As soon as these words were spoken, the barrage in both livestreams immediately fell silent.
It was as if a huge boulder had dropped from the sky and smashed into them. Everyone stared wide-eyed in disbelief, wondering if they were hallucinating.
What had they just heard?
The cultivation formula taught by the streamer had been cursed?
Many people’s hearts suddenly jolted, and even their breathing unconsciously grew heavier.
The purpose of placing a curse in a cultivation formula was obvious without anyone needing to spell it out.
The newcomers who had only just entered the livestream and were watching the PK between the two streamers were still relatively calm. But after nearly a minute of silence, Zou Mu’s livestream immediately erupted with a barrage of furious comments.
The people speaking were those who had privately bought cultivation formulas from Zou Mu before.
【Mumu Mu: Is what the streamer on the other side said true? Did you really put a curse in the cultivation formula?】
【Muttering to Myself: ? Speak up. Don’t fucking act like a mute. Where did all that aggression from earlier go? Why don’t you dare say anything now?】
【Innocent Me: FUCKING Zou Mu, if you really put a curse in the cultivation formula, I’ll spend every last penny I have to get revenge on you.】
……
Those who could afford to spend a million yuan on a cultivation formula were at least middle-class or above in the real world. They were unwilling to fall out of the social class they belonged to, so they had been purchasing different cultivation formulas in an attempt to awaken spiritual roots.
Although they knew these hidden sects were shamelessly charging exorbitant prices, they had only complained about it privately. On the surface, they had always maintained the proper courtesy.
After all, they thought that even if these people were trying to scam them, they would at least provide something genuine, right?
But now?
What had they just heard?
Someone had actually tampered with the cultivation formula.
Quite a few people were completely stunned.
Some immediately lost their temper and began cursing furiously.
Even the livestream moderator was shocked by the revelation. However, after recovering from his surprise, he immediately silenced those people one after another.
Throughout all of this, Zou Mu remained silent.
As though his deepest secret had been exposed, his body stiffened, and countless guilty thoughts surged through his mind.
His eyes flickered.
“What are you talking about? How could I possibly have placed a curse on it? You’re deliberately slandering me. To be honest, that Truth Talisman of yours is fake, isn’t it? Not only are you lying yourself, you’re deliberately claiming that I put a curse in my cultivation formula. You’re just trying to steal my traffic, aren’t you? How disgusting!”
He deliberately shifted the topic toward the Truth Talisman, attempting to divert the audience’s attention.
Whether the old fans believed him was unclear, but quite a few newcomers who had just entered the livestream were beginning to believe his explanation.
However, Xie Zhiyu’s next sentence once again sent the situation spiraling in the opposite direction.
Everyone heard her let out another cold laugh.
“Oh, I understand now. For you, it probably shouldn’t be called a curse. You merely changed a few words, then placed a little restriction on the words you changed, right?”
She casually voiced aloud what he had been too afraid to admit.
Then she tilted her head slightly and looked straight at him, her eyes narrowing.
“Then do you dare swear upon your Dao Heart that you absolutely did not place a curse in the cultivation formula?”
She wore a faint, knowing smile, but anyone could see the anger on her face.
“As long as you dare swear upon your Dao Heart, I’ll believe that you truly never did such a thing.”
“The question is… do you dare?”
After saying this, she closed her mouth and quietly watched him.
Zou Mu’s face alternated between green and white. For a moment, he didn’t dare say a word.
If he swore upon his Dao Heart, wouldn’t his cultivation be completely destroyed the moment he finished the oath?
How could he possibly do that?
Besides, there were so many people watching the livestream.
Even if the woman opposite him had guessed everything correctly, there was no way he would admit it.
Thus, he gritted his teeth and denied it in a muffled voice.
“Impossible. I’m not that heartless. I would never prevent my customers from awakening spiritual roots.”
His voice was noticeably weaker than before.
At that exact moment, the countdown in the livestream reached zero.
Five minutes were up.
For a moment, Zou Mu had forgotten that the Truth Talisman’s effect was time-limited. When he saw the countdown stop, he froze for a moment before a flash of inspiration struck him.
He immediately became excited, even trembling with excitement.
“Five minutes are up! I told you, your Truth Talisman is fake. Nothing happened when the time ran out. You pulled this stunt just to smear me, didn’t you? You vicious woman!”
He spoke extremely quickly, as though desperately trying to conceal his guilty excitement and convince everyone that he was the one telling the truth.
Yet he failed to notice the changes happening around him.
Until a fellow disciple who had been watching his livestream suddenly burst through the door, looking terrified, and urgently gestured for him to look up.
Zou Mu, his face flushed with anger, finally followed his junior brother’s gaze.
He instantly broke out in a cold sweat.
His lips parted.
“What is this?”
The spiritual energy inside his body had clearly not broken through its bottleneck. He was clearly sitting indoors.
So why had a mass of dark clouds gathered above his head?
The black clouds were like a heavy curtain, with occasional flashes of lightning flickering within them.
When Zou Mu looked up at them, the lightning suddenly erupted with a deafening roar.
Rumble—!
Before anyone could react, a bolt of lightning suddenly crashed down onto him.
The thunder was far beyond what his ears could endure, and combined with the pain of the lightning strike, Zou Mu felt as though his entire body had been torn apart.
He immediately let out a scream of agony, instinctively curling his body into a ball.
The lightning that struck him did not cause any visible damage to his clothes or body. From the perspective of the others, it seemed as though the lightning simply vanished the moment it touched him.
They couldn’t even hear the thunder. All they knew was that a mass of thunderclouds had appeared above the streamer, followed immediately by a bolt of lightning.
The lightning itself looked rather weak and hadn’t caused any visible injury, yet the man was reacting as though he were undergoing torture, his face twisted in agony.
Was it really that painful?
Everyone wondered silently.
But this was only the first bolt.
A few seconds later, a second bolt of lightning descended.
Then a third.
A fourth…
The lightning continued striking one bolt after another without stopping, while the streamer in front of the camera became more and more agonized with each strike.
Everyone gradually realized that something was wrong.
When the final bolt of lightning finally descended, people began posting their reactions one after another.
【An’an Eats Watermelon: Good lord, I counted them. He got struck by a full nine bolts of lightning! My god, is this the punishment from the Truth Talisman?】
【Lanlan: I’m dying. You said the Truth Talisman was fake, and then you actually lied. You totally deserve to get struck by lightning.】
……
Now, even the most foolish people could see what had happened. Under the power of the Truth Talisman, Zou Mu had indeed been punished for lying.
Most people were laughing at him, but those who had actually purchased the cultivation formula completely broke down.
【Ugly Fish: I’m one of the victims too. I was already frustrated and anxious because I hadn’t awakened a spiritual root during this time, but I never imagined… it was actually your curse that caused it.】
【Wulie66: I’ve suddenly lost all my strength. I’m really desperate. My family isn’t wealthy. This one million yuan was scraped together by everyone in my family. Now there’s no way to go back to how things were. Does this mean I’ll never be able to awaken a spiritual root for the rest of my life?】
No one had emotions more complicated than these victims.
Disappointment, unwillingness, anger, despair…
All kinds of emotions became intertwined, and Zou Mu’s livestream popularity plummeted.
But at this moment, Zou Mu himself was already too overwhelmed to care about anything else.
He clutched his head and rolled around wildly on the floor, only to discover in horror that the lightning wasn’t merely causing him unbearable pain—it was also rapidly reducing his cultivation.
He finally learned what fear was.
“My cultivation! My cultivation! No!”
His scream this time was even more miserable than before. He frantically circulated the spiritual energy within his body, desperately trying to hold on to the cultivation he had left.
This was the cultivation realm he had painstakingly spent thirty years attaining, yet it was completely disappearing in the blink of an eye.
Why?
Just because he had told a few lies?
Unwillingness filled his eyes. Then, as though he had suddenly remembered something, he endured the pain and struggled to his feet, looking toward Xie Zhiyu.
“Streamer, streamer, I was wrong! Please save me, save me…”
His pleading voice reached her ears, but Xie Zhiyu’s expression remained unchanged as she looked at him with amusement.
“When you were selling those cultivation formulas to other people, why didn’t you know how to repent then?”
Sure enough, people only realized how much something hurt when the knife landed on themselves.
But it was already too late.
Xie Zhiyu looked at him coldly.
However, she didn’t watch for long. A few seconds later, the man’s livestream suddenly went black.
Everyone took a closer look and realized that the platform’s super administrator had banned the livestream.
The reason for the ban was listed as “spreading feudal superstition.”
Even the forced PK was directly judged as a victory for Xie Zhiyu.
At the same time, several notification sounds rang out in Xie Zhiyu’s mind.
These notifications were automatically triggered when her livestream popularity reached certain milestones, unlocking new items in the shop and increasing her luck.
Xie Zhiyu was already accustomed to it. What caught her attention most was one particular notification.
【Congratulations! Your livestream popularity has exceeded 50,000. “Complete Collection of Basic Medicinal Formulas” has been unlocked.】