The Pope Hall

"Wait, you mean I have a Martial Soul too?" Hu Liena cleverly caught the key point.

Elder Li smiled and nodded.

Hu Liena cried out excitedly and grabbed Qian Yun's hand. "Qian Yun, did you hear that? I have a Martial Soul too!"

"Mm. I told you that you'd become a Spirit Master." Compared with her excitement, Qian Yun seemed much calmer.

Hu Liena nodded, trembling. A feeling she couldn't describe welled up inside her. When no one else believed in her, only Qian Yun had been willing to. She admitted that after watching Qian Yun successfully awaken his Martial Soul just now, she'd felt both joy and fear.

The gap between Spirit Masters and ordinary people was so great that they seemed to live in entirely separate worlds. Even if Qian Yun wanted to stay by her side, they would eventually become strangers.

Fortunately, she had a Martial Soul of her own, too.

"However, little miss, we only brought enough crystal balls for one person. We don't have any spares," Yibu said.

"Oh... I see. But I don't mind waiting a little." After a brief moment of disappointment, Hu Liena waved her hand nonchalantly.

Yibu grinned and folded his arms. "Mm. As soon as we get back to Muyi City, we'll arrange for you to awaken your Martial Soul."

"Wonderful! Eh... wait." Hu Liena blinked her big eyes and asked, "Are we going with you?"

Yibu nodded frankly. "That's right! Only the Spirit Hall in Muyi City has the full facilities for Martial Soul Awakening!"

Hearing this, Qian Yun thought, Just as I expected. "So you're from Spirit Hall?"

Duomeng replied, "That's right. More precisely, we're members of Spirit Hall's Enforcement Team. The emblem on our chests proves it!"

"How about it? Will you come back to Spirit Hall with us?" Yibu seized the moment to make the offer.

Qian Yun fell silent. He wasn't hesitating; he just needed to clear a few things up first. "Let's not rush into that. Tell us what happened last night."

The three exchanged glances. None of them had expected Qian Yun to ask about that.

At last, Elder Li spoke. "Where should I begin? I suppose I'll start with the moment we received our assignment."

Elder Li tilted his head slightly and frowned as he recalled, "Our Spirit Hall Enforcement Team's duty is to patrol residential areas regularly, hear the public's complaints, fight crime, help the vulnerable, and eliminate Spirit Beasts that pose a threat."

"This assignment was supposed to be a routine patrol. Nothing happened along the way, until we received a report that a Ghost Moth had appeared near a village. We immediately began searching and found it in a Spirit Beast Forest. But the information was wrong. There wasn't just one Ghost Moth—there were two!"

At the mention of the Ghost Moth, Hu Liena's heart clenched. She had a vague idea of what had happened.

Elder Li shook his head and sighed. "We were well prepared, but facing two Ghost Moths at once still put us at a disadvantage. Even though we fought with all our strength, we could only seriously wound one. The other escaped in the chaos. We kept tracking the injured Ghost Moth, but eventually discovered that someone seemed to have killed it. We just couldn't find the body."

As he spoke, Elder Li gazed toward the ruins of Beast King Village and sighed. "We asked around in the nearby villages and learned that Beast King Village had apparently hunted down the Spirit Beast and planned to divide up its meat. Sigh... You know what happened after that."

"Ghost Moths are extremely vengeful, and their spiritual power is formidable. A thousand-year Ghost Moth can easily influence a human's mind. That's what caused the tragedy at Beast King Village."

"H-how could this happen? Grandpa..." Hu Liena finally understood everything. The source of this whole tragedy had been the village chief—her grandpa.

Thinking of how the village chief had looked after everyone in the village, she couldn't bear to connect him with the one responsible. It was hard to imagine how the surviving villagers would curse him and take revenge on Hu Liena and the others.

"Ah." Qian Yun shook his head too. Watching Hu Liena cry so hard that tears streamed down her cheeks, he asked Elder Li one final question. "What did the escaped Ghost Moth look like?"

The three exchanged glances again. Elder Li fixed his gaze on Qian Yun's small face. "It had already lost one of its sharp claws. Then we slashed its abdomen. It'll be difficult for it to recover anytime soon, and even after its wounds heal, they'll leave scars."

"Elder Li, you—" Hearing this, everyone present was quick to understand why Qian Yun had asked. They hurried forward to stop him.

Elder Li waved a hand, indicating that it was fine.

Qian Yun nodded. "I'll remember that. Thank you." Then he turned to Hu Liena and asked, "Shall we take Grandpa and A-Qiang with us, then go with them to Spirit Hall?"

With tears in her eyes and her lips pursed, Hu Liena looked at the bodies of the village chief and A-Qiang, then at the wreckage all around them. In the end, she could only nod, pained and helpless.

With her agreement, Duomeng and the others finally felt the weight lift from their shoulders. Everyone there understood.

For the greater good, Qian Yun and Hu Liena had exceptional talent. Joining Spirit Hall would allow them to reach their full potential, and in a few years, Spirit Hall would gain two more powerful figures.

On a personal level, discovering such talented youngsters could spare them punishment for mishandling their assignment—and might even give them a chance to rise through the ranks.

There was no time to waste. That very day, the Enforcement Team found them a place to wash up. Then, late that night, they left Beast King Village with the village chief and A-Qiang, heading straight for Muyi City.

Qian Yun sat in the spacious, comfortable carriage and gazed through the window at the stars streaming past overhead.

He thought back over the events of the past few days. First, he'd somehow been transported to another world. Fortunately, he'd met the kind village chief and his family. Just when he thought he could enjoy some peace for a while, an unexpected disaster had struck, nearly costing him and Hu Liena their lives. Then, when he thought he was doomed, he'd run into Spirit Hall's people—and become a Spirit Master. It had certainly been a dramatic experience.

Whatever the case, his arrival in this world was a fact. There was no point dwelling on it.

By then, Qian Yun was getting tired. He turned and pulled the blanket back over Hu Liena, who had kicked it off.

"Grandpa... A-Qiang..." Hu Liena murmured, curled up in bed.

Qian Yun sighed. She was so young, yet had already gone through such a devastating upheaval. He couldn't help feeling sorry for her. After wiping the cold sweat from her forehead, he fell asleep beside her.

In another carriage, Duomeng was burning the midnight oil. Bent over a table, he wrote furiously. He needed to organize the events of the past few days into a report for his superiors.

But after half a day, he still hadn't written a single word of the letter to Her Holiness the Pope.

First, the Pope had never had much patience for long letters. Anything sent to her had to be worded carefully and kept as concise as possible. Otherwise, there was a good chance she'd throw it out of the hall and have the author given fifty strokes of the cane.

Second, he needed to downplay the less flattering details as much as possible, so he and the others wouldn't end up making things worse for themselves.

After agonizing over it for a long while, Duomeng finally began to write. His quill scratched across the page. "My dear... No, no! How dare I address Her Holiness the Pope like that? I'd like to keep my head!"

He thought for a moment, crumpled up the letter, and tried again:

"Esteemed... No, that won't do either. Wouldn't that make the Pope sound too old?"

From midnight until the stars disappeared, the convoy finally sent a carrier pigeon into the sky.

A day later

Spirit Hall

In the magnificent hall, Bibi Dong rested her jade hand against her cheek, her eyes half-lidded as she lounged languidly on her throne. She held a letter in her hand.

"Self-awakened Martial Soul... Crown Martial Soul, Qian Yun and Hu Liena." The report, rushed over from Muyi City, contained information about the two of them, from the events at Beast King Village to how they had joined Spirit Hall.

"Heh. What interesting little ones." Bibi Dong waved her hand, and the letter dissolved into the air.

Her fingers tapped lightly against the hard armrest, making a crisp sound. Her eyes remained half-lidded, and a faint smile played on her lips, leaving it impossible to tell what she was truly thinking.

A moment later

"Ghost." Bibi Dong called softly. Her clear, melodious voice echoed through the empty hall.

At her call, a cloud of black mist surged through the golden hall. It gathered at the center and slowly took human form. In moments, a figure clad entirely in a black robe knelt in the middle of the hall.

"Her Holiness the Pope, what are your orders?" A low, hoarse voice came from beneath the black robe of the one called Ghost.

"Go to Muyi City and take a look," Bibi Dong said calmly, gazing at Ghost.

"Yes!" Ghost nodded respectfully. His form began to fade, then vanished completely.

"Heh." After Ghost left, Bibi Dong let out another inexplicable laugh.

The report had laid out Qian Yun and Hu Liena's circumstances in full. Even by her standards, she had to admit that they were exceptionally talented.

If she couldn't bring people like them over to her side, then she could only eliminate them! Fortunately, both had clean backgrounds, which gave her reason to approach them.

With the mainland's current undercurrents swirling beneath the surface, Bibi Dong knew better than anyone what it meant for Spirit Hall to suddenly gain two exceptionally talented prodigies.

Given time, her ideal would have an even greater chance of becoming reality!

At that thought, Bibi Dong slowly raised a hand before her eyes, blocking out the golden hall. She let out a cold laugh and slowly clenched her fist, a hint of madness flashing in her eyes.

When that day came, she would crush this filthy world in her grasp and make it disappear!