The old man wasn’t the least bit open to discussion: “If I could leave, why would I be stuck here? You’re the one who swallowed me, so you only have yourself to blame.”
Yang Hao lowered his head, listening to the old man’s voice coming from inside his belly, nearly fainting: “I only swallowed a pill! How could I have swallowed you? Are you telling me you’re no bigger than a fly?”
“Fool! A true master can’t be measured by size!” the old man huffed angrily. “You swallowed my escape pod along with my soul essence. How dare you complain about it?”
“Escape pod? Soul essence?” Yang Hao was completely confused. The only escape pods he knew were the egg-shaped metallic capsules on spaceships—he’d never seen one shaped like a pill that could be swallowed.
“I’m no ordinary person,” the old man boasted proudly. “I’m a sword immortal, naturally different from others.”
“A sword immortal?” Yang Hao’s mouth fell open. “You mean the legendary sword immortal who cultivates to the point of flying freely and killing silently? An ultimate expert?”
“Of course! I’m a grandmaster of my generation.”
“But…” Yang Hao scratched his head. “If you’re so powerful, how come you got swallowed by me?”
That hit the nail on the head. The old man’s tone immediately softened: “Thousands of years ago, I became a sword immortal, but I was betrayed by an enemy and gravely wounded. I had no choice but to project my soul into that spirit pill, waiting for the day someone would find me.”
“Thousands of years ago!” Yang Hao tried desperately to distance himself. “So you must’ve died back then. That has nothing to do with me!”
“You’re the one who killed me!” The old man, despite his age, had a fiery temper. “That big pill was my soul-attached ‘Nirvana Pill,’ filled with powerful herbs that could keep my soul in hibernation for ten thousand years, until someone discovered me and revived me.”
Yang Hao seized the key point: “You can be revived? So discovering you was actually doing you a favor, right?”
“As long as you follow the instructions in the immortal manual I left behind, I can be revived.”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” Yang Hao recalled the booklet that came with the pill and immediately pulled it out from his robe. “So this was the instruction manual all along! You should’ve said so earlier—you scared me half to death.”
Yang Hao flipped open the ancient, tattered book. The first line made him sweat bullets.
“ABSOLUTELY DO NOT CONSUME!!!”
“Oh no… you can’t eat it,” Yang Hao wiped his forehead, finally realizing the gravity of the situation.
“Of course not!” the old man lamented bitterly. “Originally, following the instructions in the immortal manual would have allowed my soul to gradually revive into a real body. But now, the entire pill and my soul have been swallowed by you. My soul is trapped inside your belly, sustained only by the residual energy of the Nirvana Pill. I have at most ten more years to live, and absolutely no chance of revival.”
Yang Hao frowned and shook his head. “Old man, I’m really sorry. I honestly didn’t know this would happen, and it wasn’t intentional.”
“Fate! This is fate!” the old man sighed deeply.
A long, mournful sigh came from inside Yang Hao’s belly—it was an incredibly strange sensation. But at this point, Yang Hao had bigger concerns: “So what can we do now? Is there any way I can make it up to you?”
“There’s no other way…” After a moment’s thought, the old man seemed to have accepted his fate. “Let me stay in your lower dantian for the next ten years.”
“Fine! Fine! You can stay as long as you like.” Yang Hao readily agreed. He felt terrible about the whole situation, and didn’t care how strange it might be.
The old man continued, “I won’t be staying for free, of course. I, Hunyuanzi, have roamed the world my whole life, possessing countless supreme martial arts techniques. I’ll pass them all on to you—as rent.”
“Hunyuanzi?” Yang Hao muttered. “In this age of space travel, how come there’s still someone with such an old-fashioned name…”
“You’re not happy with it?” Hunyuanzi’s tone turned icy.
“Oh no! I’m honored!” Yang Hao quickly adopted his usual tactic for dealing with his nagging mother—nodding in agreement while secretly tuning out. “You can teach me however you like.”
“But you must promise me one thing: after you’ve mastered my skills, you must help me complete a task.”
“You want me to help you?” Yang Hao was always eager to help others. If someone asked him to do something, he’d jump at the chance. “Then why wait until I’ve learned everything? Let’s go right now!”
With that, Yang Hao sprang to his feet with his usual decisiveness. But the moment he straightened up, a sharp pain shot through his lower abdomen, nearly knocking him back down.
“Oh my god!” Yang Hao cried out. “I must’ve eaten something bad. It hurts like hell!”
Inside his belly, Hunyuanzi chuckled smugly: “Who told you to swallow my pill? This isn’t some vegetable you can just eat carelessly!”
“I already apologized! Why are you punishing me now?” Yang Hao thought the old man was being unreasonable.
“Who has time to punish you?” To Yang Hao’s astonishment, Hunyuanzi even yawned lazily inside him. “That pill contained the most potent aphrodisiacs in the world. Just a lick of it equals thousands of regular aphrodisiacs—imagine what swallowing the whole thing would do.”
“What?!” Yang Hao screamed in horror. “So I’ve basically eaten billions of aphrodisiacs! Am I going to die?!”
“Don’t worry,” Hunyuanzi said casually. “Now that I’m inside you, I’ve sealed off the pill’s effects and am slowly absorbing its energy myself. It won’t affect you.”
“Oh, that’s a relief,” Yang Hao sighed with relief. But soon, he felt something strange again. “But why does my stomach hurt?”
“Hehe…” Hunyuanzi chuckled awkwardly. “Well, I’m really sorry, but when I was sealing it off, I accidentally let a tiny bit escape… so now, your body is filled with aphrodisiac energy…”
“…”
“…”
“So what happens now?” Yang Hao stared in disbelief. “I should be fine, right?”
“Well… theoretically speaking, it shouldn’t be too serious. After all, it’s just an aphrodisiac,” Hunyuanzi said with a clearly fake smile.
“And practically speaking?” Yang Hao remained sharp-minded, not falling for the trick.
Hunyuanzi probably was sweating inside: “Practically speaking, you’ll die.”
Just like that, blunt and cold. Yang Hao finally understood why the old man had forgiven him so easily—it was because he’d caused a catastrophe, and now it was payback time.
“Just an aphrodisiac… why would I die?” Yang Hao tried to stay calm and understand the severity of the situation.
“While it’s just an aphrodisiac, it’s extremely powerful. If you don’t release it quickly, it’ll burn you up with desire, causing your blood vessels to burst and kill you,” Hunyuanzi explained in detail. “In short, you’ll die a very painful death.”
Yang Hao was practically furious: “Is there any way to fix this? What if I drink some cold water?”
“That’ll kill you faster,” Hunyuanzi suggested bluntly. “Your best bet is to find a woman and have sex with her. That might save your life.”
“Have sex with a woman?” Yang Hao was stunned. “I don’t know how to do that…”
“You don’t know how?!” Hunyuanzi roared. “How old are you? Don’t tell me you’ve never even successfully seduced a girl before!”
Yang Hao started to stammer. He knew it was embarrassing, but he had his reasons: “Back home, I hadn’t even developed an interest in girls yet. Then I was selected into the advanced academy on the planet Remon, surrounded only by noble girls—how could I possibly pursue them?”
At the thought of how Esse had treated him today, Yang Hao’s heart ached and ached.
“Fool!” Hunyuanzi scolded. “What do you care if they’re nobles or not? Just sleep with them first! Quick, tell me—who’s the girl you like now?”
“Esse,” Yang Hao replied weakly, still immersed in the pain of today’s failure.
“Then what are you waiting for?!” Hunyuanzi’s roar nearly burst Yang Hao’s eardrums. “Do you want to remain a virgin until you’re sixty?”
Almost propelled by the yelling, Yang Hao reluctantly sprinted toward Esse’s luxurious mansion.
By the time all this commotion had passed, the sun had long since set.
Night began to spread.
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