Who knows what kind of bewitching soup Bibi Dong that fellow gave to that silly girl Hu Liena?
Clearly, back in the day, he had treated everyone equally, holding nothing back and imparting all his knowledge to every student without a single trace of favoritism.
Yet as soon as this silly girl became the Pope's personal disciple, she started coming to cause trouble for him day after day.
Still, considering that in the original work, this character was the type to be completely driven by emotion rather than reason, betraying Spirit Hall purely because of a brainless infatuation, and handing over the Pope's intelligence to Spirit Hall's mortal enemy Tang San—such an indefensible personality setting...
It really shouldn't be surprising that she would backstab him completely without any logic.
Knowing Bibi Dong that woman's wretched style, she most likely played her favorite game of elevating one person while stepping on another, singing the praises of her beloved Xiaogang, and claiming that Youshen's research was nothing more than plagiarism of Yu Xiaogang's work.
And Hu Liena, without a second thought or bothering to verify the facts with anyone, simply swallowed Bibi Dong's narrative wholesale.
That was entirely the kind of thing Bibi Dong was capable of doing.
And Youshen hadn't guessed wrong at all...
Bibi Dong's version to Hu Liena was that Youshen had twisted the truth, clearly plagiarizing Yu Xiaogang's academic achievements yet passing himself off as the primary author, and in the process, gathering a massive following within Spirit Hall. He possessed mediocre talent at best, yet coveted power he had no right to, secretly plotting things harmful to Spirit Hall, and even harboring schemes to subvert it.
That was turning the universe completely upside down.
Actually, pure hostility alone wouldn't have made Youshen feel such utter contempt.
After all, their factions were fundamentally different, and mutual hostility was only natural—there was nothing much to say about that.
What was truly sickening, however, was manufacturing some baseless, high-sounding pretexts, and then convincing oneself to stand on a lofty moral high ground to criticize, accuse, and pass judgment.
It was utterly, damnably absurd!
Hu Liena was probably taking sides brainlessly, caring only about her idealized image of the gorgeous, charismatic female Spirit Master, blindly doting on her dear Giegie, and believing whatever Bibi Dong told her.
Strictly speaking, Youshen had actually done a great favor for the new generation of Spirit Hall Spirit Masters.
After all, Youshen was the one who had directly contributed "The Proper Use of Whale Glue", and prior to that, Spirit Hall had already made massive purchases of Whale Glue on the market in advance.
Almost every contemporary Spirit Master in Spirit Hall was a beneficiary.
Especially the Golden Generation trio; given the talent they displayed, they had enjoyed the absolute highest-grade Whale Glue even before the Pope began heavily cultivating them.
Compared to the original timeline, every single one of them had obtained a thousand-year spirit ring for their second ring.
Being a step ahead meant being ahead in every step, which practically guaranteed a ten-thousand-year spirit ring for their fourth ring.
Even though Bibi Dong deliberately downplayed and concealed Youshen's contributions, this had all happened within the last twenty years, and Bibi Dong had only truly ascended to power six years ago.
Who knows what the future holds, but for these past few decades, it was simply impossible to keep it hidden.
Therefore, many youngsters of the current generation in Spirit Hall still remembered Youshen's kindness.
To this day, Youshen's achievements were still recorded in textbooks.
Although Bibi Dong had relegated that section to elective material after taking power, Youshen remembered that it was precisely that set of textbooks being used when he taught classes.
No matter how brain-dead Hu Liena was, she couldn't possibly have forgotten who was the biggest benefactor behind her thousand-year second spirit ring, right?
Hmm... Could she? Really? At least Xie Yue, that good student of his, definitely knew this, or so Youshen believed.
Youshen's gaze swept silently over Xie Yue, whose expression had turned somewhat awkward after his younger sister completely failed to give him any face.
He could sense Xie Yue's growing alienation toward him.
And the reality matched his intuition; Xie Yue doted on his sister and held the Pope in awe. Even though a moment's thought told him that the story Hu Liena brought back from the Pope was full of holes, he had still chosen to distance himself from Youshen.
Only Yan, who was Hu Liena's simpering lapdog in the original story, still believed in Youshen as his benevolent teacher and stood firmly on Youshen's side. In truth, the relationship between Youshen and Yan had originally been just an ordinary teacher-student dynamic.
It was only after this big oaf came to consult him after class for the first time, thinking that the fellow had finally seen the light and realized the importance of theoretical knowledge—who could have imagined... that this fellow actually came to ask him "how to make Hu Liena like me".
At that moment, Youshen was left utterly speechless.
Damn it, that big oaf was only eight years old back then! Eight years old, for crying out loud!?
Youshen immediately set out to correct his distorted mindset!
If it had been some stranger, it wouldn't have mattered, but since he was his student and had come asking for guidance, how could he possibly stand by and watch him become a total simp!? From then on, Youshen had poured an enormous amount of effort into completing an ideological overhaul of Yan, gradually pulling him out of his simpering habits.
He still remembered the conversation that truly woke Yan up.
Youshen understood the principle of teaching students in accordance with their aptitude, and romance education was no exception.
He didn't directly shoot down Yan's idea of "getting on a deeply intimate footing with Hu Liena."
Instead, he used every argument he could muster to persuade this lapdog not to focus his gaze solely on Hu Liena.
"No way! My loyalty to Nana is as steadfast as the sun and moon, and my heart has no room for anyone else! Asking me to go cozy up to other girls is a betrayal of Nana!"
"Nonsense! The two of you haven't even grown your baby teeth yet, you're just good friends, what kind of loyalty are we talking about!? I'm just telling you to make more friends! It has damn well nothing to do with romantic relationships! Can't you just stop thinking about whether they are boys or girls?!"
"No! No matter what I think, the reality that they are girls won't change! I won't betray Nana! Gk, Teacher, just kill me!"
That time, Youshen was once again made acutely aware of the sheer tenacity of a simp in another world.
Though mentally exhausted to the extreme, Youshen's stubborn streak flared up, and he deployed every debate tactic in his arsenal until he managed to talk some sense into Yan.
He simply instructed Yan to use the exact same methods he suggested to build friendly relationships with other girls as well.
And that created a contrast.
Clearly, Hu Liena was supposed to be Yan's friend, yet her attitude toward him was far worse than Yan's attitude toward his newly acquainted ordinary classmates.
Hu Liena even went so far as to complain yet again that Yan was too annoying.
Naturally, this still wasn't enough to make Yan see the light.
So, had Youshen offered any new advice after that?
Not at all.
He simply kept doing what he always did, telling Yan to go make more friends of the opposite sex.
In reality, the reason simps become simps generally stems from two main causes, starting from the simps themselves.
One is that there are too few members of the opposite sex in their social circle, and the person themselves either has a yearning personality toward romance or is passing through that exact developmental stage, making it very easy to pour all their romantic affections onto a single individual.
The other is excessive emotional transference and sunk cost. People tend to develop emotional attachment toward objects they invest too much attention in, and subsequently fall in love with them. Sometimes, during this process, both parties haven't actually had much contact, but the mere act of paying attention to the other person and trying to understand them creates the illusion that you have already bared your souls to each other and reached the next stage, making it difficult to extricate yourself.
At that point, a massive temperature gap arises between the two parties. The other person begins to feel puzzled, annoyed, and even terrified by your excessive enthusiasm.
The more the other person dislikes you, the more initiative you take in your simping in order to bridge that temperature gap, and thus a heavy sunk cost is generated.
And Youshen's strategy was precisely targeted at these two root causes.