As for the new fans who managed to grab the Spiritual Roots, they naturally had their own explanations.
【Yaya Sprout: This is the first time I’ve seen a streamer this good-looking. I’ll buy one just to show my support.】
【Curry Fried Rice: I didn’t get one. Streamer, do you have any more?】
【Little Potato: If it were 1,988 yuan, I’d forget it, but a Spiritual Root is only 198 yuan? I definitely have to buy one and see whether it’s real.】
……
The five items quickly sold out.
The newcomers who had managed to buy them began posting comments one after another. Some people who were still somewhat skeptical clicked on their profiles to take a look.
They discovered that the people who had bought the Spiritual Roots really weren’t the streamer’s fans. Their profiles contained traces of their everyday lives.
In other words, none of them were alternate accounts created by the streamer.
Quite a few people couldn’t understand how so many had rushed to buy them just now.
The moderator of Zou Mu’s livestream was especially furious. He even noticed that two of the people who had bought Spiritual Roots had previously been loyal fans of this livestream, yet had now defected halfway through.
This infuriated him.
He directly posted in the livestream:
【Jiong Tu: What the hell? Have you all gone crazy? You know the stuff in the other livestream is fake, yet you’re still buying it? Do you have no brains?】
His words were obviously aggressive. After posting them, he still wasn’t satisfied and even deliberately @-mentioned the two “traitors.”
The two people who had bought the Spiritual Roots immediately pretended they hadn’t seen it.
What a joke.
The reason they had stayed in the livestreams of disciples from reclusive sects all this time was precisely because they wanted to learn how to awaken Spiritual Roots.
Now that the streamer on the other side was actually selling Spiritual Roots, naturally they weren’t going to miss this opportunity to cultivate.
Even if the Spiritual Roots turned out to be fake, so what?
It was only 198 yuan.
Compared with the cultivation formulas sold outside for tens of thousands at the very least, and hundreds of millions at the highest—and which still didn’t guarantee that the buyer would awaken a Spiritual Root—who wouldn’t buy one?
Anyone who didn’t would be an idiot.
Hadn’t everyone else in the livestream stopped talking?
It was obvious they had participated in the rush to buy them too. They simply hadn’t managed to get one, so they were keeping quiet.
The comments in Zou Mu’s livestream fell silent for several seconds.
The moderator seemed to realize what was happening, and immediately became furious.
【Jiong Tu: Anyone who isn’t loyal, get out! The Sanquan Sect doesn’t welcome fence-sitters like you!】
The moment he posted those words, the livestream’s viewer count dropped by 10,000 within less than five seconds.
Zou Mu’s expression turned ugly when he saw this.
For the first time, he felt angry at his own moderator.
Although he hadn’t been livestreaming for very long, he knew that saying something like this was essentially driving viewers away.
Moreover, this was happening during a PK. Most of the people who had left had definitely gone straight to the other livestream.
The thought that his own moderator had indirectly sent traffic to the opposing livestream made Zou Mu feel so frustrated that he almost cursed out loud.
But his own problem hadn’t been resolved yet.
Silently calculating the time, and learning from the comments that the moderator on the other side had driven people away, Xie Zhiyu hurriedly interrupted Zou Mu before he could continue questioning her.
“Time’s up. It’s my turn to ask questions now.”
She pointed at the countdown displayed in both livestreams.
Zou Mu, who had just been about to speak, had no choice but to stop.
His expression darkened.
“Fine. Ask your questions.”
Xie Zhiyu looked relaxed.
“Don’t worry. I’ll only ask a few questions. Just don’t lie, okay? Otherwise, you’ll be punished.”
She kindly reminded him.
But to Zou Mu, this looked like a guilty conscience.
Thinking back to how nothing had happened when she answered his questions earlier, he became even more certain that the Truth-Telling Talisman was fake, and his guard dropped further.
He relaxed against the back of his chair and said carelessly, “I won’t lie.”
This was practically another layer of assurance on top of the Truth-Telling Talisman.
Xie Zhiyu smiled faintly.
“Good. Then, first question—”
“You said you’re from the Sanquan Sect. So let me ask you this: Have you ever harmed or bullied your fellow disciples?”
“No.”
Zou Mu answered without hesitation.
In his mind, it was his fellow disciples who had constantly interfered with his cultivation, which was why he had taught them a lesson.
That didn’t count as bullying at all, much less something as serious as harming them.
He answered calmly, and Xie Zhiyu continued with her next question.
“After leaving your sect, have you ever bullied ordinary people because you were in a bad mood?”
“……”
This time, Zou Mu hesitated.
“No.”
“How could I possibly bully ordinary people?”
As he said this, his heart jolted.
Several scenes rapidly flashed through his mind, and he couldn’t help feeling a little guilty, though he showed nothing on his face.
As a cultivator who considered himself superior to others, he had indeed felt uncomfortable when he first entered the outside world. Whenever he encountered something unpleasant, he had occasionally taught the other party a lesson.
But he was livestreaming now. How could he possibly admit that?
So he told a “white lie.”
He was doing it all for the sake of his sect!
Their Sanquan Sect was nothing like the other reclusive sects. Those other reclusive sects had gone far beyond mere bullying.
As for them, they only occasionally taught people a lesson.
What was so wrong with that?
Thinking this way, he became righteous again.
“Our Sanquan Sect is famous for being compassionate. Let me put it this way: the cultivation formula I teach was passed down by our ancestors, and I don’t withhold a single bit of it. You only need to pay one million yuan, and I can even increase your chances of awakening a Spiritual Root. Unlike the other sects—they’re much more ruthless. A complete cultivation formula costs at least ten million yuan.”
He was very confident about this.
That was what he said, but Xie Zhiyu found his words utterly self-righteous and sanctimonious.
She drawled out the words, “Is that so?”
Zou Mu, who had grown up having everything go his way and had rarely ever needed to lie, did not notice how hypocritical his expression looked at that moment.
The viewers in the livestream were not fools. Quite a few of them noticed his expression.
The barrage of comments in Xie Zhiyu’s livestream became even more intense.
Some viewers even dug out the cultivation formula he had been teaching from his livestream and posted it for everyone to criticize.
【Jasmine: Is this it? I spent a million yuan on this cultivation formula, and in the end, not a single person in my family awakened. And he still has the nerve to call himself conscientious. What a joke.】
【An’an Eats Watermelon: ? You’re pretty bold, aren’t you? You actually posted it publicly?】
【Jasmine: A million yuan is nothing to me. So what if I post it? I just want to expose that man’s true colors. I know several other people who bought their sect’s cultivation formula, and none of them awakened a spiritual root either. We all suspect that what he taught us is a fake cultivation formula.】
If it were just one person who failed to awaken, that could still be understandable. But if most people failed to awaken, then something was clearly wrong.
Xie Zhiyu saw the comment, and her brows unconsciously furrowed.
She silently circulated the cultivation formula through her body once. A few seconds later, her expression instantly became solemn.
The system screamed inside her mind.
“My god! This guy is seriously despicable. He actually used such a sinister trick.”
“No wonder he’s a disciple of a hidden sect.”
His heart was actually this rotten.
Xie Zhiyu let out a cold laugh. When she raised her head again, her eyes had turned sharp, a chilling glint flashing within them.
“Last question.”
She parted her lips, her voice cold enough to freeze the air.
“Did you place a curse in the cultivation formula you taught them—a curse that affects them?”