but didn't have that rare Innate Full Soul Power. Suppose instead his Innate Soul Power was zero, and he was an ordinary person who would never break through level ten. Everything else about him remained exactly the same."
"Tell me, Grandmaster..."
Su Yun's voice suddenly turned cold, every word like a blade:
"Would you still treasure him as you do now and want to take him as your disciple?"
"Or would you treat him like the other Work-Study Students, not even spare him a glance, and think he was a useless piece of trash who hadn't worked hard enough?"
Su Yun pressed him at every turn, his voice ringing throughout the cafeteria:
"Grandmaster, you keep saying there are no useless Martial Souls, but your actions tell us otherwise: in your eyes, any Soul Master without value is useless!"
"What exactly does a good Soul Master mean to you? A useful lab rat? Or a tool to help you save face?!"
"Or is it that, in your eyes, as long as someone has high Soul Power and a high status, it doesn't matter how rotten their character is..."
Su Yun paused.
He raised his head slightly and racked his brain, trying to imagine what an evil person might look like.
In the end, he rubbed his temples and drew on the darkest extremes of human nature, casually inventing a horrifying hypothetical so absurd that even he found it hard to believe:
"Grandmaster, let's imagine the worst of human nature. Suppose—just suppose."
"Suppose there was someone who stood at the pinnacle of the Soul Master world and wielded absolute power. But under the pretense of doing what was best for you, he acted only to satisfy his twisted desire to control you..."
"He wouldn't even hesitate to cruelly tear apart the soul of his own daughter, treating the fate of his closest family like a puppet on strings, to toy with as he pleased."
"Grandmaster, in your theory that strength is truth, would this powerful man who schemed against even his own daughter still count as a good Soul Master, someone you held in the highest regard?"
Boom!
The question was like a thunderclap, ripping away the last of Yu Xiaogang's cover.
"This..."
Tang San abruptly lifted his head. At Su Yun's hypothetical, a surge of righteous indignation blazed in the boy's eyes.
Even if Brother Su was only giving an example, the person in it was utterly revolting!
Before you continue