A Top-Secret Trust! Qian Daoliu Asked Me to Discipline His Own Granddaughter
The third floor of the Rose Hotel, in the top-floor Rose Suite.
As the carved wooden door swung open, a rich fragrance of roses greeted them. The suite was spacious and luxurious, with a thick, dark-red velvet carpet covering the floor. In the center stood a heart-shaped bed large enough for several people to roll around on, surrounded by translucent crimson curtains.
Keqing followed Chu Yuan into the room. The moment her gaze fell on the heart-shaped bed, steeped in romance, and the frosted glass partition by the bathroom, a faint blush rose on her fair, slender neck.
Being in a human hotel suite meant specifically for couples to make love made the usually solemn and dignified Yuheng of Liyue's heart beat a little faster.
"What's the matter? Has the room's decor caught your fancy, Lady Yuheng?"
Chu Yuan casually tossed the red key card onto the bedside table and turned to look at the purple-haired girl standing at the edge of the carpet, a faint smile on his lips.
Keqing unconsciously pressed her long legs together beneath her dark-purple stockings. The tips of her ears grew warm, but she feigned composure and gave a soft huff.
"What nonsense... I just think the decor in this otherworldly hotel is a little too extravagant and risqué."
Chu Yuan couldn't help laughing. He stepped forward, naturally slipping both arms around her slender, supple waist and drawing her soft, fragrant body into his embrace.
"Extravagant or not, won't we know if we try it tonight? There were too many small fry outside during the day. Once we bring that astrologist back, I'll help you properly review your cultivation beyond swordsmanship."
"Mm... Honestly, you're getting more and more shameless..."
After settling into the suite, Chu Yuan and Keqing had lunch in a private room on the hotel's second floor and rested for more than an hour.
As dusk fell and the lights came on, the famous southern night market district of Suotuo City came alive.
Chu Yuan activated the [Irminsul] in his left palm again. After confirming the location of the point of light representing "Hydro and the fate written in the stars," he left the Rose Hotel with Keqing and headed deeper into the south of the city along the brightly lit streets.
Suotuo City was even more boisterous at night than during the day.
Soul Guidance Lanterns hung along both sides of the street, and the air was thick with the savory aroma of meat sizzling on iron griddles, the rich scent of ale, and the sweetness of candied fruit and desserts.
Because of the strange phenomenon that had descended from the sky the previous night, the night market had even more temporary stalls than usual. Many Soul Hunting mercenaries were hawking all sorts of oddly shaped stones, drawing passing Soul Masters to stop and look.
But in the shadows of a street corner at the southernmost end of the market, right beside a tavern and a grilled-meat stall, a little stall stood deserted, looking completely out of place.
A dark-blue astrological velvet cloth, slightly worn at the edges, lay spread on the ground. At its center sat a brass astrolabe with a strangely shaped water basin, though the water inside was dull and murky.
A strikingly dressed girl sat on a small wooden stool behind the basin.
She wore a large, pointed witch's hat in purple and black. Two long, dark purplish-black pigtails fell from beneath its brim, their ends adorned with delicate golden stars.
The girl had an exquisitely beautiful, oval face that bore a scholar's pride and stubbornness. Her mint-green eyes were as clear as water, but now they were slightly glazed from hunger, staring fixedly at the sizzling, dripping roast leg of lamb at the stall diagonally across from her.
Most eye-catching of all was her striking astrologist's outfit.
It was a skintight bodysuit of deep purple and dark blue, patterned with golden stars. Its bold, close-fitting cut hugged every curve of her slender, handspan waist and the shapely contours of her bust.
Below the high-cut bodysuit, her straight, long, perfectly proportioned legs were wrapped in gradient black tights patterned like the starry sky.
But after scraping through the trees when she fell through the abyssal rift the night before, the tights had been torn in several places along the outside of her right leg and above her left knee, revealing tender skin whiter than snow and as smooth as fine jade.
A very loud rumble suddenly sounded from Mona's flat, taut belly.
Mona hurriedly pressed a hand to her stomach and glanced around guiltily before muttering under her breath:
"Ugh... Damn it, how did I end up in a cursed place where they don't even use Mora? I haven't had so much as a sip of cold water since last night. At this rate, the great astrologist Mona will become the first scholar in history to starve to death..."
Thinking back on what had happened last night, Mona felt like crying, but had no tears left.
She had been studying the celestial phenomena of the void at her home in the City of Mondstadt when the starry sky above her suddenly shattered, and an irresistible spatial current swept her and her astrological instruments away.
By the time she crawled, dazed and disoriented, out of the grass outside the city, she had lost every last one of the few dozen Mora she'd had left. Worse still, the air of this unfamiliar world was filled with a strange, overbearing energy that rejected anything foreign.
The Hydro Vision hanging at the small of her back seemed to have had its throat gripped by invisible shackles, and the Hydro Elemental Power that had once flowed freely had become unbearably sluggish.
Whenever she tried to summon Elemental Power to form a Hydromancy basin, a backlash of stabbing pain shot through her Vision, draining what little strength she had left.
With nowhere else to turn, Mona had slipped into this human city under cover of darkness and set up a stall in a corner of the night market, hoping to use the astrology she was so proud of to tell fortunes in exchange for dinner.
"Hey, you there, girl in the funny clothes. That sign says, 'Astrology and divination, glimpse your fate, ten Copper Soul Coins a reading.' Is that for real, or is it a scam?"
Just as Mona was growing dizzy with hunger, stars dancing before her eyes, three tall, burly figures staggered up to her stall, blocking the light from a Soul Guidance Lamp across the street.
At their head was a bald, brawny man with a fleshy face and a thick gold chain around his neck. He held a half-empty bottle of ale and exuded the fierce presence of a rank-twenty-six Soul Grandmaster.
Two shifty-looking young Soul Masters followed him. The moment the three men's gazes landed on Mona's tight bodysuit and the long, shapely legs wrapped in torn black tights, their eyes gleamed green.
Hearing someone ask her price, Mona immediately perked up. She hurriedly straightened her slender back, folded her arms, and assumed the air of an inscrutable scholar.
"Hmph, please do not insult the great art of Hydromancy with vulgar terms like 'fortune-telling'! I, Astrologist Mona Megistus, have never used false words to swindle anyone. For just ten of this world's copper coins, I can reveal the path of fate guided by the stars!"
"Well, well. That's quite a long name, and you've got a sharp little tongue too!"
The bald man sneered and planted a foot on the edge of the astrological velvet cloth Mona had spread on the ground. Looking down at her, he leered.
"I've been around Suotuo City for years. I've heard of special Martial Souls for divination, but I've never seen anyone tell fortunes with a basin of dirty water! Girl, I can't sense the slightest fluctuation of Soul Power from you. You're just an ordinary person who came to the night market to swindle people, aren't you?"
"Y-you're talking nonsense! Take your filthy foot off my astrological cloth!"
Seeing him dirty her beloved astrological cloth, Mona bristled with anger. But the moment she stood up, her head spun, and she nearly toppled over.
"Hahaha, look, boss! This little swindler can barely stand!"
The young Soul Masters beside him burst out laughing. The bald man's eyes gleamed with malice and greed as he bent down and reached his rough, greasy hand toward Mona's fair, delicate face.
"You set up a fake stall at the Suotuo City night market and tried to swindle me. Today, you either pay me a hundred Gold Soul Coins for the distress you've caused me, or you come quietly with us into the alley next door and use that fine body of yours to give us a proper 'fortune-telling'!"
"Shameless scoundrel! Get away!"
Mona's face turned deathly pale. Burning with shame and anger, she clenched her teeth and forcibly activated the Hydro Vision at her lower back, trying to release an Illusory Bubble to bounce the villains away.
But the instant a faint blue light appeared on her Hydro Vision, the laws of Douluo Soul Power drifting through the surrounding world surged toward it like sharks catching the scent of blood, crushing down hard on her Vision!
"Ugh...!"
Mona let out a muffled groan as a tearing pain ripped through her lower back and abdomen. The glimmer of water she had just gathered instantly dispersed.
Her legs gave way, and she lost all her strength.