A Kiss I Owe You—I've Decided to Return It

Hu Liena covered her mouth and laughed. "Then I'll have to go in and take a good look."

Ye Tian crossed his arms and said confidently, "When we go in later, no sneaking bites."

"Hmph, I wouldn't stoop to that!" Hu Liena said, puffing out her cheeks.

As the future Holy Maiden of Spirit Hall, what delicious food had she not seen?

Every year, the various branches of Spirit Hall offered many strange and rare fruits as tribute to the main city.

These priceless fruits were hard to come by even in the royal courts of the Two Great Empires.

Yet she could eat them whenever she wanted.

There were even so many that she could never finish them all.

Why would she crave food?

What a joke.

The main reason she wanted to go in was merely curiosity. A house made of glass really was something else.

Hu Liena stuck out her tongue at Ye Tian, ignored him, and skipped lightly toward the greenhouse.

Watching her retreating figure, Ye Tian chuckled and shook his head.

Bibi Dong, beside him, elegantly strode after her on her long legs.

Before they even reached the door, they heard Hu Liena's astonished cry.

"Wow, wow, wow! The plants inside are so lush and green!"

Following Hu Liena's gaze, Bibi Dong looked over curiously.

The greenhouse was brimming with verdant life.

Unlike the green of the valley, the green inside the greenhouse was fresh and vivid—vivid to the extreme.

Every plant looked like a tender sprout that had just emerged.

Gathered together, they created an especially powerful visual impact.

Not to mention the dazzlingly colorful and immensely tempting fruits standing out against that vibrant green.

Even Bibi Dong, who was accustomed to all kinds of gleaming treasures and precious potted plants, found the sight uniquely striking.

This was no place for growing plants—it was practically a massive treasury of art.

As night gradually fell, the greenhouse's grow lights had quietly switched on.

In the tranquil valley, the soft white light felt exceptionally comforting.

Chen Jian looked kindly at Bibi Dong and introduced, "Young Miss, you may not know this, but every plant in the greenhouse was bought by the young master from distant islands. None of them have ever appeared on Douluo Continent before, and each one is extraordinarily precious."

"Oh?" Bibi Dong glanced at Ye Tian in slight surprise.

Ye Tian smiled. "They're just fruits and vegetables. There's really nothing special about them. I planted them in the greenhouse only so they could produce more seeds, which I can then spread elsewhere."

In truth, the seeds for these fruits and vegetables had all been given to him by the system over the past two years during holidays and festivals.

They had not been bought from distant islands. He said so only because he did not want to reveal the system's secret.

However, the latter half of Chen Jian's words was true.

These vegetable and fruit seeds had indeed never appeared on the continent before.

In fact, Douluo Continent had always focused on Soul Master cultivation. Apart from farmers growing crops, almost no one paid attention to agriculture.

There were pitifully few kinds of vegetables on the continent.

Even stir-fried dishes were seasoned with nothing more than salt, without any other spices.

The fruits were even worse. They had never been cultivated, were sour and full of pulp, and most tasted awful.

When Ye Tian had first arrived on Douluo Continent, he had found this extremely difficult to get used to.

But later, the system rewarded him with many vegetable and fruit seeds. After his tireless efforts at cultivation, his daily meals and fruit gradually became more varied.

Up ahead, Hu Liena impatiently pushed open the greenhouse's glass door.

The moment she stepped inside, she suddenly felt a wave of warmth.

The subtle difference caught her attention.

Turning her head, she asked, "Ye Tian Gege, does temperature also affect plant growth?"

Ye Tian nodded lightly. "Of course. I didn't expect Nana Meimei to notice that."

"Hehe." Hu Liena flashed her pearly white teeth in a smile. "Staying by Gege's side, of course Na Na will become smarter."

Before long, she was drawn to the dark purple grapes above the doorway, their fruits shaped like little clubs.

"The fruits on this grapevine look so strange. Why aren't they round? And why are they so dark purple and so long?"

Chen Jian introduced them as if reciting treasures from memory. "These are Seedless Gem Grapes."

"Seedless Gem Grapes?" Hu Liena craned her neck and repeated the name unconsciously.

Ye Tian's smile widened. His right middle finger bent slightly, and the golden Taiyi Divine Needle appeared.

With a flick of his finger, the Taiyi Divine Needle shot out and struck the point where a bunch of grapes connected to the vine.

There was a soft snap.

The bunch of Gem Grapes fell straight into Ye Tian's hand.

Hu Liena licked her rosy lips, her eyes gleaming like a fox that had spotted its prey, poised to pounce.

"Thank you, Gege!" Delighted, she rushed toward Ye Tian in a single stride.

Ye Tian deftly sidestepped and held the Gem Grapes high above his head.

"Hey, hey, hey. What does this little girl think she's doing?"

"Aren't you giving them to me to eat?" Hu Liena put her hands on her hips, wrinkled her delicate nose, and tilted her head.

Ye Tian looked disdainful. "I never said that."

As if bestowing charity, he plucked a single grape from the bunch held high overhead.

He handed it to Hu Liena, who was staring at it eagerly. "Here. You can have one, no more."

"Ahhh!" Hu Liena put on a pained expression and glared at Ye Tian, baring her teeth and claws.

"Half. No more than that." Ye Tian chuckled as he broke the grape in his hand in two. "Didn't someone say earlier, 'I wouldn't stoop to that'...?"

Called out on her words, Hu Liena's pretty face flushed red.

But her hands were honest as she accepted the grape Ye Tian offered her.

She stuffed one half into her mouth to vent her displeasure.

The instant the grape entered her mouth, she was stunned by the flavor on her tongue.

Fragrant, sweet, and soft.

With a faint milky aroma.

An ultimate sweetness.

"Mmm, mmm!" Hu Liena's pupils slowly widened. Too excited to speak, she hurriedly stuffed the other half into her mouth.

She had never tasted such delicious fruit before.

Compared to this, the fruits offered to Spirit Hall as tribute were nothing but sour, astringent wild jujubes from some backwater ravine!

Before long, Hu Liena danced through the greenhouse like a bird soaring into the sky or a fish returning to the deep sea.

One moment, she picked a crystal-clear red strawberry; the next, she set her sights on crisp, smooth salak fruit.

Even the not-quite-ripe cherry tomatoes and the lush green lettuce had to be sampled.

Ye Tian merely glanced calmly at Hu Liena before withdrawing his gaze. He walked over to his sister and handed her the half bunch of Gem Grapes in his hand.

Standing gracefully within the greenhouse, Bibi Dong had also been captivated.

But what attracted her was not the delicious fruits and vegetables, but the greenhouse's supplemental lighting system.

Bibi Dong casually accepted the Gem Grapes, yet her interest remained fixed on the incandescent lamps on the ceiling. "They aren't luminous pearls or gemstones, so why can they emit light at night?"

Ye Tian smiled faintly. There was quite a bit of knowledge behind that.

But he could hardly tell her directly that it was energy spilling out in the form of light waves during electron transitions, could he?

The more technical something was, the harder it became to explain.

After pondering for a moment, he came up with an appropriate analogy.

"Big Sister should know that when Soul Masters use Soul Power in battle, it gives off light."

"If the relationship between 'releasing Soul Power' and 'giving off light' is properly utilized,

then instead of using a Soul Master's Soul Power to produce destructive force, all of it can be used to emit light. The final product would be a lighting tool like this."

At those words, Bibi Dong lowered her head and fell into thought, seemingly trying to understand the principle behind it.

Ye Tian smiled and shook his head. The analogy might have been simple, but without a solid theoretical foundation,

it was still rather difficult to understand.

Just then, Hu Liena came striding toward him like a gust of wind, her expression unfriendly.

Seeing that her face did not look too good, Ye Tian was baffled. "Nana Meimei, what's wrong?"

Hu Liena's bright red lips parted. Instead of answering Ye Tian's question, she said angrily, "Gege, didn't I owe you a kiss earlier? I've decided to return it now."

"Huh?" Ye Tian froze for a moment, the corner of his mouth twitching.

What was wrong with Nana Meimei?

She wanted to kiss him?

Had she lost her mind?

That earlier bet had only been a joke. He would never force someone to do such a thing.

Before he could react, Hu Liena's rosy lips pressed against his amid his astonishment.

Suddenly, a wet, fiery sensation spread through him.

Ye Tian's lips could no longer feel anything else.

There was no need to think about any soft, sweet sensation from a girl's lips.

There was only heat.

An unbearable, extreme heat!

Ye Tian's pupils contracted. Had Na Na just tasted a Ghost Pepper?!