Just like this, the light curtain swept through the entire town.

The number of people who joined the ‘crouching and head holding army’ became greater and greater.

Senior White floated in the sky, keeping his attention on the entire town, prepared to make a move and prevent any accidents.

Meanwhile, the responsibility of watching over the heavenly tribulation was left to the Great Northern Emperor.

However, from beginning to end, the light curtain did not harm the town. Those who were busy, working, or resting were not affected, and those who were selected to enter the ‘crouching while holding one’s head’ mode were either idle, or entering the mode would simply do them no harm.

In the town, those who had entered the ‘crouching while holding one’s head’ mode began to communicate with one another.

“Yo, Brother Li, you’re shaking too.”

“Little Liu, it seems that you’re shaking too.”

“Yeah, what a coincidence, your new sister-in-law is by my side, and she’s shaking as well.”

Similar conversations were held all over the town.

Human beings were very strange creatures. If it had only been one person who suddenly and uncontrollably entered such a state, people would have likely panicked, and they might have even screamed. However, when a large group of people around them were the same, they would feel an inexplicable sense of relief. Although there was still some panic and doubt in their hearts, they felt that it was still within reason. Some people were even in the mood to joke around.

“By the way, until when are we going to be squatting and holding our heads? If we’re in this state for too long, I don’t think my body will be able to take it.”

“Who knows? However, while I’m shaking like this, I feel like my entire body is filling up with strength. It’s as if I’ve become younger by a good few years.”

“Same here, I’m not feeling any pain in my waist, and my legs aren’t aching, either!”

“The more I shake, the better I feel. I even feel like my cough is already better… but I kind of want to go to the toilet.”

“Take me to the toilet, I want to go too. What should I do?”

“Can you try moving to the toilet while you’re shaking?”

As their conversations continued, a few people from the crouching-and-head-holding army began to make small movements. At first, they were just taking small steps while shaking. However, as they became more proficient at moving while shaking, they gained the ability to make frog jumps while shaking. As long as they maintained the posture of crouching and holding their head, even if they couldn’t stop shaking, it was not really a problem for them to move around.

The only problem was that every frog jump made the urgency to get to the toilet stronger. Would they be able to make it to the toilet in time?

In the small town, more and more people entered the state of shaking… In the beginning, the shaking had been brought about by the curtain of light, but later, when people saw their companions being in such a state while they were not, they felt their hearts become somewhat stifled; it was as if they were out of place.

As a result, many people silently followed their companions: they crouched down and hugged their heads, and then began swaying left and right to the rhythm.

Honestly speaking, maintaining such a motion for a long time still caused them to get tired.

While this took place, some people who did not enter the state of shaking took out their phones and quickly posted this scene online.

More and more people began to share this scene.

On the local city forum, these small videos and photos had been put together in a post, which had been pinned and upped.

Some netizens queried, [Are they doing some kind of program in this small town? This town looks quite familiar.]

[Strange, what are trying to convey by having such a large number of people squatting and shaking? Is it some kind of activity? Are they going to get increasingly better rewards depending on how long they squat?]

[Crouching down and holding your head isn’t an activity for everyone! I suggest that this action only be performed by cute adorable girls or similarly cute teenagers. Aunts and uncles and the elderly should not join in on such a demanding activity. Such a posture would quickly tire them out, the elderly should take care of their bodies.]

[The scene of the plaza is toxic, and even my dog eyes are going blind.]

[Wait, could the scene in the hall be some evil cult performing a ritual?]

[Shut up, what kind of evil ritual would this be, eh?]

[The world has been conquered by us… tremble in your feet, mortals! You shall only be able to scream before us.]

[Oi, you above me, can you speak properly!]

[I’m not going to try this posture, it’s too shameful!]

[This posture works best with the music from the square dancing.]

❄️❄️❄️

While the people in the small town had been conquered by the ‘crouching while holding one’s head’ posture, battleship no. 888 had already opened fire on Little Cai.

The Great Northern Emperor had been carefully assessing every single part of Little Cai’s tribulation… If the matter had solely been about Little Cai itself, the Great Northern Emperor naturally would not have been so concerned. A little monster bird, even if she were Song Shuhang’s disciple, was not worth much effort on the part of the Great Northern Emperor.

Not to mention Little Cai’s tribulation, even if it were Song Shuhang’s tribulation, the Great Emperor would not invest such a great amount of attention into it.

The Great Emperor was paying close attention to every detail of Little Cai’s tribulation mainly because the virtuous lamia was currently attached to Little Cai.

Every time the battleship fired, cannon light would descend on Little Cai’s body, and consequently pass through the body of the virtual lamia before finally landing on Little Cai’s secret defensive technique.

Nonetheless, the power of the heavenly tribulation did not seem to have increased from before. It looked like… at least in the heavenly tribulation’s eyes, the virtuous lamia had not intervened in Little Cai’s tribulation.

Little Cai’s ‘crouching while holding one’s head’ secret technique successfully blocked every single one of the shots.

Afterward, after a short pause, the battleship in the sky fired for a second time. This time, it was no longer only the three cannon sets on the side that fired; the main guns on the battleship had also locked onto Little Cai and fired together with the cannons on the side.

The cannons’ lights were dazzling.

The product of Little Cai’s secret defensive technique—the ‘humanoid Little Cai’—wavered, but she stubbornly held on and resisted the second wave of shots.

Just like before, the virtuous lamia was still considered to be an outsider and remained unaffected by the heavenly tribulation.

The Great Northern Emperor frowned, and said, “Strange, shouldn’t Fairy ＠#%x already be involved with that monster bird’s heavenly tribulation?”

With the power of Little Cai’s original body, after releasing the ‘teammate protecting light curtain’, she should no longer be able to resist the shots of the cannons of the battleship. As such, the Great Emperor was certain that Fairy ＠#%x was secretly replenishing Little Cai’s energy and strengthening the defensive effect of the secret technique.

This should have already been considered to be a blatant intervention in Little Cai’s heavenly tribulation.

However, it seemed that the heavenly tribulation did not sense this at all, and so the power of the heavenly tribulation did not increase.

Could it be that Fairy @#%x caught onto some loophole in the heavenly tribulation? the Great Northern Emperor thought to himself. Currently, The Wielder of the Heaven’s Will was weakened, so it wasn’t impossible for the modernized heavenly tribulation to have loopholes.

As the Great Emperor was in thought, a change had occurred to Fairy ＠#%x who was attached to Little Cai.

As the curtain of light enveloped the land, an energy similar to ‘will’ gathered towards the virtuous lamia.

“This is… willpower. The path of faith?” The Great Northern Emperor frowned.

The path of faith was something that ordinary practitioners would not choose to make contact with. There were many restrictions on this cultivation path, and it would only allow one to reach the Eighth Stage Realm and no further. However, that was merely a secondary reason for the avoidance of this path. The thing about this path that was the most unacceptable for practitioners was that it would require a lot of ‘resolve’, ‘will’, or ‘faith’. If one did not have enough of this force, their realm would drop greatly.

Fairy ＠#%x attempted the path of faith? Why? The Great Northern Emperor could not understand it. Daoist Melon Eater had clearly stated that within the ‘virtuous network’, there was a path to immortality that was presented to them.

Why would Fairy ＠#%x not try out that path to immortality, and instead choose to practice this faith cultivation technique which did not seem to be a preferable option in the long run for practitioners?

At this time, the virtuous lamia moved once again.

The ‘faith’ gathered through the curtain of light had condensed into a small ball by her side. Finally, she slapped the little ball into Little Cai.

To be exact, she had slapped a ‘mark’ on Little Cai’s body.

It was the mark left behind by Song Shuhang’s Sage Seal.

The Great Northern Emperor’s frown deepened, and he couldn’t understand the significance of Fairy @#%x’s actions.

However… At this moment, Little Cai’s eyes lit up.

She felt a change occur to the ‘mark’ on her body.

Immediately after, she used an ‘extraordinary skill’ on instinct.

After eating the scholarly faction’s ‘virtuous golden lotus seed’, one could gain an extraordinary skill.

Little Cai had once obtained a lotus seed, together with spring water, from Song Shuhang, and was thus able to extend her life by 100 years.

The extraordinary skill that she had awakened at that time was an ability called the ‘holy body’. However, Little Cai had not understood what use this ability had at all.

She had previously tried to stimulate this ‘holy body’, but no change had happened to her body. She had only felt that this ‘holy body’ skill was searching around for something, but could not find what it was looking for.

And now, her ‘holy body’ had found it.

At this time, Little Cai activated the ‘holy body’ instinctually.

❄️❄️❄️

In the air, Song Shuhang, who was flying on his saber, felt a slight shock—it was as if his consciousness had split into several pieces. This feeling was as if he had used a ‘reconnaissance puppet’, wherein a part of the consciousness would split from the main body and attach itself to the puppet.

At this time, while his consciousness was still in his body and he maintained his posture of flying on the saber, another part of his consciousness seemed like it was in a constant fall, causing Song Shuhang to feel a strong sensation of weightlessness…

After a while, his divided consciousness recovered and awakened.

Song Shuhang felt that his body had become a little strange.

He seemed to be in a squatting position, with both arms on his head.

“Huh?” Song Shuhang controlled his other consciousness and raised his head.

After that, he saw the incomparably large virtuous lamia protecting him.

“What the hell?” Song Shuhang had a bad feeling.

In the next moment, hundreds of cannon fire descended on his body, exploding on him such that it became questionable if he was still alive.

At the same time, Song Shuhang’s main consciousness in the sky clearly saw the scene of Little Cai raising her head through her wings, as well as the scene of the battleship shooting hundreds of shots at Little Cai.

“F*ck,” Song Shuhang shouted.

He immediately understood that the part of his consciousness that had split out had gone to Little Cai.

Before, he’d been complaining about Little Cai becoming more and more like a clone of himself. Now, Little Cai had really become a clone of his.

And he was the one replacing Little Cai to endure the heavenly tribulation.

Is this the doing of the virtuous lamia? Song Shuhang subconsciously thought to himself.

Additionally, with him being in this state, would he be able to help his ‘clone’ level up?