"Wait, I really can do it! Just give me a moment—I swear I can!" Li Haimo shouted desperately. But all he got in response was a resounding slap-slap-slap.
"No need, I'll teach you myself. Watch closely—this is our Daoist Harmonizing Brilliance with Dust." Whack! A crisp slap landed on Li Haimo's backside.
"This is the Confucian Courtesy Before Force." Slap-slap! Two more.
"This is the Logicians' White Horse Is Not a Horse." Whack! Another.
"This is Guigu's Hundred-Pace Flying Sword." A raised palm, poised to strike.
"This is the Militarists' Dragon Warring in the Wild."
"This is the Legalists' Moving the Log to Establish Trust."
"This is the Mohists' Upholding Rigid Conventions."
"This is the Yin-Yang school's Soul Wandering Dragon."
"And the Agriculturalists' Shennong Never Dies."
"And the Physicians' Bian Que's Essential Questions."
The small grove echoed with sharp slaps and Li Haimo's pained cries. It really hurts! My brain says, 'I'm fine, I won't cry.' My butt says, 'No, I'm in agony!' My eyes say, 'I can't hold back!' And my mouth says, 'I'm in charge of screaming!'
After a thorough thrashing, Xiaoyaozi adjusted his robes, strolling out of the grove with calm composure. A while later, Li Haimo limped out, clutching his backside, his face streaked with tears. Passing disciples stared curiously.
By the next day, the Human Sect was abuzz with gossip:
Shock! The Secret Between Sect Leader and Junior Brother Wuchenzi!
Shock! Sect Leader and Junior Brother Wuchenzi's Late-Night Tryst in the Grove!
Shock! The Untold Story of Sect Leader and Junior Brother in the Back Mountain Grove!
"Wuchenzi, I'll kill you!" Sure enough, the next day, Xiaoyaozi stormed into the library, delivering another round of slap-slap-slap.
Subscribe now to the Human Sect's bestselling titles: Junior Brother in the Library, My Sect Leader Uncle, The Overbearing Sect Leader Loves Me, and My Date with the Sect Leader!
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Another five years passed. Li Haimo had finally studied all the comprehensible parts of the Daoist Scripture in the library, but his cultivation remained nonexistent. As for Xiaoyaozi? Well, he'd lost—again, again, again—in the Heaven-Man contest.
"Wuchenzi, get out here!"
This time, Xiaoyaozi didn't even bother with an excuse. He barged in, comparing his useless junior brother to the Celestial Sect's little prodigy. Fine, they're equal in looks, but martial skills? The more he thought, the angrier he got. Time for a beating.
"Xiaoyaozi, I'm warning you—don't push me! When I get mad, even I'm scared of myself!" Li Haimo had had enough. This loser's clearly venting after another defeat. Three contests since I joined, three losses. First time, I'd just arrived. Second time, he picked a fight. Now he doesn't even need a reason. The weak really have no rights!
"Come on, then! Show me your anger! Where's your Soul Wandering Dragon? Your Heaven and Earth Lose Color?" the Free-and-Easy Master taunted, grinning. If he doesn't fight back, it's no fun going all out.
"You asked for it! Harmonizing Brilliance with Dust!" Li Haimo formed the hand seal. One second, two seconds—and then, he actually vanished from the spot.
"Huh?" The Free-and-Easy Master was stunned. It wasHarmonizing Brilliance with Dust—but something was off. He couldn't sense any trace of cultivation energy.
"Help!" A shrill cry came from a pine tree on the cliff above.
The Free-and-Easy Master looked up to see Li Haimo, in his green-and-white Daoist robe, clinging to the tree trunk for dear life, shouting for rescue.
Li Haimo was just as baffled. I just wanted to show off! How did I actually pull it off? But teleporting anywhere else would've been fine—why a cliff? And how did I even get here?
With a graceful step, Xiaoyaozi rode the wind, his sword gliding beneath him like a moonlit immortal. He plucked Li Haimo off the tree like a chicken and tossed him back to solid ground.
"This is your Harmonizing Brilliance with Dust?" The Free-and-Easy Master was torn. Was someone secretly helping the kid, or had he really done it himself? If the former, that was terrifying—nobody, not even Bei Mingzi, could move someone without a trace in his presence. But if the latter, the problem was that Li Haimo had no detectable cultivation whatsoever.
"I don't know how I did it!" Li Haimo admitted, just as clueless.
"Try it again," the Free-and-Easy Master ordered.
Li Haimo formed the seal again. "Harmonizing Brilliance with Dust!"
A breeze swept through, and he vanished once more, leaving no trace of where he'd gone.
"Help!" Another cry echoed, this time from upstream of the waterfall. Li Haimo was panicking—truly panicking. Somehow, he'd landed in the rushing river, hurtling toward the waterfall's edge.
The Free-and-Easy Master shot into the air, snatching him from the water just before he plummeted over the falls.
In the bamboo pavilion, the five elders, the Free-and-Easy Master, and Li Haimo sat staring at each other, big eyes meeting small.
Over the past two days, they'd taken turns testing him. Each time, Li Haimo would disappear and reappear in the most bizarre places—once even in a Celestial Sect female disciple's chambers, from which he was escorted back under guard.
"Sect Leader, has Junior Brother actually mastered it?" Baiyunzi asked hesitantly.
"Maybe… probably?" Xiaoyaozi wasn't sure. He, the five elders, the Celestial Sect's six great elders, Chi Songzi, and Bei Mingzi had all examined Li Haimo. No one could detect a shred of cultivation, yet he was somehow performing advanced Daoist techniques like Harmonizing Brilliance with Dust.
"It's like Harmonizing Brilliance with Dust combined with Dream Butterfly Escape. It can take you where you want, but not over such vast distances," Muyuanzianalyzed.
"Wuchenzi, try Heaven and Earth Lose Color," Muxuzi suggested.
Li Haimo glanced at the others, who nodded in agreement. He silently formed the seal. "Heaven and Earth Lose Color!"
For a fleeting moment, the area around the pavilion turned monochrome, but it lasted less than two seconds before color flooded back.
"This…" The six were at a loss for words.
"Try Spring Returns to All Things," the Free-and-Easy Master said.
Li Haimo complied, and the surrounding plants surged with growth, bamboo shoots sprouting fresh buds in the pavilion.
"Try Fish of the Northern Depths!"
Boom! Dust exploded as the bamboo pavilion collapsed into rubble. Six figures leapt from the debris.
"Help!" Li Haimo's scream rang out again, buried under the wreckage of his own technique.
The six rushed back to the ruins, finding Li Haimo pinned beneath collapsed bamboo, only his head poking out.
"Dismissed. He's beyond saving," Xiaoyaozi said, exasperated. In all my years of cultivation, I've never seen someone get crushed by their own technique. This kid doesn't belong in the Daoist school—he'd fit right in with the Legalists, testing laws with his own body.
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