After hearing Su Xian's sweeping discourse on "black-and-white thinking" and the historical course of the Sun Moon Empire, Qian Duoduo sat on the little wooden stool as though struck by an immobilization spell.
Though he was a rough man, he could still recognize the terrifying perspective in this blind young man's words-a view of the chess game from beyond the board.
But as a member of Shrek, Qian Duoduo still had a stubborn streak that refused to swallow it.
He held it in for quite a while before arguing in his gravelly voice, "Even if Shrek's system is rigid, every one of its senior leaders is an upright, honorable gentleman! Take Yan Shaozhe, dean of the Martial Soul Department. Sure, he favors his department at every turn, but he's still a decent, unbendingly principled powerhouse, isn't he? Far better than those fellows in the Sun Moon Empire who'll stop at nothing!"
"Uncle Mo Niu."
Hearing this, Su Xian couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. "I've noticed that when you read, not only does your thinking work like a diode, but your eye for people is pretty unique too. Yan Shaozhe, upright and honorable? A decent man? Do you have some colossal misunderstanding of what 'decent' means?"
Outside the door, Xian Lin'er and Yan Shaozhe, who had still been deep in thought because of Su Xian, took on extraordinarily colorful expressions at the conversation inside.
Yan Shaozhe's heart lurched, and a powerful sense of foreboding shot straight to the crown of his head.
"Isn't he?" Qian Duoduo demanded, stiffening his neck.
In his view, while Yan Shaozhe was a bastard who fought over resources, he was at least a respectable man when it came to major questions of right and wrong and personal morality.
"Respectable, my ass! He's pure scum, a rotten, womanizing bastard!"
Su Xian adopted the manner of a village auntie gossiping at the crossroads and enthusiastically began explaining. "When Yan Shaozhe was young, he threw his weight around as the Sea God Pavilion Master's direct disciple. With his superficially respectable looks and flashy Bright Fire Phoenix martial soul, he scattered affection everywhere. He was practically central heating, warming up everyone!"
"Back then, he first got involved with Xian Lin'er, the current dean of the Soul Tool Department! Xian Lin'er devoted herself to him wholeheartedly. She would even have given up her life for him! And what did this guy do? He ate from his bowl while eyeing the pot, turning around and hooking up with Cai Mei'er, the Martial Soul Department's vice dean, bouncing frantically back and forth between the two women!"
Outside, just a door away.
Xian Lin'er's face flushed scarlet, and she shot Yan Shaozhe a vicious glare.
Yan Shaozhe wished he could find a crack in the ground and crawl into it on the spot. His refined face turned purplish red, and even his breathing grew rapid.
This was the sordid mess from his youth he least wanted to revisit, yet this blind man had stripped him bare in public, right in front of several of the people involved!
Inside, Qian Duoduo clenched both fists even tighter.
This was the eternal ache in his heart, but though he opened his mouth, he couldn't refute a thing, because every word Su Xian said was the bloody truth of what had happened back then!
Yet Su Xian's devastating blows had only just begun.
"Fine, set that aside. Young people, romantic entanglements between willing parties." Su Xian curled his lip, his tone thick with contempt. "But the most despicable thing about Yan Shaozhe is that he had none of a man's sense of responsibility! He drove Xian Lin'er to leave in anger. In the end, utterly disheartened, she turned around and married that Soul Tool Department vice dean named Qian Duoduo."
At this, Su Xian slapped his thigh in anguish. "If you ask me, this Qian Duoduo was an unlucky, honest fellow too! His wife was still nursing resentment toward her first love, and he eagerly went running to her. What do we call that in our modern world? A textbook Scapegoat, taking over someone else's mess! Even I feel aggrieved for Qian Duoduo!"
An honest fellow? A Scapegoat?!
Pfft-!
Qian Duoduo felt as though Su Xian had plunged a knife into his chest and was furiously twisting the handle.
He was a mighty Titled Douluo! How had this brat's words turned him into a pitiful, pathetic Scapegoat?!
Qian Duoduo's dark face turned purple, his chest heaving violently. Had Mu En not been pinning him down with his gaze from beside him, he could have detonated his martial soul and taken Su Xian down with him right then.
"He's not just trash in relationships. He's a real piece of work as a teacher too."
The more Su Xian spoke, the more animated he became, and he kept twisting the knife. "Yan Shaozhe took a treasured female disciple named Ma Xiaotao. Her martial soul is the Evil Fire Phoenix, which has the flaw of evil fire backlash. In the original story, instead of finding a proper way to suppress it as her master, Yan Shaozhe actually hinted that his disciple should practice Yin-Yang Complementarity with Huo Yuhao after Huo Yuhao displayed his Ultimate Ice talent!"
"Do you know what Yin-Yang Complementarity means, Uncle Mo Niu? It's that thing men and women do after taking off their clothes! As her master, he actually hinted that his female disciple should give herself away to treat her condition! What do you call that? In our modern world, that's called pimping!"
"To sum it up, as a dean, Yan Shaozhe is a hypocrite who shuts out anyone who disagrees with him. As a man, he's an irresponsible, womanizing bastard. As a master, he's Pimping!"
Su Xian swept his hand out and delivered his ultimate verdict. "Put him in our modern society governed by law, and with his moral depravity and criminal instigation, even dragging him to the firing range and shooting him for ten minutes wouldn't be excessive!"
Outside, Yan Shaozhe's blood pressure shot straight through the heavens!
From hypocrite and old fossil, he had now been upgraded directly to womanizing bastard, Scapegoat-maker, and Pimping!
His reason snapped completely.
The dignity of the Sea God Pavilion, the warning of a Limit Douluo-everything was blasted to pieces by those words, "shooting him for ten minutes."
Yan Shaozhe's eyes turned blood-red, and the Bright Phoenix soul power around him surged out uncontrollably.
But his last shred of reason told him that he absolutely could not charge inside and slaughter this "highest honored guest of the Sea God Pavilion."
His extreme humiliation and furious rage had nowhere to go.
Yan Shaozhe abruptly turned around, his eyes crimson. Like a maddened ferocious beast, he fixed his stare on a ten-meter-tall, ten-thousand-year-old boulder beside the cliff at the back of the mountain.
He swung his fists, wreathed in terrifying heat, and began pounding that boulder like a madman!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A Super Douluo was punching with all his pent-up hatred. Though he used no soul skills, the impacts of his physical strength alone still produced terrifying booms.
The ground across the entire rear mountain trembled wildly along with the violent pounding.
Inside the wooden cabin, Su Xian had just been about to take a sip of water to moisten his throat when the sudden, violent shaking gave him a huge fright. The bowl in his hand nearly tipped over.
"Holy shit! Uncle Mu En, what's happening outside?!" Su Xian shouted in panic. "Is that winter thunder? Or is Daliang Mountain having an earthquake? Why's the whole house shaking?!"
Mu En, seated on his stool, was already drenched in sweat.
He had to restrain Qian Duoduo, the Scapegoat on the verge of exploding, while also answering the blind man before him. His brain cells were practically burning away at the speed of light.
"N-no... no earthquake!"
Wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, Mu En improvised in desperation and forced an utterly outrageous excuse out of his mouth. "It's... a wild boar that's come into the village! That noise just now was the boar in heat ramming its head against our pigpen gate!"
"A wild boar in heat?"
Su Xian paused, then understood. "Oh! Daliang Mountain has a great ecosystem. It's perfectly normal for wild boars from the deep mountain forests to come down looking for food. But Uncle Mu En, I have to remind you of something!"
"Remind me of what?" Mu En swallowed.
With a serious expression, Su Xian explained, "Wild boars are protected animals in our country, under the category of terrestrial wildlife with important ecological, scientific, or social value! If it rams the gate, let it. Whatever you do, don't let the villagers shoot it with homemade guns or hunting rifles. Killing a protected animal can land you in prison! Just take out a string of firecrackers, set them crackling, and scare it away."
"Yes, yes, yes. Scare it away. We absolutely won't kill it." Mu En nodded repeatedly in agreement, while his heart bled furiously.
The illustrious dean of Shrek's Martial Soul Department, a rank ninety-five Super Douluo, the future successor to the position of Sea God Pavilion Master-in this mighty blind man's mouth, he had been turned into a wild boar in heat ramming a gate, and a legally protected beast that couldn't be killed, at that.
And outside the door.
As Yan Shaozhe furiously pounded the rock and listened to the conversation inside, a tear of humiliation slid from the corner of his eye.
Standing beside him, Xian Lin'er watched Yan Shaozhe's sorry state with both hands clamped tightly over her mouth. She held back her laughter so hard that her shoulders shook violently, nearly giving herself internal injuries and sending her cultivation berserk on the spot.
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