Branch Leader Jing Mo was dumbfounded. Moreover, he was super dumbfounded.

"Did I open the door the wrong way?" Jing Mo muttered to himself. After opening the door that led to the courtyard, I stepped inside. However, why did I end up in this big desert?

Does it mean that I inadvertently activated the formation protecting the courtyard?

He quickly turned his head and looked at the main door behind him. As expected… it wasn’t there anymore.

Tsk. They’re really careful. They unexpectedly set up the defensive formation like that. Luckily, I only used the magical wooden figurine to come inside, and my main body is still safe, Branch Leader Jing Mo thought.

But at this time, Branch Leader Jing Mo’s main body, which was riding the flying sword, suddenly froze—he had lost contact with the wooden figurine and couldn’t share his five senses with it anymore.

Unexpectedly, that desert could cut off any and every connection with the external world.

Damn it. They just have too many tricks up their sleeve.

But the wooden figurine wasn’t merely a magical puppet that could be operated from long distance. If you wanted to use it, you would have to pour your true qi and mental energy inside it.

Therefore, even if it had lost contact with the main body, the wooden figurine could still move. Also, it could see, hear, and record all that data. Once the connection with the main body was reestablished, it would pass down every information it had recorded.

However, it wasn’t devoid of dangers. If the cultivator was controlling the wooden figurine from long distance, he could make it hide and avoid getting caught up in trouble. But if the wooden figurine was acting on its own, it could rely only on its instinct.

Moreover, it would even faithfully record negative things like ‘pain’ and ‘mental attacks’ and transmit them to the owner when the connection was reestablished.

For example, if the wooden figurine were to be stabbed with a sword, once the connection was reestablished, the owner would feel as if they were stabbed with a sword.

How to put it, there is only a handful of things in the world that don’t have any weakness.

The wooden figurine was a low-level magical treasure of the ‘body cloning’ type. The fact that it could share its five senses with the owner was already quite good.

As a matter of fact, the only reason the wooden figurine was so cheap was because of this flaw. That’s why even cultivators of the Fourth Stage could afford it.

❄️❄️❄️

The wooden figurine, which had now assumed Branch Leader Jing Mo’s appearance, was roaming around in the desert. At this time, a young man in green clothes approached it while pulling along his white horse.

"Little White, where did you run off to, I thought you lost your way." The young man cheerfully ran toward the figurine while repeating the same sentence as usual.

Then, he threw a hammer toward it and, all excited, he said, "Come, let’s practice hammer techniques!"

The wooden figurine didn’t even have the time to move when the young man in green clothes pounded it with the hammer… the precious wooden figurine was flattened to the ground!

But the young man didn’t stop. He kept hitting the wooden figurine’s body with his hammer, producing a "bang bang" sound time and again.

After hitting it for an hour...

The young man said with a bright smile, "Aye aye, Little White, today’s training concludes here. I’ll look for you tomorrow and we can play together again!"

Thereafter, he mounted his horse and disappeared on the horizon with a ting-a-ling sound which kept echoing from the horse’s bell.

What he left behind was the poor wooden figurine, now lying on the ground, twitching and severely damaged. Afterward, everything became silent.

Only the parts of the core that contained the information were still emitting a weak light.

Once the connection with the main body was reestablished, it would transmit everything it had experienced just now to its owner, completing its mission...

❄️❄️❄️

11 PM.

The holograms near Venerable White started to disappear.

Even the vast desert started to slowly retract.

Venerable White was about to stop cultivating.

Doudou, who was lying on his stomach in the middle of the desert, rolled his eyes, "It’s finally over."

Luckily, there was a powerful formation outside Medicine Master’s house. This stopped the ‘illusory reality’ created by Venerable White from overflowing in the surrounding area. Otherwise, the entire Jiangnan College Town would have been engulfed by the desert… and who knows what might have happened at that point.

Maybe rivers of blood would flow, and the next day many of the citizens would be found dead.

That would be quite scary!

Doudou made up his mind. Tomorrow, he would strengthen the defensive barrier around Medicine Master’s house. Actually, it may be better to add ten more layers for extra safety. Who knew what Venerable White might do?

❄️❄️❄️

11:23 PM

Venerable White opened his eyes. He had a smile plastered all over his face as he stretched himself, "It sure feels good!"

When he opened his eyes, the desert and the young man with the white horse had both disappeared.

❄️❄️❄️

At the same time, Song Shuhang felt the world become dark. He had returned to the real world.

The moon and the stars were shining brightly in the sky. It was already late evening.

He was still standing in front of the entrance, and the evening wind was blowing on his face; it was quite refreshing.

"I’m back?" Song Shuhang muttered.

He dragged along his exhausted body and decided to go on the third floor to look for Doudou and find out what had just happened.

At this time, he noticed that there was a broken wooden figurine under his feet. He conveniently picked it up and brought it on the third floor with him.

❄️❄️❄️

On the third floor.

Young Mistress Candy was weakly lying down on the floor, silently crying. The pain she was feeling right now couldn’t be described with mere words. Since the day she was born, she had never suffered like this.

The nearby Doudou quickly plugged the computer’s power plug into an electric socket on the wall and went online.

Soon after, Doudou’s eyes also became teary, "My Overlord Set!"

❄️❄️❄️

In the Jiangnan area, in the middle of a hotel.

Branch Leader Jing Mo, who was sitting cross-legged and recovering his energy, fiercely opened his eyes. Both his eyes almost popped out and were now completely covered with a web of thin, red veins. He tightly grasped the bed sheet with his hands and let out an agonized scream!

He had just reestablished the connection with the wooden figurine when the pain of being hit in the face with a hammer kicked in.

But that wasn’t all. Next, his entire body was mercilessly battered with the huge hammer, and this continued for a whole hour!

The pain was simply unbearable!

You dirty pig! After one hit, the wooden figurine was already broken! But you... you kept hitting it for a whole hour!

Isn’t it the same as hitting someone who is already down? Only a bored sadist would be capable of doing something like this. Otherwise, who else would hit a broken wooden figurine for a whole hour with a hammer?

You could have destroyed it directly, but you deliberately kept the core that contained the data intact, right?

"Ouch, ouch, ouch!" Branch Leader Jing Mo painfully shouted.

"Stressed by a Mountain of Books, I’ll remember—ouch—this enmity! Ouch~ I’ll remember it!!!" Branch Leader Jing Mo said, his anger rising to the heavens.

❄️❄️❄️

Several minutes later.

Song Shuhang learned from Doudou that the desert was inadvertently created by Venerable White after he started his cultivation session. Shuhang didn’t know how to express his current feelings.

Because at this point, even his current feelings had fallen apart.

Doudou patted him and tried to console him. Then, he pointed at Young Mistress Candy that was lying on the kitchen floor, crying. "At least you’re still fine. Look at her pitiful state instead."

Song Shuhang shot a look at Young Mistress Candy—this girl had recovered with great difficulty from the ‘interrogation’. And now, she had to experience all this; this was just too cruel!

As if she had felt Song Shuhang’s gaze, Young Mistress Candy raised her head and looked at him with her teary and lovely eyes, letting out a giggle.

It’s over. This time, she really lost her mind, Song Shuhang thought.

Just when he was thinking this, Venerable White came over while stretching himself and said to Song Shuhang with a smile, "You’ve come back. Shuhang, how did the test go?"

"It went well thanks to Senior White’s blessing," Song Shuhang said cautiously.

Senior White’s entire body was a weapon of mass destruction. When he was inside the statue, he released his charm, captivating a lot of people. When he was in a daze, he would suddenly stumble, creating huge craters. When he was in a normal state, he would still give birth to many strange phenomena with his random luck. And when he was cultivating, he unconsciously created a huge desert…

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Venerable White scanned himself and noticed that there wasn’t anything strange about him.

And the most fearful thing is that… he isn’t even aware of how dangerous he is!

"It’s nothing. Senior White, you seem to be in high spirits after coming out of secluded meditation today!" Song Shuhang cautiously replied. He was afraid that Senior White would have a mood swing, sending them back into the desert again.

Hmm… the desert wasn’t even that bad. If he were to end up in the depths of the sea instead, he would directly drown.

"Haha. You also feel this way? When I closed up today, I recalled many interesting things. It felt very good. Cultivating is really the best," Venerable White laughed heartily. Then, he went into the kitchen and said, "Little Candy, what about dinner?"

"Sniff, sniff… I’ll get to work immediately," Young Mistress Candy said, aggrieved.

"Why are you crying?" Venerable White asked, somewhat confused.

"It’s nothing, it’s nothing. Sand must have gotten into my eyes; it was quite painful," Young Mistress Candy wasn’t a fool and made the same decision as Shuhang. She didn’t want to upset Venerable White.

❄️❄️❄️

Song Shuhang didn’t cultivate and directly went to sleep. He was so tired that he didn’t have the strength to practice.

The next day, early morning. Song Shuhang got up very early.

After practicing the fist technique a few times, he hurried to school—he was afraid that Senior White would casually start cultivating. If he were to be trapped in that desert again, he could forget about arriving for the test in time.

When he arrived at school, he discovered that Tubo, Gao Moumou, and Li Yangde were already there, chatting.

"Ah? How come you came so quickly today?" Song Shuhang asked.

Gao Moumou pushed up his glasses and said, "Tubo couldn’t sleep. Therefore, he pulled us here too. Because we have to stick together through thick and thin."

"Haha," Song Shuhang made a hollow laugh. This was indeed Tubo’s style. He shifted the topic and asked, "What were you talking about?"

"We were discussing the damage caused by demand and supply," said Tubo in a serious tone. "Shuhang, there are around 300 million students in China, right?"

"I don’t know. However, China’s population is above 1 billion people. So, I guess there should be around 300 million students," Song Shuhang replied.

"So, let’s assume there are 300 million students. Also, let’s assume that every student will take the test for five subjects. For every subject, we will need two examination papers. And every year, we have to take these tests twice. This means that there is a consumption of 6 billion examination papers every year!

Now, let’s assume that a tree can produce 1500 examination papers. 6 billion examination papers will need around 4 million trees! This number is enough to fill Beijing completely! Therefore, for the sake of further developing the low-carbon economy, we must refuse to take exams! As long as there is no demand, there will be no supply, therefore the nature won’t be ruined!"

"..." Song Shuhang nodded and said, "Don’t worry, Tubo. In the future, they’ll slowly start to use computers to do tests. They won’t use up too many trees."

"Bastard!" Tubo cursed.