Liu Sheng vaguely felt that staring like this was wrong. Even if he wasn't interested, it's rude to look upon a person's nude form without their consent. He understood that based upon the values he was taught in his past life.
He also remembers the values of this life, which tells him that he might be danger.
She hasn't noticed him. So, he could just walk off and wait for her to finish and then come by later for a drink.
However, he was also really thirsty and he would like to abide by the schedule. There was but a single thing he could do then.
He closed his eyes and called out to the girl.
"Excuse me."
Is an eventuality considered fate? If so, then maybe this could be considered a fated meeting. Liu Sheng was unaware of what this encounter would spark.
However, ignorance isn't necessarily a sin. It can reveal the purest form of an individual. With knowledge at the back, the forefront is instinct.
This was not a fated meeting though. As an individual who's been thrown into a world that doesn't care for him, how could fate bother to take care of him and include him in its grace? For better and for worse, Liu Sheng's fate hasn't started.
Only by his hands did he turn the wheel himself.
He was the one who caused this fated meeting.
His voice was neither loud nor quiet. It had a melancholy quality to it that gave pause to the girl before she realized what the presence of that voice meant. She then froze and woodenly turned to the youth whose eyes were shut.
She was frozen silent for a moment and Liu Sheng took that as permission to continue.
"I came here for a drink of water and noticed that you were using it for your own purposes. I don't wish to disturb you, but I thought it'd be best to let you know that I'm here before you jump to any dangerous conclusions. I'm sorry for interrupting you in the process."
"You!?" Her widened eyes revealed doubt and anger with the latter rapidly growing ever more clear to the boy's eyes. She hasn't made any hostile move, which is good.
"What kind of fool comes out to a river for a drink?" Her tone was harsh and cold as a frigid winter's gale. Liu Sheng involuntarily shivered, but he kept his eyes closed and his tone as even as he could.
He didn't want to cause any trouble.
But still...
'What kind of idiot comes out to a river for a bath?'
He held that insult back.
"I'm camping."
"Keep your eyes closed."
There was an undercurrent of fury flowing faster than the flow of the river beneath her knees. Liu Sheng nodded as he heard the rustling of clothes.
If he opened his eyes, then he could probably get another eyeful of an interesting sight of a half-clothed girl trying to quickly dress herself, but he still wasn't interested in that kind of sight.
"Father!" The unknown girl's roar carried a force that pushed Liu Sheng back. He felt an impact to his chest, which caused his eyes to snap open. The invisible and sudden attack also caused a pillar of water to spout up where the girl was standing. He was soaked by the rain of the river.
Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.
"What...?"
'What level of cultivation is needed to cause this with a mere shout?'
The boy belatedly noticed the severity of his injuries when he noticed his breathing stop. He coughed up blood while dizziness assailed him. His shaking legs couldn't hold him up.
He barely caught himself from landing on his face with his hands.
There were two figures before him, their blurry forms concealed by the falling water and Liu Sheng's own failing vision.
Once the water finally settled, the pain settled in. A strangled cry tore itself from his damaged throat and lungs.
Clarity returned to him and what he saw were two people, a girl clothed in robes embroidered with a blue symbol and an older man with graying hair with the same symbol, ignoring his predicament.
This was just bad luck for him.
Of all things, he had to stumble across dangerous cultivators who could probably kill him with a slap.
No, he just made the wrong decision. He should've just walked away.
"What about the Barrier? How did you let some peasant worm slip through!?"
"Oh sweetie, you know that I would never intentionally let something like this happen to you. It's powerful enough to keep out anyone below a Throne."
"Then how did this happen?"
The two were casually engaging in a conversation that seemed like it had nothing to do with Liu Sheng. His grunts of pain gradually faded into simple dry heaving. The boy exerted force into his arms to push himself back up.
A shadow darkened his world. He looked up.
He looked at the face of the one who would decide his fate. Those eyes were as cold as ice and as black as coal. The off-putting smile lacked any trace of warmth. It was cold and cruel, like a snake watching its prey struggling from injected venom.
"Because it was a mere trash without a trace of profound power!" The caustic tone and biting words was like rain. Not because of the angry bodyguard's spittle splashing Liu Sheng's head, but because of the fact that it accompanied the falling river water harmlessly falling on him.
The booming voice caused his ears to ring, but the contents was nothing.
He's been used to such words for as long as he remembers in this world. He knows how to handle this kind of situation.
When a weakling angers someone superior, all they need to do is get on their knees and grovel. Begging for forgiveness is the only way to survive even if one doesn't want to do it.
"I'm very sorry. I didn't spy on purpose. I was thirsty and came to the closest source of water. Please forgive me."
Liu Sheng was already on his knees.
He just needed his forehead to touch the wet grass and to place his hands forward.
"Hmph!"
The boy didn't make a single movement. He kept his body as still as a corpse.
"Yue'er, did he violate your body with his disgusting eyes?"
He shook.
"Of course he did! He even pretended that he didn't spy on me by shutting his eyes before I could see him!"
"Despicable!"
It was a blatant lie, yet Liu Sheng didn't refute it. Truth doesn't matter to someone who already has a negative preconception, and acting out of line could only make the situation worse. He kept himself kowtowing to his superiors, disregarding any notion of pride or dignity.
The boy bit his lips. Blood dripped from his mouth onto the grass.
"Brat, look up."
He listened.
"Do you know who we are? Nod your head or shake your head. I don't need to listen to your worthless words."
Liu Sheng shook his head.
The man looked at him with his unmoving black pupils for a few seconds. He nodded to the truthful response.
"Good. At the very least you can escape with your life. Unfortunately, you've committed a grave sin; therefore, I cannot let you go without punishing you appropriately. Do you agree with me? I'm already sparing you your life. Nod or shake your head."
'This...isn't good.'
Liu Sheng's pupils constricted into pinpricks.
He hesitated.
"Nod or shake your head. I won't repeat myself a third time."
The boy shook his head again.
Silence dominated the air between the three individuals. The girl looked upon the boy as if he was no more than a common scavenger prowling the forest for trash to consume. Garbage that feasts on garbage and rests in garbage. The father of the girl looked at the boy calmly.
The smile on his face widened and became a bit more genuine. The two youths reached a different understanding of the meaning behind that smile.
The older man spoke up again.
"You disagree with me? Why? I'll allow you to speak."
"With all due respect senior, I had no way of knowing that there was someone using this river to bathe. I was thirsty and I needed something to drink. I don't believe someone as magnanimous as you would punish a foolish junior for a lack of knowledge and a desire to keep himself healthy. Furthermore..." Liu Sheng trailed off, unsure if he should say what he thinks he should say.
"Go on. I'm very interested in what else you have to say.
"...Thank you. There was no possible way for me to avoid looking at her body. When I realized my error, I quickly apologized. I would also like to express that I have zero interest in her body."
"You!"
Did she detect the barb in the boy's words? Through saying that he has no interest in her, he is also saying that he doesn't find her attractive at all. While that is correct, he didn't mean for her to actually comprehend that deeper meaning.
Unfortunately, she wasn't as foolish and hardheaded as she looked.
"I see, so in other words, you don't believe that you've committed a sin. You don't think you deserve to be punished for your transgressions because you didn't commit it on purpose, but on accident, so it's not a true sin."
"Yes."
"In light of your eloquence and bravery, I will not kill you. I will instead inform you that a crime is a crime regardless of intent or premeditation. You have done something bad, so you must be punished. Your parents surely must've taught you this just as I've taught my beautiful daughter."
'I should've known.'
The boy's hands that laid flat on the ground curled tightly into a fist. The grass was torn from the soil and was tightly compressed by fingers pressing into his palm. His eye twitched, but he otherwise kept a straight face.
He was used to this. He's lived fifteen years as a piece of trash with no hope of cultivating profound strength.
He threw away his pride and dignity because those were nothing more than worthless things. They won't help him survive.
But...it's only now that he realizes, he threw away something else along with them a long time ago.
While he claimed to have a goal, did he truly think he could accomplish it? He had perseverance, but did he truly have the resolve to embark on the hard path? He's a person from the 21st century.
Does someone from another world have the strength to live in this one?
Liu Sheng looked at the man's cruel smile.
"Are you ready for your punishment? Nod or shake your head."
The boy nodded.
The man's hand curved into the form of a bird's beak as it reached toward's the boy's face.
"Let this sight be the last thing you see. Burn this moment into your memory as the time where you looked upon something you didn't have the right to. After this punishment, the karma between us will be solved."
'Power truly is the rule of the world.'
That was the last thing Liu Sheng thought as his world turned red and then black.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
A hellish scream escaped from his throat and went on for what seemed like hours. It was more akin to a beast than a man. A scream so profound and so wracked with pain, both mentally and physically, that even the beasts who wanted to get near the river for a drink stayed away. However, it wasn't just a simple release of pain and an expression of rage, humiliation, and withheld grievances. Liu Sheng's bloodcurdling scream that came from a pain he's never felt and either lifetime, was like the flowing river, coming and going.
It carried away the pain and it eventually ended. In it's place came exhaustion.
The boy crawled to the river, dragging himself through the dirt while a bloody trail formed beneath his body.
Bloody tears dripped from the boy's empty eye sockets.
"I came here for this in the first place." His weak voice was coarse from the agonized screams.
He drank from it and cleaned his wounds as best as he could.
One of his five major senses, sight, was robbed from him. His gouged out eyes only left a hollow home. The closed lids were sunken in and failed to conceal the tragedy which befell him.
He felt the water contained in the palm of his hands. He brought them up to quench his thirst. The cool feeling going down his throat reenergized his body, but his mind felt even more exhausted.
"My...eyes..."
He laughed.
"How could I have been so stupid!?"
The anguished roar tore itself from his throat.
What did he do wrong? He finally realized.
He threw away his conviction while persevering on the wrong path. He tossed away his old self. letting his new self submit to this world.
"No more."
Even if he can't cultivate profound strength, he won't just use it as an excuse and simply practice throwing weapons and running to escape. He'll challenge the world head on no matter what.
Because he has a dream.
"I won't live like this anymore."
The boy wasn't a fifteen year old youth of this world. He was a thirty-two year old man who once lived a life that was normal.
He thirsted to live.
He drank deep from the river, forcing it inside his body to make up for what he lacked.
He drank.
He swallowed.
He choked.
He forced it down.
The trace amounts of profound energy gradually accumulated. The small grains of sand clumped up together in his body, giving him a bloated, uncomfortable feeling in his throat and stomach.
Warriors on the Profound Way, heed this warning if you dare.
Birds die for food. Men die for wealth.
Never thirst for what you can't contain.
This was a warning that Liu Sheng couldn't know. He was not a warrior and the Profound Way excluded him. As a simple mortal, containing this energy in his body is nothing more than a toxin.
As it rejected his body, his body in turn rejected it.
The consequences of his action were swift and merciless.