Chapter 690: Mutual Harm
Jiang Li revealed a look of sudden realization, dragging out the “Ah” sound for a long time: “Ah, so that was your goal. It’s fine, I won’t take this matter to heart.”
Hearing these words, Bai Hongtu immediately realized the problem: “You’re the type of person who always repays a grudge, there’s no way you wouldn’t take this matter to heart. You’re not affected by this world! You can still tell lies!”
Yu Yin also realized Jiang Li was speaking falsehoods.
Back then, Bai Hongtu had once said that Jiang Li’s singing was truly awful, and only pigs would listen to Jiang Li’s songs.
Then Jiang Li insisted on singing by Bai Hongtu’s bedside every single dawn to wake him up. Anyone else hearing it would have thought Bai Hongtu had passed away and Jiang Li was wailing at the funeral.
From then on, Bai Hongtu completely cured his habit of sleeping in, cultivating diligently in an effort to defeat Jiang Li.
Bai Hongtu’s ambitions were grand, setting a distant and seemingly unattainable goal for himself, a goal that only grew further and further away from him.
“Discovered so quickly?” Jiang Li raised an eyebrow, thinking his concealment methods needed improvement.
“This isn’t fair!” Bai Hongtu, on behalf of the Dao Sect Master, voiced a strong protest.
Yu Yin also glared at Jiang Li, demanding an explanation.
Jiang Li had no choice but to say: “Alright, alright, fine. Then I swear, everything I say in the Truth World is the truth. If there is even the slightest falsehood, may I be punished by never being able to eat candied hawthorns for the rest of my life.”
Bai Hongtu sucked in a sharp breath, never expecting Jiang Li to utter such a vicious oath.
He had thought Jiang Li would say something like, if he lied, he would be punished by the Ascension Tribulation.
Jiang Li had always preferred using the Ascension Tribulation in his oaths.
Worried that Jiang Li might forgo candied hawthorns just to tell a lie, Bai Hongtu tentatively asked: “What is the most embarrassing thing you have ever done?”
Jiang Li’s smile stiffened. He hadn’t expected Bai Hongtu to come out swinging with something so vicious right from the start.
He wavered on the scale between telling a lie and never eating candied hawthorns again, ultimately glaring at Bai Hongtu and saying through gritted teeth:
“I wrote a short story once, fantasizing in it about becoming the king of the myriad heavens and worlds, saying things like ‘How dare you traitors defy Us?’ ‘Granting you death is Our final mercy’ ‘For you, what does it matter if We make an enemy of the world?’ ‘How dare the world oppose Us?'”
After Jiang Li finished speaking, the scene fell into an awkward silence.
Jiang Li’s cheeks burned red with embarrassment, feeling that coming to this world was his biggest mistake.
Cold sweat broke out on Bai Hongtu’s forehead, worried that he had learned an incredible secret and that Jiang Li would silence him, then stage it as a suicide.
He even mentally drafted the headline for the *Heavenly Secrets Bulletin*: “Former Dao Sect Master Bai Hongtu found dead in the Dao Sect, halberd wound to the back determined as direct cause of death. According to an investigation personally led by Human Sovereign Jiang Li, with assistance from Zhou Emperor Ji Zhi, Bai Hongtu is judged to have died by suicide. Regarding Bai Hongtu’s unfortunate passing, the Human Sovereign Hall expresses deep sorrow, stating this is a loss for the Dao Sect and an even greater loss for the Nine Provinces.”
Yu Yin blinked her eyes, thinking Jiang Li sounded quite imposing when he said those things. Perhaps she could learn a thing or two from this way of speaking?
The Wishful Gourd tried its hardest to pretend it was just an ordinary gourd, hearing nothing and knowing nothing.
Jiang Li felt he couldn’t be the only one losing face, so he casually asked as if it were nothing: “Yu Yin, you said at the beginning you weren’t coming to the Truth World, so why did you come later?”
Yu Yin tried hard to keep her mouth shut, but she couldn’t withstand the inexplicable power of the Truth World, saying: “I was worried that coming to the Truth World would make me say everything on my mind, which would be too embarrassing. Later, Bai Hongtu used a taunt to provoke me. I knew it was Bai Hongtu’s trick, but to prove I wasn’t afraid, I came.”
After speaking, Yu Yin hurriedly covered her mouth, pretending the words just now weren’t hers.
Right now, she felt like killing someone.
Why had her brain overheated back then, making her come?
Was the problem with Jiang Li? No, it was Bai Hongtu. The root of everything was Bai Hongtu. If Bai Hongtu hadn’t used that taunt, she wouldn’t have come.
Yu Yin slowly turned her gaze onto Bai Hongtu, scaring him into a shiver.
Bai Hongtu felt that if the three of them continued like this, they would end up destroying each other, so he raised his hand and proposed: “I suggest we keep everything that happens in the Truth World in our hearts and not tell anyone.”
Jiang Li and Yu Yin both agreed.
“Old Bai actually doing something decent for once is a rare sight,” Jiang Li spoke the blunt truth.
“Indeed, not easy,” Yu Yin also spoke the blunt truth.
Seeing Bai Hongt was about to continue questioning and causing trouble, Jiang Li quickly changed the subject: “Alright, let’s just learn this world’s language.”
The three of them temporarily ceased their mutual harm, releasing their spiritual senses to envelop the nearby area. Through people’s conversations, they summarized the linguistic rules of the Truth World and learned them.
Simultaneously, they also witnessed some dialogues unique to the Truth World.
At a university, they “saw” with their spiritual senses a teacher giving final exam hints.
“Students, the scope of the final exam is everything I *didn’t* cover in my lectures. I will absolutely not test anything I taught. Please feel at ease taking the exam.”
“Even if you fail, it’s perfectly normal. After all, I never intended for you to pass in the first place.”
“I know some of you use memory chips to cope with exams. The purpose of my questions is to show you that some problems cannot be answered just by relying on memory chips.”
Hospital.
“Doctor, what illness do I actually have?”
“Your condition is complex. I have two plans here. One involves using nanobots to repair your bodily functions, divided into twenty phases. The other plan is to replace your diseased organ with an electronic one.”
“I recommend you adopt the first plan, because I get a twenty percent cut from the first plan, while I only get a five percent cut from the second.”
Company.
A company boss was giving new employees their onboarding education.
“The company encourages everyone to work overtime voluntarily, as this allows you to create more profits for the company.”
“It’s not a bad thing for young people to work more overtime. If you don’t take advantage of your good health to work overtime now, when your body breaks down later, you won’t even have the chance to work overtime.”
“Your current ‘Personal Value’ is only one hundred. If you want to increase your ‘Personal Value’, hard work is essential. After all, the channels for upward mobility in society are narrow, and you have no other way.”
Court.
“The defendant committed intentional homicide and should be sentenced for the crime of intentional homicide, deducting ‘Personal Value’. If the ‘Personal Value’ reaches zero, the death penalty shall be executed.”
“The defendant is an entrepreneur who created nearly a thousand job positions and is also a local star entrepreneur, having made significant contributions to the local economic development. After calculation, his ‘Personal Value’ is six hundred and thirty.”
“The deceased was a company employee with a ‘Personal Value’ of one hundred and one.”
“Subtracting one from the other, the defendant’s remaining ‘Personal Value’ is five hundred and twenty-nine, not zero. The defendant is to be released after serving his sentence.”
…
“‘Personal Value’?” All three of them noticed the court’s judgment process.
“It seems that in the Truth World, Personal Value is an extremely important thing.”