The morning light fell across the shabby window lattice of Dorm Seven.
Xiao Wu stood in front of the washbasin.
With nimble fingers, she braided her long, jet-black hair into a sleek Scorpion Braid.
She picked up the Carrot Wooden Hairpin Su Chen had given her the night before.
She casually tucked it into her hair.
Then she turned around.
Her big eyes blinked.
She looked at Su Chen, who was leaning against the bedframe with his eyes closed, resting.
"Hey. Does it look good?"
Su Chen opened his eyes.
His gaze lingered on the hairpin for half a second.
"Passable."
"Humph. You have no taste."
Xiao Wu wrinkled her small nose.
Though she complained,
her fingers carefully pushed the hairpin farther in.
She was afraid it might fall out.
"Let's go. To the cafeteria."
Su Chen stood up.
He put his hands in his pockets
and headed for the door.
Xiao Wu immediately followed.
Her steps were light.
At the same time, the two of them walked out of the dormitory area side by side.
West Street, Nuoding City.
The furnace's heat made the air shimmer.
This was the biggest "Iron Hammer" smithy in Nuoding City.
The clang of hammering rang without pause.
Tang San stood outside the smithy.
Both his hands were wrapped in thick white bandages.
Yellow-brown stains from medicinal liquid showed faintly beneath them.
Su Chen had forcibly broken all ten of his fingers.
Though the infirmary had treated his broken bones,
the slightest exertion sent a piercing pain shooting along his nerves and straight to his head.
Tang San clenched his teeth.
He stepped into the smithy.
The pungent smell of rust hit him.
"Boss. Are you hiring apprentices?"
Tang San walked up to the counter.
His voice was hoarse.
Behind the counter,
the burly owner, Shi San, raised his head.
He looked Tang San up and down.
His eyes settled on Tang San's hands, wrapped up like rice dumplings.
Shi San gave a scornful laugh.
"Kid, you've come to the wrong place. This is a smithy, not a shelter."
"You can't even hold chopsticks with those hands. You think you can swing a sledgehammer?"
Tang San didn't back down.
"My hands are injured, but I know how to forge."
"I know how to completely remove the impurities from pig iron. I can even forge hundred-refined steel."
The disdain in Shi San's eyes vanished in an instant.
Hundred-refined steel.
That was a special skill only advanced blacksmiths could master.
How could a six-year-old kid know how to do that?
"Talk is cheap. How can you prove it?"
Shi San narrowed his eyes.
Tang San raised his bandaged right hand.
He forcibly channeled his Mysterious Heaven Skill inner energy into his fingertips.
He endured the excruciating pain,
then grabbed a chunk of raw pig iron ore from the counter.
His finger bones let out a faint, strained crack.
Tang San's face turned deathly pale.
He forced himself to crush a corner off the chunk of raw pig iron.
"Good."
Shi San's eyes lit up.
This kid knew a thing or two.
Just as Shi San was about to offer Tang San a job,
a shirtless worker came hurrying out of the back yard.
He clutched a sheet of parchment in his hand.
He was drenched in sweat.
"Boss. Boss. Something terrible's happened."
The worker rushed over to Shi San
and slapped the parchment onto the counter.
"The Spirit Hall Branch issued a notice half an hour ago."
"An all-city ban on a Work-Study Student named Tang San."
The worker lowered his voice,
but at this distance,
Tang San heard every word clearly.
"The notice says anyone who hires him or sells him anything is going against Spirit Hall. Their home will be ransacked, and their shop shut down."
The rolls of fat on Shi San's face twitched.
He whipped around
and stared hard at the boy in front of him.
"What's your name?"
An ominous feeling welled up in Tang San's heart.
"Tang San."
Before the words had even left his mouth,
Shi San slammed his palm down on the counter.
The ironware on it clattered.
"Get out."
Shi San pointed roughly at the door.
"Get out of here. Now."
Tang San furrowed his brows.
He wasn't willing to give up.
"Boss. I can work without pay. Just feed me, and I promise I can make you a lot of money."
"Bullshit."
Shi San swore at him outright.
"Do you think this is about money? You little bastard, you offended His Highness the Holy Son of Spirit Hall. You don't care if you live or die, but I've still got a few years left in me."
"Someone, throw him out!"
Several burly blacksmiths immediately put down their hammers.
They surrounded him, their faces fierce.
Tang San's chest heaved violently.
He gritted his teeth.
He said nothing more.
He turned and walked out of the smithy.
The sunlight outside was blinding.
But Tang San felt as if he'd fallen into an ice cellar.
He refused to give up.
Over the next hour,
he ran to half the shops in Nuoding City.
Pharmacies.
Taverns.
General stores.
Even the most secluded firewood piles.
Whenever he gave his name,
he was met with expulsion and curses, without exception.
Spirit Hall's ban
was like an invisible net,
completely sealing off every means of survival he had in Nuoding City.
Without money,
he couldn't buy materials.
He couldn't reforge his Hidden Weapons,
and he couldn't get food.
Hunger and pain tormented his nerves at the same time.
Tang San trudged back
to Nuoding Junior Soul Master Academy.
The second-floor cafeteria.
The aroma of food wafted through the air.
Tang San walked to the cafeteria entrance.
His stomach gave a loud, furious growl.
He felt his pockets.
He didn't have a single coin.
His gaze passed through the crowd
and landed on a table by the window.
Su Chen sat there,
a cup of warm milk in his hand.
Xiao Wu sat across from him,
busy wrestling with an enormous roasted chicken leg.
Wang Sheng and a group of Work-Study Students sat around another table,
eating with grease all over their mouths.
He had once had a place among them, too.
Tang San's eyes turned bloodshot.
Jealousy and resentment surged like wild weeds in his heart.
He strode over to their table.
His shadow fell over the plate in front of Xiao Wu.
Xiao Wu stopped chewing.
She looked up
and frowned at Tang San.
"You're blocking the light."
Xiao Wu sounded deeply displeased.
Tang San paid no heed to Xiao Wu's coldness.
Suppressing his anger, he spoke.
"Xiao Wu, why are you hanging around with someone like him?"
"He's brutal, vicious, and uses his power to bully others."
"What he did at the academy gate yesterday made him nothing less than a complete thug."
Xiao Wu put down the chicken leg in her hand.
She picked up a napkin from the table and wiped her mouth.
"Are you sick in the head or something?"
Xiao Wu shot back without holding anything back.
"Su Chen treats me to delicious food and buys us new bedding. He's the boss I've chosen."
"And you? You lost a fight, so you resorted to the low trick of shooting someone in the back."
"You're the thug."
Xiao Wu's words left Tang San's face ashen.
"That was a Hidden Weapon. It's a way for the weak to protect themselves when facing the powerful. You wouldn't understand."
Tang San was still spouting that twisted Tang Sect logic of his.
"I wouldn't understand?"
Xiao Wu sneered.
"All I know is that if you fight fair and square and lose, then you lose."
"If you can't accept defeat and resort to a sneak attack, you bring shame on every Soul Master."
"Get out of here. You're ruining my appetite."
Xiao Wu waved him away in disgust.
Tang San's chest heaved violently.
At last, he turned his gaze to Su Chen, who hadn't said a word.
"Su Chen, you've gone too far."
Tang San's voice sounded as if he were forcing the words through clenched teeth.
"You've issued a citywide ban and cut off my path forward."
"Is this the measure of the Martial Soul Hall Holy Son?"
Su Chen set down his glass of milk.
The porcelain cup touched the tabletop.
It made a crisp, soft clink.
He leaned back in his chair.
His gaze remained calm as he looked at Tang San's twisted face.
"Measure?"
Su Chen chuckled softly.
"I've never shown any measure toward my enemies."
"When you fired a poisoned Hidden Weapon at my throat, why didn't you talk about measure?"
Tang San clenched both fists.
"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west."
"You think a single ban can trap me, Tang San, for good?"
"I won't stay in Nuoding City, then."
"I can leave and get a Soul Ring somewhere else."
"Once I break through to level ten, I'll repay today's humiliation a hundredfold."
Hearing that familiar line, Su Chen's eyes filled with even more scorn.
"Leave?"
Su Chen tapped a finger against the tabletop.
"You're a useless nobody without a Soul Ring."
"You don't have money to buy provisions."
"You don't have a weapon to defend yourself."
"You won't make it ten li beyond Nuoding City before you starve to death in the wilderness."
"Or get your throat bitten through by a lowly Ten-Year Soul Beast."
With each sentence Su Chen spoke, Tang San's face grew paler.
"What's more, what makes you think you can obtain your First Soul Ring?"
Su Chen leaned forward slightly.
He stared into Tang San's eyes.
"To enter the Soul Hunting Forest, you need a permit issued by Spirit Hall."
"That useless Yu Xiaogang has already been stripped of his elder title."
"Not a single Martial Soul Branch Hall on this entire continent will issue you a permit."
Tang San's body jolted.
He had thought of this problem last night.
But now that Su Chen had pointed it out to his face, the suffocating feeling of having nowhere to turn overwhelmed him at once.
"Rules are made by people."
Tang San stubbornly refused to back down.
"There must be another way in."
"Of course there is."
Su Chen reached into the Void Ring and took out a dark-gold token.
He tossed it onto the table.
It was the Purple Gold Pope Token, a symbol of Spirit Hall's supreme authority.
"Starting at dawn today,"
Su Chen said indifferently,
"all the Soul Hunting Forests in Fasinuo Province"
"have been placed under the control of Cardinals personally leading Temple Knights."
"Without this Pope Token,"
"not even a fly will get inside."
Su Chen leaned back in his chair.
"Don't you have that Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track?"
"Go ahead and try it."
"Let's see if your Hidden Weapons can pierce a Soul Douluo's defenses."
Silence.
Tang San heard a ringing in his ears.
Every escape route.
Every last hope.
At that moment,
Su Chen crushed them to dust
with the most absolute authority.
No permit.
No Soul Ring.
No money.
How was he supposed to grow stronger?
How was he supposed to get revenge?
Tang San stared fixedly at the Pope Token on the table.
His eyes were bloodshot with unbearable resentment.
"Spirit Hall..."
He screamed those three words in his heart.
"I'm full."
Xiao Wu stood up.
She didn't even glance at Tang San.
She simply hooked her arm through Su Chen's.
"Let's go. We have class this afternoon."
Su Chen got to his feet.
He let Xiao Wu keep her arm hooked through his.
The two passed by Tang San.
Su Chen didn't even spare Tang San another glance.
That utter disregard drove Tang San crazier than a direct insult ever could.
Tang San stood alone in the bustling cafeteria.
Students all around him looked at him strangely.
He slowly lowered his head.
He looked at his hands, wrapped in bandages.
Every ordinary path was cut off.
Neither blacksmithing nor hunting Soul Rings through official channels would work.
Tang San's gaze grew ever more sinister.
The general principles of the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record flashed through his mind.
To survive.
To grow stronger.
Even if it meant stopping at nothing.
He remembered Old Jack mentioning in passing, on the way to Nuoding City,
that beneath the western outskirts of Nuoding City
there was a Black Market beyond Spirit Hall's jurisdiction.
It was a den for outlaws from every corner of the continent.
As long as you could pay the price,
you could get your hands on anything.
Including a way to sneak into the Soul Hunting Forest.
Tang San touched his chest.
Hidden there were several formulas for basic Tang Sect poisons that he had written down from memory in his previous life.
He had no other choice.
He could only step onto that blood-soaked road into darkness.
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