Chapter 71
Seeing that Captain Wei didn't seem to notice anything unusual, Lou Yuqing decisively opened the system and spent one hundred gossip points to search for the answer.
—Why is the puppet moving?
[Because the puppet is Shen Lijun in disguise.]
Lou Yuqing's gaze snapped toward the puppet sprawled motionless on the ground. Her pupils contracted violently.
That answer hit her like a lightning strike.
She and Si Nidie had both sensed something was off about the puppet, but neither of them had ever doubted what it actually was.
After all, the two of them had practically beaten the thing to pieces earlier. They had nearly "disemboweled" it during the spell test, yet it had regenerated completely unharmed.
How could a human possibly survive that?
Still stunned, Lou Yuqing quickly checked the gossip-listener panel.
Sure enough, Shen Lijun's name was there.
Originally, his gossip had only cost one thousand points to unlock. Now it had doubled to two thousand.
Lou Yuqing's heart ached a little at the price hike, but after hesitating for only a moment, her curiosity won out completely.
And thus—the unspoken thoughts ringing through the hall reached everyone's ears.
Aside from Wei Houming and the Enforcement Hall disciples, everyone else was encountering this bizarre situation for the first time. Several disciples exchanged uneasy glances, their expressions tense and uncertain.
Then a calm voice suddenly transmitted through the hall.
"This is an innate divine ability. Do not panic. Listen quietly. Anyone who reveals abnormal behavior will be punished."
Everyone immediately looked toward Wei Houming.
It was his voice.
Seeing the Enforcement Hall captain nod in confirmation, the crowd finally relaxed slightly.
Elder Wei was the strongest person present. If he said to stay calm, then they would stay calm.
As for this mysterious divine ability...
More than a few gazes drifted subtly toward Lou Yuqing.
Shock.
Envy.
Longing.
Curiosity.
Expectation.
All kinds of emotions tangled together in the darkness of their eyes.
Fortunately, no one dared overstep their bounds. Otherwise, with this many people staring at her so openly, Lou Yuqing would have noticed something was wrong long ago.
In truth, she did sense a lot of people looking at her from behind. But she didn't think much of it.
After all, she had just helped capture a runaway puppet. It was only natural people would pay attention to her.
Meanwhile, Lou Yuqing continued flipping through the gossip panel in fascination.
[Shen Lijun is seriously impressive. He disguised himself as a puppet and freeloaded inside the cultivation rooms for three whole years.]
[He's even more ruthless than that Da Congming guy who made ten thousand spirit stones back then.]
The entire hall froze.
Three years?!
Everyone's eyes widened in disbelief.
Not ten days.
Not half a month.
Three entire years.
Most disciples wouldn't even dare fantasize about something that outrageous.
The sheer length of time alone was enough to leave people numb.
Even Si Nidie blanked out for several seconds before slowly recovering. Then she secretly gave the unconscious puppet a thumbs-up.
"Senior Brother Shen," she said solemnly, "please teach me your ways. I also wish to freeload off the sect."
Shen Lijun: "..."
Please stop talking.
Despite lying there motionless like a dead puppet, he had actually regained consciousness a while ago.
And right now, his heart was in complete chaos.
Who was this woman?
How did she know?!
He had thought he could bluff his way through this disaster if he stayed unconscious long enough.
Now that hope was rapidly dying.
Shen Lijun couldn't understand it at all.
He had hidden perfectly for years. No one had ever discovered his identity before—otherwise he would've been caught long ago.
So why had someone suddenly exposed everything now?
The Enforcement Hall floor was freezing cold.
But not nearly as cold as Shen Lijun's heart.
From his seat above, Wei Houming had a perfect view of the hall below.
Naturally, he immediately noticed Shen Lijun's faintly trembling eyelashes.
Wei Houming: "..."
Exposed.
His expression remained calm, but internally, he had already started considering whether Shen Lijun should be sent off to reclaim wasteland or shoved directly into the mines.
Nearby, Ling Yunxiao had also noticed the tiny movements.
He silently concluded the same thing.
This man was doomed.
Still... from another perspective, Shen Lijun was undeniably talented.
The cultivation room mountain was protected by a massive array formation. Disciples could only enter the caves by using specially issued tokens to open the restrictions.
Yet Shen Lijun had somehow bypassed all of it and hidden there undetected for years.
That alone was astonishing.
While Ling Yunxiao was still pondering how Shen Lijun had accomplished it, Lou Yuqing suddenly began calculating aloud.
"Let me think... Cultivation room number 536 costs ten spirit stones per day. Three hundred sixty-five days a year... multiplied by three years..."
Her eyes widened slowly. "That's over ten thousand spirit stones! In other words—Shen Lijun saved that much money?!"
Lou Yuqing stared at the puppet with the horrified admiration of someone witnessing an inhuman monster.
Even in puppet form, Shen Lijun could practically feel the scorching intensity of her gaze.
At the same time, more and more eyes in the hall turned toward him.
The atmosphere instantly soured.
Jealousy truly distorted people's expressions.
Everyone looked ready to cough up blood from envy.
Three years of free cultivation room access...
Even the laziest disciple could have advanced tremendously with that kind of opportunity.
How the hell had Shen Lijun managed it?!
Shen Lijun: "..."
He felt wronged.
He desperately wanted to jump up and defend himself.
It wasn't continuous use, alright?!
He took breaks too!
If he cultivated twenty-four hours a day without pause, even he would go insane. He wasn't trying to become some cave-dwelling hermit monster.
Unfortunately, Shen Lijun didn't dare wake up.
He genuinely feared the crowd might drown him alive in spit.
So he continued lying there with his eyes tightly shut, stubbornly pretending nothing was happening.
As if refusing to face reality could somehow delay the inevitable.
Meanwhile, Lou Yuqing blinked in surprise at the next line of information.
[The reason Shen Lijun managed to freeload in the cultivation rooms was because the protective formation malfunctioned.]
A sharp glint flashed through Ling Yunxiao's eyes.
Just as he suspected.
Under normal circumstances, no disciple could possibly exploit the cultivation room formations.
Only a malfunction could have created such a loophole.
Which raised another question—was only room 536 affected?
Or were there other cultivation rooms with similar problems?
Si Nidie also stiffened slightly and instinctively glanced toward Wei Houming.
Although the Enforcement Hall wasn't responsible for maintaining the formation arrays, with Captain Wei's temperament, there was no way he would ignore something this serious.
Sure enough, Wei Houming frowned coldly as he looked at Shen Lijun, who was still pretending to be unconscious.
When faced with a problem, this disciple's first instinct hadn't been to report it to the sect—it had been to exploit it.
Were the sect's disciples becoming this morally questionable nowadays?
For a moment, even Wei Houming began wondering whether the sect's teachings had gone terribly astray.
Sensing the increasingly icy aura radiating from him, the Enforcement Hall disciples immediately lowered their heads obediently.
The rest of the hall quieted down as well.
At that exact moment, Lou Yuqing suddenly looked up thoughtfully.
[Why is everyone suddenly so quiet?]
A chill swept through the crowd.
Wei Houming reacted instantly. He coughed lightly and ordered in a calm voice, "Send a team to inspect cultivation room 536 immediately. Report back the moment you find anything unusual."
Several Enforcement Hall disciples stepped forward at once.
"Yes, Captain!"
Internally, however-
Sigh... we were being forced to leave halfway through the gossip.
Painful.
Absolutely painful.
Sadly, no matter how unwilling they were, nobody dared disobey Wei Houming's orders.
Once the group departed, the hall fell silent again.
The remaining disciples weren't in a hurry to leave.
From Lou Yuqing's perspective, that was perfectly normal.
Everyone was obviously waiting for the investigation results.
And since they were already here anyway, they might as well stay and watch the entire drama unfold.
Completely unsuspecting, Lou Yuqing happily continued reading.
[Three years ago, a malfunction had occurred within the cultivation room formation, causing the spiritual energy inside the caves to thin drastically.]
[All disciples cultivating there were forced to stop midway.]
[The sect immediately summoned an array master to repair the formation. Two hours later, everything returned to normal, and the sect even compensated the disciples for the lost cultivation time.]
[Originally, this should have been the perfect resolution. But somehow—everyone left except Shen Lijun.]
[Because during the incident... he had fallen into an exceptionally deep sleep.]
[A sleep so profound that he never even noticed the spiritual energy had disappeared.]
Lou Yuqing paused.
Everyone: "..."
Shen Lijun: "..."
Did this man have no dignity at all?
The atmosphere turned indescribably strange.
Si Nidie sighed emotionally. Even pigs don't sleep this soundly.
Fortunately, Shen Lijun couldn't hear her thoughts.
Otherwise, he probably would've died of embarrassment on the spot.
Wei Houming's gaze flickered faintly.
He remembered that incident clearly.
Afterward, the sect had changed the cultivation room inspection schedule from once every three months to once every month specifically to prevent accidents like that from happening again.
So what exactly had happened afterward that allowed Shen Lijun to continue absorbing spiritual energy for three entire years?
Very quickly, Lou Yuqing's thoughts supplied the answer.
[During the formation repair process, Shen Lijun remained inside the array.]
[Possibly because of that, after he woke up, his body underwent certain changes.]
[His skin became identical to the iron-sand puppets in the cultivation rooms, carrying the same metallic sheen.]
[He also gained a puppet's regenerative traits. No matter how badly he was beaten, he would recover back to normal.]
Wei Houming: "..."
Utter nonsense.
Absolute nonsense.
And yet somehow—it was real.
Meanwhile, completely unaware of the mental chaos she was causing, Lou Yuqing continued reading with great enthusiasm.
[At first, Shen Lijun was terrified.]
Hearing that, many disciples looked toward him sympathetically.
That reaction was understandable.
Anyone would panic after waking up and discovering they'd turned into a puppet.
What if he could never change back?
Would he spend the rest of his life looking like that?
Then Lou Yuqing's thoughts shifted again.
[However, Shen Lijun quickly calmed down after discovering he could freely switch between human and puppet forms.]
[More importantly, while in puppet form, he could pass through the cultivation room restrictions without triggering the formations.]
[And so... a very bold idea was born.]
Everyone instantly understood what that "bold idea" was.
The sympathy they had just developed vanished immediately.
Three years.
Three full years of stolen cultivation room usage.
Their hearts hurt all over again.
Damn it.
Give back their sympathy!
Shen Lijun continued lying there silently.
Playing dead to the very end.
Not far away, Ling Yunxiao's eyes darkened thoughtfully.
The power of a formation array allowing someone to gain abilities out of thin air...
It sounded deeply illogical.
His gaze unconsciously drifted toward Lou Yuqing, wanting to hear more explanation—only to suddenly stop on her face.
Her cheeks were pale pink beneath the hall lights, soft and delicate like ripe peaches hanging from spring branches.
Ling Yunxiao's eyes lingered for half a second longer than intended.
Lou Yuqing remained completely unaware.
She simply continued flipping through the panel.
[When Shen Lijun first infiltrated the cultivation rooms, he was extremely nervous.]
[He chose room 990 near the foot of the mountain. However, because he was hidden within the formation itself, the disciple renting the room never noticed him until cultivation ended.]
[Later, Shen Lijun became dissatisfied with the cultivation speed there and secretly moved to rooms halfway up the mountain.]
[After a few more days, he started sneaking even closer to the summit.]
[Then one day, an array master happened to inspect the area and noticed something strange.]
[Shen Lijun was terrified out of his mind.]
[Fortunately, the array master never discovered him.]
[After that incident, Shen Lijun never dared approach the summit-level cultivation rooms again.]