Chapter 155: A True Crippled Ox, a True Body-Sacrifice, a True Heart Art
Outside the illusionary landscape.
Song Xu looked at this scene with great surprise, “You said Zhang Yu cultivates the Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Art?”
Mo Tianyi also felt it was very strange and said, “That is the heart art Zhang Yu registered, and boss, look at him now, transformed into a critically ill worker, persisting on the assembly line. Isn’t that precisely the effect of the Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Art?”
Song Xu stroked his chin, puzzled, “Isn’t this cultivation technique just for the lowest class of poor people to practice? It lets them work a little more, get treated a little less, and ask for a little less compensation; it’s a useless cultivation technique for useless people.”
“Zhang Yu wants to use this heart art to improve his Dao heart?”
“Isn’t he afraid that he’ll train himself to become more and more aligned with this cultivation technique, eventually turning into a good-for-nothing who only knows how to take a beating and not fight back, swallowing his anger all day long?”
“On the other hand, this Bai Zhenzhen…” Song Xu commented, “Her understanding of the Cold Soul Ice Heart Art is growing more and more profound in this scenario; she will surely shine brightly in the future examinations.”
Just as Song Xu and Mo Tianyi were making their assessments, the scene in the illusionary landscape had once again changed.
On the assembly line.
With Bai Zhenzhen in high spirits, after a series of maneuvers, all the workers were being squeezed to their absolute limits.
And in such a situation, Zhang Yu felt the hope in his heart gradually dissipate; the pain all over his body burned him like a flame, making it no longer possible for him to concentrate on his work.
It hurts so much…
Zhang Yu did not want to be in pain any longer.
And he knew that for the Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Art to continue being effective, to continue suppressing the pain in his heart, he needed to have at least a sliver of hope.
Even the small hope of getting off work early would be enough.
So he stood up, looked at Bai Zhenzhen, and said, “Boss, I would like to request a day off today.”
Bai Zhenzhen’s gaze swept over, and when she saw Zhang Yu’s face, a ripple of emotion suddenly flashed through her.
After hearing that Zhang Yu’s reason for requesting leave was due to his pain, Bai Zhenzhen nodded slightly and remarked, “You are not willing to work overtime?”
Seeing Zhang Yu nod, Bai Zhenzhen said, “It seems you truly have worked hard.”
Then Bai Zhenzhen looked at everyone present and asked, “Who else, like him, is unwilling to work overtime?”
Seeing everyone look tempted but not daring to speak up, Bai Zhenzhen asked again, “Look at you all, so timid and submissive; you listen to whatever is said, you do whatever you are told to do. I am hiring people, not machines.”
“If you have a request, stand up and tell me; be a little bolder.”
Looking at the employees, including Zhang Yu, who stood up one by one, not wanting to work overtime, Bai Zhenzhen smiled with satisfaction, “Very good. For refusing the work arrangements of the factory, you are all fired.”
Bai Zhenzhen looked at the secretary beside her and said, “It just so happens that a new batch of graduates can be hired; replace this whole lot of old and sick ones, and don’t pay them a single coin in compensation…”
Under the circulation of the Cold Soul Ice Heart Art, all the workers before Bai Zhenzhen’s eyes were reduced to mere bargaining chips, waiting for her maneuvering to increase profits.
With her actions, the circulation of her heart art became even smoother, and her Dao heart became even more solid, like an unbreakable rock.
On the other side, Zhang Yu, upon hearing these words, felt his heart completely turn to darkness; all hope, along with the loss of his job… was completely gone.
When all hope had been taken away by others, what should he do?
How on earth could he find hope?
How could he continue to suppress the bone-piercing pain in his body?
Song Xu watched this scene and lamented, “The Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Art is still too useless; why would he choose such a cultivation technique?”
“Letting one’s mind understand and conform to this cultivation technique… what use is that?”
“It’s a complete hindrance.”
Mo Tianyi, however, remarked thoughtfully, “But enduring all the way like this does have the effect of tempering the Dao heart, doesn’t it?”
“Zhang Yu is poor and doesn’t have the qualifications to get into the Ten Greats; like us… much of the time, all we can do is endure.”
He spoke with a sense of shared experience, “Compared to fighting, compared to resisting… endurance is the only choice the poor can make, right?”
Song Xu looked at Zhang Yu in the illusionary landscape and murmured, “Continue to endure? But when will this endurance ever come to an end?”
“No wonder he couldn’t withstand the pressure in the end and signed on under a wealthy person.”
“It’s a good thing you all didn’t invest too much in him back then.”
“This kind of person is poor to his very core; even the heart art he chose is a coward’s heart art. He is not worth investing in at all.”
But just then, the change in the illusionary landscape made the two of them slightly surprised again.
Feeling his hope completely vanish, Zhang Yu stood rooted to the spot.
Besides the sounds of the workers’ laments and Bai Zhenzhen’s orders, he seemed to be able to faintly hear something else.
Is that the sound of the protesting workers outside?
Protesting?
Thinking of this, Zhang Yu’s eyes seemed to brighten slightly.
At the same time, the heart art that had become difficult to circulate in his mind showed signs of circulating once again.
In the visualization within Zhang Yu’s mind, the crippled ox had originally been deeply mired in mud, having stopped because it could see no hope.
But at this moment, accompanying the change in Zhang Yu’s thoughts, a cold glint seemed to flash from the ox’s broken horn.
The only hope left is to fight.
When all hope is completely extinguished, when everything before me is a sheet of darkness, when pleading also yields no hope… then I can only use this pair of broken horns to fight for justice, to create a sliver of hope for myself…
At this moment, a flash of realization suddenly crossed Zhang Yu’s mind.
“The Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Art is not a martial art for suppressing pain to go to work.”
“His original intention was to care for disabled cultivators, to alleviate the suffering of disabled cultivators.”
“But the deeper ideology contained in this heart art is a kind of desperate resistance in a hopeless situation; one must fight to the death! One must fight for that last sliver of hope!”
“Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice, Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice… this is the true essence of ‘body-sacrifice,’ not something like harming one’s health just to work.”
At this moment, the level 10 Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Art seemed to undergo a kind of subtle change, circulating more and more ferociously within Zhang Yu’s mind.
Zhang Yu felt that his understanding of the Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Art had deepened once again.
He let out a roar and charged toward Bai Zhenzhen before him, shouting loudly, “I’ll risk it all!”
Bai Zhenzhen looked at Zhang Yu’s familiar face, frowned, and retreated, while Yu Xinghan and the other security guards rushed toward Zhang Yu.
Zhang Yu and Yu Xinghan, along with the other security guards, were soon locked in battle.
Although Zhang Yu’s strength was not as great as the others’, he was exceptionally fearless of death, repeatedly launching desperate attacks, trading his life for theirs, forcing the many security guards to retreat step by step.
After all, medical expenses could be reimbursed, but if a person died, no amount of medical expenses would be of any use.
Especially since Zhang Yu felt that the more he faced such a desperate situation, the more his power surged.
Under the circulation of the Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Art, a part of the potential hidden deep within his body seemed to be unleashed beyond its normal limits at this moment, making him stronger as he fought.
The efficacy of the Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Art at this moment far surpassed that of the past.
Seeing the security guards being temporarily pushed back by Zhang Yu’s life-for-life approach, the remaining workers also began to stir restlessly.
Beside them, Bai Zhenzhen, watching Zhang Yu fighting with others, felt her emotions fluctuate once again, and the Cold Soul Ice Heart Art seemed to have encountered a layer of resistance.
She felt that at this moment, a trace of reluctance flashed through her heart.
At this moment, a thought emerged in her mind; she did not want to see Zhang Yu being beaten like this anymore.
And as Bai Zhenzhen became unsuited to her heart art, the deduction of the Cold Soul Ice Heart Art by the True Spiritual Root in her dantian also began to change.
Watching this scene, Song Xu marveled, “What’s going on? Under the circulation of the Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Art, this Zhang Yu can actually fight desperately with people.”
Mo Tianyi was puzzled, “Could it be that this Crippled Ox Body-Sacrifice Heart Art has some hidden mysteries?”
But soon, something that made Mo Tianyi feel even more amazed happened.
As Zhang Yu led the workers to fight fiercely with the security guards, Bai Zhenzhen eventually stopped the struggle between the two sides, announced increased benefits for the employees, and even raised their wages.
Mo Tianyi became even more confused, “Is this something the Cold Soul Ice Heart Art can achieve?”
Song Xu said, “A change in thought naturally leads to a change in the interpretation and understanding of a heart art.”
“The more profound the understanding of the heart art, the stronger its effect will be.”
“But in reality, for a person’s thoughts to change, for their understanding of a heart art to deepen, it often requires a great deal of time to think and to experience.”
“And the existence of the Spirit Realm’s illusionary landscapes is to accelerate this process through various scenarios.”
“From the performance of these two, their understanding of their respective heart arts has already become more profound.”
“After this trip to the illusionary landscape, the Dao hearts of these two will surely be firmer, and the effects of their heart arts will also become stronger.”
As he spoke, Song Xu saw that the situation in the illusionary landscape had changed again.
With the increase in wages and the improvement of benefits, the entire factory began to operate once again.
Although Bai Zhenzhen still calmly presided over everything in the factory, she could feel that her calmness at this moment was different from her previous calmness.
If the previous calmness was a kind of cold calculation that abandoned sensibility…
Then Bai Zhenzhen’s current calmness had integrated her own humanity, and she was no longer blindly chasing success and victory.
This is… knowing something is impossible but doing it anyway, doing what I want to do.
For example, at this moment, she did not want to be an enemy of Zhang Yu opposite her, so even if the profits decreased, even if she faced greater risks, she would calmly accept it and continue to carry it out.
At this moment, Bai Zhenzhen suddenly had a more profound understanding of the Cold Soul Ice Heart Art.
Suppressing emotions, making all decisions based on gains and losses, success and failure, with everything oriented towards success, is not true calmness, but only a kind of suppression of humanity.
Only by being able to accept failure with composure, to be able to fear nothing in order to carry out the beliefs in one’s heart, is the true pursuit of the Cold Soul Ice Heart Art…
At this moment, she felt as if she were an assassin holding a small dagger; even if the probability of success was slim, a nine-in-ten chance of death, she had to calmly thrust out that one sword strike.
Feeling the Cold Soul Ice Heart Art circulating in her heart with an unprecedented effect, Bai Zhenzhen felt a sense of exhilaration in her mind, and her heart also became more and more resolute.
She could feel that as her understanding of the Cold Soul Ice Heart Art deepened, the power of this heart art became stronger.
The greater the risk she faced, the lower the probability of success, the calmer she felt, and the more active her brain, body, and magic power became.
Then she, Zhang Yu, and Yu Xinghan watched as the factory, due to excessively high wages and benefits, eventually saw its costs rise and, under the pressure of other factories, completely went bankrupt…
Watching this scene, Mo Tianyi felt a sense of connection and murmured, “Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen, their ideas are good.”
“If they hadn’t been forced by Zhang Pianpian to sign, and with your guidance, boss, they might have really had a sliver of hope of getting into the Ten Greats.”
Song Xu said coolly, “But just like the situation all poor people encounter, no matter how good the ideas are, without the security of wealth, everything is but a flower in the mirror or the moon in the water, and will eventually be eliminated by this world.”
Mo Tianyi said, “But from this illusionary landscape, Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen’s way of thinking is very close to ours.”
“Perhaps if we ask them directly, they will tell us the secret to their rapid strengthening, and help us poor people carve out a new world for ourselves…”
The poor helping each other, together breaking through the snares set by the rich—this had always been the philosophy that Song Xu had taught Mo Tianyi, and it was the belief that the members of the Paupers’ Alliance firmly held.
It was under this philosophy that they gave all the support they could to Song Xu, hoping that he could become the first person to break the sky, and that in the future, he could lead them to rush up to the heavens together.
Song Xu, however, shook his head upon hearing this, “An illusion is an illusion, after all.”
“No matter what they think in their hearts, in reality, they have ultimately become the dogs of the rich; we cannot trust them too much.”
“It’s better to use my method.”
“They should continue to restart the illusionary landscape to temper their Dao hearts next, right?”
“Notify me when they come out.”
After waiting for more than two hours, Zhang Yu, Bai Zhenzhen, and Yu Xinghan were finally about to come out.
And in a certain basement in the real world.
Song Xu was wearing a mask and kneeling in the middle of a strange ritual.
He thought to himself, Zhang Yu is about to exit the illusionary landscape; it’s time to prepare to activate the ritual and find his evil god.