Chapter 491: Born Hard Life

Wu Xian had never studied acting.

His ability to produce such a realistic expression of despair came entirely from having practiced facial control specifically to master the potential of “Born Killer.”

But Wu Xian’s performance in Jinmu Building wasn’t all acting.

His heart was made of flesh, not an emotionless iron man; when he died, he still felt pain and despair.

Without genuine emotion, even Sha Pi couldn’t be fooled.

After shocking Sha Pi, Wu Xian delayed a little longer, waiting until Sha Pi grew impatient before speaking again.

“Then let me pose your second question.”

“How did I know the exact time of leaving Jinmu Building?”

“First, I must admit, the Jinmu Building scenario was well done.”

“Outside was empty, so I couldn’t judge time by the environment; the constant resetting of clocks and scenes made me believe time had no meaning here, and the capture game gave me hope—only to crush it each time I succeeded. After multiple cycles, only ten minutes had passed, deepening my despair…”

“Almost every two deaths, you threw me a hope, then crushed it. Under such pressure, a normal person wouldn’t just forget the time—they’d believe they could never escape.”

Wu Xian held up two fingers.

“But you made two mistakes!”

“First, when I kicked the Nail Ghost, her reactions differed twice. The second time, she instinctively dodged—so she sat on the floor instead of hitting the wall. That means the Nail Ghost remembers being kicked.”

“Of course, this could also be due to my own differing movements.”

“But you shouldn’t have taken away the plastic tube I used to kill myself—that was your second mistake. You took it to prevent me from dying quickly, which proves you retain memories from the previous cycle!”

“Therefore, I concluded: the time reset is fake!”

“Using clocks to simulate time reset was clever, but now I just needed to record the time of each death, sum them all up, and estimate how long I’d been in Jinmu Building.”

“Thus…”

“Hmm, hah! Finally!”

Wu Xian’s body began to fade, meaning his physical form had already been thrown out of Lele City by Yu Rang, arriving at the Thirty-Three Layers of Discontented Heaven—his soul would now leave Jinmu Building and return to his body.

“Ha, ha… aah!”

Wu Xian finally relaxed.

He couldn’t help bursting into laughter; after a while, he felt like crying, but he refused to cry in front of Sha Pi, so he screamed instead to release his suppressed emotions.

Sha Pi reached out to grab Wu Xian.

But his hand passed right through Wu Xian’s body.

Wu Xian stopped screaming after a while. He spoke so much to Sha Pi at the end for two reasons.

First.

Wu Xian wanted to settle things with Sha Pi before leaving.

He had never died so many times in any Fudi; if he fled Jinmu Building in silence and shame, it might become an unsolvable nightmare for him.

Second.

Even after dying eighteen times, Wu Xian didn’t want to die the nineteenth!

If he could stretch out the final moments with words alone, it was better than being tortured to death again by Sha Pi…

Jinmu Building grew blurry in Wu Xian’s vision—Lehentian was purging the toxins from his body. He would never see Sha Pi again.

Bam! Wu Xian slapped his forehead.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you something.”

“You must have heard my muttering—I said I wanted to name you, but it was too much trouble, so I gave up… Actually, I’d already chosen the name, but I feared saying it would anger you and make you torture me even worse, so I swallowed the words.”

“Since you have no skin and countless eyes, I’ll call you ‘Skinless-Eyed Man’ from now on!”

Sha Pi showed no reaction.

This disappointed Wu Xian.

It seemed Sha Pi couldn’t comprehend such an advanced form of insult.

Then let’s try another way to provoke him!

“By the way, you might think psychological terror is a good way to break me.”

“But honestly, my will isn’t that strong. If you’d tied me to an iron bed from the start and stabbed me nonstop, I’d have broken long ago.”

“You’re really embarrassing the Jinmu Tai Sui God,” Wu Xian said—and his body vanished.

“Roar!”

“Aaaah!”

Sha Pi raged helplessly, every eye on his body exploding as he went mad with self-mutilation.

But his screams hadn’t traveled far.

Jinmu Building collapsed—and the six evil spirits and Sha Pi vanished forever with it.

…

The twentieth time, he woke up.

Wu Xian stared at the clear blue sky and laughed aloud.

This time, he was no longer in Jinmu Building—he was in the picturesque Thirty-Three Layers of Discontented Heaven.

He lay on golden flooring, feeling wonderfully content.

Then he rolled over.

His mood instantly soured.

There, right on his glittering golden floor, was a hole the size of a basketball—beneath it, the raw earth of Lehentian was exposed!

When Wu Xian had left Lehentian last time,

he didn’t want to waste the silver statue of the God of Fire Virtue, so he used sticky characters and acceleration spells to fix it to the floor, pretending it was just decoration to sneak past inspection.

He thought the worst that could happen was the statue vanishing.

But now, returning to Lehentian, it had not only taken the statue—it had dug up his floor too!

Wu Xian stomped his foot in fury.

It felt like he’d lost a hundred million.

He quickly pulled the Spirit-Storage Chest to the hole and placed it there, hiding the damage—but the floor was still imperfect. He’d have to find a chance to fix it later.

After that,

Wu Xian opened his Juanrendudie .

A new potential had been added.

Wu Xian had asked other Juanren about the difference between potential and trait.

Strictly speaking, potential and trait were the same thing—but potential was complete and could still be enhanced.

Traits, on the other hand, were either one-time effects like Dragon-Snake Affinity, or limited in scope like Born Thick Skin, which only worked on Wu Xian’s face.

Now, for this new potential, four large characters appeared before Wu Xian.

Born Hard Life!

This potential activated due to the presence of Xiongshen cells in the Juanren ’s body.

When activated, the Juanren could survive five additional minutes after sustaining non-cranial fatal injuries—but if injured further during that time, death would be immediate.

Wu Xian’s heart burned with excitement.

After dying eighteen times in Jinmu Building, this potential was worth every death! Though the description was brief and offered no direct combat boost, with this potential, he effectively gained a second life in any Fudi.

“With this, I could even deliberately endure the final evil spirit’s attack in a Fudi, lull it into complacency, and win—so long as I escaped within five minutes…”

“No!”

“How could I think like that?”

“Too dangerous!”

Wu Xian shuddered. Dying so many times in Jinmu Building had made him careless with his own life—even considering fatal injuries as part of his tactics.

“I will never actively use this potential.”

“After returning, I need to fix my mental health.”

“I’ll have Han Xiaoying find me a beautiful, gentle psychologist…”

(End of Chapter)