Ignorance is the Greatest Insult

The city gate was deathly silent.

The onlookers—commoners, merchants, and even the soldiers of the Heaven Dou Royal Knights—all held their breath.

At this moment, Tang San struggled to lift his face, which was smeared with mud and cold sweat.

His eyes were bloodshot from intense pain and congestion; deep within them surged a potent mix of humiliation, unwillingness, and a deeply buried, murderous resentment.

He was waiting.

He gritted his teeth, his left fingers already hidden, hooked onto the mechanism of the Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridges at his waist.

Beneath his sleeve, the poison-tipped Silent Sleeve Arrow was primed and ready.

Tang San was waiting for Xue Yao to dismount, waiting for this high-and-mighty young noble to walk over and mock him, to humiliate him.

As long as Xue Yao dared to step within three paces, and as long as the other party's guards showed even a hint of laxity, Tang San had absolute certainty that he could use his Tang Sect hidden weapons to instantly pierce this arrogant young master's throat!

So what if you won? If you dare come over to humiliate me, I will show you the terror of Tang Sect hidden weapons! You have invited your own death! Tang San roared madly in his heart, like a venomous snake backed into a corner, ready to strike back at any moment.

However.

The mockery Tang San anticipated did not come; the forced kneeling did not come; there was not even a single word of a victor's gloating.

He looked up in astonishment, only to witness a scene he would never forget—one that humiliated him to the extreme.

Xue Yao, sitting upright on his pure white steed, was nonchalantly smoothing the cuffs of his moon-white brocade robes.

His gaze was clear and profound, radiating a nobility untainted by dust.

Yet, in those eyes, there was no Tang San.

There was no contempt, no mockery, no pity; not even a sliver of peripheral vision fell upon Tang San.

Xue Yao couldn't even be bothered to speak a single word to him, let alone mention that boring wager about forcing him to apologize to Yu Xiaogang.

Would a dragon care about the provocation of an ant? Would it care about the feelings of another ant after crushing one to death?

It would not.

"Move out. Don't let trivial things delay our journey."

Xue Yao's cold, calm voice echoed in the air, sounding like celestial music, yet carrying an extreme indifference that kept everyone at a distance.

He gently pulled the reins, and the magnificent white horse snorted, stepped forward with elegant strides, and headed straight out of the city.

"Yes! Lord Viscount!"

Fifty Heaven Dou Royal Knights responded in unison, their voices thunderous.

Horse hooves struck the uneven bluestone slabs before the city gate.

Splat! Splat!

Because of a light rain that had just passed, the city gate was pooled with mud and water.

As the Royal Knights' warhorses galloped past Tang San, their heavy iron hooves slammed into the muddy puddles.

A massive spray of cold, filthy, dark-brown mud erupted under the impact of the hooves.

Splash—

The foul-smelling sludge splashed mercilessly onto Tang San's face, his head, and his already tattered clothes.

Cold mud splattered against his eyelids, forcing him to instinctively shut them.

With every hoofbeat, new mud and filth splattered onto his body.

And Tang San, his abdomen still gripped by knife-like agony, was unable to stand up and dodge.

He could only kneel there like a statue of humiliation, amidst the disgusting vomit and mud, forced to endure the "baptism" of these fifty warhorses.

By the time the entire knight troop had completely cleared the city gate, Tang San had become a thorough "mud man."

Tang San knelt blankly in place, his hands clawing desperately at the bluestone slabs; his fingernails cracked from the excessive force, and blood mixed with mud seeped into the cracks of the stone.

Did it hurt?

His abdomen hurt, his fingernails hurt.

But these physical pains were insignificant compared to the devastating blow his spirit had just suffered!

Tang San's heart felt as if it were being crushed by an invisible hand; he struggled to breathe, and a raging fire seemed to be burning madly in his chest, only to be doused by a bucket of ice water.

Ignored.

Completely and utterly ignored!

Having lived two lives, Tang San had always been an extremely proud, even somewhat conceited person.

He considered himself a once-in-a-century genius of the Tang Sect, master of the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record, and possessor of the Twin Martial Souls and Innate Full Soul Power that others dreamed of.

In his eyes, he was the protagonist of this world, and in the future, he would surely stand at the peak of the Douluo Continent!

He could accept failure, he could accept the mockery of enemies, and he could even accept life-and-death struggles.

Because that at least meant the enemy regarded him as an opponent, as an existence worthy of attention.

But today, Xue Yao's attitude had sliced away Tang San's ridiculous self-esteem and his hypocritical cloak of pride, piece by piece, throwing them onto the ground to be trampled at will!

In the eyes of that youth, noble as a god, the Tang Sect techniques he took such pride in—the century-old spirit ring, Mysterious Jade Hand, Purple Demon Eye... all of it was worthless trash!

He didn't even have the interest to spare a single word of mockery!

Why... why won't he look at me? Why does he not even deign to kill me?!

Tang San roared frantically in his heart, tears mixing with mud as they streamed from his eyes.

The humiliation of being treated like air, of being stepped over like roadside filth, was ten thousand times more painful than being killed outright!

He would have preferred Xue Yao to walk over and slap him twice, or force him to kneel and kowtow.

That way, he could at least find a reason to pour all his hatred onto the other party, and then pay it back a hundredfold one day in the future.

But now, Xue Yao had simply waved his hand and led his team away, not even leaving a single glance behind.

Tang San's overflowing rage and killing intent felt like a punch thrown into cotton—weak, powerless, and utterly ridiculous!

This was the ultimate humiliation! This was truly killing the heart!

"Xue Yao... I, Tang San, swear to the heavens, I will make you pay for today's shame a hundredfold, a thousandfold! I will make you kneel at my feet and take back that arrogant look you gave me today!"

Tang San bit his lip until it bled, making a vicious, venomous vow in his heart.

Meanwhile, on the roadside not far from Tang San.

Yu Xiaogang sat slumped on the ground, weak and trembling, staring fixedly at everything that had just transpired.

What had he just seen?

He had seen his greatest hope, the peerless genius he viewed as the only way to wash away a lifetime of humiliation—Tang San, who possessed Innate Full Soul Power and Twin Martial Souls.

In front of Xue Yao, the one who had once publicly insulted him as "trash," Tang San hadn't even been able to defeat a bird summoned by the other party!

A single strike!

His most prized disciple was left kneeling in the mud, vomiting uncontrollably, having lost all combat ability like a dead dog.

What broke Yu Xiaogang even more was the indifference Xue Yao had carved into his very bones.

Even though he had screamed and shouted with all his might, trying to grab Xue Yao's attention and use Tang San's strength to slap Xue Yao in the face, Xue Yao hadn't even acknowledged him.

In Xue Yao's eyes, he and his so-called "Grandmaster" and his proud Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul were nothing more than the impotent rage of a clown, unworthy of any response.

That indifference was even more intense than when he had been told at the palace gates to come back only after breaking through level thirty.

"Pfft—"

He suddenly spat out a large mouthful of black-purple blood.

"My theories... my pride... San..."

Yu Xiaogang's eyes rolled back, and his body convulsed violently twice.

The Datura Snake venom already deep within his body erupted completely due to his heart-wrenching fury.

He couldn't even finish a complete sentence before he passed out from sheer rage.