No, Seriously, Bro...

The situation in Black Cloud City was temporarily brought under control.

The moment the city-protecting array was activated, everyone's tense hearts finally relaxed completely.

“Alright, your elder is no longer in any life-threatening danger. The rest is just waiting for him to slowly recover.”

After a brief treatment, once he was certain the old man wouldn't kick the bucket, Wang Xuanyi finally drew back his hands.

Only then did everyone begin to offer their thanks.

Of course, there was always someone looking to stir up trouble.

“Since you had the ability, why didn't you rush to the battlefield in the first place? You let our elder and the City Lord bleed so much for nothing.”

“Was it just so you could show off in front of us?”

The soldiers: “...”

Yu Linglong: “...”

The City Lord: “...”

Wang Xuanyi: “...”

Everyone was dumbfounded by this sudden outburst of resentment and looked over toward the source of the voice.

It was a disciple of the Yuhui Immortal Sect.

The speaker was quite handsome, and his cultivation was among the best in this particular group, at the Violet Palace Realm.

Wang Xuanyi was also encountering this kind of situation for the first time, and he couldn't help but be slightly dazed.

Since stepping into the cultivation world, this was the very first time someone had actively picked a fight with him—especially with such a massive disparity in their strengths.

When web novels bleed into reality... I am truly speechless, Wang Xuanyi thought to himself.

After all, when he reincarnated into the novel 《Love in the Cultivation World》, he had anticipated that such things would happen. Yet, when actually confronted with it, he still found it a bit hard to process.

“What's the matter? Did I hit a nerve and make you feel guilty?”

With his face full of self-righteousness combined with his handsome features, it was almost hard to believe that this guy was actually intellectually challenged.

“Gu Hao, shut your mouth!”

Yu Linglong, standing nearby, could no longer bear to watch. To be able to embarrass himself to this extent, only this self-righteous fool could pull it off.

“Linglong, am I wrong?” Seeing his beloved speaking up for the other guy, Gu Hao felt a pang of heartache. He then spoke coldly, “Since he had the ability to rescue the elder and City Lord Jin, why did he conserve his strength? Why did he only make a move at the critical moment?”

“Linglong, don't let him deceive you.”

“Gu Hao, I said shut your mouth! Don't disgust everyone else. Not everyone is as devoid of gratitude as you are,” Yu Linglong said, her expression growing colder by the second.

Turning to Wang Xuanyi, she said apologetically, “Senior Brother Zhu Huai, I am so sorry for putting you in such an awkward position. I will report this to our sect later and make sure you are properly compensated for this disrespect.”

“Linglong, he's just a petty hypocrite! You can't ignore the facts just because of a temporary favor!” Gu Hao argued back, his gaze fixed on Wang Xuanyi with unparalleled hatred.

The more Yu Linglong defended Wang Xuanyi, the more he loathed him.

The people around them wanted to speak up, but none dared to offend this young master.

“I say, young brother...”

City Lord Jin Sha frowned in displeasure and was about to intervene, but Wang Xuanyi cut him off.

Wang Xuanyi took a deep breath, pointed his pinky finger at Gu Hao, and said, “No, seriously, bro... did your mom leave your brain behind when she gave birth to you? Or did you just never have one to begin with?”

“...”

The sudden barrage of insults caught everyone off guard.

They had never expected that someone could insult another person in such an... aggressive manner!

Then, Wang Xuanyi turned his verbal aggression up to the maximum. “And where are your eyes? Are you keeping them as an after-dinner dessert for the demon beasts out there? Or are you planning to donate them to a blind girl to satisfy your pathetic sense of justice?”

“You've got it so easy, don't you? Doing absolutely nothing, yet standing on the moral high ground pointing fingers. You open your little mouth and start slinging mud, and you don't even use a single brain cell to do it.”

“You!!!”

Gu Hao was so thoroughly insulted that he couldn't even find a way to fire back, as his meager vocabulary didn't contain any matching retorts.

“'You' what? You think you're in the right? If I hadn't seen how hard this old man fought, I would've thrown you into the beast tide to feed the dogs long ago.”

“And as for your Yuhui Immortal Sect, how on earth did they raise such an oddity? No brains, completely blind, yet your mouth just keeps running.”

“Talk about an absolute eye-opener. I've truly seen it all today.”

Faced with Wang Xuanyi's relentless verbal onslaught, Gu Hao was utterly humiliated, his handsome face turning a bright, flustered red.

As the saying goes, a youth's blush explains everything.

Even more so for such a handsome young man.

“Am I wrong? You had the strength but didn't help us, choosing to only make a move at the critical moment. What is that if not showing off?” Gu Hao sputtered for a long time before finally squeezing out this single sentence.

Wang Xuanyi merely scoffed at this. He clicked his tongue and continued, “Your head must have been kicked by a donkey. Look at this city-protecting array! Do you think it just appeared out of thin air?”

“I ran myself ragged fixing the damaged array, and then rushed to the battlefield without a moment's rest to save lives. Meanwhile, you just open your little mouth and start talking trash. Let me ask you, what exactly did you do to help?”

“I...”

“'I' my foot! What else can you do besides stand there and cry? How old are you, and you're still crying? Aren't you embarrassed? And yet you have the nerve to blame me? Where do you get the gall?”

Wang Xuanyi didn't give him any chance to speak, pressing on, “Shameless, brainless, blind, and a crybaby to boot. I honestly don't know how you've managed to survive until now.”

Then, Wang Xuanyi pointed to his own head and said, “The next time you want to cause trouble for someone else to show off in front of a pretty girl, I suggest you use your brain a bit. Don't let your skull be completely empty, because it only makes you look incredibly stupid.”

“Pfft!”

Someone couldn't help but chuckle. Gu Hao's face turned ashen with rage, and he glared in the direction of the laughter, wanting to vent his anger.

But the person laughing turned out to be his beloved.

His world crumbled.

And then, one by one, everyone around them couldn't hold it in any longer and burst into laughter.

They all felt that Wang Xuanyi's words made perfect sense.

If he had truly joined the battle from the very beginning, the damaged array would have remained broken. Tens of thousands of demon beasts would have easily overwhelmed the three of them and slaughtered the entire city.

They wouldn't even have the chance to stand here and talk like this.

Faced with this, Gu Hao said no more, retreating behind the crowd in utter humiliation.

“Not only is little brother exceptionally powerful and skilled in arrays, but your silver tongue... is equally formidable. Truly, a hero comes from the youth,” City Lord Jin Sha praised generously.

After a brief period of rest, he had recovered seventy to eighty percent of his strength, enough to support him through the next round of combat.

“It's nothing. I just can't stand stupid people,” Wang Xuanyi waved his hand dismissively.

Then, Wang Xuanyi looked at Yu Linglong and asked, “What is the highest cultivation realm of the reinforcements you notified?”

“The elder has already notified the higher-ups. It will be at least a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator,” Yu Linglong answered honestly, not letting Gu Hao's troublemaking affect her rationality.

Hearing this, Wang Xuanyi felt a bit more at ease.

The city-protecting array was strong enough to withstand several rounds of attacks from the five Shapeshifted Grand Demons, and even the Earth Demon in the thunderclouds couldn't do anything to them for the time being.

The Yuhui Immortal Sect only needed to arrive with reinforcements before the array broke again.

“What is it, little brother?” City Lord Jin Sha asked.

“There is an Earth Demon in the thunderclouds, and its strength is exceptionally formidable. If the expert sent by the Yuhui Immortal Sect isn't strong enough to counter it, we will still face the crisis of the city falling and everyone dying.”

“Moreover, this isn't a simple beast tide. There is highly likely someone, or some demon, even stronger pulling the strings behind the scenes—at least a Sky Demon level expert (Soul Formation Realm).”

Wang Xuanyi analyzed.

In the past, beast tides had always been chaotic, attacking human territories without any order. This time was different; not only had the enemy dispatched five Shapeshifted Grand Demons, but they also had an Earth Demon overseeing the battle. It was unlikely they would let Black Cloud City off so easily.