“I was born in a very ordinary family. My father was the emperor of the Flowing Cloud Nation, while my mother was an ordinary concubine. When I was three years old, the palace’s Daoist Elder tested my cultivation aptitude to find that I had none…”
Little Hong Ling looked up into the sky with her large, watery eyes. “I should have been a normal princess with a normal childhood. When I came of age, I was going to get married and lead a normal life…
“However, something terrifying happened…”
Little Hong Ling hugged her knees with her soft little arms. “For some reason, my body was unable to grow and has always maintained this child form.”
An Lin looked at the adorable Little Hong Ling and asked with curiosity, “Why is that?”
Little Hong Ling shook her head. “I don’t know. My father also asked many supreme beings, and they all conducted checks on me, but no one could figure out why my body is like this… I’m unable to cultivate, and if my body remained like that for my entire life, didn’t that mean that I would even lose my chance to be a normal person?
“And that ended up actually being the case. Our relatives’ children always laughed at me, all of my fellow students at school regarded me as a freak, and they bullied and ostracized me. Even the adults were disdainful toward me, and my childhood passed in darkness and misery without any joy or happiness…
“Not long after that, the Flowing Cloud Nation was struck by a series of natural disasters and some Daoist masters pinned the blame on me, proclaiming that I was the source of all of the Flowing Cloud Nation’s disasters. They said that the fortune of the nation was slowly wasting away due to my presence, and they saw me as the harbinger of doom. Countless people wanted me dead, thinking that everything would be better once I died.
“My father finally folded to the pressure exerted on him by all of the officials and cultivators and was forced to banish me. Many people applauded this decision, and there were even some who were plotting to kill me… I was only eighteen years old that year…”
An Lin was stunned by this story. He didn’t think that such an adorable little girl would have such a tragic past.
“At the time, my parents abandoned me, my relatives insulted me, my friends distanced themselves from me, and the entire nation resented me. It was as if my existence in this world were a mistake, as if I were a cancerous tumor that had to be removed. All of that was because I couldn’t grow up. Hehe, how amusing… Even at a tender young age, I had seen just how cold this world could be, and I knew what had brought all of this upon me,” Little Hong Ling continued.
“What is it?” An Lin asked.
Little Hong Ling pointed a little finger at the sky. “It’s this accursed heavens!”
An Lin: “…”
“I began to hurl abuse at the heavens. That was the first time in my life that I had verbally abused someone… No, I was verbally abusing the heavens. I resented it for giving me a body that refused to grow, I denounced it for being a cruel, twisted freak that ruined my life…”
Little Hong Ling’s cheeks were flushed with excitement as she spoke.
“And then, something strange happened. Following every piece of abuse I hurled at the heavens, an extremely soothing flow of warmth would appear in my body. I was encouraged by this discovery and put more effort into my abuse of the heavens. I don’t know how many insults I hurled, but I felt better and better as I insulted the heavens. In the end, I insulted the heavens for an entire day…”
An Lin’s mouth gaped open upon hearing Little Hong Ling’s words, and he didn’t even know what to say.
Abusing the heavens could make one feel good? Was that even possible? That was unbelievable!
However, that was not the end of this bizarre story. Little Hong Ling continued, “You remember how I told you that I was banished? On a stretch of barren land in the Flowing Cloud Nation, I was bullied by a small general. He punched and kicked and cursed me. He said that I was the reason for all of the wars that had been taking place in the nation, and that I was the reason his family fell to enemy forces…
“My heinous reputation was renowned across the entire nation, to the extent that my name was synonymous with sin and disaster. As such, they were used to blaming everything on me…
“However, on that day, I chose to retaliate. Perhaps insulting the heavens the day before had given me courage, or it could have been some other reason, but in any case, I chose to resist!
“What was astonishing to everyone was that I suddenly attained extraordinary strength. I was even able to sense the Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth, and each every one of my actions could sweep up large amounts of the Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth. That eighth Dao Body Stage general was pummeled into an unrecognizable state after just a few punches.
“Everyone else was also stunned. They were in disbelief that a weak and vulnerable little girl just a few days ago could now be capable of beating their general into submission. Even I was completely stunned, and I immediately took this opportunity to escape from the Flowing Cloud Nation, from the nightmarish place that had given me nothing but pain and suffering.
“I escaped into a forest, and I wanted to verify something, so I continued to insult the heavens. Sure enough, more flows of warmth began to appear in my body. When I woke up the next day, I discovered that I had become more powerful yet again. I finally managed to verify something, and that was that I could become stronger by insulting the heavens!”
Little Hong Ling looked up at the sky with intensity in her eyes.
An Lin drew a sharp intake of breath and was astonished once again.
He had seen countless strange beings, but this was the first time he had met a freak that could become stronger by abusing the heavens. She was so strange that she absolutely crushed all of the beings that he had met that he thought were strange!
“Thus, I began my heaven-abusing cultivation journey. That was the most joyful time in my life. I felt like, for the very first time, I had a target in life, and that I wasn’t some orphan abandoned by this world.
“However, this method of cultivation had its flaws; the higher my cultivation base became, the more difficult it became for me to progress. I had to diversify the insults I hurled at the heavens. For example, the weather is bad today? Abuse the heavens! Breakfast tasted like crap? Abuse the heavens! A famine has struck? Abuse the heavens! A tragic homicide has occurred? Abuse the heavens!”
An Lin’s lips twitched in incredulity. What kind of cultivation path was this?
He really wanted to ask if Little Hong Ling thought that he was an idiot, but the serious expression on her little face suggested that she wasn’t lying…
If that was the case, then either she was insane or the heavens were insane!
An Lin was also struck by the urge to hurl abuse at the heavens! The Heavenly Dao wasn’t fair! Why was it that other people could cultivate through such unreasonable methods?!
If Xue Zhantian were to attain Little Hong Ling’s cultivation ability, he would most likely be a God of Creation already!
Were the heavens masochistic or something? It was granting her more power in exchange for verbal abuse?
“After cultivating by insulting the heavens for a hundred years, I reached the Return to Void Stage, a cultivation base that countless cultivators yearned for. I became the widely-renowned Exalted Immortal Hong Ling.
“After a while, the imperial family of the Flowing Cloud Nation suddenly contacted me and begged me to save their dying nation. It turned out that the nation was invaded by two particularly ruthless Return to Void Stage vicious beasts, and they were unable to stop these two beasts. As such, they were at the end of the road and could only beg for my help.”
An ironic chuckle suddenly escaped Little Hong Ling’s lips. “Isn’t it funny that the entire imperial family and the citizens of the nation were all cursing me, hoping that I die, and regarding me as the embodiment of the plague? They banished me to a barren wasteland where I suffered all kinds of torment. If it weren’t for the fact that I had attained my new power, I would most likely have already perished. Were they not ashamed to ask for my help? Did they think that I was Virgin Mary?”
“So what did you do?” An Lin asked.
“I…” Little Hong Ling pursed her lips and replied in a quiet voice, “I still returned to the Flowing Cloud Nation and slew those two Return to Void Stage beasts…”
An Lin fell silent upon hearing this.
“After slaying those two beasts, all of the nation’s citizens called me the savior, the gem of the nation, the number one Flowing Cloud Celestial Maiden. Some of them even knelt down to worship me…” Little Hong Ling smiled. “I stood in the imperial palace, and everyone liked me, respected me, and praised me. All of them wore genuine smiles on their faces when they looked at me…
“In the past, they resented me, insulted me, and tortured me just because I couldn’t grow up… But now, I still couldn’t grow up, but they treated me completely differently. I didn’t know what I felt at the time. It wasn’t grief nor joy. I simply felt like everything was extremely absurd, and that there was something weighing down on my chest.
“I didn’t know what to do, so I began to insult the heavens again in front of tens of thousands of people…
“Can you imagine what it was like for me to insult the heavens in front of so many people? All of them wore extremely spectacular expressions, as if my image in their hearts had been turned on its head once again. However, I didn’t care.
“And then, I immediately made a breakthrough to the Return to Void Pinnacle Stage and attained my divine dao.”
An Lin: “…”
