Chapter 1
2019, May 20th, Monday.
The end of spring and the start of summer.
During this period, the day and night temperature in Jiangnan District fluctuated drastically. During the day, one would sweat buckets in thin clothing, but during the night, one would tremble under even a thick blanket.
Jiangnan College Town.
At 2:30 pm in the afternoon, students should attend classes, and yet Song Shuhang was alone in the dormitory with his laptop set on the desk next to him, allowing him to watch movies while in bed.
Song Shuhang wasn’t someone fond of skipping lessons. The weather yesterday during the first half of the night was extremely hot and stuffy, resulting in him executing a ‘Dragon Roaring Kick’ and making the quilt fly away; in the latter half of the night, the temperature dropped sharply, and Shuhang who only had small underpants on him had suffered. During his sleep, both his hands were strenuously groping about in search for his blanket, but alas, he was unable to find it, shrinking like a shrimp and trembling under the tyrannical cold night wind.
When the sun rose, he had already become a member of the seasonal flu army. His roommate had helped him apply for leave for the day’s lessons; afterwards, he took some cold medicine before sleeping until now.
Although his fever had subsided, his body still felt weak and he was not in a proper state to attend lessons. Therefore, he could only stay in the dormitory alone and watch movies.
On the screen, the movie slowly played on, but Song Shuhang could not focus well on its contents.
“Hasn’t the medicine’s effect faded yet? I’m tired…” he yawned and felt his eyelids getting heavier.
“Beep Beep Beep~” Just then, the chat software on tray on his laptop screen came alive.
This sound was a notification that someone added him as friend or invited him to a group chat.
“Who added me?” Song Shuhang muttered while reaching out and touching the lower right corner of his screen gently. Immediately after, a message prompt popped out.
[True Monarch Yellow Mountain (*****) sends you a friend request.] Additional message: None.
True Monarch Yellow Mountain? Who used such a strange nickname?
‘A classmate I guess?’ Song Shuhang quietly thought and couldn’t help but recall a few of his classmates that were obviously already in university, but seemed to still be in their youth fantasy period. Guessing from their behavior, they would definitely be capable of coming up with such strange nicknames.
After reasoning with himself, he then pressed “Accept”.
Shortly after, another notification popped out.
[True Monarch Yellow Mountain has invited you to join the group ‘Nine Provinces Number One Group, do you accept?]
Song Shuhang accepted once more.
‘Stressed by a Mountain of Books has agreed to join the ‘Nine Provinces Number One Group’.
[You have joined the group chat, do say hello to the other group members! ?] A smiley face was even attached by the system.
Nowadays, chat software was definitely getting more and more human-like.
After a series of notifications, Song Shuhang decided to turn off the notifications and the group chat window— with a sudden surge of drowsiness washing over him, where would he have the strength to care about the chat group he was invited to?
In any case, his default group settings had been set up as [Don’t display notifications, only show group chat message number]. This meant that there would not be any notification prompts disturbing him and only the number of unread messages would be displayed beside the chat.
When he was more clear-headed, he could scroll the chat history to find out what type of chat group he was invited to. Also, the chat history of the members in the group would not disappear.
He felt his eyelids getting heavier…
Despite the movie streaming continuously, Song Shuhang’s consciousness was getting more and more fuzzy.
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Noticing a new member has been added to the Nine Provinces Number One Group, the lurking members emerged.
Northern River’s Loose Cultivator: “Did True Monarch Yellow Mountain invite a new fellow friend? Hasn’t it been a year since a new member joined us?”
Another member with the ID of ‘Su Clan’s Seven’ quickly replied, “There’s a new fellow daoist? Is he from Mt Hua? Where’s the immortal cave he’s cultivating in? What’s his dao name? Which stage of cultivation is he at?”
Why did this series of questions sound fishy?
Simultaneously, a user with the ID ‘Thrice Reckless Mad Saber wrote’, “What’s the gender of our new fellow daoist? Are you a fairy? If so, please announce your three sizes and upload a photo!”
Looking at Su Clan’s Seven and Thrice Reckless Mad Saber’s messages, many of the lurking members within the group felt their mouths twitch.
“Brother Thrice Reckless, do you belong to a goldfish species or something?” Northern River’s Loose Cultivator sighed. “What if True Monarch Yellow Mountain had invited another senior? You may bring disaster upon yourself once again!”
Thrice Reckless… this fella was good in every aspect, being a loyal person and eager to help others, thus his relations with others were pretty good—it was just that his uncouth tongue would pack him into life and death situations.
Unfortunately, this fella was so unlucky that it made one have goosebumps. The timing didn’t matter—whenever he was reckless, he had always offended big seniors. These seniors who were all lacking in entertainment would naturally be happy to kill some time by torturing Thrice Reckless Mad Saber who sent himself right to their doorstep.
“I beg you, do not to mention the word ‘big senior’… it is a traumatic experience that still haunts me,” Thrice Reckless Mad Saber sent a row of ???.
Four years ago, he had offended a beautiful ‘big senior’ with his stupid mouth and got tortured really badly… that senior had tormented him non-stop for one year and four months. Yes, that’s right, a total of one year and four months! Thinking back to his extremely inhumane years, his eyes started to tear up.
Just when Thrice Reckless finished talking, the group members all sent a ? one by one—not at all concealing, but instead openly rejoicing at his misfortune.
There were eight members whose status was ‘online’ within the chat, and six of them had sent a sent a row of smiley faces.
“You bunch of schadenfreude as*holes, this lord has remembered every one of you. Don’t even let me meet you, or else I shall let you to have a taste of my Seventy-Two Swift Saber Strikes!” Thrice Reckless Mad Saber grudgingly replied. He was confident in his swift saber and the six fellas who were laughing weren’t his opponents in a one-on-one fight.
Just when Thrice Reckless Mad Saber finished talking, another ? appeared within the group. It was Su Clan’s Seven who sent it.
Shortly after, Su Clan’s Seven excitedly said, “When are we having the duel?”
Evidently, Su Clan’s Seven hadn’t actually wanted to rejoice at his misfortune—he’d just wanted an opponent for a fight.
“…” Thrice Reckless Mad Saber instantly lost his spirit.
Why? Because he couldn’t win against Seven!
He had a profound cultivation base, having reached the late stage of Fifth Stage Spiritual Emperor Realm, just two steps away from becoming a Sixth Stage True Monarch. However, he was unable to defeat Seven.
Despite having his fast and fierce Seventy-Two Swift Saber Strikes, along with a lightning fast footwork , he was still unable to win against him.
He was called mad saber, and even he himself was afraid of his angry self. But even then, he was really no match for Seven!
After seeing Thrice Reckless losing his momentum, the members within the group sent another wave of ???
“…” This time, Thrice Reckless Mad Saber could only depressingly send an ellipsis.
The group was puzzled—despite them making a din for half a day, the newcomer had yet to appear.
“Our new dao friend isn’t speaking?” Northern River Loose Cultivator asked.
Unfortunately, due to the medicine’s effect, Song Shuhang had once again entered a state of being half-sleep .
Just then, Su Clan’s Seven happily sent a message. “I just took a look, our new dao friend is named ‘Stressed by a Mountain of Books’. Has anyone heard of an expert with this dao name? His name seems as if he’s a member of the scholarly faction? It sure makes me look forward to it! After all, the location of that sect is hidden quite well. It has been a few hundred years since I’ve last had a fight with them! Thinking back, fighting them is more pleasurable than dueling buddhist monks. Not only do they have a glib tongue, their punches are powerful too! When they are in the mood, they would also heroically start reciting poems to liven things up, making it multiple times more fun! I love fighting with them the most.”
“Seven, are your expectations towards new dao friends only limited to having fun fighting with them?” Reckless Mad Saber sent a ?. This was basically an evil tyrant’s way of doing things!
“Erm.” Su Clan seven was slightly embarrassed.
Northern River’s Loose Cultivator said, “Could it be another ‘big senior’ that is unacquainted with such chat software??”
Having said that, apparently several people found this scene familiar?
That’s right, about four years ago there was another senior that came out after hundreds years of closed-door cultivation and only managed to open the messaging application with great difficulty. Then, she was invited by True Monarch Yellow Mountain into the group. However, she did not send any messages as she didn’t know how to type.
Afterwards, a fella named Thrice Reckless Mad Saber happily teased this big senior and requested for her three sizes, photos, voice chat, and such.
Subsequently.. a few days later, Thrice Reckless Mad Saber personally met this senior. She was very beautiful, as dazzling as the bright moon in the night sky.
Then, this alluring senior had tortured Thrice Reckless Mad Saber for one year and four months before she was perfectly satisfied and left.
Thrice Reckless Mad Saber was instantly overwhelmed and fell silent.
“Yellow Mountain?” Just then, someone with the ID ‘Medicine Master’ sent a message.
An unfathomable short message.
Luckily, everyone in the chat had long become accustomed to Medicine Master sending short messages—he was asking where True Monarch Yellow Mountain was.
The reason Medicine Master sent short messages wasn’t due to his lofty personality, but because he used only two fingers and handwriting pad to type, therefore his speed was extremely slow. Also, there was a higher chance of making typos in a long text, plus deleting and writing anew was simply painful. Therefore, Medicine Master had a habit of only sending short messages. Over time, Medicinal Master was then labeled as someone whose words were as rare as gold when he communicated with the rest.
“He went offline immediately after sending the invitation. Apparently, his darling monster dog had angrily ran away from his house again and True Monarch Yellow Mountain went to chase him. Taking care of that precious monster dog and coming online to add him to the group sure isn’t an easy task for True Monarch, he’s definitely super busy right now,” Northern River’s Loose Cultivator replied.
Medicine Master: ”…”
“We can only wait for the new dao friend to learn to use the chat software,” Su Clan’s seven sighed . They were all biased, thinking the new member was one of them.
The few members online weren’t entertained looking at how unresponsive the new dao friend was and went offline one after another.
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Around an hour later, Song Shuhang gradually woke up.
“I think someone had invited me to a group earlier on, the chat room’s name was… Nine Provinces Group?” He muttered quietly while opening the chat software; a window containing the chat room of Nine Provinces group popped up.
What exactly was this group?
Quickly, the chat history from an hour ago appeared before him.
Song Shuhang briefly skimmed through the messages.
Dao friend? Cave dwelling? Which stage of cultivation is he at?
There’s also seniors, True Monarch, this lord? Chasing after huge monster dog?
Different kinds of vocabulary coming out straight from Xianxia novels were used.
The way they spoke was also interesting—half ancient half modern, half plain and half serpentine. It gave the feeling of modern people attempting to converse using ancient dialects but their fundamentals in old language falling short, making it awkward while communicating.
“Pu~~” Song Shuhang laughed.
Looks like this was a group created for Xianxia enthusiasts?
Oh wait, this was absolutely not a normal Xianxia fan group!
Everyone within the group had picked a dao name for themselves and their dwelling was called a cultivation cave, while the administrator’s missing house pet had to be described as a huge monster dog that ran away from home. Not only that, some even professed to have not fought a member of scholarly faction for more than a century. In other words, those people were claiming that they’ve lived several hundred years or so?
Just by looking at this chat log brought about a feeling of shame and embarrassment.
‘This degree of infatuation has already reached the degree of suffering from chuunibyou . Ah, right, they’re a group specific to traditional Chinese xianxia,’ Song Shuhang secretly concluded.
It seemed that it was probably a gathering of chuunibyou fellas.
This was the first impression he had of the members in ‘Nine Provinces Number One Group’.
However, why would he be invited by them?
Song Shuhang was certain that True Monarch Yellow Mountain was not a classmate he knew and neither did he recognize him after looking at his profile.
Was he added by mistake?