Hu Liena Was Still Brain-Dead, While Yan Was No Longer a Simp

"Alright, this wasn't your fault."

You Chen gave Yan a reassuring look. Wind Force surged around him, and in a single step, he appeared before Hu Liena. He covered her mouth with one hand, stopping her from saying anything further.

As she glared and struggled, he used Sound Transmission to say, "Hu Liena, do you not realize that when you make a scene here, you're disgracing your teacher? Look at how everyone else is looking at you! You wouldn't want your teacher's reputation to suffer because of you, would you?"

Upon hearing You Chen's words, Hu Liena quietly swept her gaze over the guests' vaguely disdainful expressions. Her body trembled, and she stopped struggling.

"Everyone, I have a matter to deal with for the moment. Please excuse me."

After offering the crowd an apologetic smile, You Chen said to Ge Ruisi, "Bring out my treasured wine and that portion of Ten Thousand Year Soul Beast Meat I've been saving, as compensation for disturbing everyone's enjoyment."

He also secretly transmitted, "Hu Liena has already broken through to become a Soul Elder and has just returned after obtaining her Third Soul Ring. She also has an elder brother, Xie Yue, who is even stronger than her. It's normal that you couldn't stop her. This was already beyond your current capabilities, so there's no need to feel guilty. I'm not unreasonable enough to blame you for this."

Ge Ruisi's expression relaxed almost imperceptibly. She gave You Chen a slight bow and said, "As you command."

After making his arrangements, You Chen gave Xie Yue a look, then led the trio out of the banquet hall and into a meeting room.

"What evil scheme do you have this time?"

The moment she sat down, Hu Liena glared fiercely at You Chen again and began demanding an explanation.

"Don't be in such a hurry. How about some candy?"

The instant they were out of the guests' sight, You Chen lost his earlier stern demeanor. He calmly tried to soothe Hu Liena, then somehow produced a plate of candies wrapped in gradient-colored paper.

Hu Liena warily glanced at You Chen's outstretched hand and quietly shrank back. "Unsolicited kindness is either treachery or theft. You'd really be this kind-hearted? What if you put some drug in the candy? I won't eat anything you give me!"

"Nana!"

Yan looked heartbroken as he sternly rebuked her, "Even if you've become His Holiness the Pope's disciple, that doesn't mean Teacher You Chen's past guidance has vanished into thin air! Teacher You Chen has never treated us badly. How can you make such baseless assumptions about him!?"

You Chen blinked. Sorry, Yan, but this time, I really did 'drug' it.

That plate of candy was precisely that box of Friendly Advanced Candy.

After testing it over this period of time, You Chen had found that although it looked like ordinary modern candy, it did indeed have a slight special effect.

Children, and even young boys and girls, who were fed this candy would become inexplicably much friendlier toward him, as if they had been subjected to weak hypnosis. However, the older they were and the stronger their rationality, the weaker the effect became.

If Hu Liena, this brain-damaged little brat who had nothing but emotion and barely any rationality, ate candy from him, it really wasn't impossible that she might become a pawn he planted beside Bibi Dong.

Just as Yan had said, You Chen had once been the trio's teacher.

However, unlike Qian Renxue's private tutor, he had been an instructor at Spirit Hall Academy back then.

A few years earlier, before he had been completely marginalized within Spirit Hall, he had still taught Soul Theory Knowledge to the little brats at Spirit Hall Academy.

With the level of education You Chen had received through compulsory schooling, that was a dimensionality reduction strike against the people of Douluo.

His classes had always received rave reviews. Even for children around six or seven years old, lively and restless at an age when they could not settle down to study theory, few students were unwilling to listen when he wove stories into his lessons.

Especially after his classes had been forcibly reduced and reassigned, the little brats became even more aware of the difference.

As a result, quite a few Soul Masters of Spirit Hall's new generation admired You Chen.

Perhaps Bibi Dong had only belatedly noticed this and wanted to downplay his presence. Yet she had overdone it and instead used his peers to make him stand out even more.

Bibi Dong probably truly took Hu Liena as her disciple around that time.

Though still young, the trio was already exceptionally outstanding among their peers.

Better still was the trio's close-knit bond from childhood.

For reasons everyone understood, Bibi Dong had no intention of taking male disciples, so she only accepted Hu Liena as her disciple.

In truth, among the trio, Hu Liena could indeed be considered the one with the weakest potential.

Although the Demon Fox martial soul was a top-tier martial soul, in You Chen's Soul Scoring System, its rating was as follows:

Martial Soul: Demon Fox (top-tier martial soul)

Strength: 2 (with the same Soul Ring configuration, it could basically not break through the defenses of Soul Masters with high-tier defensive martial souls at the same rank)

Speed: 4 (top-tier performance; reaction speed and dynamic vision were particularly outstanding)

Toughness: 3 (strong performance)

Endurance: 4 (lower Soul Power consumption, lower stamina consumption, average increase in physical vitality)

Energy: 4 (top-tier spiritual energy, with the Soul Power quality boost of a normal top-tier martial soul)

Special Ability: 3 (Charm, a spiritual ability extremely effective against Soul Masters whose spiritual power was weaker than its user's)

Total Score: 17 (+3)

Its overall rating was only on the same level as You Chen's current Stardust Dragon...

A top-tier martial soul whose score still fell within the range of high-tier martial souls? Even if it was merely at the peak of high-tier martial souls, it was still rather unsightly!

Of course, according to the training plan Bibi Dong had laid out, Hu Liena's strength was entirely centered around the Special Ability known as "Charm." Those three bonus points were the true reflection of her combat power.

Thus, Hu Liena's martial soul truly was not something an ordinary high-tier martial soul could compare to.

But compared with her brother and her companion Yan, the Demon Fox really was lacking.

Yan's Flame Lord, in particular, was undoubtedly the most top-tier martial soul among the trio.

Martial Soul: Flame Lord (top-tier martial soul)

Strength: 4.5 (quasi-super performance)

Speed: 3 (strong performance; speed was Flame Lord's weak point)

Toughness: 4 (top-tier performance)

Endurance: 3 (greater Soul Power consumption, lower stamina consumption, relatively high increase in physical vitality)

Energy: 5 (super fire-element energy, top-tier earth-element energy, quasi-super Soul Power quality boost)

Special Ability: 3 (Fire Rock Control, possessing extremely strong control and dominion over solidified energy formed from a mixture of fire and earth)

Total Score: 19.5 (+3)

In You Chen's assessment, this was an exceptional martial soul that, if developed along the right path, had a strong chance of completing a martial soul quality upgrade at the Soul Sage stage and entering the super-tier realm.

At the very least, it was far stronger than some trash Demon Fox.

That shitty Pope Bibi Dong really had terrible judgment.

Just because of gender, she left the most talented one without proper cultivation and instead trained a brain-dead brat who became useless the moment she was countered?

You Chen maintained a peaceful smile as he silently mocked and ridiculed her in his heart.