Chapter 8: Faith in Brother Spring

Keyboard Immortal

The suspicious look on Old Mi’s face finally went away. “I was wondering how you managed to endure the agony inflicted by the Wailing Whip. Clearly, you were using your tremendous willpower to resist it. Your presence of mind is quite admirable.”

Zu An, however, was busy letting out mental curses at a torrid pace. Did I get a counterfeit Ball of Delights? Wasn’t it supposed to grant pain immunity? What the hell is going on?!

But he quickly realized what had happened. The Ball of Delights only lasted for an hour, and that hour had already gone past. Although it had given him immunity to the 10x pain the Wailing Whip had inflicted during that hour, the injuries left behind by the whip remained. Now that the pain-immunity effect was over, the normal pain generated by the wounds was no longer suppressed.

Old Mi walked over to check his wounds. “Count yourself lucky, kid. If that little girl hit you one more time, you would’ve died.” Old Mi sighed in amazement. “Your body is unspeakably weak. I’m amazed that you somehow managed to endure that many whips.”

Only then did Zu An remember the other effect the Ball of Delights granted. It was something like, any ‘lethal damage’ inflicted by a woman with more money than you wouldn’t reduce your health to below zero, right? Hey, doesn’t that mean I now have a huge advantage whenever I fight against rich women?

He mentally slapped himself. What are you thinking! What type of a man fights against women, anyhow? The problem was that the many restrictions on the usage of the Ball of Delights made it so that it really was impractical.

Old Mi pulled out a bottle of medicine. With a wave of his sleeves, he caused the medicinal powder to alight on Zu An’s wounds. “Take these two bottles of medicine. One is to be applied externally, the other is to be ingested. Spend the next few days recuperating. Don’t let yourself get killed.”

Zu An could feel a cool, refreshing sensation cover his wounds. He instantly felt much better, and he said with heartfelt gratitude, “Elder, I really don’t know how I should thank you.”

Old Mi let out two little chuckles. “Don’t worry. Soon, you’ll know.” He revealed a toothy old grin, then hunched over and left the room again.

Zu An paid him no heed. He was completely focused on calculating his current gains. In total, he had farmed Chu Huanzhao for 1444 Rage points. That meant he could play the lottery 14 times! Just thinking about it made his impression of the little girl improve. She has the potential to be my ATM in the future.

He had nothing to do besides just lie there on the bed. Hence, Zu An decided to begin playing the lottery. Thankfully, the keyboard could be controlled via his thoughts alone. Otherwise, he was so weak right now that he probably wouldn’t even have had the strength to pick it up.

He mentally ‘clicked’ on the lottery button, then began to eagerly watch as the light sparkled across the keyboard. What reward will I receive this time?

What startled him was, this time the light only flickered across the numbers and the space bar; it didn’t touch the letters at all. Only then did he remember that there was a note earlier about how only part of the rewards were currently available. The first three pulls were unlimited because they were given as part of a newbie package. He would probably have to unlock the letters in the future.

Wait a sec. I also remember something about a ‘greatly increased drop rate’ for the first three pulls… but one of them was still a ‘thanks for playing’. Doesn’t that mean the normal drop rate has to be…

Thanks for playing!

Zu An frowned, but this was to be expected. He didn’t worry too much, and spent another 100 Rage on another pull.

Thanks for playing!

……

Eight pulls in a row! All of them were ‘thanks for playing’!

I’m going to fucking… Zu An was at the verge of smashing the keyboard to pieces. It was a pity that he couldn’t farm Rage points from himself; otherwise, he probably would’ve maxed out his meter.

He wanted to go and first wash up before making another pull, but unfortunately he had been injured so heavily that he wasn’t even able to move. How could he have the strength to get up?

He had no idea that a pair of cold eyes were currently watching him from outside the window. If he did, he would definitely recognize that willowy frame as belonging to Chu Chuyan’s personal maid, Snow.

Has this man gone mad? A hint of confusion was in Snow’s beautiful eyes as she watched Zu An’s face twist and contort. The man was even feebly raising his hands and stamping his feet. She carefully considered the situation. When she noticed the bloody wounds left on his body, she was surprised: “The Wailing Whip?”

She naturally recognized the tell-tale marks of the Second Miss’ weapon. An extremely odd expression appeared on her face. “I guess it’d be better for him to die at her hands. If I acted personally, I would run the risk of exposing myself.” She knew just how weak this useless son-in-law was; there was no way he could survive so many lashes from a Wailing Whip. He was almost certainly going to die on his bed.

She turned and departed, returning to her own room. After ensuring that no one was around, she began to nibble some melon seeds while quickly scrawling a secret message on a piece of paper.

“Respected young master, rest assured; Miss Chu remains pure and unblemished. The two have not shared a room together. In addition, trust that I will get rid of Zu An as soon as possible. I expect you will hear some good news soon.”

At first, she was about to also add in a note about Zu An’s impotency, but she then hesitated and scrubbed that part out. She wasn’t sure about how to account for it or what caused it, and she was also subconsciously unwilling to let her young master know that another man had touched her.

She gritted her teeth in anger as she recalled how that bastard Zu An had touched almost every part of her body by the pool, and then gone even farther in Miss Chu’s room. She hatefully bit down on a few seeds. Letting him die by the hands of the Second Miss is letting him off easy. I was planning to let him experience utter torment tonight.

A memory swam up of Chu Chuyan instructing her earlier this evening to attend upon Zu An in bed. She bit her lips, then added another line to the message. “Also… I might be overly sensitive, but I have the feeling that Miss Chu is somewhat suspicious of me. Please do not dally in carrying out your mission, young master.”

After finishing the letter, she sealed it and then summoned a beautiful little hawk. She attached the letter onto the hawk’s foot. “Hurry up and deliver it to the young master.”

The hawk seemed to possess human sentience. It spread its wings and then quickly flew off into the night.

Back in Zu An’s room. Zu An didn’t know how narrowly he had just escaped assassination. All of his attention was focused on the lottery. Finally, on his tenth pull, the ball of light came to a halt on the ‘1’ key instead of on the space bar. An image of a red bottle appeared on the virtual screen, as well as a line of text accompanying it.

Faith in Brother Spring (S): In the unfathomably ancient cosmos, there has long been a famous saying – ‘Have faith in Brother Spring, and you shall gain everlasting life!’ This bottle will quickly replenish your health. So long as you are still alive, even the deadliest of wounds will be wiped away and you will regain all your health.

“Faith in Brother Spring?!” These random Chinese internet memes caused Zu An to seriously consider the possibility that the creator of this keyboard came from Earth… but it didn’t make sense. Although Earth was at a high level of technological development, it wasn’t even close to being able to produce something like this keyboard. [1]

He withdrew the item, then hefted it in his hand. Judging from the looks of it, it was probably similar to the health potions in Earth video games. He decided to immediately quaff it, considering his current situation. He was worried that he was currently so weak that he might drop it. That would suck.

Once the red liquid in the bottle entered his stomach, he could sense a warm sensation spread throughout his limbs and his bones. The terrifying wounds caused by the Wailing Whip were beginning to close at a visible rate, and even the scorched areas on his body caused by the earlier lightning bolt were healing and regenerating into fresh new skin.

“Oh, wow. It’s this effective?!” Zu An instantly sat up, no longer feeling as though he was at the verge of expiring with each passing breath. His body was now completely normal, as though he hadn’t been injured at all.

This thing can be considered a miracle drug! If I had a supply of this, I’d become virtually unkillable! Wait a second – ‘Faith in Brother Spring (S)’. What does the ‘S’ stand for? Zu An pondered this question. It probably meant ‘small’, which meant it had to be something akin to how healing potions worked in games, right?

There was a limit to how much health a small potion could restore. If he levelled up in the future and had too much health, a single small potion might not be able to recover all his health. The problem was that the stupid explanation didn’t give him any details as to what the upper maximum of a single bottle was.

He rose to his feet and stretched. He could no longer sense any danger at all, and had recovered to the point where he was actually feeling a sense of strength and power in his limbs. This was most likely because he had reached the third step of the second rank.

After carrying out a series of tests, he was fairly certain that his current strength was equivalent to that of four normal men combined. Remember, just before this his body was so weak, he couldn’t even match up to an ordinary adult!

However, Zu An still wasn’t very satisfied. His current rank had not come easily, but he didn’t feel that powerful. There was no difference between him and ordinary cultivators.

Actually, the issue was that he didn’t have enough knowledge regarding this world. This was a land where a person’s status and authority was determined by his or her progress as a cultivator. The Emperor had the highest status and was also the strongest cultivator; the Emperor was an Earth Immortal! The headmasters of the various major sects and the patriarchs of major clans were usually at the Grandmaster stage, while the Kings, Princes, and Grand Marshals were generally of the Master stage. Ordinary Generals and the Nine Ministers were at the ninth rank, while most dukes and commandants, as well as some marquises, were at the eighth rank. City governors were usually at the seventh rank, and so-on and so-forth.

The lowest-level officials such as village teachers and village tax collectors only needed to be at the second rank. The second rank was already more than enough to qualify them as officials of the imperial court and receive a commensurate salary, as well as cultivation resources. There were many people who would spend their entire lifetimes struggling and failing to reach this level. After all, only 10% of most would-be-cultivators would even make it to the first rank of harmonizing with the natural world. To reach the second rank would require expending an enormous amount of elementum. How could an ordinary person afford this?

After spending some time getting used to his ‘new’ body, Zu An began to draw awards once again. This time, he didn’t harbor any illusions of being able to pull anything nice. All he wanted was to pull something, even items that initially seemed completely useless like the Ball of Delights. It had taken him a thousand Rage points to pull a single bottle of health, and he only had four pulls left. He just hoped they wouldn’t all be ‘thanks for playing’.

For first three pulls, he got a ‘thanks for playing’. On the fourth pull, however, the ball of light finally came to a halt atop the ‘0’ number. Stunned, Zu An hurriedly turned to stare at the screen, only to see a strange crimson pill appear at the center of it.

Marrow Cleansing Pill: Why is it that you train so hard every day, yet your results are inferior to that of some young masters who just go through the motions? There is a famous saying – genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. However, that 1% inspiration is often more important than the 99% perspiration. After using this pill, you will be able to cleanse and refine your marrow, dramatically improving your body’s overall quality and letting you train much faster.

Zu An suddenly thought of what Chu Chuyan and Old Mi had said, that his body was extremely untalented for cultivation. With this pill in hand, I’m sure to quickly rise up the ranks, get paid a higher salary, win the affections of beautiful women, and begin my trek up the highest heights of society!

1. Li Yuchun, with ‘chun’ meaning spring, was a very popular Chinese singer some years back. Because she dressed in a tomboyish manner, many people nicknamed her ‘Brother Spring’. Her fanbase made a meme of photoshopping her pictures to make her look like Jesus, then captioned them with ‘Have faith in Brother Spring, and you shall gain eternal life!

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