"That's not how it is!"
Tie Chunsheng's face turned livid. He had never seen a situation like this.
It wasn't that he lacked experience. It was simply that peerless powerhouses like him finished a fight and went straight home. They rarely had any contact with ordinary people at all.
So this was something he had never even thought to anticipate.
"Ridiculous!"
"We cultivators fought outside the city at the cost of our lives just to save you!"
"Your City Lord died in the battle."
"He was a hero who saved all of us. Don't let a hero's heart go cold!"
…
The cultivators did their best to explain themselves to the crowd.
But—
"We didn't see a single Demonic Cultivator!"
"We took one nap and the city was gone. Of course you can say whatever you want!"
"Liars! Just because you say they're Demonic Cultivators means they are?"
"We're mortals. How are we supposed to tell whether someone is a Demonic Cultivator or not?"
"Wasn't that the genius who first drew a Talisman? How could he be a Demonic Cultivator? You're definitely fooling us!"
…
In the face of an enraged populace, the cultivators' explanations did not help at all.
Hatred burned in their eyes. Once they tested and confirmed that the cultivators truly did not dare lay a hand on them, their confidence grew bolder by the second.
The wealthy merchants and scholars, seeing the cultivators actually trying to reason with them about righteousness and morality, began joining in as well, quietly at first.
Given a chance to curse at those lofty cultivator lords, ordinary people were never going to pass it up.
Even those who had not joined at the start began to lose their heads, swept along by the feverish momentum until they followed the crowd without thinking.
And in a sense, they weren't wrong. They had only slept for a single night. When they woke up, everything had changed. The home they had spent years building was gone, and now they were about to be relocated somewhere else.
Their anger at losing their homes, their fear of the future, and the resentment they had accumulated over years of struggling through life all poured out onto the cultivators in one violent release.
They were ordinary people. They could not see the real truth, only what was right in front of them.
So they took that "truth" and stitched together the world as they believed it to be.
Arrogant and stubborn.
The cultivators were simply too few. Compared to the hundreds of thousands of Tianqiong City's residents, their numbers were laughably small.
Some cultivators who had been born in Tianqiong City even fell silent. Under the pressure of their own townsfolk, they did not know how to explain anything at all.
Just as the roar of voices surged like a tide, to the point that many cultivators were on the verge of snapping, Ye Ling finally spoke.
"Are you done?"
His voice was quiet, yet it reached every ear with perfect clarity.
Then—
"Silence!"
A silencing talisman flew up into the air, and in an instant, it imposed mass silence.
The scene that had been turning into a full-blown verbal brawl immediately became an "ah-ba, ah-ba" exchange.
"You really have been protected too well."
Ye Ling stepped onto the air and "walked" upward, one step at a time, until he stood high in the sky.
Worried that some people might not be able to see him, he even projected a huge image of himself overhead.
In that projection, he looked graceful and striking, his green robe fluttering in the wind, making him seem even more unworldly.
His looks needed no explanation. Even Ai Yueli would have praised him, and it left many of Tianqiong City's women staring in a daze.
Ye Ling did not care in the slightest what anyone thought. He spoke bluntly.
"Just because you didn't see any Demonic Cultivators, you think there weren't any?"
"How ridiculous."
"Listen carefully, you ignorant fools."
"Yes, this city was destroyed by me. At least half of it, I was the one who smashed."
"If you don't believe it, go look at the edge of the city. That giant crater was mine. The quake just now was mine too."
"As for whether there were Demonic Cultivators or not, believe it or don't. I don't care."
"Pah!"
The more he spoke, the more annoyed he seemed. He spat, then continued.
"I never should have protected you this well."
"I should've let a few Demonic Cultivators in and had them kill a couple of your husbands, wives, parents, or children. Then you would've believed us."
"Listen up, cultivators down there. From now on, when you go out on missions, let the Demonic Cultivators kill a few people first before you step in."
"Otherwise these idiots will think we didn't do anything."
"Understood? Applause."
But his attempt at humor earned him not a single response.
Ah… yeah. Clearly the chemistry still wasn't there.
Just as Ye Ling was grumbling about how the cultivators on the ground had no sense of timing—
[??? Anger toward Host +27]
[??? Hatred toward Host +42]
[??? Resentment toward Host +9]
So even ordinary people could squeeze out this many Emotion Points.
Watching his Emotion Points climb higher and higher, Ye Ling felt downright satisfied. As for the "ah-ba, ah-ba" below getting more and more worked up, he could not care less.
Honestly, if he had not realized these ignorant masses were still good for Emotion Points, he would not have wasted his time on them at all.
They reminded him of the online idiots from before he transmigrated, the kind who only knew how to vent and never bothered to open their eyes and look at the world.
Or maybe they simply could not.
The real world was far too complicated for them to understand.
Back then, Ye Ling would have only sighed at people like that.
"You've had it too easy."
And then he would have stopped caring.
Because if he had that kind of time, wouldn't it be better to haul a couple more bricks at the construction site?
Perfect weather, bricks not too hot to handle.
In the end, these loudmouths were just dumping their resentment. They could not solve any real problems, and they only made things disgusting for the people actually trying to fix them.
Ye Ling had never thought he would one day end up in the same situation as the Bald Cape Hero. He had never wanted to be a hero in the first place.
Even now, his "counterattack" was not because he was emotionally shaken. It was purely for Emotion Points.
All he wanted was for them to hate him a little more, so he could make up for the Emotion Points he had lost because of the Examiner's Judgement Brush.
He stood there and watched the crowd below "ah-ba, ah-ba" for a full incense stick's worth of time before finally dropping back down to the ground.
The group admin mute really was powerful.
"Fourth Master, sorry to keep you waiting."
Seeing those two million-plus points, Ye Ling felt completely at ease.
The only pity was that ordinary people were still ordinary people. The Emotion Points any one person could provide were limited. The highest was only a bit over fifty, and some did not even reach ten.
Even so, being able to harvest over two million points was more than enough to make Ye Ling happy.
"Are you… okay?"
Seeing that Ye Ling's smile came from the heart, Ai Yueli looked stunned.
Did my disciple… lose his mind?
She had wanted to step in earlier, but she also wanted to see what Ye Ling would do.
Yet Ye Ling did not seem bothered at all. If anything, he looked a little pleased, and that left her completely confused.
"Don't worry, Fourth Master."
Ye Ling could tell she was concerned, but he truly could not suppress the joy in his chest.
He had only gotten one million points as a reward for completing the Six Arts System. Now the residents of Tianqiong City had handed him more than two million. How was he supposed to stay calm?
He even started considering whether he should drop by Tianqiong City every few days.
Not only would it annoy these residents, the key was that it would bring in a steady stream of Emotion Points.
But the thought only lasted a moment. With that time, wouldn't it be better to cultivate?
Besides, the truly valuable items in the System had numbers with so many zeros at the end he could barely see where they stopped. Relying on these civilians to exchange for them, who knew how long it would take?
So as soon as the idea appeared, he tossed it aside. Not practical.
"Let's find somewhere to rest. This place is a wreck."
Still, if he could irritate them a little on the way out, he might as well. He spoke loudly, not caring whether they heard him.
"Mm. Let's find somewhere quiet."
Ai Yueli studied his expression and saw nothing fake about it, so she nodded.
"Make way. Make way."
Ye Ling did not fly. He deliberately walked, shooing the civilians out of his path as if he were brushing away mosquitoes.
These people only dared to mouth off. They did not dare actually bump into Ye Ling. They ground their teeth in hatred, but there was nothing they could do to him.
That's right. I just want to see those angry faces.
Ye Ling was very pleased.
He was headed to the Mortal Realm Hall, a high-end inn for cultivators. It was sturdy, and it sat on the far side of the city, opposite the main battlefield, so it was likely still usable.
Ai Yueli walked beside Ye Ling, chatting casually about small things, completely ignoring the civilians around them.
Tie Chunsheng and the other peerless experts stayed close behind Ye Ling, looking at the furious crowd with a mix of anger and disappointment.
They had never imagined the "people" they worked so hard to save would be like this.
Yet even as they felt sorrow, their admiration for Ye Ling only grew.
With their experience, they could tell Ye Ling was not angry at all. He even seemed a little happy.
That attitude alone was something they could spend a long time learning.
They certainly could not remain so calm while being cursed from all sides.
By the time they reached the Mortal Realm Hall, most of Tianqiong City's residents had already left.
After all, they truly could not do a single thing to Ye Ling.
On top of that, the cultivators of the Righteous Path Alliance were actively handling the relocation. Even if these people were idiots, the Alliance could not simply abandon them.
The Righteous Path Alliance promised to build them a new Tianqiong City and compensate them for part of their losses.
The crowd that had been cursing Ye Ling immediately quieted down.
Aside from a few fools who kept screaming at him, most people were celebrating their "victory."
That's right. It was because we cursed those cultivators that they decided to compensate us.
If we had not made a fuss, we would not have gotten anything.
They had no idea that the Righteous Path Alliance had already prepared a compensation plan before coming to provide aid.
The poor commoners naturally did not know that. But the wealthy merchants and scholars who did know kept their mouths shut.
After all, if they said it out loud, how would they keep playing the role of "opinion leader"?
...
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