Chapter 580: I Dare Pick It!
Translator: Subudai11 Editor: Chrissy
Wang Lu hadn't felt such a strong sense of fear for a long time.
Long before he went to Spirit Sword Mountain to seek the path of immortality, he was already famous for being fearless while he was still in Wang Family Village. The word "fear" seemed to be insulated from him. At any time, he always held the pearl of wisdom and had a plan in advance. Therefore, after more than twenty years since his debut, after establishing countless of miracle-like great undertakings, some people had begun to have a superstitious belief of him, as if he was truly omnipotent and fearless.
In fact, it was absolutely nonsense. Fear was the instinctive reaction of a creature to seek benefit and avoid harm. Except for those with broken brain structure, who could truly be fearless? Moreover, one of the more important qualities on the path of cultivation was to learn to fear. Fear of the surrounding, fear of the Great Dao, fear of the words of the sages... The truly fearless person was a person who fire deviated.
Therefore, Wang Lu found himself with very reasonable excuse about his current fear.
No matter who was in this situation, they would be kind of threatened seeing the sign on the plate written with the name Wang Wu on it.
"Your Majesty, whose sign do you want to pick for today?" the delicate looking maid asked.
Wang Lu kept his silent. He did not want to pick any sign, but rather flip the plate. The evil taste of this Heaven was really vicious—the grand ancient Earth Immortal actually made the palace fight scenario for him!
However, judging from her split personality, perhaps in the past, she really had once experienced a palace fight and ended up as a loser. Thereupon, two thoughts sprang up in her extremely broken heart. One was that, there was no good man in the world, which due to her resentment from falling out of favor. The other one was that, there was no good woman in the world, which was the unforgettable hatred for her peers.
However, the emotional story of the ancient Earth Immortal was not the key focus. Right now, he had to deal with his own problem.
At present, he was in a strange place, and everything around him was like a dream, but also like fake. The rules of this bet were also not clear enough. For example, how long was the time limit of not hurting anyone? What was the definition of hurting? These questions were all unclear.
Thus, the first thing he needed to do was...
Wang Lu looked up and then said to the maid, "Call all the imperial concubines here. I want to have a special meeting with them to discuss something."
"Ah?" The maid looked at Wang Lu incredulously. "A-All the imperial concubines?"
"Yes, call everyone here."
"T-This does not comply with the rules! In the harem, there can only be one concubine who comes to serve on any given day."
"You are comparing me to those mediocre people. One concubine is not enough. I, the big-tool-good-skill, can have ten people at one time."
"Your Majesty, this absolutely cannot be done in this way!" The maid anxiously dissuaded, "How can you have such a ridiculous idea? This will mess up the harem!"
"I like a little bit of messy, it doesn't matter."
The maid fell on her knees and kowtowed. "Your Majesty, this absolutely should not be done in this way!"
Seeing the girl's determination, Wang Lu frowned and decided not to push it. He then tried to directly call through primordial spirit but found out that many spells and methods of the immortal path were unusable here. Thereupon, he realized that it was the intention of Heaven to cut off his contact with the others when designing this scenario.
That was, of course logical. Since everyone knew each other and came from the same group, if they colluded in this bet, wouldn't their victory be assured? Thus, everyone sleeping together was probably not feasible.
After a long while, Wang Lu beckoned the girl who kowtowed on the ground to stand up and then softly asked, "In your opinion?"
The maid was startled by the words and incredulously looked at Wang Lu. "Your Majesty, how could I give my opinion about this kind of thing? I, the servant, am ignorant, if I say something wrong…"
"It's okay, just consider that you are helping me remove one wrong answer, tell me your opinion first."
The maid immediately looked distressed as if she was about to burst into tears, and her arms that held the plate trembled.
Wang Lu scanned her with primordial spirit and found that she was just a junior cultivator, just around Foundation Establishment Stage. No wonder she could not withstand his gaze. However, for her to be able to personally serve the Emperor, her status should not be low. Therefore, he probed further, "In your opinion, what if I choose this sign?"
Wang Lu pointed to the sign of Liu Li
The maid was startled. She was about to speak but immediately stopped.
"Speak frankly or I'll pick your sign." With that, Wang Lu deliberately licked his lips with his tongue and rolled up his sleeves, which scared the maid that she turned pale.
"Liu-Liu-Liu…" The maid's petite mouth blurted out a series of stutter, and it took her a long time to settle down. "Concubine Liu Li is kind and amiable, and no one in the palace said anything wrong about her. If Your Majesty chooses concubine Liu Li, that is of course good."
"And then?" Wang Lu certainly noticed that she had yet to finish her words.
"But lately, you've been choosing concubine Liu Li's sign many times. If you choose her again, I'm afraid the other concubines would inevitably have something to say."
Wang Lu's heart thumped: Liu Li's sign has been chosen many times lately? Why can't I remember any of that! Although I know that this is just the background setting given by the Heaven, it smelled like a delicate emerald crown 1 …
However, from another point of view, this setting was reasonable. If there was such a palace harem, Liu Li must be among the most popular imperial concubines. Her appearance was not the most important reason—on the appearance, in fact none of the other girls were inferior to her, but Liu Li's character was too invincible. Innocent, cute, and well-behaved, which, as an imperial concubine, Liu Li could be counted as perfect.
If there was such a harem, Wang Lu asked himself for his true thoughts and thought that he would certainly choose Liu Li every day until the sign is overused and broken.
However, on the other hand, as the saying goes, if a tree sticks out in the forest, it would be destroyed by the winds. Liu Li being the favorite concubine would inevitably make her the target for all. Moreover, even without considering the palace fight, looking solely on the condition previously given by Heaven: Must not hurt any of the girls, it was not feasible to favor one person alone, because it would inevitably cause others to fall out of favor and hurt… Wait a minute, there seemed to be something wrong with this logic!
The setting of this scenario by the Heaven implied an important premise: The concubines set by her must have feelings for him to make this scenario meaningful. The problem was that, this simply didn't align with the reality!
Well, Yue Xinyao was certainly an exception. He didn't know what came into her, but since more than ten years ago, after having contacts with him several times, her feelings for him had been deeply rooted. No matter how hard the effort of the fatty Wen was, he simply could not turn her heart around.
Of course, this was also purely following the path of one's own doom by the fatty. In the beginning, he was very enthusiastic in pursuing her, plus Wang Lu also had no other thought on Yue Xinyao, her heart thus vaguely opened a bit. If the fatty took that opportunity to continue to pursue her, there was a great chance that he could win her. But the result was...
The result was that, the fatty was really trying so hard, that he conveniently turned to pursue and take Li Nana, the leader of the Mansion of Light of the Great Ming Country, and achieved the amazing achievement of premarital pregnancy. Henceforth, he indeed lived a happy-s*x life, but his future with Yue Xinyao had been thoroughly cut off.
In addition to Yue Xinyao, Wang Wu could barely be included as one. Although recently, the relationship between the two showed a comical trend, their past hundred years of love had been difficult to clarify… In addition to these two people, Wang Lu really could not think of anyone who possibly had the feeling of love toward him. Liu Li indeed had always been very close to him, but the love between man and woman seemed a bit not yet matured. Bai Shixuan, as the offspring of Grand Cloud Fairy, had an inextricable predestination with him, but it was difficult to classify it as love between man and woman. In addition, Lady Boss and Cat Girl Ling Yan only had friendship with him and not love, so there was no need to say anymore. As for Big Sister Zhu Shiyao, even his friendship with her was relatively weak.
On this premise, it shouldn't matter if he didn't choose any of those several people even for ten thousand years. Thus, the focus of this hurdle seemed to have been problematic from the start.
Thinking to this, Wang Lu tentatively asked, "As far as I know, Zhu Shiyao always has her focus set on swordsmanship, so she should be indifferent right?"
The maid considered her words first before replying, "Concubine Zhu indeed has a quiet personality and does not easily interact with people, but her desire to receive Your Majesty's favor will never be weaker than the others."
Wang Lu inwardly commented, what kind of bullshit is this? With such a personality, how would Zhu Shiyao care favors from anyone? At present, she did somewhat listen to the words of her respected Master, Sect Leader Feng Yin. If he was a True Immortal who was cultivating on the sword path, as long as he could pass on her an unprecedented set of ultimate sword art, she definitely would not mind selling her own body a bit, even being played in all kinds of ways. However, the problem was that, purely in terms of swordsmanship, Zhu Shiyao was still above him...
Seeing how Wang Lu was still in doubt, the maid urgently said, "Your Majesty, please don't doubt the true feelings of the concubine toward you! Her obsession with swordsmanship happens because the loneliness in her boudoir is unbearable. In the concubine's heart, there's nothing more important than Your Majesty!"
Hearing this, Wang Lu's teeth almost feel. However, after thinking about it, such a setting was actually in line with the needs of the scenario. The problem was, this was tantamount to forced brainwash, forcibly changing the worldview of Zhu Shiyao… This might not be a good thing to the primordial spirit of a cultivator.
"Is it the same with the others too?"
The maid boldly replied, "Although the several concubines have different temperament, there's nothing false with their true feelings for you!"
"... Wang Wu too?"
"She had shared joys and sorrows with you for many years, so her feeling for you is the deepest. Why… do you doubt her?"
Upon hearing this, Wang Lu fell into silent again. However, very quickly a light of inspiration flashed through his mind: Sharing joys and sorrows for many years?
"Bring me my sign picking records during my recent period."
Since this scenario had a long history, it should be safe to just follow the previous year's record of picking.
The maid was surprised and said, "The harem has just been built and the sign choosing system has only been implemented for a few days. And in these past few days, you always choose concubine Liu Li's sign, how would any records be needed?"
...Tsk, ancient Earth Immortal indeed, the work is really watertight, completely not giving people the chance to resort to tricks.
Since that is the case, then there was no other choice.
Wang Lu shook his head and stretched out his hand to pick a sign on the plate.
The maid read the sign and showed a faint smile. "I will call concubine Wu here."