Chapter 520: I, burdened with ambition! (Happy New Year!)

Liu Er heard Shuang Jing's words about Du Tiechuan, but he did not dare to respond.

His face was full of bitterness: "Commander Du is a dignified Soul Transformation stage, with high position and great power, and every move is accompanied by wind and thunder. Small characters like me can only follow closely and drift with the tide."

Shuang Jing nodded and pointed at Liu Er: "Your status is humble, just a human-demon hybrid. If you want to operate, you can't just drift with the tide, but must identify the right mountain."

"Since you have come to ask me for help, I will give you a chance, considering we are comrades."

"Regarding the heavy armor quota, I can go against Du Tiechuan's wishes and help you. It's just that..."

Shuang Jing dragged out his voice and did not continue.

Liu Er knew the opportunity, immediately cupped his hands, indicating that he was willing to cooperate, and asked Shuang Jing to give his orders.

Shuang Jing smiled slightly: "Come, serve me tea."

Liu Er: "This is this small person's honor!"

He held the teapot with both hands, poured the tea, and then held the cup with both hands and offered it to Shuang Jing.

Shuang Jing did not take it, still sat in his original place, and sneered: "Liu Er, you are a bit confused."

"In terms of status, I am of the state surname, a child of a high family. You are a mere hybrid; even if you pull the tiger skin of the Blood Slaughter Dynasty, compared to me, it is like mud and clouds."

"In terms of cultivation strength, I am at the Nascent Soul stage, and you are just a small Jin Dan."

"Furthermore, in the current situation, you are the one asking me for help and urgently need the heavy armor quota. If you don't have this, your Three Generals Camp cannot bear the Iron Flow Leveling the Plains military strategy and will inevitably become cannon fodder, buried on the battlefield."

"Is that clear enough?"

"In such a situation, you are offering me tea, and you are still standing?"

Shuang Jing looked coldly at Liu Er, and the atmosphere in the room suddenly became icy.

Liu Er froze in place, and the muscles on his face twitched.

His heart shook, and the humiliation in his heart surged like a tide.

He gritted his teeth and smiled: "Lord Shuang Jing's lesson is right! It is this subordinate who does not know the importance, please... Lord, drink tea."

His legs trembled, and he slowly knelt halfway to offer the tea to Shuang Jing.

Shuang Jing smiled: "This looks a bit more like it."

He took the cup, took a sip, and immediately spat it onto the floor in front of Liu Er.

"It's a bit cold."

"Do you know? Tea should be drunk hot; once this opportunity passes, it is difficult to drink."

"In life, once an opportunity appears, you must fight with all your strength and grasp it firmly. Otherwise, if you miss it, you may regret it for a lifetime."

"You should understand this truth, right?"

Liu Er nodded: "Thank you, Lord, for your guidance; this subordinate will keep it in mind."

Shuang Jing sneered again: "Just remembering it, how is that enough? Clean the floor first?"

Liu Er froze again.

Shuang Jing narrowed his eyes and looked down at Liu Er, who was kneeling on the ground: "What? Humble as you are, it just matches this cleaning work."

"You have to know, many people want this opportunity of yours, thinking about it day and night, but have no way."

Liu Er nodded repeatedly, a smile appearing on his face: "Yes, Lord Shuang's lesson is right! I will wipe it."

As he said this, he bent down and wiped the floor with his sleeves.

Soon, he wiped the floor clean.

Shuang Jing looked up and laughed loudly, pointing at Liu Er: "You performed well."

"I'm starting to think highly of you."

"Alright."

"Now, do one more thing, and I will help you buy the heavy armor with the quota."

Liu Er saw that Shuang Jing finally let go, let out a turbid breath, and hurriedly asked what it was.

Shuang Jing said: "Very simple. Your Three Generals Camp will all merge into my White Jade Camp as auxiliary troops. Especially your military advisor, I think highly of him."

"He has a very close relationship with the Red Flower Camp. You need to persuade your military advisor to join as well."

Seeing Liu Er wanting to speak, Shuang Jing immediately raised his hand to forbid it: "Of course."

"I just want to see your performance."

"I don't really want you to merge in."

"To tell you the truth, if you mud-legged people join, I still have to spend a lot of effort to persuade the generals on my side."

"But since you are defecting to me, you naturally have to show your loyalty."

"If you don't defect to me, why should I offend Du Tiechuan for you?"

Liu Er fell into silence and remained silent for a long time.

A moment later, he cupped his hands and bowed deeply: "Lord Shuang Jing, my two sworn brothers and I advance and retreat together. I am confident in persuading them to come and defect to you."

"But my military advisor comes from a great clan and has invested heavily to support the Three Generals Camp."

"In fact, without him, our financial resources would not have reached this point today."

"Moreover, he has fought alongside us and has a deep friendship."

"If I were to plot against him, wouldn't that be returning kindness with ingratitude?"

Shuang Jing sneered: "Liu Er, you should slap your own mouth! You mean that defecting to me is plotting against Ning Zhuo?"

"Is joining my command such an unbearable thing?"

"And it makes you return kindness with ingratitude?"

Liu Er hurriedly confessed his guilt.

Shuang Jing's gaze was cold, scanning Liu Er up and down: "Now, I give you two choices."

"The first choice, you agree to my last request and do as I say. Don't talk about heavy armor; even if you become an official in the imperial court in the future, I can help you arrange it."

"The second choice, you refuse me. Although you wasted my time and feelings, I won't make things difficult for you. You slap yourself thirty times, and I will forgive you; go back to where you came from."

Liu Er was silent for a moment, then suddenly raised his right hand and slapped his cheek hard.

Although he had once fiercely rejected Shuang Jing's recruitment, after the Mu Lan incident, he hosted a banquet for all the parties involved and, with his own methods, greatly eased his relationship with all sides.

He did not pause and really slapped himself thirty times, slapping his cheeks until they were red and swollen, with blood spilling from the corners of his mouth.

Shuang Jing snorted coldly, very displeased: "Just now I thought you were good, but now it seems you have such a small capacity."

"You are a mere hybrid, with a humble background and low status, and you still want to have morality?"

"Hehe."

"Simply ridiculous!"

"You are not worthy of being under my command. Continue to live in your humbleness; you will sooner or later regret your stupidity this time and pay the price."

"Now, get out."

"Please allow this small person to withdraw!" Liu Er bowed deeply, retreated slowly, and walked to the curtain of the tent before turning around, lifting the curtain, and exiting the main general's tent.

When Liu Er left, Ning Zhuo realized that the imprisonment had disappeared.

He pushed the door out for the first time and bowed to Shuang Jing: "Lord Shuang Jing, why do this? With your capacity, how can you not accommodate an outsider Jin Dan?"

Shuang Jing looked deeply at Ning Zhuo: "Then, Ning Zhuo, what do you say?"

Ning Zhuo did not hesitate and bowed again: "Please forgive this subordinate for withdrawing!"

"Hehehe." Shuang Jing sneered three times and pointed to the curtain. Because of Ning Zhuo's status as the son-in-law of the Grand General's Mansion, he did not say "get out."

Ning Zhuo left immediately, running all the way, and caught up with Liu Er.

"Lord Liu, Lord Liu!" Ning Zhuo called out urgently.

Liu Er turned around and saw Ning Zhuo chasing from behind him, and his heart moved.

Ning Zhuo did not hide anything from him and told him about his experience in Shuang Jing's tent.

Liu Er laughed: "The military advisor is intelligent and wise, more advanced than I thought."

Ning Zhuo sighed deeply: "It's just that Lord Shuang Jing is high above, looking down on us, and it's tiring for you to be humiliated."

"Not so." Liu Er shook his head directly, "What do these count for?"

"Just as Lord Shuang Jing said, many cultivators want such an opportunity but cannot ask for it. For someone with my status to obtain such an opportunity, it is truly lucky."

"It's just that I find it difficult to grasp such luck."

"This is my problem."

Ning Zhuo also shook his head, held Liu Er's arm, and begged: "You have treated me deeply, and I am deeply grateful!"

Liu Er grabbed Ning Zhuo's arm with his other hand: "Military advisor! Although our ages are quite different, we are heart-to-heart. The Three Generals Camp can survive to this day, and you have the greatest credit."

"What I just said was not false or hypocritical, but from the bottom of my heart."

"What virtue or ability do I, Liu Er, have to be favored by Lord Shuang Jing?"

"I am just a human-demon hybrid."

Speaking of this, Liu Er paused and pointed to the mountain in the distance: "Military advisor, look at that mountain. Why don't we land there, and let me clarify my heart to you."

Ning Zhuo naturally would not refuse.

The two flew down to the nearest mountain, landed on the mountain rocks, and rested.

Liu Er took out a pot of wine and poured it for himself first: "My father was a demon cultivator, and my mother was a human. I was brought up by my mother."

"It was fine at first; the demon bloodline on me was not obvious."

"I also once had days like ordinary children, carefree and playing around."

"This was the only bright spot in my childhood, but perhaps it was because of this that I felt the pain that followed even more."

Liu Er drank a sip of wine: "What my former playmates gave me was fear, suspicion, and alienation."

"As I grew up, what I suffered were cold eyes, ridicule, and discussions behind my back from my peers. They called me hybrid, mongrel, half-demon, or monster."

"I was isolated and no longer had playmates. When I played alone, I was most afraid of meeting peers in the same village. They would mock me as a monster, surround me, push me to the ground, and deliberately throw stones at me."

"I once hated my identity very much and quarreled with my mother, asking her why she didn't give birth to me as a pure human?"

"And when I understood some truths, I understood my mother's helplessness, and I gradually learned to stay away from the public, avoid crowds, and protect myself as much as possible."

Liu Er poured a glass of wine for Ning Zhuo.

"Near the mountain village where I lived, there was the only cultivation sect."

"This was the place I dreamed of joining."

"My talent for cultivation was not bad, and my head could be called flexible. I regarded joining the sect as the hope of my life, longing to use this opportunity to change my destiny, life, and improve the situation for my mother."

"But it's ridiculous; when the sect opened its activities every three years to recruit disciples, I didn't even enter the first round."

"The human cultivator guarding the gate saw me, waved his sleeves, and threw me away."

"The words he said, I still remember vividly—'Things born from the crossbreeding of demons and humans, how can they be worthy of cultivating with us?'"

Speaking of this, Liu Er looked at Ning Zhuo, clinked glasses with Ning Zhuo, and drank the wine in the glass.

"I was thrown to the ground, bruised and swollen, and there were mocking and laughing sounds of people everywhere."

"I don't know how I climbed up."

"I wandered in the mountains like a lonely ghost."

"When my mother found me disheveled in the middle of the night, she took me into her arms. I pushed her down hard, let out a shrill roar, pointed at her nose, and scolded her, why did she give birth to me?"

"My mother let me scold her until I was exhausted, and then she carried me on her back, walked several miles of mountain road, and returned to the thatched cottage where we lived."

Liu Er's eyes were red, and his voice was choked: "If my mother were still alive, I would definitely treat her well. Unfortunately, I was too ignorant at that time."

Liu Er looked at Ning Zhuo: "So, military advisor, don't worry. I have been ridiculed and mocked since I was a child, and what I suffered at Lord Shuang Jing's place today is nothing at all."

Ning Zhuo raised his glass and toasted Liu Er: "I see that you now have great ambitions, move forward bravely, have outstanding strength, and treat people like a spring breeze; such demeanor makes people want to follow."

"It can be seen that there is a very reasonable old saying—when Heaven is about to place a great burden on a man, it will first test his mind, labor his muscles and bones, starve his body, empty his body, and frustrate his actions, so as to stir his mind and strengthen his nature, and increase what he cannot do."

Liu Er laughed: "I didn't understand such truth at that time."

"Even if there were high people to persuade me, I couldn't listen to a single word."

"It wasn't until three years later that a disaster occurred, which completely changed me."

"The mountain village was on the verge of collapse due to the disaster, and for the sake of livelihood, the villagers chose me as a sacrifice to the gods."

"My mother knelt and begged all the villagers, crying and begging for three days and three nights, but couldn't exchange for my freedom."

"On the day of the sacrifice, when I was about to be thrown into the fire, my mother rushed over and died in the fire instead of me."

Liu Er paused here.

Ning Zhuo was silent.

Liu Er took a few deep breaths and continued, his tone becoming hoarse: "But the villagers still didn't let me go and threw me into the fire as well."

"The god secretly saved me."

"It turned out that before becoming a god, He was just a guardian demon beast of the sect. Supported by the sect, He successfully developed incense and became a god."

"Over the past years, every once in a while, He had to exert divine power to create famine, to facilitate the sect to reduce the emerging new forces in the local area, and also to harvest the wealth of the rich."

"In this way, the status, reputation, and interests of the sect could be maintained."

"I prayed to the god to resurrect my mother, but He was unwilling. He was also helpless, but this time, moved by my mother's sacrifice and pitying my half-demon identity, He secretly let me live."

"From then on, I completely understood."

"In this world, even if a demon cultivator becomes a god, he is just a puppet of others."

"Is there still a pure land for demon cultivators in the world?"

"Even if there is, can a hybrid half-demon like me be accepted?"

"I secretly left the mountain village, begged for a living, and wandered for many years. I met my master and finally started cultivation."

"I gradually broadened my horizons and desperately discovered that people in the world treated demon cultivators and half-demons with disdain and exclusion."

Liu Er looked up at the sky.

The sky was clear for ten thousand miles, vast and boundless.

Then, Ning Zhuo's ears heard Liu Er's words, which were filled with excitement.

"Since there is no pure land in this world, let me create one!"

"This is my ambition."

"I want to create a pure land that allows people like me, hybrids, to live freely, without suffering from cold eyes, ridicule, exclusion, and suppression."

"For this, I can dedicate my life!"

Ning Zhuo was stunned.

Liu Er withdrew his gaze, turned to look at Ning Zhuo, and smiled: "So, what does this humiliation count for compared to the ambition I carry?"

Ning Zhuo was speechless.