Chapter 444: You're Seriously A Scumbag

Cizhen touched her lisp gently as she stared at Ye Guan running away. The brief kiss made her feel strange for some reason, even though it wasn't the first time She couldn't put a finger on the feeling's identity, but it was a strange feeling.

Moments later, Cizhen shook her head and smiled.

Meanwhile, Ye Guan was now in front of the strongest martial spirit. His momentum had increased significantly, perhaps due to his excitement and the fact that the strongest martial spirit didn't dare to be careless against Ye Guan.

The strongest martial spirit charged toward Ye Guan.

Crackle!

A deafening explosion reminiscent of booming thunder echoed. Then, both Ye Guan and the strongest martial spirit were blasted away.

Ye Guan started experimenting with executing two Heavenrends at once with the same number of stacks, which was basically the Space Overlap Cizhen had told him earlier. It wasn't that difficult for Ye Guan, as he had a good grasp of spacetime.

He just had to make sure that he was fast and strong enough.

Regardless, Ye Guan didn't succeed right away.

Bang!

A terrifying explosion echoed in the air, and the strongest martial spirit flew tens of kilometers away! The strongest martial spirit's figure became illusory. Ye Guan's attack just now had almost dispersed it outright.

Meanwhile, Ye Guan looked down at his sword with excitement. Stacking two instances of Heavenrend with the same stack resulted in an attack that was significantly more powerful than his previous method of executing Heavenrend.

It sounded absurd, but even the strongest martial spirit almost couldn't withstand it.

If I can stack two attacks, then I should be able to stack three.

Ye Guan thought, lips curling up into a smile. He then turned his attention to the strongest martial spirit and exclaimed, "Come! Let's do it again!"

Ye Guan wasted no time, transforming into a ray of sword light that made a beeline for the strongest martial spirit. The strongest martial spirit truly deserved to be called the strongest among the twelve martial spirits, as it remained undeterred and decided to face Ye Guan head-on.

He's going for more?

Cizhen's gaze revealed slight shock as she stared at Ye Guan. She had to admit that Ye Guan had truly impressed her in terms of talent and tenacity.

Ye Guan's aptitude for cultivation was shocking; his comprehension was extremely high, and he was capable of flawlessly using the techniques that he had learned even though he had just learned them.

Ye Guan became more and more excited as he fought. Ye Guan's profound energy recovery rate had increased dramatically after obtaining the True Tree, and the latter allowed him to become akin to a perpetual motion machine. He would never run out of profound energy, all thanks to the True Tree.

The True Tree was the reason he could keep on practicing the stacking method that Cizhen had suggested to him.

Ye Guan had another treethe Divine Tree of Nature's power, but he chose not to activate it, along with his bloodline power. Ye Guan wanted to see just how powerful he truly was without relying on his overpowered external tools.

Ye Guan proceeded to spend the next fifteen days fighting the strongest martial spirit.

Clang!

A noise similar to metal colliding against metal echoed, and the strongest martial spirit was blasted away. It flew for at least dozens of kilometers away, but the shocking part was that it was dissipating at a rate visible to the naked eye as it streaked across the sky.

Ye Guan had just executed three Heavenrends with eight hundred stacks each; he then merged them into one, creating an extremely powerful, fully concentrated sword slash.

𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Ye Guan was about to slash out with his sword when a wave of sharp pain interrupted him. He looked down at himself and saw what seemed like countless bloody wounds in his torso.

Ye Guan chuckled bitterly at the sight. He had succeeded in stacking three instances of Heavenrend with eight hundred stacks each, but his fleshly body had ended up suffering greatly as a result. Ye Guan reckoned that he could kill many enemies with that one sword move, but it would be tantamount to mutual destruction.

However, Ye Guan believed that it wouldn't be that big of a problem, as he had the Divine Tree of Nature, which would help him recover swiftly.

Ye Guan stared at the strongest martial spirit and saw that it had become extremely blurry. Ye Guan had finally defeated the strongest martial spirit, but the fact that it had taken him many days to defeat a mere spirit truly astonished him. The strongest martial spirit was indeed the strongest among the twelve martial spirits, as it actually managed to give him a hard time

Ye Guan believed that if the strongest martial spirit were a real person with a fleshly body rather than just a spirit, he would have failed to defeat it, even if he somehow managed to unleash a barrage of stacked Heavenrends at it.

Just then, Cizhen walked up to Ye Guan.

A mysterious smile hung on Cizhen's lips as she stared at Ye Guan.

Ye Guan blinked and asked, "What is it?"

"You kissed me last month," Cizhen said, sounding serious.

Ye Guan's expression froze.

It's been a month, and you still remember it?

Cizhen stared quietly at Ye Guan, seemingly waiting for his response.

Ye Guan hesitated for a while before saying, "That was just a special way of saying thank you"

"Do you honestly think I'll believe that?" Cizhen interrupted.

Ye Guan fell silent.

Cizhen was no longer smiling as she stared coldly at Ye Guan.

"Why don't I let you kiss me, too?" Ye Guan said. His words had yet to finish echoing in the air when he realized just how shameless he sounded, and the realization made his face grow hot.

Meanwhile, Cizhen merely stared at Ye Guan, and the sight made Ye Guan feel anxious. Ye Guan held her hand and tugged it gently, saying, "Are you angry at me?"

Cizhen's expression remained unchanging.

Ye Guan was about to say something else when Cizhen sighed and said, "What you've been doing is scummy."

Ye Guan looked down at his feet and replied, "I'm sorry. I just got too excited, so I"

"I'm not talking about that," Cizhen interrupted.

Ye Guan stared at Cizhen in confusion.

"You've already kissed me, so why are you still hiding it?" Cizhen asked.

Ye Guan was taken aback.

"You were daring enough to kiss me, so how come you don't have the courage to acknowledge it? Do you really think that a true man will kiss someone without acknowledging that it happened?

"I noticed that you're always indecisive when it comes to matters of the heart, and you tend to avoid facing your true feelings.

"I even noticed you acting like you're clueless, which is actually pretty bad. I mean, think about it: will a true man take advantage of someone and then pretend that it never even happened just to avoid taking responsibility?

"Do you really think that a true man will do that?"

Ye Guan lowered his head and chose to remain silent.

"Look at me!" Cizhen shouted, sounding solemn as she continued, "Men are expected to have numerous wives, and it's also not a strange sight to see powerful women having multiple husbands.

"Once you're strong enough, you will never have any issues finding partners for yourself. I don't really care about what you're going to do in the future, but I feel like I have the obligation to tell you that what you've been doing is scummy.

"Yes, scummyyou're seriously a scumbag."

Ye Guan was at an utter loss for words.

"You're handsome with an invincible family background. Your personality is great, and you're incredibly generous with women. In other words, women easily fall for you. And what have you been doing in response? You've done nothing but take advantage of women and playing dumb afterward to avoid taking responsibility, which would always leave the women hanging," Cizhen explained.

Then, Cizhen shook her head and added, "In other words, you're the kind of man who takes neither initiative nor responsibility, but you never reject the advances of any woman."

Ye Guan's head drooped from his shoulders as he stared at his feet.

"You're like someone who engages in certain

'activities'

but still strives to maintain an image of virtuousness. To put it bluntly, I would say that you're a hypocrite. It's even worse because you're a swordsman.

"Do you really think that you've been behaving like a swordsman? I wanted you to come to this conclusion yourself, but I realized that you still haven't figured it out, even after such a long time. You're still pretending to be dumb."

Ye Guan was quiet.

"Angry?" Cizhen asked.n(0)vel(b)(j)(n)was the platform where this chapter was initially revealed on N0v3l.B1n.

Ye Guan shook his head. "No."

Cizhen smiled and explained, "I went on this tirade because I want you to understand that a true man must be decisive in whatever he does. If you can't stay devoted to one woman, then so be it, but you have to be at least straightforward with your intentions. If she likes you, and you like her too, then be decisive and don't string them along. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

Ye Guan nodded. "I understand."

"Do you

really

understand?"

Ye Guan nodded once again.

"Then, why did you kiss me?" Cizhen asked.

Ye Guan hurriedly explained, "I was just really happy back then, so I ended up kissing you unknowingly. I wasn't thinking too much about it."

Cizhen revealed a mysterious smile.

Ye Guan felt a sense of foreboding upon seeing that.

"I really wasn't thinking too much about it," Ye Guan explained, sounding solemn.

"I didn't say anything," Cizhen replied. Then, she turned to the martial spirits in the distance and said, "Go ahead and keep sparring with them. Those martial spirits have a ton of experience when it comes to combat; you'll learn a lot from them."

"Okay," Ye Guan said, nodding. He then turned around and started walking toward the martial spirits. However, he had just taken two steps when he stopped in his tracks and turned to face Cizhen.

"Thank you, Sister Zhen," said Ye Guan.

Cizhen smiled. "For what?"

"Thank you for helping me understand many things. No one has ever really guided me until I met you. You're right. I've been acting dumb all this while. I've been avoiding my true feelings as well, and it's the reason I almost lost someone I loved."

"It's never going to happen again," Ye Guan said, shaking his head.

"Everyone makes mistakes. I've made many mistakes myself. It's good enough that you've acknowledged your mistakes and that you're willing to address them," Cizhen replied.

"Okay!" Ye Guan exclaimed with a grin.

With that, Ye Guan turned around and rushed toward the martial spirits in the distance.

Cizhen smiled as she watched him go.

Ye Guan spent the next few days fighting the martial spirits. The martial spirits were extremely strong, especially now that Ye Guan was fighting them at the same time.

As a result, Ye Guan had to give his all, but he was having a great time.

Meanwhile, Cizhen quietly observed Ye Guan's battles against the martial spirits. She would occasionally give him some pointers, allowing Ye Guan to grow by leaps and bounds.

Ye Guan grew so much that even Cizhen was stupefied. It turned out that Ye Guan was more talented than she initially thought. In addition, he wasn't the type to shy away from hardships.

There were many times when he had to quietly eat the knuckle sandwiches that the martial spirits had served to him, but Ye Guan simply gnashed his teeth and obediently ate the sandwiches without getting discouraged.

Astonishingly, Ye Guan grew even stronger the more he fought them.

And just like that, another month passed. The eleven martial spirits still had the upper hand against Ye Guan, but they could no longer beat him up. Ye Guan's fleshly body had gotten strong enough for him to fight back.

Of course, Ye Guan was more than capable of defeating the eleven martial spirits, but he had to activate his bloodline power to do that.

Another month passed, and under Cizhen's guidance, Ye Guan became strong enough to fight on equal terms against the eleven martial spirits. However, the eleven martial spirits were really strong, and their teamwork didn't allow Ye Guan to kill even one of them.

Just then, Cizhen appeared next to Ye Guan when he was about to slash out with his sword. Cizhen was smiling as she said, "That's enough."

Ye Guan looked at her and nodded. "All right."

Ye Guan readily agreed, as he also felt like he had finally reached his limits. To defeat them, he would have to activate his bloodline power.

Cizhen smiled and led him away. The two reappeared in the outside world, and the old man immediately rushed toward them.

"How much time has passed over here?"

Cizhen smiled. "It's only been a few hours."

Ye Guan was stunned by the revelation.

Only a few hours? Can Sister Zhen reverse the flow time?

"Look at the sky!" Cizhen exclaimed.

Ye Guan looked up, and his heart was overwhelmed by shock.