Chương 121: The Heartbreak Dao?

Whenever you try your hardest to avoid somebody in this world, there's a guarantee that you're going to bump into them eventually. It feels like the universe loves playing jokes on people. I thought about walking away and pretending I didn't hear anything, though doing that would probably make things worse. I turned around slowly and ended up being face to face with Wu Lihua. She somehow managed to look more beautiful than the last time I saw her.

She was wearing purple Core Disciple robes, and her long black hair was catching the setting sun, making it look hypnotic blowing in the wind. Her eyes had this golden light shining in them as she stared at me with this heavy intensity which would normally be nice if it didn't terrify me. Her aura was ridiculous. She was in the Elemental Realm now, which explained why she stopped stalking me for a while, she was busy breaking through.

Feeling the pressure coming off her qi made the air thick and it felt like I was swimming underwater without getting wet. A small part of me had been hoping a newly advanced Elemental Realm expert would be too busy to care about some random Outer Disciple. I guess leveling up your cultivation base doesn't actually cure you from being obsessed with people.

"Senior Sister." I gave her a bow that was perfectly respectful, so I didn't offend her but kept it shallow enough so I didn't look too friendly.

"Congratulations on reaching the Elemental Realm." She gave me this gentle smile which was a huge red flag because whenever a jade beauty smiles at you like that, it means you are either getting married to her or getting assassinated by her family, or both.

"You left the sect for weeks," Wu Lihua said, she sounded a little hurt about it.

"And you didn't bother saying goodbye to me." I blinked at her. We literally only talked a couple times while she watched me train where she made these suggestive comments that made my inner webnovel danger alarms ring like crazy. I had no idea when we became good enough friends for me to start giving her my travel itinerary.

"It was a sudden trip," I answered, trying to sound diplomatic.

"This random opportunity appeared, so I had to leave fast."

"Master, I'm calculating your sincerity levels," Azure chimed in my head.

"The results are showing that a literal rock wouldn't believe a word you just said." I could feel Yggy becoming restless through our soul bond. My vine buddy felt how nervous I was, and I was getting this strong feeling that it wanted to pop out and wrap Wu Lihua up in a giant ball of angry vines. It was a satisfying thing to think about, but doing it would get us both killed.

"I heard you were visiting the Core Disciple area," Wu Lihua kept talking while tilting her head at me.

"But you didn't bother coming over to say hello to me." Oh, so, after I was done sparring with a giant stone golem, my very first priority should have been tracking down my crazy stalker? I was trying to figure out a nice way to tell her we weren't friends and barely even knew each other.

"I was focused on training," I said instead.

"I guess it slipped my mind."

"Of course." She nodded her head like my excuse made total sense though her eyes were telling me she didn't believe a word of it.

"Since we're talking about training... you're at Qi Condensation Stage Six now. Going up three whole sub realms in one month is amazing progress." The tone she used made it sound like she was complimenting me and threatening my life at the same time. I was seriously starting to get why all those Young Masters in the novels always act paranoid. Whenever talking to somebody feels like you are walking blindly through a minefield, acting paranoid was a smart survival strategy.

I gave a shrug and made sure my face looked humble.

"I got lucky with a couple minor breakthroughs. It's nothing compared to stepping into the Elemental Realm, so this junior sincerely congratulates Senior Sister again."

"Mmm," she hummed out this little sound that was somehow perfectly melodic.

"Wu Kangming is showing some surprising talent lately, all his progress has been unexpected." I started nodding hard the second she brought her ex-fiancé up. Yes, we should talk about him instead! Wu Kangming is such a fascinating topic to discuss, and he deserves all your attention instead of me...

"His sword skills are incredible," I agreed.

"That Azure Edge technique he pulled out while fighting Zhou was impressive to watch." I was practically begging her in my head to take the bait and go obsess over the guy who actually wanted to date her...

"It is." She locked those golden eyes onto me with this crazy intensity that made me want to trigger Blink Step so I could run away over the mountains.

"It makes you wonder which one of you is more worthy of my attention." This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. I blinked at her, and then I blinked again. I was pretty sure my ears stopped working properly.

"I... what did you say?"

"There is only one real way for us to figure this out," she kept going while her smile got this sharp edge to it that sent massive warning alarms going off inside my brain.

"You and Wu Kangming are going to have to fight each other in the upcoming tournament. Then I will finally know which one of you actually deserves me considering you." I stood there frozen for a second trying to figure out how many different things were wrong with what she said. Was she trying to force two Outer Disciples to fight to the death over her like we were on some crazy cultivation dating show?

"Senior Sister," I said carefully, "I think you're misunderstanding things here. I do not have any interest in..." I took a pause trying to figure out how to tell her to stop stalking me without getting my head chopped off.

"I mean Wu Kangming still has deep feelings for you, so having us compete would be inappropriate."

"You are being too modest Junior Brother," she let out a laugh.

"Do not worry about it. Everything is going to be settled soon." She turned around after saying that and walked away with her purple robes flowing around like water. Every single step she took left behind this perfect afterimage which was supposed to be this alluring display of power, but it made me worry more about staying alive.

"Well," Azure finally spoke up after she was gone, "that was..."

"Insane?"

"I was actually going to use the word problematic, but your version works fine too." Yggy started sending me all these feelings that translated into 'that two-legs has more thorns than actual brains', and it threw in this feeling that felt like it was saying she wasn't that pretty for a plant anyway.

"I don't think you can compare human beauty standards to vine beauty standards," I thought back with a little smile.

"I appreciate you looking out for me though." While I was walking back toward the Outer Disciple zone, I couldn't shake this feeling that something about this whole crazy situation was wrong. Why would a genius who entered the Elemental Realm waste her time playing games with low level Outer Disciples? Shouldn't she be locked in a room somewhere stabilizing her inner world or doing something important? And where were all the high level Inner and Core Disciples who were supposed to be fighting over her? Unless...

"She might enjoy causing drama," Azure guessed.

"Or she could be bored. Cultivators have a bad habit of picking up weird hobbies after they break through."

"Azure, do we have any data on cultivation techniques that run on emotional energy?"

"We do have multiple documented cases of methods that pull their power out of strong emotions, usually focusing on love or hatred or regret. The Heartbreak Dao is probably the most famous one..."

"Exactly," I nodded.

"And the best way to farm all that energy would be going around manipulating everyone's feelings, like setting up love triangles and making people fight each other..." It was a wild theory, but it explained why she was acting so crazy and how she managed to level up her cultivation so fast. Her technique probably forced her to make other people feel intense emotions, so using Wu Kangming's leftover love for her made him and anybody else she pulled into it perfect targets.

It made me wonder what the inside of her inner world looked like...

"That theory is a lot more believable than her being attracted to you, Master."

"Thanks a lot for that." Yggy decided to shoot another impression through our soul bond, and it meant 'crazy lady needs to go sit in the sunlight more.' Coming from a magical plant, that was the biggest insult you could ever get. I couldn't stop a laugh from coming out.

"You're probably right about the sunlight buddy, but I don't think that is her biggest issue now." Whether this whole thing was a stupid game or part of her actual cultivation technique didn't matter now. Because if Wu Lihua actually went and told Wu Kangming that he had to beat me up to win her love back... well that was going to end up being a massive disaster. Probably a deadly one.

"So, we have a protagonist-level cultivator using some mysterious sword arts actively coming to kill us," Azure summarized everything.

"That is wonderful. Do you want me to start doing the math on your funeral arrangements?"

"You're hilarious." I stopped walking for a second to think about what we should do.

"No, we need to go talk to Wu Kangming face to face. We can clear this stupid misunderstanding up before it turns into a webnovel plot arc."

"So, you want to walk up to the unstable sword guy who murdered an Inner Disciple and try telling him you don't want to date his ex-fiancée? The same ex-fiancée who seems interested in you?" When Azure actually said it all out loud like that it sounded suicidal.

"Knowing how my luck usually works, he probably already found out about my little conversation with Wu Lihua anyway." I looked up at the sky and noticed the sun was going down and painting everything in these orange and purple colors. Normally it would look beautiful to see, but now it reminded me of Wu Lihua's purple robes which wasn't helping me feel any better. When I finally made it back over to the Outer Disciple area, I saw someone standing near the front gate waiting. It was Wu Kangming.

He was standing there holding his plain looking sword down by his side, but the actual aura wrapping around him wasn't plain at all. It felt ancient. It felt like standing next to a blade that spent its whole life drinking emperor blood.

"Well," I murmured, "at least we didn't have to look for him." A group of disciples were walking past us but then they immediately ran away the second they felt how thick the tension was in the air. One of them actually tripped over his own feet trying to run away.

"Do you have any advice for me before I do this?" I asked Azure while I started walking over to Wu Kangming.

"Try not to die?"

"That's helpful." Yggy sent me this feeling that meant 'let me beat the sword guy up' and it showed me mental pictures of giant vines squeezing a sword until it snapped into tiny pieces.

"No, buddy," I sent my thoughts back to Yggy, "we have to handle this guy carefully. Wu Kangming isn't some random guy we can beat down with raw power. He has protagonist-grade plot armor now." The vine wasn't impressed by that excuse, it sent me more pictures of crazier vine attacks, which actually included some creative ways to use the Explosive Seed in battle, I made sure to remember so I could test them out later, but not now. Now was not the time.

"Brother Ke Yin." Wu Kangming said, as I stopped in front of him.

"There is something we need to discuss."