Who Says One Cannot Become A God By Cultivating He Path Of Ruthlessness In Jinjiang?! - Chapter 2

Yang! Shu Yang!”

Accompanied by a series of urgent and impatient shouts, stinging lashes of a whip rained down upon Shu Yang.

“Ugh!”

The whip, propelled by brute force, sliced through his flesh. Caught off guard in his unconscious state, Shu Yang let out a muffled groan. His body trembled, and he finally struggled through the intense pain to open his eyes.

Wait, pain?

His temples throbbed, and he could hardly believe he was actually feeling pain. The agony at his waist was like needles stabbing into his nerves, forcing him to close his eyes and curl into a ball in his misery.

He was truly in pain. Before he even figured out who was whipping him, he felt a flicker of confusion. Since his ascension to Immortal Lord, he had essentially been the favored son of the Heavenly Dao. He had walked through the Celestial Realm unchallenged, rarely encountering anyone who dared to show him disrespect or cause him injury, so he had long forgotten the sensation of pain.

Who was bold enough to lash him with a whip?

As this thought crossed his mind, Shu Yang’s eyes snapped open, his gaze instantly filling with malice.

As a proud and arrogant child of the heavens, he was used to summoning wind and rain. He was not a gentle person, and his temper was far from patient. Before the next lash could fall, Shu Yang reached out and snatched the tail of the whip. With a sharp tug, he flung it outward. The person holding the handle lost their balance, flying out like a kite with a broken string. They slammed heavily against the wall, emitting a painful wail.

Hearing the scream, Shu Yang clutched his bleeding arm and staggered to his feet, his expression icy. He could feel the weakness of this body, but he had no time to dwell on it.

He surveyed his surroundings with a cold, observant gaze. It was clearly a dilapidated woodshed, filled with the suffocating scent of dust and rotting wood. Not far away was a small, broken window. Due to the force with which the person had been thrown against the wall, the window had shattered, its fragments scattered across the floor.

“Ugh, so painful.”

The person on the ground was a woman in her forties. Years of exhausting toil had left her yellowed, rough cheeks deeply lined. She wore coarse, patched linen clothes, and her thick arms showed she was accustomed to manual labor.

“Shu Yang, you actually dared to hit me?”

The woman on the floor clearly could not believe that the idiot who had always been submissive had suddenly fought back. She crawled on the floor for a moment like an insect before pushing herself up with her palms. Her eyes were as cold as if they had been steeped in poison. “You are just a brainless fool. I give you food and shelter, and you dare to hit me?”

Shu Yang felt his blood still flowing, and his vision began to darken. To make matters worse, he had no way to stop the bleeding. He leaned against the wall, remaining silent.

His philosophy was simple: he might not return a favor, but he always returned a grudge on the spot. Since he had been whipped, he was determined to retaliate.

Seeing Shu Yang’s silence, the woman grew even more furious. However, she was a woman and weaker than him. She continued to curse at him, ordering him not to be lazy and to chop the firewood in the courtyard, before scuttling away.

Looking at his surroundings and recalling the woman’s words, even if Shu Yang had been slow-witted, he now knew he had been cast down from the Celestial Realm to the mortal world.

But before he could even rejoice and plan his return to cultivation, he was shocked to discover that his body was empty of immortal power. He could not perform any spells. Furthermore, to his dismay, beyond the pain, he felt hunger. Since building his foundation, he had been practicing abstinence from grain for years. He should not feel hunger, and even if he did, he would only consume spiritual fruits or nectar.

Clearly, this household had no such provisions.

When the woman saw that Shu Yang was still sitting in the woodshed instead of chopping wood, she was livid. She did not even place the bowl of thin porridge properly; she huffed, slammed it onto the floor in front of him, and turned away.

Looking at the milky, watery broth that barely contained a single grain of rice, Shu Yang stood expressionless, poured the porridge out, and leaned against the wall to close his eyes and recuperate.

As night fell, the woman’s husband returned from hunting. Because the walls were thin and lacked soundproofing, even across the courtyard in the quiet night, Shu Yang could hear the woman complaining to her husband about how he refused to work and had hit her.

From their conversation, Shu Yang gathered that he was supposed to be a mentally challenged youth. Because he was strong, the woman had picked him up to perform manual labor in exchange for thin porridge and steamed buns.

This body had originally been intended for building an immortal temple for the Sun Deity. However, due to the fall of the Ziwei Star, the Sun Deity was affected, leading to earthquakes and floods. The partially built temple had collapsed, and the villagers, out of anger, had canceled the construction. This left the body unemployed. That was why the woman had assumed he was slacking off while he was unconscious and had whipped him. It seemed this was not the first time she had abused him.

Shu Yang would never accept such humiliation. He could retaliate at any time, but he had no intention of wasting his energy here.

This body was a puppet clone he had created long ago using his own heart-blood to deflect disasters while he was still in the mortal realm. It only contained a tiny fraction of his soul. When he did not inhabit it, it remained completely dull-witted. He thought he had destroyed all these clones before his ascension. He had not expected the Heavenly Dao to pull one of his own discarded puppets from some dark corner for him to inhabit. Presumably, since his immortal body had been destroyed when he leaped from the Executioner’s Platform, the Heavenly Dao had no choice but to let him make do with this one.

However, the quality of this body was poor. Since it only contained a drop of his heart-blood, it would require extensive physical refinement before it could cultivate again.

With this in mind, he stood up to leave, only to have the woman’s husband burst into the room. Shu Yang was injured and starving; he was at his weakest. Overwhelmed by the joint efforts of the couple, he was eventually tied up.

Before he could figure out their plan, he was dragged to the slave market at dawn to be sold to a human trafficker.

“Although he is a fool and ugly, he is strong and can do hard work when he is full. That is his advantage,” the woman’s husband said fawningly to the trafficker. “Take a look and see if he can be sold as a servant in the Young Palace Master’s palace. It would be a blessing for him.”

“A servant in the Young Palace Master’s palace?” The trafficker looked at the dirty, disheveled Shu Yang and scoffed. “The Young Palace Master of the Dragon Clan loves beauty above all else. Every servant, maid, and pet in his palace is gorgeous. If I send this piece of filth to the Young Palace Master, I would be tainting his eyes.”

The husband was left speechless. The trafficker did not waste any more time. He briefly inspected Shu Yang’s teeth and limbs to ensure there were no physical defects other than his mental state, and eventually settled on a price of five taels of silver.

“Five taels?”

Shu Yang looked at the grinning family and was left speechless. He could not believe he had been sold so cheaply. But he was a tiger fallen on hard times; he had no choice but to follow the trafficker, his mind racing with plans to escape.

As he walked, he observed his surroundings. He discovered that the Xuanling Prefecture—the gathering place of the Dragon Clan—was not populated solely by dragons; many humans lived under their protection. Due to the sudden earthquakes and floods, many human settlements had been destroyed, forcing people to flee to different provinces. In addition to the Dragon Clan’s Xuanling City, the Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise, White Tiger, and Qilin clans had also taken responsibility for protecting humans.

In truth, these ancient divine beasts were the steeds of the ancient gods. They were not gods or immortals themselves. After the ancient gods perished, these beasts existed in an awkward position; they were stronger than humans but could not truly enter the Celestial Realm. They were forced to fence off their own territories and accept human offerings to accumulate enough merit to ascend. In short, they were temporary workers for the Heavenly Dao.

Shu Yang did not know how much chaos his drunken act had caused, or how the Heavenly Dao was cleaning up his mess. Seeing humans and dragons living together left him confused for a moment, until his attention was caught by a reward poster on a notice board. The board was densely covered in portraits of him from before his ascension—sitting, standing, and smiling. They had even meticulously captured the faint, blood-red tint at the tips of his lashes, perfectly displaying his peerless beauty.

Shu Yang: “…”

Who on earth is so obsessed that they would draw so many portraits to hunt me down?

As soon as this question crossed his mind, someone in the crowd around the notice board asked, “Immortal Lord Ziwei? Is that Shu Yang, who successfully ascended after enduring the Nine Heavenly Thunderbolts?”

“Yes, that is him.”

The crowd of people squeezed together, indistinguishable voices chiming in: “There has been news since early today. The Astrologer says Shu Yang has fallen and become a Fallen Immortal. We do not know if his physical body remains. But the Young Palace Master stated on this reward notice that anyone who finds him, or even just finds a single hair of Shu Yang, will be rewarded with a hundred gold pieces!”

Whoosh!

The words were like water hitting a pan of hot oil, sparking a frenzy. Some eyes showed disbelief, while others were full of greed.

“A hundred gold pieces for a single hair of Shu Yang?”

“If that is just for a hair, then finding the person himself would mean enjoying endless wealth and glory for a lifetime!”

Thinking of this, the crowd dispersed, everyone rushing off to find Shu Yang, fearing that a moment’s delay would cost them their chance at fortune.

Shu Yang, who was standing right in front of them covered in soot, felt speechless.

After the crowd dispersed, he stopped in front of the notice board and stared at the images of himself, his expression unreadable. He appeared calm on the surface, but inwardly, he was panicking.

Who in the world did not know that the Dragon Clan’s Young Palace Master, Ruan Wei, was his mortal enemy? It was a constant cycle of backstabbing and hammer-strikes; they were rivals who prayed for the other’s death.

Now, just as he had fallen, Ruan Wei was already offering a hundred gold pieces for him. If this was not taking advantage of his vulnerability to kill him, then what was it—deep, hidden love?

Shu Yang was far more inclined to believe the former.

But when he compared the fact that he had just been sold for a mere five taels, while Ruan Wei was willing to pay a hundred gold for a single strand of his hair, a complex realization dawned on him.

Shu Yang thought, “Ruan Wei… he really… he really hates me that much!”

To spend hundreds of taels of gold just to kill him—that meant Ruan Wei’s hatred was so intense that he had lost all reason. If he were caught, it would be a guaranteed death sentence.

Thinking of this, Shu Yang grew even more terrified. He decided he had to run! He had to run as far away as possible and never let Ruan Wei catch him!