"Whatever, tomorrow's 'wrap-up scene' is secured."
When closing his courtyard door last night, Mo Fan was still secretly congratulating himself on his superb improvisational skills. He believed the finale of this play was absolutely foolproof.
However, when the sun rose the next day and Mo Fan stepped into the Azure Cloud Sect's outer court martial arena...
He truly realized just how terrifying the box office of his "infamy marketing" really was.
Unprecedented turnout.
These two words weren't even enough to describe the scene before him.
For the opening match of the quarterfinals, not only was the arena completely packed with no empty seats, but even the century-old pine trees on the periphery were densely hung with outer court servants and nearby commoners who had come to watch the spectacle.
Even on the high platform, Mo Fan keenly noticed several inner sect elders who usually cultivated in seclusion all year round and were as elusive as divine dragons.
These big shots maintained a facade of immortal elegance, holding their teacups with the airs of transcendent experts. But in reality, their gazes frequently darted downwards, their necks stretched long.
Clearly, they had all been attracted by that gossip tabloid and came to the front lines to eat the melon of this "forbidden love across classes."
"Just how barren... is the entertainment life in this cultivation world?"
Hiding in the waiting area and looking at the boiling sea of people outside, Mo Fan felt like a rare animal pushed into the Colosseum.
Before he could catch his breath, the door of the dressing room was forcefully pushed open a crack.
Who knows which deacon took dirty money, but they actually let in several Outer Court Gossip Weekly reporters wearing staff uniforms in shifts.
"Junior Brother Lu! Do you have the confidence to conquer the ice senior sister today?" A male cultivator held up an Image-Capturing Stone, wishing he could shove it right into Mo Fan's nose.
"Lu Xiaoqi! I heard you met Shen Qiu late last night, is it true?!"
There was even a fearless fat guy trying to lie on the floor to secretly film Mo Fan changing his numbered uniform.
"Hey, hey, hey! This is crossing the line!"
Mo Fan broke into a sweat, kicking the fat guy trying to upskirt him away. "I am a proper body cultivator! If you keep filming, I'll scream sexual harassment!"
After finally driving this group of fanatical paparazzi out, Mo Fan leaned against the back of the door and let out a long breath.
Half an hour until he had to take the stage.
Just as Mo Fan was preparing to stretch his muscles and review his "getting beaten up" script, a thin, tall man in a gray robe with a shrewd face approached silently.
This person clearly wasn't a reporter; he carried the slick, greasy aura of someone who spent all year in gambling dens.
"Brother Lu."
The mysterious man looked left and right, lowered his voice, and made a "five" gesture from his sleeve, his eyes filled with temptation.
"Honest people don't speak in riddles. As long as you lose to Shen Qiu in the arena today, the boss of the underground bank is willing to offer this amount—500 low-grade Spirit Stones! Consider it buying some healing medicine for a brother."
500 low-grade Spirit Stones!
Mo Fan's heart gave a violent leap. This was absolutely a massive sum that could make any outer court disciple go crazy.
And the most outrageous part was that this request perfectly coincided with his own match-fixing plan! Losing and getting 500 Spirit Stones for free—this was simply a pie falling from the sky!
But his corporate veteran heart, tempered in society in his past life, frantically sounded the alarms at this moment.
"Something's wrong."
Mo Fan's eyes instantly cleared. Right now, he was the focal point of the entire sect. How many pairs of Golden Core mighty eyes were watching from the high platform?
Taking dirty money at this critical juncture... what if this was a phishing operation set up by the higher-ups? Or what if the bookie wanted to eat from both sides and deliberately baited him to get blackmail material?
In this cultivation world, money that came too easily was often hot enough to cost you your life.
"SCRAM!"
Mo Fan's face darkened, and he roared with righteous indignation and awe-inspiring rectitude.
"What kind of person do you take me for?! My feelings for Miss Shen are pure! The sun and moon can bear witness!"
"Even if I am beaten to death by her in the arena today, I will absolutely never throw a match for a few stinking coins! Stop using such filthy things to insult me!"
This shout was full of breath, directly shouting the mysterious man into a daze. He looked at Mo Fan like he was looking at an idiot, and finally could only slip back into the crowd and run away dejectedly.
"Phew... Hard to guard against." Mo Fan wiped his cold sweat, feeling lingering fear.
DONG—!
A long bell chime echoed through the martial arena.
"Quarterfinal Opening Match, servant district Lu Xiaoqi, versus outer court Shen Qiu! Will both parties please take the stage!"
Following the referee deacon's loud shout, an earth-shattering wave of sound erupted below the stage.
Mo Fan took a deep breath. Carrying the [ Pale Bone Scepter ] wrapped in coarse cloth on his back, he strode onto the arena amidst deafening boos and curses.
And on the other end of the arena.
Shen Qiu, dressed in a purple-black martial suit, also slowly took the stage. She was still glamorous, still flawlessly beautiful, holding her long soft whip, her temperament cold as frost.
The referee walked to the center of the stage. He looked at the densely packed, excited crowd below acting like they were watching a monkey show, and felt his brain buzzing.
He had hosted arena matches for most of his life and had never seen this bizarre atmosphere that felt simultaneously like a wedding procession and a mob catching a cheater.
"Ahem... Match, begin!" the referee announced, bracing himself.
According to Mo Fan's script, at this moment, Shen Qiu should fly into a rage because of his "frivolity" and lash her whip directly at him.
However.
A full three seconds after the match started, Shen Qiu stood opposite him, motionless.
Her usually icy gaze fell on Mo Fan's handsome face. Her mind uncontrollably filled with the image of this youth bowing deeply under the moonlight last night, eyes closed waiting for death.
And that soul-piercing sentence: "If I didn't do that, would you ever look down at me in this lifetime?"
A trace of untimely, faint blush actually surfaced on the ice goddess's cheeks. Her hand gripping the long whip hesitated to swing out.
The two of them just stood frozen on the stage, staring wide-eyed at each other.
"Crap, did this goddess forget her lines?!"
Mo Fan panicked. The director had already yelled action, why was the leading lady spacing out? The audience below was waiting for a good show!
Left with no choice, Mo Fan could only forcefully add some acting.
"Miss Shen! Here I come!"
Mo Fan shouted loudly, gripping the coarse cloth rod with both hands. He deliberately slowed his speed, tangled his feet, and used an extremely clumsy, flaw-filled "hungry tiger pounce" to charge forward.
Startled awake by this loud shout, Shen Qiu looked at the clumsy figure lunging at her and subconsciously stepped aside to dodge.
Splat.
Going with the momentum, Mo Fan stumbled and performed an extremely exaggerated "dog eating mud" faceplant, eating a solid mouthful of dust from the arena floor.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
An earth-shattering roar of laughter instantly erupted below the stage.
"What 'One-Stick Superman'? Looks like a soft-footed shrimp to me!"
"I'm dying of laughter! He can't even walk straight and he wants to force himself on her?"
Hearing the mockery from below, Shen Qiu, having regained her footing, finally gritted her teeth and swung the long whip in her hand.
CRACK!
The purple-black whip shadow traced a beautiful arc in the air, lashing toward Mo Fan's back.
However, because of that bizarre guilt and being moved from last night, Shen Qiu subconsciously didn't want to heavily injure this youth who was "deeply rooted in love" with her.
This seemingly powerful and heavy whip strike, in the instant it was about to hit Mo Fan, was actually subconsciously pulled back by her by seventy percent of its force!
Smack.
The whip landed softly on Mo Fan's back, emitting an extremely crisp, light sound that almost sounded like dusting off clothes.
Mo Fan froze.
He felt the force on his back, which wasn't even enough to scratch an itch, and roared frantically in his heart:
"Big Sis!!! Are you kidding me?! This chip damage level attack can't even break my epidermis!"
"I can't even squeeze out a single drop of fucking blood, how do you expect me to fall over?! How do you expect me to keep acting out this fake match?!"
This wouldn't do. He couldn't let this continue.
Mo Fan grew anxious. In order to force this ice queen to strike with lethal intent, in order to have a reasonable excuse to "withdraw due to severe injuries," he decided to unleash his ultimate move.
Courting death, round two.
Mo Fan forcibly scrambled up from the ground and charged madly forward against Shen Qiu's "gentle" whip shadows. As he charged, he used a voice the entire venue could hear, roaring extremely arrogantly and shamelessly:
"Miss Shen! Why aren't you using force?!"
"Could it be... Could it be that your heart aches for me?!"
BOOM—!
This extremely shameless and frivolous tiger-wolf word, transmitted through the arena's amplification array, spread throughout the entire venue.
The iceberg completely went berserk.
Shen Qiu's originally slightly flushed cheeks instantly turned pale with anger. An unprecedented mix of shame and fury rushed straight to her forehead.
She finally reacted: regardless of what happened last night, this person in front of her was a thorough, absolute lunatic!
"Shameless lecher! You court death!"
Shen Qiu completely woke up, casting aside all distracting thoughts in her mind. With a clear shout, the purple-black long whip instantly erupted with a dazzling light of spiritual power.
She brought out 120% of her peak combat power!
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Sand and stones flew instantly on the arena, purple light flashing brightly. A sky full of furious whip shadows wove into an airtight net of death, completely enveloping Mo Fan.
"Yes, yes, yes! This is the right amount of force!"
Mo Fan finally experienced the thrill of having his "defense broken" just as he wished.
His clothes were torn, and the skin tempered by the Iron Bone Technique was finally lashed with several real, bleeding gashes (of course, relying on his extremely high combat literacy, he cleverly avoided his vitals).
While scurrying around the stage with his head in his hands, letting out "miserable" screams, his heart was blooming with joy.
The fierce battle (one-sided beating) lasted for dozens of rounds.
Mo Fan keenly sensed that Shen Qiu's breathing was starting to become a bit scattered, and the spiritual power driving her whip wasn't as condensed as it was at the beginning.
"The timing is about right. If we keep fighting she'll run out of stamina. Time to wrap up!"
Mo Fan's eyes instantly became incomparably clear.
In the instant Shen Qiu swung her whip for another horizontal sweep, he deliberately took an extremely obvious stumble, exposing a fatal flaw in his lower stance.
A cold glint flashed in Shen Qiu's eyes. Seizing the opportunity, her long whip turned into an angry dragon, whipping heavily onto Mo Fan's chest and the back of his knees!
"AHHH—!"
Mo Fan let out an "extremely miserable" scream.
Borrowing the force of that whip, his entire body flew backward like a kite with a cut string, tracing an extremely gorgeous parabola in mid-air.
In the instant he crossed the arena's boundary barrier, acting like a consummate professional, he bit the tip of his tongue and spat out a massive mouthful of fresh blood into the air with a Pfft.
BANG!
Mo Fan crashed heavily out of the arena, smashing onto the hard stone slabs, rolled his eyes back, and "fainted dead away."
"M... Match ends!"
The referee deacon, also stunned by this dazzling reversal, hurriedly announced loudly, "Quarterfinal Opening Match, Shen Qiu, Wins!"
However, the moment the referee's voice fell, the situation below the stage went completely out of control.
Those gamblers who lost money, and the fanatical male fans completely enraged by Mo Fan's phrase "Could it be that your heart aches for me," erupted with red eyes.
"Beat this shameless lecher to death!"
"Take his life while he's sick! Teach him a lesson!"
The surging crowd flowed like a tide, cursing and swarming toward where Mo Fan had fallen, looking like a horrific stampede was about to occur.
Just as everyone thought the servant Lu Xiaoqi was about to be trampled into meat paste by the angry masses.
Mo Fan, who had been lying on the ground "critically injured and comatose"...
Suddenly shot up with a whoosh, rolling off the ground with a terrifying speed that left even peak Qi Condensation cultivators in the dust.
Before he even had time to dust himself off, like an ungraspable loach, he slid into the cracks of the crowd with a swoosh, zigging left and zagging right, and disappeared without a trace in the blink of an eye.
That speed, those movement techniques... how did that look like someone with a broken leg, critically injured and on the verge of death?
At the edge of the noisy martial arena.
It only left Shen Qiu on the stage, sweating profusely, chest heaving slightly, with confused eyes.
And the crowd of onlookers below the stage, holding their fists up, looking at each other, completely messy in the wind.