After he finished speaking, Qian Yuhan swept an expressionless glance over the two maids. Seeing that they were both fine apart from their Soul Power being in disarray, he turned and asked Xu Tianzhen about the whereabouts of Zhongli Ren's two remaining brothers:
"Do you know where that old bastard's two remaining brothers are?"
"Of course. They should be in the middle of a three-hundred-round battle with Xu Yu and the others right now!" Xu Tianzhen said.
"Lead the way." Qian Yuhan nodded curtly, but Xu Tianzhen spread her hands helplessly and gave a bitter smile. "I'm only a Soul Elder. I can't fly."
"You can't fly?" Qian Yuhan raised an eyebrow and jerked his chin toward the two maids. "Can't they fly? Just have them carry you."
"They're injured. They can't carry anyone."
"..."
Qian Yuhan fell silent. His gaze shifted back and forth between Xu Tianzhen and the two maids for a long while.
After a long pause, Qian Yuhan sighed and asked the two maids, "Are you really injured? You can't carry her while flying?"
"Well..." Xiao Yun lowered her head and stared at the ground.
"Um..." Xiao Yu looked up at the clouds.
Under Xu Tianzhen's death glare, which was laced with a threatening edge, the two maids—who felt they weren't actually in that bad a shape—hesitated briefly, then answered through gritted teeth:
"We can't carry her, we can't. I'm aching all over right now. I can barely fly by myself."
"That's right, we're badly injured. One of our bones might have broken when we fell earlier."
"In that case, why don't we..."
Qian Yuhan parted his lips. Just as he was about to suggest a good solution, Xu Tianzhen beside him went ahead and finished his sentence for him.
Blushing, she said, "In that case, you can carry me while we fly."
No, if you want me to carry you, I'll carry you. But why are you blushing like a teapot?
Qian Sigma Yuhan didn't understand, but he was deeply shocked.
After a brief moment of confusion, Qian Yuhan took a deep breath and asked Xu Tianzhen meaningfully, "Are you sure?"
"Sure."
"Fine." Qian Yuhan nodded slightly, grabbed Xu Tianzhen by the collar, and lifted her into the air like a little chick.
He went from zero to a hundred kilometers per hour in less than two and a half seconds.
One moment, they were standing on the lawn talking. The next, they had left the two maids, who hadn't even reacted yet, far behind.
Just as Qian Yuhan thought Xu Tianzhen would realize the error of her ways under such ridiculous acceleration and stop trying to fool people, she tugged at his sleeve and shouted:
"That's so exciting! Can you go even faster? ╮(─▽─)╭"
Qian Yuhan (￣^￣): You think I'll speed up just because you ask? Wouldn't that make me look like a pushover?
With that thought, Qian Yuhan's mouth drooped. Not only did he slow down and stop flying, he even hovered steadily in midair, lifting Xu Tianzhen, whom he was still holding by the collar. "If we're going to fly, shouldn't you at least point us in the right direction first?"
"You have a point!"
Xu Tianzhen nodded with deep conviction at Qian Yuhan's question.
She lowered her head and studied the arrangement of the woods below, then pointed toward a vast grassy field dotted with just a few small clumps of trees. "There, that's the place."
"Fine. Hold on tight."
With that, Qian Yuhan abruptly beat the golden angel wings on his back and shot off like a streak of golden light in the direction Xu Tianzhen had pointed.
Along the way, Xu Tianzhen was like a curious little child, asking all sorts of questions nonstop.
Things like:
"Is your name really Qian Yuhan?" "Your wings are so pretty! Can I touch them?" "What's your Martial Soul?" "How did you kill that old dog with one slash just now?"
The strange barrage of questions made the veins on Qian Yuhan's forehead twitch.
In the end, he took a deep breath and gritted his teeth. "Can you ask your questions one at a time? You're asking so many at once—how am I supposed to know which one to answer first?"
"Hmm..." Xu Tianzhen thought for a moment. Then, with a mischievous grin, she reached out toward the pair of angel wings beating behind Qian Yuhan. "Can I touch your wings?"
"No!"
"Then..."
"That's enough. I can see them already. Be quiet."
In the end, the two of them landed quietly in a patch of woods a little over three hundred meters from Xu Yan, Xu Yu, and the Zhongli Brothers. They then crept closer until they reached a spot where they could hear what the others were saying.
"Why did they stop fighting?"
Looking at the four people holding their ground in a standoff, Qian Yuhan felt a little puzzled.
Fortunately, he wasn't alone now. Crouching beside him, Xu Tianzhen pointed at the shell Xu Yan was sitting on and said proudly, "See that thing? It's a Level 9 Fixed Soul Cannonball! An ordinary Titled Douluo would be blown to bits, without even a corpse left behind!"
"Is it really that powerful?"
"Of course! I'm Xu Tianzhen, the princess of the Sun Moon Empire. Why would I lie to you about something so trivial?"
Qian Yuhan: "(ﾟﾛﾟ)"
As an old-timer from the Douluo Continent, Qian Yuhan clearly hadn't expected weapons to have advanced to the point where they could kill a Titled Douluo.
While marveling at how times had changed, he couldn't help crouching behind the bushes and asking Xu Tianzhen for more details. "Then the thing you used to scare that old dog earlier was the same kind of weapon, right?"
"That's right. Mine was a Level 8 Fixed High-Explosive Soul Cannonball, and the one he's sitting on is Level 9! Let me tell you, something as good as a Level 9 Soul Tool can only be found in our Sun Moon Empire. The Soul Tools used by those bunch of stupid mules from the original three kingdoms of Douluo Continent are at least several centuries behind ours..."
Qian Yuhan wasn't the only one listening to Xu Tianzhen boast about Soul Tools. The Rakshasa Phantom, lurking silently in the shadows, was listening too.
Existing as a phantom, it couldn't be seen with the naked eye by ordinary people. Crouching nearby, the more it listened, the more it felt vindicated:
'Old Qian! I told you the Soul Tools we've been getting our hands on these past few years were all low-grade junk, but you wouldn't believe me. If we want the good stuff, we have to go buy it from the Sun Moon Empire...'
'Hey, Old Qian! Are you even listening to me?' The Rakshasa Phantom kept pressing harder and harder, until it finally shoved Qian Yuhan—who had his back turned, pretending to be deaf—right out of the shadow of the bushes.
"?"
The two Evil Soul Master brothers heard the noise and turned around, along with Xu Yan and Xu Yu, all of them fixing their gazes on Qian Yuhan.
Xu Tianzhen: "?" How did he get out there?
Xu Yan, Xu Yu: "?"
(´･_･`) Hey, little bro, where did you come from?
Zhongli Tian, Zhongli Di: "?"
(╬≖_≖) Hey, where the hell did this kid come from? We didn't see you anywhere when we were fighting just now!
Qian Yuhan: "..." ಠ_ಠ Um, should I say something?
Before you continue