2. The Familiar Prejudice

"Huh? Is this a gaming world?"
"It feels so realistic!"
Yu Youxin tilted her little face, looking at the surrounding scenery, unable to help feeling a bit dazed.

The development style here was somewhat similar to the Spirit Realm. Towering skyscrapers were everywhere, the ground was entirely paved with concrete, and many people dressed in the Spirit Realm fashion style walked along the streets, accompanied by streams of vehicles.

Yet there was one exception: cultivators flying through the upper air.

This left Yu Youxin quite puzzled. Clearly, in her perception, the spiritual energy here was extremely abundant; logically speaking, the presence of cultivators was to be expected.

"Oh right, this isn't the Spirit Realm after all, it's just a game!" Yu Youxin snapped back to her senses immediately. She had been lost in thought for too long, falling into habitual thinking patterns.

Just then, Yu Youxin suddenly spotted a flustered-looking man rushing hurriedly out of a building.

As Yu Youxin looked at him, she could clearly perceive a faint trace of deadly resentment lingering on the man.

This was something that only materialized on those who had just died.
Usually, it would only appear on the murderer. Additionally, there was a very slim probability of it appearing on someone the deceased had loved the most, or hated the most, during their lifetime.

Driven by curiosity, Yu Youxin walked into that building.

There were hardly any people inside the structure, seemingly because it had been abandoned for some time. As soon as she stepped inside, she was hit by a wave of bloody stench rushing toward her face.

Following the trail of the bloody odor, she searched all the way until she finally discovered a mutilated corpse down in the basement.

This bloody and stimulating scene instantly left Yu Youxin's little face blank with bewilderment.

"Is this the retro game Mom was talking about?"
"And besides, can this game really be called a healing game?"
"Have past games always been this deceptive with their titles?"

Yu Youxin muttered to herself under her breath, clearly unable to comprehend this. How on earth was this scene healing? Could it be that her mother had always harbored some misunderstanding about what a healing game truly was?

She couldn't help tilting her head slightly to think it over carefully. Then, she recalled her grandmother once saying that when her mother was young, she was a notoriously mischievous troublemaker across dozens of villages, bullying others by virtue of her formidable cultivation talent, until she eventually got married and had her. Only then did she straighten out, stopping her wild ways and settling down peacefully to become a law enforcement elder within a sect.

"That settles it! This probably isn't the healing game I imagined, but it's the exact same kind of healing game Mom understands!"

Yu Youxin quickly arrived at a conclusion that might prompt Madam Yu, should she ever find out, to resolutely resolve to give her precious child a sound thrashing.

At that moment, Yu Youxin saw the eyes of the corpse suddenly snap open. Those eyes, devoid of any remaining vitality, stared fixedly at her.

This sub-consciously made Yu Youxin reach for the hilt of her sword, before she realized she was inside a game.

To her surprise, however, her sword actually manifested!

"Eh?"

Yu Youxin was utterly shocked. She had actually managed to draw her own sword within a gaming world!

Although this was merely an ordinary sword that could be purchased on the market, having accompanied her for so long and being nourished by her sword Qi, this mundane blade had long since become spiritually attuned, second to no family-inherited magical treasure.

Therefore, Yu Youxin was categorically certain she wasn't mistaken.

"Could it be that this is a healing game, one that uses a method akin to illusion to make me happy within my own mind?"

Preoccupied by this preconceived notion, Yu Youxin inevitably drew such a conclusion.

Just like someone from back in the day.
Equally trapped by preconceptions, even when that place had long since been riddled with flaws and loopholes, he had never once harbored any doubts.

Having arrived at this conclusion, Yu Youxin instantly recovered her habitual boldness. With a trace of small delight, she even walked right up to the corpse and locked eyes with that pair of wide-open, dead eyes.

A moment later, that pair of dead eyes, unable to bear the pressure any longer, closed first.

"Is that it?"

Yu Youxin couldn't help curling her little lips in mild disappointment. She had even drawn her sword for this?

With that, she walked back out, paying no more attention to the corpse.

After stepping outside, Yu Youxin discovered that this place was far more chaotic than she had imagined. From time to time, she spotted people carrying a faint trace of deadly resentment, and near those individuals, she could almost always find a corpse that had not been dead for long, some of which had even undergone corpse transformation.

She couldn't help looking up at the sky, only to see an obscure force shrouding the heavens and suppressing the spiritual energy. It affected the temperament of the people here, infinitely magnifying their bloodthirsty and irritable emotions. Yet at the same time, this obscure force was also suppressing those ghosts and monsters.

Logically speaking, corpses that had already shown signs of corpse transformation could already be considered ghosts and monsters. However, under the suppression of this obscure force, those transformed corpses only exhibited slightly unusual and eerie phenomena, utterly incapable of harming anyone, let alone turning into vengeful spirits after death to seek retaliation.

"Such a suffocating feeling, as if several massive boulders are pressing down on my heart, almost driving people to a breakdown," Yu Youxin said thoughtfully.

Following that, she began to grow genuinely interested in this healing game.

Because this anomaly was clearly expounding upon a certain Dao, and even faintly resonated with her own Sword Dao.

"Is this the immortal inheritance Mom talked about?"

Yu Youxin immediately brightened up, and grasping her sword, she began wandering around to search. She wanted to see if she could find a place to "test her sword" here!

Although her talent in the Sword Dao was formidable—perhaps not daring to claim unprecedented and unmatched through the ages, she still considered herself inferior to no Sword Dao immortal. Yet, from childhood until now, she had never truly unleashed the full might of her swordsmanship.

To be precise, she had never displayed the true extent of her Sword Dao!

This had always been a source of distress and helplessness for her.

Because other cultivators simply could not withstand it. If she were to display her Sword Dao at full strength, those cultivators would die, unless she sought out ancient cultivators who had lived for over a century—those regarded as living fossils left over from a bygone era.

However, those ancient cultivators were all exceptionally skilled in combat and slaughter. If they sparred, there was a real possibility of dying at the opponent's hands if one was not careful.

Ancient cultivators left over from the old era possessed no concept of pulling their punches, nor would they show mercy to anyone daring to provoke them.

After searching around without success, Yu Youxin was standing with a stern little face, narrowing her eyes to survey her surroundings, when she was suddenly accosted by a passing middle-aged woman.

It was a woman who looked like a friendly neighbor next door.
She wasn't pretty, but she smiled benevolently with a very amiable demeanor. Her very first impression was that she must be a good person.

After a brief exchange, the woman asked for directions.

Yu Youxin didn't know the way either.
Yet she felt that this proactive "NPC" must be looking to give her a quest, so she eagerly offered to lead the way for the woman.

Where was she leading her? She had no idea either, so she simply picked a random direction.

As she guided the way, Yu Youxin kept searching for a suitable place to test her sword, so the locations they passed became increasingly remote and desolate. Finally, as they passed by a mass grave, this woman who looked like a good person finally lost her patience and changed her face. With an irritated tone, she snapped, "I've hunted geese all day, only to be pecked in the eye by a goose. I thought you were just an innocent little girl, but who would've thought you were in the same line of work! If I hadn't come out here once before, I really would have fallen for your act!"

The more the woman spoke, the angrier she became, and the more profanities spilled from her mouth.

Yu Youxin grew angry.

With a flick of the long sword in her hand, sword Qi erupted, instantly startling the woman into a violent shudder. Her eyes filled with terror—so that sword wasn't just a decorative prop after all!

"What are you doing?" Yu Youxin asked, knitting her small brows.

"I... I am..."

Terrified, the woman quickly blurted out the truth.

Only then did Yu Youxin learn that this person was a human trafficker, specifically using this harmless-looking face to deceive young girls into guiding the way. Along the intended destination, her accomplices were stationed in hiding, ready to directly kidnap the young girl the moment the opportunity arose and they were away from prying eyes.

That was originally the woman's plan, but who could have expected that Yu Youxin was simply humoring her, wondering if she could trigger a quest, or failing that, having an "NPC" to chat with along the road didn't sound too bad either.

"What a disgusting NPC!"

Rage flared in Yu Youxin's large eyes, and with a single stroke of her sword, she executed the woman. The corpse was severed in two, the head sent flying far away, generating a wisp of deadly resentment that attached itself to Yu Youxin.

Yu Youxin glanced at this thread of deadly resentment, paying it no mind. After all, it caused no harm to humans and would naturally fade away and dissipate over time.

Of course, the most crucial reason was simply because she believed this was merely a game.
A healing game!

"Huh? It actually feels quite healing!" After executing a "human trafficker NPC" with a single sword strike, Yu Youxin suddenly found her thoughts exceptionally clear, and her entire body felt much more comfortable, as if a layer of dust had been swept from her soul.

"So this is how you're supposed to play this healing game!"

Convinced she had figured out the gameplay, Yu Youxin happily set off to find more "villainous NPCs." However, whether someone was truly a villain could not be judged solely by their appearance, so she began actively striking up conversations with those "NPCs."

Her first choice was an old man sitting by the roadside smoking a dry tobacco pipe.

"Old grandpa, do you know of any very eerie places around here?" Yu Youxin asked.

She merely wanted to use this opportunity to see if he was a slayers-worthy villain NPC. To her surprise, the old man tapped his tobacco pipe and chuckled, "I actually do know one."

"What kind of place?" Yu Youxin hadn't expected a pleasant surprise.

"A ghost village." A trace of reminiscent nostalgia flickered in the old man's eyes, and he slowly began to recount the tale.

It was a village that had been abandoned for a long time.
The reason the village had been deserted for so long was naturally because its inhabitants had long since vanished.

However, they hadn't simply packed up and moved away; they had all disappeared overnight! Not just the people, but even animals like chickens, ducks, and dogs were gone!

When a traveler happened to pass by the next day, they discovered an empty village. This discovery instantly excited the person, who immediately began searching for valuables and plotting ways to seize the land.

Yet, that person died not long after.

Their death did not cause much of a stir.
Meanwhile, other people discovered the long-abandoned village, and their fate mirrored the first finder—they all died.

Still, these deaths failed to draw much attention until a very prestigious local squire perished there.

Only then did people begin to pay attention to that village, and those who had visited it and died were finally discussed one by one.

Thus, no one dared to go there anymore. The village became a ghost village that struck terror into the hearts of everyone, and consequently, no more incidents occurred for a time.

Until later, a drunkard, heavily intoxicated and stumbling in a hazy state of mind, took a wrong turn and wandered into that village. There, he dug up a jar of aged Osmanthus wine that had been sealed for many years!

Osmanthus wine was usually brewed and buried upon the birth of a daughter, and typically dug up a decade or so later when the daughter married off.

Yet there were always exceptions.
If a girl met with an accident or suffered an unfortunate fate and passed away, that jar of Osmanthus wine would remain buried indefinitely.

Therefore, according custom, Osmanthus wine aged over twenty years carried ominous connotations.
And if wine aged fifty or even a hundred years was unearthed, it would demand far more than just one person's life.

The reason this village had transformed into an abandoned ghost village originated entirely from a single jar of century-old Osmanthus wine!

The jar dug up by that drunkard was naturally that very century-old Osmanthus wine.

Unaware of the danger, the drunkard took a gulp under the assault of the malevolent Qi, yet he didn't drop dead immediately; instead, he managed to stagger back home. When he woke up the next morning, the drunkard discovered that his family had vanished.

The drunkard didn't live in the village, but rather within the county town. So he asked his neighbors; the neighbors were aware of it, but claimed they had all been invited to drink his wedding wine, even asking him why he was still standing around at this hour instead of worrying about making a fool of himself!

Upon hearing this, the drunkard was naturally terrified.
He was getting married? Why on earth knew nothing about it?

Just as the drunkard was dazed and instinctively wanted to investigate, fortune favored him—he encountered a young man who called himself "Scholar Chen."

Here, a respectful address for a man was often his surname followed by the word "Scholar."

Consequently, no one suspected that "Scholar Chen" was the man's actual given name, instead mistaking it for a title of respect.

"What happened after he met Scholar Chen?" Seeing the old man pause his tale to puff on his tobacco pipe without continuing, Yu Youxin couldn't help urging him on.

"You little girl are so impatient, let this old man take another puff. Ah, whenever wine is mentioned, I get the urge to have a sip, but I can only hold back. Because if I drink again, this old man of mine won't have long to live..." Muttering to himself as if lost in thought for a while, the old man slowly narrowed his eyes amidst the rings of white smoke exhaled from his mouth, and then resumed his story.

"I just got to the part where the drunkard met a young man named Scholar Chen..."