Leaving Sea God Pavilion, the youth walked alone beneath the Golden Giant Tree, which glimmered with soft golden light.
Sunlight filtered through gaps in the pale golden leaves, scattering seeds upon the ground and blooming into little white flowers that danced with the wind across the verdant lawn.
The youth still vaguely remembered that it had apparently been after some "statement" meeting. He had gone out alone and stood beneath a huge apple tree, wondering whether an apple might fall on his head and grant him enlightenment, when a girl suddenly barged into his world and asked:
"If an apple that big falls on you, it'll knock you stupid. If you get knocked stupid, come find me. I study brain regions (＞＜)☆"
Chen Fu still remembered that it had been 2:51 in the afternoon during the hottest part of summer. The sky had been a clear, pure blue, with several tiny, adorable cotton-like clouds floating overhead. On the lush branches of the apple tree, two snow-white Fat Birds had huddled together to escape the heat. He even remembered one Fat Bird scooting aside in disgust, while the other stubbornly squeezed closer.
He remembered what that girl had looked like...
"Chen Fu, what are you spacing out here for?"
Like leaping flames, the girl radiating youthful vitality reached out and vigorously waved her hand in front of Chen Fu's eyes.
Reaching out to catch the hand she was waving about, Chen Fu's eyes revealed a trace of inexplicable confusion as he looked at Ma Xiaotao. In Youlan's preset protocols, there was no warning against Crimson Phoenix.
After her interruption, Chen Fu's memories overlapped for a moment, and he could no longer recall Jiang Nan's appearance.
So be it. It was enough to remember the beautiful things, and perhaps it was good to temporarily forget the bad ones. In any case, that person always claimed that she had approached him for brain material.
Pulling his thoughts back, Chen Fu finally looked carefully at Ma Xiaotao. In her clear orange-red eyes, he saw his own reflection.
"It's nothing. I remembered some things from the past."
Rustle, rustle, rustle...
A breeze stirred the giant tree's luxuriant branches and leaves. Mottled, glass-like light broke through layer upon layer of leaves and draped the girl in a pale golden veil. Her smooth red hair rose in the wind, scattering through the air like dandelion seeds into a sky full of stars.
"Walk around Sea God Lake with me."
Chen Fu raised a hand and smoothed the girl's windblown hair. His index finger brushed across her blushing cheek as he tucked the hair at her temple behind her ear.
He watched her ears turn visibly red, then could not help smiling as he pinched her lovely cheek.
Evil Fire Phoenix? No, this girl would be the holiest Sacred Phoenix. She had been in the past, she was now, and she would be in the future.
Let the deeds of that Ma family ancestor whose name had been recorded in history remain exclusive to her.
"Okay!"
The girl happily grabbed Chen Fu's hand. The Phoenix Wings behind her unfolded as she prepared to take him for a ride.
[Element Suppression]
The azure Data Divine Ring flickered, dispersing the fiery wings behind Ma Xiaotao.
"We're not in a hurry. We can walk there slowly."
The composite of the Technology Throne and the Data Divine Ring, Youlan, was having an increasingly obvious influence on reality.
"Fine!"
Furious at the fire elements in the air suddenly becoming sparse and at her Phoenix Wings being forcibly dismissed, Ma Xiaotao viciously left a mark on Chen Fu's shoe before dragging him toward the lake.
The mirror-smooth lake surface did not produce even a ripple beneath the girl's feet.
Seemingly having discovered something fun, the girl released Chen Fu's hand and began moving across the lake surface, which was like a floor, randomly varying her speed. As she went faster and faster, faint ripples finally spread across the water.
Like a stone crashing into a mirror lake, it stirred layer upon layer of ripples.
Chen Fu quietly walked across the lake behind her, sensing the sudden surge in Youlan's calculations. A long-awaited tranquility suddenly filled his heart.
How long had it been? Perhaps eighteen years. After all, he was only eighteen in this life.
Under the clear daylight, the girl spread her wings as if dancing between fire and water. Hazy mist wrapped her in a thin veil, while soft sunlight adorned her gown with multicolored glass-like brilliance.
Graceful as a startled swan, elegant as a wandering Dragon?
Probably. Maybe. More or less. Perhaps.
"Does it look good?"
"...Where did you learn to dance?"
After spending three seconds turning Youlan's database upside down, Chen Fu still failed to find words that suited his heart.
"I'm asking whether it looks good or not!"
The girl appeared a little annoyed and embarrassed by the man's irrelevant answer.
For some reason, Chen Fu smiled. This was the Ma Xiaotao he knew.
"It looks good."
Chen Fu gave her a very high degree of affirmation.
Ma Xiaotao rolled her eyes at Chen Fu. She was not so easily discouraged!
Watching the girl stomp ahead alone again in anger, a smile unconsciously crashed into Chen Fu's ink-dark eyes.
This competitive girl who had been obsessed with cultivation seemed to have "fallen." She had begun to "waste time" learning about and studying everything related to beauty.
"Youlan, is she beautiful?"
[Based on the current database's definition of beauty, she is a very beautiful girl.]
"I see..."
Chen Fu quietly followed behind Ma Xiaotao, understanding dawning in his heart.
Whether someone was beautiful or not was unimportant. What mattered was the weight that person held in your life.
"Yuhao, run faster! Let's go check out that huge project by Sea God Lake!"
"That place is a restricted area now! If they catch us, we'll be expelled!"
The boy behind him wanted to stop, but he could not pull Wang Dong back.
"Relax. As long as we don't cross the warning line, we'll be fine. You people just follow the crowd and talk nonsense without understanding anything."
Wang Dong shared the intelligence he had obtained with Huo Yuhao. He had made quite a sacrifice for it!
The entire world knew that Shrek Academy had a massive project underway, much less Shrek's students. However, many students had been frightened by the threat of expulsion and would rather take a detour than approach the lakeside, especially the New Life students who had only recently arrived.
"I asked Ning Tian about it. As long as we don't cross the warning line, we can look all we want."
Ning Tian had enrolled alongside them, but Ning Tian was a Soul Tool Teacher, while they were students.
As for Lin Pavilion, sorry, being a Teacher was only a side job. Everything was training and cultivation.
Huo Yuhao was skeptical of the information Wang Dong had traded his looks for, but with Ning Tian as a guarantee, he felt there should not be a problem.
"We can go take a look. This city feels very oppressive to me. The source of all the fluctuations points ahead."
A voice quietly sounded in his heart. Huo Yuhao kept his expression unchanged, but inwardly, he was shocked.
Earlier, Brother Sky Dream had urged him to leave quickly as soon as he entered the outskirts, warning him not to enter the city ahead. But where else could he have gone then? He could only follow Sister Xiaoya to Shrek Academy.
Ever since entering the academy, Tian Meng had also kept an extremely low profile. His usual conversations with Huo Yuhao were intermittent and brief.
Finally, under Huo Yuhao's relentless questioning like a curious child, Tian Meng spent an entire day intermittently telling him one complete sentence:
"A monstrous net covers the sky over the entire city. At its source, the net nurtures a cold, incomprehensible, indescribable evil that is devouring qi and essence!"
"Also, use the Battle Soul Instrument as little as possible!"
Huo Yuhao possessed a first-generation Battle Soul Instrument, which Tang Ya had given him. It was especially compatible with his Spirit Eye Martial Soul and Soul Skills.
The effects of his Soul Skills shared the burden on the Battle Soul Instrument's Soul Core. Many calculations could be replaced by his spiritual Soul Skills, while the Soul Core only needed to search the "Basic Knowledge Base" according to the results provided by those Soul Skills to obtain answers, greatly improving its efficiency.
The same Battle Soul Instrument could achieve at least five times greater effectiveness in Huo Yuhao's hands.
It was practically tailor-made for him, and now Tian Meng was telling him not to use it?
Therefore, Tian Meng merely told Huo Yuhao to use it as little as possible and wait until they better understood the attitude of the Soul Core's owner before deciding what to do.
Thank you to [Book Friend 1242] and [Everyone Is Very Tall] for the monthly tickets, and thank you, good brothers, for the recommendation tickets (σ′▽‵)′▽‵)σ
Something really strange happened: I couldn't find this book under the light novel category in the app's new-book listings for books that had been signed for less than fourteen days... Books published before and after mine were all there, but I just couldn't find my own. It was really weird.
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