Wait, How Did My Digital Girlfriend Become a Sword Immortal?

Chapter 871: Are there any normal people left?

...Silence.

A deathly stillness.

The temptation of ascension was great, but the price of becoming a madman and losing oneself was too high.

Just as everyone was hesitating.

"I'll enter."

A hoarse voice broke the silence.

A middle-aged man stepped forward from the crowd.

He wore a Daoist robe that had turned somewhat gray with age, his temples were streaked with white, his eyes were dull, and his entire being exuded a sense of desolate, heart-dead twilight.

"You?" Real Person Jade Compassion looked at him. "Aren't you afraid of going mad? Aren't you afraid of forgetting emotions?"

"Forgetting emotions?"

The middle-aged man laughed.

It was a laugh uglier than crying.

"If I can forget emotions... then this painting would be my benefactor."

He raised his head. There was no desire for immortality in his eyes, only disgust for his memories.

"In this life of mine, I've cultivated for a thousand years and fallen in love five times."

"The first time, she was my junior sister. She said she needed to reach Foundation Establishment and borrowed a hundred thousand low-grade Spirit Stones from me. And then... she ran off with the Spirit Stones and the senior brother from the neighboring peak."

A few suppressed chuckles came from the crowd.

The man didn't laugh. He continued:

"The second time, she was a mortal woman. I didn't disdain her mortal body, and we became Dao Companions. A year later, she gave birth to a child. That child's skin was dark, looking exactly like that Kunlun slave who often delivered vegetables."

The laughter grew a bit more, but there was also more sympathy.

"The third time, she was a sect's Peerless Talent. To help her fight for first place in the grand competition, I exhausted my cultivation to protect her. The result... she slipped 'Disperse Cultivation Powder' into my tea, just because she was afraid I would become her stumbling block."

"The fourth time, that woman treated me extremely well. I thought I had met true love. Until three years later, I discovered the 'male concubines' she kept could fill two banquet tables."

"The fifth time..."

The man's voice choked up.

"I stayed with her for thirty years. She truly loved me, and I truly loved her. We even made a pact: we didn't seek to be born together, but we sought to die together."

"But last year... she was pierced through the heart by an assassin hired by my third Dao Companion."

"I killed that assassin, and I killed that bitch."

"My revenge is done."

"But my heart... is also empty."

Two streams of murky tears flowed down his wrinkled cheeks.

"Real Person."

The man knelt on the ground and kowtowed heavily once.

"The word 'love' is too bitter, like poison that pierces the intestines."

"I'm not afraid of becoming a madman, nor am I afraid of becoming stone."

"I just want... to forget all this damned stuff, clean and clear."

"If I can become an Immortal, if I can possess the power to sever all of this... take this life of mine."

Real Person Jade Compassion looked at him, a complex mix of emotions in her heart.

In this world, what hurts people the most has never been swords.

It's the single word: love.

"Go ahead."

She sighed softly and stepped aside to make way.

"Thank you, Real Person, for granting my wish."

The middle-aged man stood up. Without looking back even once, he resolutely stepped into that landscape painting.

*Hum.*

His figure vanished.

With someone taking the lead, the crowd instantly grew restless.

"I'll enter too! This damned world, I've had enough!"

"My lifespan is about to run out. Rather than die of old age, I might as well gamble!"

"I also want to forget emotions! I also want to become an Immortal!!"

Countless cultivators, like a school of fish crossing a river, rushed headlong into that scroll painting.

Some sought power, some sought escape, some merely sought to survive.

In the short span of half an incense stick's time.

The number of cultivators in the square had actually decreased by more than half.

Real Person Jade Compassion watched the disappearing faces one by one, finally turning her gaze to a corner of the square.

There.

Stood a group of cultivators wearing moon-white robes.

Moon Shadow Sect.

From beginning to end, they hadn't moved.

From the Supreme Elder with white hair and beard down to the newly entered Qi Refining disciples, each one stood there quietly, as if this opportunity for ascension had nothing to do with them.

A familiar figure at the front held a purple clay teapot in his hand, leisurely sipping tea directly from the spout.

Zhang Mengchu — one of the Moon Shadow Sect elders.

Real Person Jade Compassion remembered him well.

Because she had stolen Zhang Mengchu's wine.

"Elder Zhang."

Real Person Jade Compassion slowly walked down from the high platform, arriving before Zhang Mengchu, her face full of curiosity. "Now that you're already at the Eighth Stage of Void Fusion, just one step away from the Great Ascension Stage, why aren't you entering?"

"This is a shortcut to ascension."

Zhang Mengchu put down the purple clay teapot, stroked the sparse goatee on his chin, and smiled like an old fox.

"Real Person, you jest."

"Ascension is certainly good, but if this old man's bones were stuffed into that jar and pickled for three thousand years, I'm afraid I'd come out as cured meat."

"As for shortcuts..."

He shook his head, his bright eyes full of understanding.

"This old man doesn't understand any grand principles."

"But this old man knows, when cooking, you need high heat to reduce the sauce, and low heat for slow simmering."

"If you rush for time and blast it with fierce heat, the resulting dish will either be undercooked or burnt."

He pointed at the painting, then pointed at the sky above.

"Seeking the Dao emphasizes that the Dao Follows Nature."

"If Heaven wants this old man to die, that's fate arriving. This old man kicking the bucket is also following the Heavenly Dao."

"If Heaven wants this old man to become an Immortal, that's this old man's natural progression, the melon ripening and falling from the vine."

"Locking oneself in a cage, forcing oneself to become a madman, to seek that 'fruit'..."

Zhang Mengchu smiled, poured the tea from the purple clay teapot onto the ground, where it turned into a wisp of blue smoke.

"That's not seeking the Dao."

"That's..."

He raised his head, looked at Real Person Jade Compassion, and said word by word:

"...kneeling and begging for life."

Real Person Jade Compassion was stunned for a moment, then couldn't help but curl the corners of her mouth.

Not bad...

He sees things clearly indeed.

The cultivators around Chen Huaian are truly extraordinary.

"Moreover."

Zhang Mengchu suddenly reached out and wrapped his arms around the two beautiful young female cultivators on his left and right, saying with a beaming smile, "This old man now has Dao Companions, and also endless lifespan. Every day's life is as happy as that of a Divine Immortal, the wonderful taste of it is indescribable... *Jiejie~* Why must I go suffer inside that landscape painting?"

Real Person Jade Compassion: "..."

She looked at the young girls beside Zhang Mengchu, whose ages were who knows how many generations apart, and her mouth twitched.

Then she looked at Su Qinian spinning in the washing machine.

And that Lin Fan hugging his flying sword, with a constantly appearing flush and a ferocious grin on his face.

I was careless.

She took back her previous thought.

Among the leadership of the Moon Shadow Sect, there probably aren't many normal people.

...

Originally, it should have been Qingran's plot turn, but looking at the outline, there are still things not clearly explained. But it's almost there.