novelraw Chapter 140: Lord Luo Is Worse Than a Beast
Chapter 140: Lord Luo Is Worse Than a Beast
If the second half of the class turned out to be more grilling, that would be one thing. But Li Qiuchen had a vague feeling this problem wouldn't be that straightforward.
It was at this moment that he noticed all the other students hurrying out through the gate.
What was outside? The latrines?
Li Qiuchen fell in step behind them without drawing attention to himself, through the main gate and down the long stone stairs.
Another wave of food aromas hit him head-on.
Oh, I see. The master grills meat inside the classroom, and out here at the school gates you've set up an entire street food market, have you?
Faced with the dizzying spread of food stalls laid out before him, Li Qiuchen nearly laughed in spite of his irritation.
What kind of academy is this? Is it here to educate students or fatten them up?
He was evidently not the only one whose stomach had been provoked to rebellion by the master's session. The other students swarmed the stalls in a mass and began ordering with great urgency.
"Give me a plate of braised tofu!""One fried rice!"
"Grill me two kidney skewers! And ten big meat skewers! Good grief I'm absolutely starving!"
"What's the difference between that master and an animal?"
"He's worse than an animal!"
Exactly right. Li Qiuchen endorsed this assessment wholeheartedly.
It was then that he noticed a young girl waving in his direction.
A country girl by the look of her, with a healthy complexion, slightly flushed cheeks, and a bright open smile.
"Young sir! Want a grilled sausage?"
Li Qiuchen pressed his lips together, his mind turning rapidly.
Was this a trap?
The other fellow students could stuff their faces without issue, since they were all NPCs. But would the same apply to him, the only real person in this illusory realm?
What if the master was watching from somewhere unseen? What kind of depraved mind would that take?
If he saw Li Qiuchen eating a grilled sausage, decided he lacked insight and willpower, what then?
But that sausage did look genuinely good.
It was the kind that was over a foot long, with a skin smoked over fruitwood to a deep glossy red. Pure meat filling, no starch, and when it split open from the heat, the fat inside would be sizzling and crackling, the kind of large sausage that made noise while it cooked.
This was absolutely a trap!
Eat this sausage today, and someone would say, you can't even control your appetite for food, what are you doing trying to cultivate immortality?
Li Qiuchen gave a contemptuous smile, and turned away under the girl's puzzled gaze.
I've drilled this type of problem before. My heart is iron now. A single grilled sausage will not tempt me.
He drew another deep breath of fresh air to steady himself, turned away from the food street with firm resolve, and walked back through the main gate.
A quarter-hour was not that long in the end. The other students, stomachs full, rinsed their mouths with clean water, wiped their hands, and came running back.
Li Qiuchen followed behind them wearing a dark expression.
He had barely returned to the classroom and hadn't even had time to sit down when an invisible force seemed to lift him from his feet and carry him to the doorway.
Li Qiuchen stared in bewilderment at the master.
The master's face was expressionless. He said in a cold voice, "Why did you not eat the sausage?"
"What?"
Li Qiuchen was completely lost.
Are you serious right now? Do you hear what you're saying?
Before he could open his mouth to respond, four blood-red characters blazed into existence before his eyes.
[Trial Failed]
No!
What?
How does not eating a sausage constitute failing the trial?
Where is the justice in this? Where are the rules?
Li Qiuchen's composure collapsed on the spot.
What in the...
[Trial Failed]
[You have not passed the First-Grade Illusory Realm: Embracing Stone Academy Trial]
[Remaining Composure: 20]
[Illusory Realm Exploration: 65]
[Overall Rating: None]
[Identity verified. This trial result has been recorded in the Northern Frontier Human Boards.]
...
Li Qiuchen blinked, looked around at the empty meditation room, and came back to himself.
Wait.
That first Trial Failed message was fake!
The entire script had been written for the sake of that one moment!
Whether he ate the sausage or not, the Trial Failed screen would have appeared either way. But that Trial Failed message was itself part of the script. More precisely, everything that came before it was interference designed to scatter his attention.
In that moment of failed composure, that was when he had been ejected from the illusory realm.
And the truly contemptible part was that anyone like himself who had advanced to this stage by achieving two consecutive first-class ratings would have no prior knowledge of what a trial failure screen even looked like.
"AAARGH!"
His three first-class ratings!
Li Qiuchen could not accept this.
If it had been a straight fight and he had lost on merit, he could have made peace with it.
But this? What was this?
Replaying the scenes from the illusory realm in his mind, Li Qiuchen felt a chill creep across his scalp.
What kind of creature designs a trap this reprehensible?
He clenched his teeth and strained to recall the name of the creator responsible for this wretched illusory realm.
Creator: Luo.
Just a single surname. He should have flagged that anomaly at the time.
Luo... Lord Luo?
The realization hit Li Qiuchen like cold water.
Two lines surfaced in his memory, things he had once heard in passing and not paid much attention to.
Lord Luo blessed and protected.
Lord Luo is unpardonably wicked.
Too right! Unpardonably wicked was exactly what this was!
How was he supposed to know that a throwaway line someone had scrawled on a book's front page would turn out to be an examination key point?
Master Qin had not gone far. He had been standing guard just outside the door, and when Li Qiuchen pushed it open and stepped out looking pale and dazed, drenched in cold sweat, he said quietly, "I told you, this was one that would be very difficult."
Li Qiuchen managed a faint smile. He genuinely didn't have the energy to say anything.
"On the path of cultivation you will face not only powerful opponents but also enemies who cannot be measured by ordinary reasoning. Reality is not a novel. You will not always be facing adversaries whose intelligence falls short of yours and who you can defeat with ease."
"Go home and sleep. Don't let a single setback drive you to abandon yourself. I hope you'll recover quickly."
"Your student is grateful for the instruction..."
Li Qiuchen's head felt like it had been filled with lead. He made his way home in a daze and collapsed face-first onto his bed.
He slept for a full day. When he finally opened his eyes, he found two swaying ghost horns above him.
"You're awake?"
Tang Xiaoxue stood at the bedside holding her pickaxe, looking down at Li Qiuchen with her customary blank expression.
"Ow..."
Li Qiuchen clutched his head, hissing through clenched teeth as he pushed himself upright.
"Why does my head hurt so much?"
"You'd been sleeping too long. I was worried you might not wake up, so I knocked twice."
"..."
Li Qiuchen's gaze drifted involuntarily to the pickaxe in her hand.
"With the handle, obviously. Do you think I'm stupid?"
"Could you possibly use a gentler method next time?"
"What counts as gentle? Would a slap across the face qualify?"
"You could just let me sleep a little longer."
"Hu Caiyi was crying and making a fuss and being unbearably annoying. I told her you were fine, but she kept insisting on getting a physician."
"I was not crying and making a fuss!"
Hu Caiyi's voice came from outside the door.
Li Qiuchen turned toward the sound to find her hovering just beyond the doorway with her head poked around the frame.
Their eyes met, and Hu Caiyi immediately looked away.
"Everyone says that failing a trial causes terrible psychological damage, and that without proper rest a person can lose their mind entirely. What's wrong with wanting to get a physician..."
"Nothing wrong with it. Though it's not quite that dramatic."
Li Qiuchen rubbed his face and gathered himself. "Mostly I was just profoundly disgusted by the whole experience. A good sleep has helped considerably. Thank you for your concern, young miss. I'm quite alright."
"Good."
Hu Caiyi's eyes shifted, and she asked quietly, "Would you like some chicken soup?"
"No thank you."
"Oh."
Li Qiuchen thought to himself that chicken soup was not quite the universal cure-all it was made out to be.
Still, it came from a genuine place of kindness. She was a young girl, and other than stewing a pot of chicken soup, what else could you really expect? Not burning herself in the process was already something.
With his spirits restored, Li Qiuchen began preparing the two young misses for what lay ahead.
"In your future illusory realm trials, pay very close attention to the creator's name. If you see the character Luo standing alone, raise your guard by twelve levels immediately."
"This Lord Luo is an expert at destroying people's composure, with methods that are utterly shameless. If you encounter an illusory realm he created, ignore everything around you, don't think about anything, and focus entirely on keeping your state of mind steady. That's all."
Both Tang Xiaoxue and Hu Caiyi had earned first-class ratings in the first round, and were about to enter the second round of trials. Under normal circumstances, even with the difficulty increase, they were unlikely to encounter a monstrous slip like that one.
But Li Qiuchen still felt it was better to err on the side of caution.
What he hadn't anticipated was that Lord Luo's talent for making people miserable didn't confine itself to the illusory realm, but extended into the world outside it as well.
The next day at school, Liu Huai'an came over to greet him.
"Junior Brother Li, I heard your third trial attempt failed?"
Word had spread that quickly?
Li Qiuchen was mildly surprised, but nodded anyway. "It was quite a challenging one."
"How did you manage to be so careless? Failing the challenge for three first-class ratings means you have to start everything over from scratch, you know."
Li Qiuchen stared.
Something about that tone didn't sit quite right.
What exactly was he so pleased about?
Since when were they close enough for this?
Li Qiuchen had no interest in prolonging the exchange, and replied with mild indifference, "Thank you for the reminder, Senior Brother. I'll do my best."
"It's not just a matter of doing your best."
Liu Huai'an kept his eyes on Li Qiuchen, the corner of his mouth curving upward. "Don't forget that only the first three illusory realm trials are free. After that, participating costs money, and not ordinary silver either. You have to pay in spirit stones."
As if I needed you to tell me that.
Watching the other's expression grow progressively more unpleasant, Li Qiuchen understood.
So you came here to watch me make a fool of myself.
You think I don't have money?
Admittedly, from the perspective of the other students, that was exactly the image Li Qiuchen projected.
Originally just a servant of the Tang household, he had only gotten into the inner hall by tagging along with his young miss thanks to his own talent.
Quietly unassuming, never participating in social activities among classmates, usually seen mixing with the book-boys and serving girls from the outer hall.
Plain in dress, not given to spending money freely...
Should I tell you right now that I hold the seals of both the Tang and Hu households and can draw on their accounts at will?
Li Qiuchen thought about it and decided there was no reason to prove anything in front of Liu Huai'an.
He wasn't worth it.
Liu Huai'an's results in both rounds of trials had been poor, putting him solidly in the category of unremarkable. Watching someone like Zeng Mingming earn a first-class rating while he himself fell short, one could easily imagine how badly out of balance his inner state must be right now.
What was the point of showing off in front of someone who had already sunk this low?
With that thought, Li Qiuchen smiled slightly and reached into his pocket, producing a single spirit stone.
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