Wu Dalang vs. Zhang Daoling

The next day, Li Shouyi was woken from a sound sleep.

"Master, two seniors from the Heavenly Sword Sect have come to pay us a visit."

"Master, are you awake?"

Li Shouyi: zZzZ

After waiting for quite a while, Wu Suowei looked conflicted, then finally gritted his teeth and pushed open the door.

"Master, wake up!"

Seeing Li Shouyi still fast asleep in bed, Wu Suowei instantly put on a solemn expression. "Two boys bearing riches suddenly showed up outside. Apparently, they brought several million spirit stones!"

Whoosh...

"Where? Where are they?"

In his dreams, Li Shouyi seemed to hear that someone wanted to give him money, startling him into sitting bolt upright.

But after looking around for ages, he found Wu Suowei staring solemnly at him. Li Shouyi glanced at him. "Oh, it's you! What did you come in here for?"

"Have you mastered the cultivation technique I gave you yesterday?"

"Master, two seniors from the Heavenly Sword Sect are waiting outside to pay us a visit."

Wu Suowei hastily changed the subject. Yesterday, Li Shouyi had tossed him a cultivation manual called the Evil-Warding Sword Manual.

Wu Suowei had been delighted all day after receiving it, only managing to calm himself down last night.

But the moment he opened the first page, he froze.

To master this divine art, you must first castrate yourself.

That was the sentence written on the book's first page.

It left him frozen in place for ages. In the end, he lacked the courage to read the second page and could only grit his teeth and hide the book.

Naturally, there was no question of how his cultivation was progressing!

"The Heavenly Sword Sect? What do they want?"

"Master, they are one of the Five Great Sects, after all. It wouldn't be good to keep them waiting too long."

Seeing how cautiously Wu Suowei spoke, Li Shouyi slapped him right out of the room.

"You wretched disciple! How dare you bolster someone else's spirit and diminish our own prestige!"

Sprawled on the ground outside, Wu Suowei wanted to cry but had no tears.

"Stop playing dead. Hurry up and take me there."

"Yes, Master!"

A few breaths later, Wu Suowei dangled in midair as Li Shouyi dragged him by the hair, his soul wandering beyond the heavens with nothing left to live for.

"Ah, I'm terribly sorry, Senior Zhang."

"It's all this wretched disciple's fault. Halfway here, he suddenly said he needed the privy, then discovered he hadn't brought any paper. That's why I'm so late."

Smiling, Li Shouyi lifted Wu Suowei up before Zhang Daoling, demonstrating that he really hadn't been late on purpose.

Beside them, Zhuo Yifan, with half his face swollen, gave Wu Suowei a look of heartfelt understanding.

Their eyes met.

At that moment, the resentment these two men held toward their respective masters seemed to resonate through their gazes.

"Brother."

"Kindred spirit."

"Boohoo!"

Seeing the two grown men embrace and bawl, Li Shouyi and Zhang Daoling hurried forward, pretending not to notice.

As he walked, Zhang Daoling shook his head. "Ah, Brother Li, disciples these days are getting more and more outrageous."

"Tell me about it."

"They even need us to bring them paper when they forget it in the privy."

"Ah, being a teacher and role model is truly difficult."

At that moment, these two men who had no idea what shame even was seemed to have found kindred spirits too.

Li Shouyi led Zhang Daoling straight into the newly built main hall.

The hall was called Heroes' Hall.

Li Shouyi had written the name himself, but his handwriting was mediocre and utterly failed to convey the majestic power of those three characters.

"Brother Li, who wrote those three characters above the entrance?"

"Oh? Are you well versed in calligraphy, Brother?"

"Hardly, hardly."

"It's just that every stroke seems to contain supreme Dao resonance, so I couldn't help asking which great master wrote them."

Hearing this, Li Shouyi's heart instantly blossomed with joy, though his expression remained modest. "Ah, Brother, you flatter me."

"I wrote those characters myself. They're hardly worth mentioning, nowhere near your level."

"Haha, you're simply too modest, Brother."

"You're too kind, too kind."

Their two disciples, Wu Suowei and Zhuo Yifan, stood by the entrance.

Hearing the conversation inside, both silently cursed, Pah! What hypocrites.

Bang...

Li Shouyi and Zhang Daoling each withdrew a palm with a smile. Only after watching their disciples vanish as streaks of light did Li Shouyi say, "Please have some tea, Brother."

"Join me, Brother."

After a round of mutual flattery, they finally got down to business.

"Brother, you're saying you want to send someone over for me to teach?"

"That's right. He's the son of my junior brother, Zhang Daosong, and he was born useless."

"How useless?"

The moment he heard "useless," Li Shouyi perked up. Sure enough, the early bird caught the worm!

Something good had come his way first thing in the morning.

"Ah! My nephew is rather pitiful, really. He was born mentally disabled, and someone dug out his spiritual root."

"Oh! Couldn't even the Heavenly Sword Sect find the culprit?"

"The culprit has already been executed, but we could never recover his missing spiritual root."

"I've heard so many stories about you, Brother, that I finally thickened my skin and came to ask for your help."

"Brother, I can't agree right away. I'll have to see him first."

Of course, Li Shouyi didn't actually need to see him in person, because he was already asking the system!

"Trash system, get out here! Hurry up and check what's going on with the person Zhang Daoling mentioned."

"Moronic host, you haven't even given me a name. What the fuck am I supposed to check?"

Hearing this, Li Shouyi hurriedly asked Zhang Daoling, "May I ask this gentleman's name?"

"His name is Zhang Chulan?"

"What's he called?"

"Uh, Zhang Chulan. Is there a problem?"

"Does he happen to have a nickname like Invisible Lech or Shameless Bastard?"

"Brother, what on earth are you talking about?"

Seeing Zhang Daoling's confused expression, Li Shouyi breathed a sigh of relief.

Just then, the system's voice rang out.

"Congratulations, host. The system has found the information you requested."

"Zhang Chulan, male, eighteen—formerly a peerless genius, but after his spiritual root was dug out, he became a peerlessly useless cultivator seldom seen across the ages."

Seldom seen across the ages?

Li Shouyi's eyes began to shine at those words.

He grabbed both of Zhang Daoling's hands in excitement. "Say no more, Brother! I'm definitely taking your nephew!"

"Haha, thank you so much, Brother."

"If you ever need anything, just say..."

Before Zhang Daoling could finish, a rumbling noise suddenly reached his ears.

Boom, boom, boom...

"Someone's attacking the defensive formation!"

Li Shouyi's expression changed, and he vanished on the spot.

Beside him, Zhang Daoling frowned and vanished as well.

Outside the Useless Sect.

Wu Dalang, accompanied by Zhou Kangyong and another man, launched a furious bombardment at the imposing gates.

"Li Shouyi, you cowardly rat! Get the hell out here and face your grandpa!"

The three continued attacking without ever stopping their torrent of abuse.

Unfortunately, their limited brains meant they kept recycling the same few insults.

Just as they were about to attack the formation again, Li Shouyi and Zhang Daoling walked out.

"Wu Dalang, is there something wrong with your damn head?"

"I already fucking told you, I'm not that scoundrel Cao! I have no interest in your wife!"

Wu Dalang paid no attention to what Li Shouyi said. The instant he saw him, he brought his enormous hammer crashing down toward Li Shouyi and Zhang Daoling.

Boom...

A tremendous roar shook the surrounding space. The wind stirred by the hammer swept dirt up from the ground, enveloping all three figures.

When the breeze passed, an astonishing sight emerged.

Zhang Daoling's middle finger had made intimate contact with Wu Dalang's great hammer. That finger, seemingly as withered as a dead tree, had actually caught the enormous iron hammer and held it steady.

Because of his height, Wu Dalang's eyes happened to be level with a middle finger raised directly at him.

His expression grave, he addressed Zhang Daoling. "Old man, who are you?"

Again, because of his height, Wu Dalang couldn't see Zhang Daoling's face.

"Wu Dalang, you little runt, you're quite cocky! Even your grandfather wouldn't dare act so arrogantly in front of me."

Wu Dalang put away his Heavenly Hammer and looked toward the voice.

Once he saw the man's face, his pupils contracted. "This junior deserves ten thousand deaths! Please forgive me, Senior Zhang."

Among the people Wu Dalang feared most, Zhang Daoling definitely ranked near the top.

Mostly because the old man had no martial honor. Despite being a senior at the Void Refinement realm, he loved launching sneak attacks, and his blows were viciously heavy.

"Little brat, not so cocky now, are you?"

"You jest, Senior. How would I dare act that way before you?"

Zhang Daoling wasted no more words. He grabbed Wu Dalang by the collar and narrowed his eyes. "Little runt, this man is under my protection. Understand?"

"Senior, I respect you, but Li Shouyi flirted with my wife. I will never let him off for that."

"Hmm?"

Hearing this, Zhang Daoling studied Wu Dalang's resentful expression, then set him down and turned to transmit his voice to Li Shouyi. "Brother, did you speak to his wife?"

"To be honest, Brother, over ten years ago, his wife came up and asked me for directions, and this lunatic saw us."

"He's hated me for ten whole years over that. Tell me, isn't he sick in the head?"

"Ah, Brother, let me tell you the truth!"

"Wu Dalang and his grandfather are a pair of perverts. They like extracting people's souls and turning them into puppets, then taking turns playing with them."

"And they won't let any other man speak to those puppets."

"You really are unlucky. Those two usually never let their puppets out. How did you happen to run into one?"

After hearing Zhang Daoling's explanation, Li Shouyi couldn't help the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

So he really had run into a pervert!