章節 4: Taking a bump

Back when I was an earthling, there was one thing that I was particularly fond of. And that was watching pro-wrestling. Yea, people told me it was fake, but I always argued that it was scripted and not fake. Anyway, fake or not, I enjoyed it a great deal. While it was a mere nostalgia for few, wrestling was like oxygen for me. At one point, I even considered joining a wrestling promotion. However, since I was calcium deficient for the most part and weak as fuck, I stopped pursuing the career of a wrestler. Instead, I joined the creative team of a wrestling promotion. That was the best moment of my life-my previous life, if you ask me.

Now, why was I reminiscing about that, you ask? Well, back when I was fan-girling over wrestling, I did practice a few moves on my pillow like everyone else does. It was back then, I learned a peculiar stuff that wrestlers do that was gonna massively help in this situation. And that is… how to take a bump.

For most of the punches, kicks and headbutts that you watch during wrestling matches, it's usually fake. Those moves don't contain any malice and the intent was to make it feel real and not actually be real. Of course, if a wrestler chooses to shoot on the other person, then things are different. Anyhow, the sounds that we hear when they punch and stuff is either them slapping their own thighs or stomping their foot on the mat. And the receiving opponent convincingly falls into the mat, thus forming this brilliant illusion.

I considered my situation to be the same as the receiving opponent. Sure, the one punching right now had malicious intent and was fully prepared to punch me on the face. How would that be similar, you don't ask? Well, malicious punch or not, I know the direction in which he's gonna punch me, so even if he doesn't act along, I just have to avoid it by a hair stroke and then take the bump.

I knew that certain actions of mine could have changed it from the game story-line. However, I was confident on this, since this scene in the game was a cut scene. No matter how many times you watch a cut scene, the scene's not gonna change from before.

Hua Liu insulted Qiu Si, then Zhangsun Shan came into the rescue and bang! He uses his left hand to imprint a punch on the left side of my face. The first two didn't change. Even though my line delivery was bad, once I got into the zone, he actually came for the rescue.

Now about the swear words. If I didn't provoke him like that, there would be a back-and-forth conversation about how he doesn't wanna raise a hand against me, not because I was a girl, but because I was so pitiful that he felt bad. I hated this conversation back then, and I hate it now. Therefore, to save myself from that, I poked the eye of the bear and waited to see how that pans out.

Anyhow, I turned around to "receive" Zhangsun Shan's punch. The good thing was that he winded up before the punch. The creators did that to give out this sense of anticipation. Even though the windup was slow, the punch was really fast so that the one receiving couldn't sense the direction. That didn't work on me though!

Usually, people panic and run away when they see the windup. But for me, I walked towards him instead. By the time he released the super fast punch, I straight up plopped into the ground, which made total sense, physics wise.

Look, no one could see the punch with their naked eye. They could see a glimmer, but nothing else. So, even though I screw up my landing, they wouldn't actually realize. Now, the plop. I walked towards the punch, which was launched in an acute angle. So, I believed that it kinda made sense that I plopped rather than flying away from the impact.

Once I safely landed on the ground, I closed my eyes and didn't move to give the sense to the people that I was unconscious from the blow. I was waiting for the hero to utter the lines [Now, you're safe, miss!] to Qiu Si; once he does that, the scene would be done with and the mob would disperse.

However, even after waiting for a long time, I didn't hear those words from him. It was fine, though. I thought maybe he did the cool guy shtick rather than a chivalrous one and walked away silently. Oh, how I wished that would be the case! However, I could still hear the inaudible murmurs around me. I got annoyed by this elongated scene; maybe it was my punishment for speeding up the back-and-forth scene from before.

Anyway, it got to a point where I couldn't just tolerate it anymore. So, I half opened my eyes to check on the stuff that was going on. That's when I noticed it. Instead of a smiling face and a victorious pose, Zhangsun Shan looked confused as to what had happened as he glared at my "lifeless" body.

I understood the reason. He didn't feel the punch being connected; he didn't get that sensation, so he couldn't feel the hype. However, I couldn't care less about him and how he felt. I didn't put up this act for him. It was to convince the surrounding people. If they believed my act, then his voice stood no chance.

So, to make them believe, I took the act one step further. I bit my tongue until it bled profusely, and then I coughed it out as I "woke" up. Ah, the horror in people's eyes as I coughed up the blood was a treat to watch. Maybe, I have masochistic tendencies!

Anyway, with that, people believed that Zhangsun Shan legit punched me in the face and it gave me severe internal injuries. While there were people criticizing him for punching a woman who can't even cultivate, no one really raised their voice because Zhangsun Shan's an elite student who became famous in the academy for his own merits.

"Zhangsun Shan! How dare you beat up one of my sect members? Don't you have any shame? You just injured a girl who can't even do proper cultivation!" Finally, someone stood up for me. As I tried to look who that was, I saw a hand extended towards me. Once I grabbed his hands and looked closely at his face, I realized who that was.

The main villain of the World of Cultivation, Wang Lei; current fiancé and the future husband of the villainess who made me harass Qiu Si. The future head of the Blood Moon Sect. The second most favorite character of the union of gamers, after Zhangsun Shan. Even though they were a couple, they were two distinct people.

While the villainess was vile, Wang Lei was chivalrous and a responsible sect member. He cared about his friends and his people alike. He does nothing that goes against his code.

He was seventeen when he learned about how the sect elders ambushed the Taiyi sect. He raised his voice against it, but no one really cared about him. Once he reached twenty-two and received the title of sect elder through his achievements alone, he also had to bear responsibility for the sins that his sect carried as the hero yearned for revenge.

As this rag tag team of Zhangsun Shan banded up against the Blood Moon sect, several other sects tried taking advantage of this situation and started waging war against other sects. To avoid a massive war, Wang Lei made himself the antagonist and made every sect focus on him. Once he couldn't bear the bloodshed that nearly destroyed his sect, he asked for a duel against Zhangsun Shan, asking him to end it there. After a hard fought battle, he lost to the protagonist. But the only thing he had to say was to treat his people with care, a promise which Zhangsun Shan decided to fulfill out of pure respect.

However, once Wang Lei died, the other sects couldn't agree with this promise as they pillaged, raped and killed the members of Blood Moon Sect. This led to Zhangsun Shan going berserk on all the sects as he killed most of the vile people, thus creating a peaceful world for not just the Blood Moon Sect, but the entire world.

So, if you were to ask anyone who played the World of Cultivation about who's the most influential character in the game, they would always answer it as Wang Lei, the one with the most tenacity and fighting spirit, that even the protagonist of this world couldn't deny his presence and words.

And that person was the one who came for my rescue. He cared for his sect members and I was one, so naturally he cared about me too. Normally, I would have been happy since a prominent character stood up for me, but there was a slight problem. This scene never occurred in the actual game!