I risked my life, using the butterfly effect to shatter the immortal realm.

hum-

The rusty sword on his back trembled, its crimson rust contracting and expanding, each pulsation drawing a trace of coolness away from Yu Liang's translucent palm.

That wasn't cold, that was fate.

"Stop looking."

Gu Santong took a swig of strong liquor, his cloudy old eyes fixed on the sword.

"It's drinking your 'existence.' If you don't find it some new 'cause and effect' to fill its belly within twelve hours, you'll be turning into a human skin kite."

Yu Liang raised his left hand, and the sunlight pierced through his palm without any obstruction, even the lines on his palm disappeared.

The life he was saved by his senior classmates' "pressure" was only temporary.

This sword helped him deceive Tianjizi, and now he's starting to collect interest.

"Su Xiu".

The abacus beads clattered and clicked.

The girl didn't even raise her head:

"Don't shout. We have no money. Zizhu Peak is in a deficit of 30,000. Even Ah Tuo's budget for tomorrow's rotten vegetable leaves has been cut. If you want meat, cut off your thigh—oh, you don't have any meat now."

Su Xiu raised her head, her eyes red-rimmed, staring intently at Yu Liang's illusory legs.

They are poor but have a legitimate reason to be so.

Yu Liang floated in mid-air and touched his non-existent chin: "No meat, but dignity."

He instructed Pigsy to retrieve a sack of photographic stones and a stack of IOUs from under the bed:

"During the pink poisonous fog, those outer sect disciples who came to scavenge for scraps went quite mad. Butler Su, tell me, how much would a cultivator from a reputable sect be willing to pay to buy back the memory of hugging a sow and calling her 'wife'?"

The sound of the abacus abruptly stopped.

Su Xiu stared at the photo-recording stone, her pupils instantly focusing into square-holed copper coins: "Starting price, five hundred. If it's even one coin less, I'll print it into a picture book and set up a stall down the mountain."

"Show some attention to detail." Yu Liang snapped his fingers silently. "Master Pig, let's get started."

……

Outer gate study.

The light dimmed suddenly, and a pinkish shadow blocked the window.

Pig Lord once again transformed into an inflated posture, allowing Yu Liang to ride on him.

Unable to touch the object, Yu Liang instructed Pig Master to fart towards the disciple rubbing his temples inside the room.

"Hmph."

The disciple looked up and saw a semi-transparent figure sitting cross-legged on the pig's back, its lower body vanishing like smoke. He immediately screamed, "A ghost!!"

"Calm down." Yu Liang raised his hand and pressed down, his highly recognizable face instantly reminding his disciple of the fear of the "Naked Immortal".

"I am your creditor." Yu Liang floated into the room, hovering three feet off the ground. "Your forehead is dark, your eyes are lifeless. Did you dream last night that you turned into a toad seeking a mate?"

The disciple's face turned deathly pale: "How did you know?!"

Actually, it's the hallucinogenic residue from Pigsy's farts.

"That's cause and effect." Yu Liang flicked his finger, and the image from the memory stone was projected onto the white wall.

Despite the noise, it was clear that this junior brother, who usually prided himself on being a playboy, was tightly hugging a large, moss-covered rock, pouting and kissing it wildly, while mumbling indistinct love words.

There was a group of people watching nearby, pointing and commenting.

There are even close-up shots.

The disciple's mouth gaped open, and his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

Social death.

This was a top-tier social death scene, enough to make him commit suicide out of shame and shatter his Daoist heart.

"This...this is an illusion! This is a smear!"

The disciple jumped up, his face turning a deep purplish-red. "How could I, a mere ninth-level Qi Refining cultivator, possibly..."

"This stone is the illegitimate daughter of the mountain god of Zizhu Peak."

Yu Liang said in a serious tone, "You have blasphemed the gods. According to the rules, this is called 'outrage by both gods and men.' At best, you will be unlucky for three years; at worst, you will be impotent for life."

The disciple froze.

What is the most feared thing in the cultivation world?

It's not death, it's getting entangled in some inexplicable cause and effect.

Especially those that sound really weird.

"Then... what should we do?" The disciple's voice trembled.

"Spend money to avoid disaster." Yu Liang pointed to the image-recording stone. "Five hundred spirit stones for 'mental correction fees,' and I'll help you cut off this karmic ties."

The disciple's face twitched with pain, and Yu Liang pretended to take back the recording stone: "Don't believe me? Then I'll post it in the Mission Hall and let everyone judge..."

"No! I'll pay!"

The disciple knelt down with a thud, pouring out a pile of spirit stones. "Master, save me!"

Yu Liang rolled up his sleeve, and the spirit stone passed through his body and fell into Su Xiu's arms outside the house.

Su Xiu made a mark on the ledger and nodded in confirmation.

"Deal reached."

Yu Liang put away the photo stone. "Go back and set up a 'Stone God' tablet, burn three sticks of incense every day, and pray for peace."

For the play to be logically complete, it has to be a full performance.

The disciple kowtowed repeatedly, feeling a surge of emotion at having survived a calamity.

……

The same scenario played out more than three hundred times in the outer gate.

Yu Liang is like a hardworking harvester.

"Junior brother, did you dream of swimming like a frog in a mud puddle yesterday? That's a calamity of 'three thousand weak waters,' meaning you'll lose money."

"Junior sister, the scene of you hugging the pig leg and calling out 'my love' was so touching. It's a love that transcends species, but you still have to pay a 'cross-species fee'."

"Senior brother, your sword-wielding technique that involves flying through thin air and crashing into a wall is a sign of mastering 'Iron Head Skill.' Paying a 'Tax of Enlightenment' isn't unreasonable, is it?"

The "Dignity Recovery Program" at Zizhu Peak is being implemented with great enthusiasm.

The outer disciples experienced both pain and joy.

Although their wallets were empty, everyone felt that they had bought peace of mind and eliminated potential dangers. Some even felt that they had truly grasped something extraordinary.

As one "hush money" contract after another was signed, and as one absurd reason after another was accepted by the other party, Yu Liang sensed a change.

Those causal threads that were about to dissipate were forcibly tied back into him.

Every transaction is a tiny "logical fraud".

He defined "social death" as "calamity" and "extortion" as "passing through tribulation".

Once the other party believes it, the world has no choice but to accept it.

A warm current rose from the soles of my feet.

Yu Liang lowered his head.

The left leg, which had been like smoke, was rapidly becoming solid.

Muscle lines became visible, skin gained luster, and the soles of his shoes made a crisp "click" sound as they stepped on the bluestone slabs.

It has been materialized.

Although it only has one leg.

Zheng—

The rusty sword on his back emitted a satisfied hum, and a piece of rust peeled off the hilt, revealing a dark gold inscription: Greed.

The handwriting was twisted and grotesque, exuding an evil aura that seemed to devour the heavens and earth.

"Greedy One..." Yu Liang touched the character, his fingertips stinging. "Pretty good, birds of a feather flock together."

"Next," Su Xiu urged. "We still need three thousand tents. Let's get them thinking about this before it gets dark."

Yu Liang nodded and directed Pigsy to float towards the last courtyard.

This courtyard is very remote, overgrown with weeds, and has a musty smell of being forgotten by the world.

The disciple living here is named Zhao Si, and he's an inconspicuous nobody.

When Yu Liang drifted in, Zhao Si was squatting in the corner, holding a dark, sticky lump in his hand, eating it with relish.

That's... medicine dregs.

The dregs from the failed alchemy at Dan Ding Peak had a burnt smell and were highly toxic.

If a normal person eats it, it will cause diarrhea, or even reverse the flow of qi in the body; in severe cases, it can lead to sudden death.

But this kid ate it like he was eating braised pork.

Yu Liang's prepared lines of deception were stuck in his throat.

He squinted.

At this distance and from this angle, through the "causal vision" granted by the rusty sword, he saw something different.

The top of Zhao Si's head.

That "black line" connecting to the depths of the sky was fainter than the others.

So faint as to be almost invisible.

Yu Liang's heart skipped a beat.

He had seen everyone in the sect in the square before, and they all had that damned line above their heads, connected to that huge vortex of the breeding farm.

That's a sign of being domesticated.

But why is this kid's line broken and intermittent?

Yu Liang drifted closer.

After finishing the medicine residue, Zhao Si let out a burp.

A plume of black smoke, carrying a nauseating toxicity, emerged from the burp.

As black smoke billowed out, the already faint black line above his head flickered again, becoming even fainter, and for a moment it even broke completely.

Yu Liang's pupils suddenly contracted.

Waste pills?

toxin?

Could it be that……

How could this discarded medicinal residue, which is considered trash and highly toxic in the cultivation world, interfere with the signal transmission of that "breeding farm mark"?

If that's the case...

Yu Liang looked at the rusty sword in his hand engraved with the word "greed," and then at Zhao Si, who had a mouthful of black teeth and a silly grin on his face.

A crazy idea exploded in his mind, like a lightning bolt splitting the chaos.

This is not medicine residue.

This is clearly a key to escape from prison!

"Feed," Yu Liang said, his tone more amiable than ever before.

Zhao Si was so frightened that his hand trembled, and the clump of dark medicine residue fell to the ground: "Don't...don't hit me."

"Brother, is this medicine residue... tasty?" Yu Liang hopped over on one leg, his eyes like those of the Big Bad Wolf seeing Little Red Riding Hood.

"It's bitter..." Zhao Si shrank his neck, his eyes darting around, "but it's enough to fill you up."

"That's the right thing to do," Yu Liang patted his shoulder, his hand making a firm sound. "This is called 'no pain, no gain.'"

Just as Yu Liang was preparing to further employ his deceptive tactics to recruit this "garbage-eating talent" into his ranks.

The rusty sword on his back suddenly began to tremble violently without warning.

Om-!

This tremor was different from the past; it was no longer the chilling force that drained Yu Liang's life force, but rather it carried a certain...

They were as excited and fervent as starving ghosts seeing a Manchu Han Imperial Feast.

"What's going on?" Yu Liang's heart skipped a beat, and he subconsciously gripped the hilt of his sword.

But he simply couldn't control it.

The dark red rust pulsed wildly, like living blood vessels, and an invisible wave rippled outwards from Yu Liang's center in an instant.

"Why?"

Su Xiu, who was counting the spirit stones nearby, suddenly exclaimed in surprise.

The low-grade spirit stone she was holding, covered in mud and grime, vanished in an instant, like a peeled egg. The mud, impurities, and even the tiny flaws inside the stone evaporated into thin air.

All that remained was a smooth, crystal-clear stone, almost too pure.

"This..." Su Xiu's eyes widened, and before she could even feel happy, she heard a crisp cracking sound.

The spirit stone, having lost the supporting structure of impurities, shattered into powder.

"My money!" Su Xiu screamed.