Chapter 25 - The world is ugly

Excitedly he rushed to the counter to register for his elective.

"Hello! I'd like to register for an elective."

"Okay, Sir, what elective would you like to register for?" The girl at the counter asked him with a smile.

"I'd like to do Talisman Creation"

"Can I have your token to register it?" Receiving the token the girl at the counter proceeded to put it on top of the jade slip, as it showed his information.

"Sir, are you sure you don't want to go for Rune Array instead? It shows here that you are a Rune Array master."

"Oh… No wonder Rune Array sounded familiar… Nah, it's okay I aspire to be a mangaka so I'm okay with doing Talisman Creation." Zhu Jiao replied after scratching his head.

"Okay Sir, you are registered, here's your token back."

Upon receiving his token Zhu Jiao turned around prepared to walk away, but before he did, he turned back again.

"I do have one question though… I'm just curious how exactly does the jade slip work? I mean how can you recall the information by putting the token on it? Is it like running on windows? Or…."

"Sir, I cannot give you the answer to that. It's just one of those things that we do not question, if it works it works."

Zhu Jiao nodded, he knew he wouldn't get any answer beyond that so he took his leave walking out of the building. The minute he stepped out of the building he walked into something soft.

"Lin…. Lin Dong…" The girl that was knocked over on the floor shouted as she looked at Zhu Jiao towering over her.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, let me help you up! Are you alright?" Zhu Jiao asked, looking at the huge girl on the ground. Wait how do you know me?"

"It's me! Do you not recognize me!?" The girl asked with tears in her eyes.

"Eh…. No, I'm pretty sure I don't…"

"It's me your fiancee! Yang Yan! How do you not recognize me?" The girl shouted at him angrily.

"Oh… Yang Yan, you're studying here too? That's cool. Good to see someone I know here."

It took a while for Zhu Jiao to register the statement before the 2 images overlapped.

'DING'

A bell rang in his head. "OH DAYUM! HOW DID SHE BECOME LIKE THIS!?"

"Bro! That's your fiancee huh!? I didn't know you liked Thicc women." Jimmy spoke to him in his headspace.

"She wasn't like this before… And she's not my fiancee per se, she's the fiancee of the corpse in my ." Zhu Jiao replied telepathically.

"Yeah… I still find the whole corpse graveyard in your a bit creepy, especially the fact that time stays still there so they just don't rot." Jimmy expressed his disgust.

Zhu Jiao ignored Jimmy and looked at Yang Yan, as he shook his head talking to her.

"Yang Yan, are you experiencing any shortness of breath or any fatigue lately?"

"Yes! How do you know? Are you a physician too? But it's not just me, everyone has been the same lately." Yang Yan replied smiling at Zhu Jiao.

"Wait.. Did you say everyone is experiencing the same?"

Zhu Jiao turned his head around and looked at the crowds of people in the courtyard. Most people seemed to be moving slower and breathing harder.

"Everybody….Oh no…"

Immediately Zhu Jiao shook his head as a blue light flickered in his eyes. Looking around again he started vomiting.

"Are you okay!? Why did you suddenly vomit!?"

"The ugliness of the world got to me… Step back! I don't want to harm you!" Zhu Jiao replied, with tears in his eyes.

This skill manifested when he was younger, he was one who was obsessed with beauty, obsessed with aesthetics, even something that was aesthetically pleasing to him made him feel nauseous. Using this ability made him tune out the rest of the world and anything not important or in his peripheral vision is censored or morphed into a generic person A or generic person B, much like those stock photos.

What Zhu Jiao saw in front of him was atrocious, everyone had gained weight, and their sleeves had oil stains from wiping their mouths with their sleeves.

"What… What caused all these? Why is everyone like this?" Zhu Jiao turned on his as he tried to wipe off the utter devastation in his mind.

Looking at Yang Yan, he noticed she took something out of her bag of holding. It was a wrapper with a circle with a dot in the middle. 'Middle Earth Chicken Cutlet'

"Yang Yan! How much of Middle Earth's food did you eat!?" Zhu Jiao asked Yang Yan, looking confused. How can someone who he left in a couple of months become like that!?

"Ohh… Our family buys it in bulk, everyone is eating Middle Earth's food now. We're eating it for every meal."

Perspiration dripped down the brow of Zhu Jiao, as he started feeling guilty.

"It's not my fault… they have no self-control, how can they even eat until they become like zombies. On one hand, this seems to be making me a lot of money. On the other hand, I feel like I have corrupted the world. So let me wrest it back with my own two hands."

Laughing wildly in front of Yang Yan.

"Thank you, Yang Yan! I know what I must do now!" Zhu Jiao stepped forward grasping Yang Yan's hand making her blush a little before rushing back to his lodging to work out his master plan.

Arriving back at his room at the villa, he immediately started to talk to Jimmy in his mind space.

"So what's your big plan?" Jimmy asked

"Look, they're all feeling shitty, they don't feel their best and on top of that they're all really out of shape!" Zhu Jiao explained.

"I'm not sure how that's possible though, don't they need to cultivate and like exercise and stuff?" Jimmy questioned.

" That's a can of worms I'm not going into, but just think, really think about it, what's one thing no one really needs, but they do so anyway because of status and just for self-validation. Just to say oh, I did something, and not feel shitty about it."