Dong'er

"Classmate... are your ears not working?" The girl was clearly anxious. Huo Yuhao quickly snapped back to reality, and after confirming that Zhou Yi's attention hadn't been drawn their way, he hurriedly pulled out a pen and handed it to her.

The girl didn't stand on ceremony; she snatched the pen and sat back in her seat, narrowly avoiding Zhou Yi's suspicious gaze.

"Did I mishear..." Zhou Yi didn't dwell on it. Every year there were a few unruly ones; she would just find an opportunity later to make an example of one.

Huo Yuhao lowered his head, taking several deep breaths before he finally calmed down.

"Yuhao, are you alright? Just now, your Sea of Consciousness felt like it was having an earthquake. Brother almost got buried in there!"

"Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine, Brother Sky Dream. Don't worry about it..."

Huo Yuhao hurriedly brushed it off with a laugh. While giving a perfunctory reply, he scrambled to stabilize his Sea of Consciousness. Tian Meng finally lay back down, feeling at ease, but suddenly, a spark of curiosity ignited within him. To cause such a violent tremor in the Sea of Consciousness, Huo Yuhao had clearly experienced a massive emotional fluctuation.

It was a pity; if Huo Yuhao's constitution were weaker, he could have directly hijacked his senses for a moment to see exactly what had happened.

"Hmm... curious... really, so very curious..." Tian Meng muttered to himself as he drifted back into a deep sleep.

Huo Yuhao let out a sigh of relief. Fortunately, after obtaining his first spirit ring, his control over his Sea of Consciousness had returned significantly. Injecting a desire to "go to sleep" into the self-sealed Tian Meng wasn't difficult for him. Otherwise, if Tian Meng's curiosity had been too strong and he had insisted on getting to the bottom of it, it would have been hard to explain.

He suppressed his own curiosity and forced his focus back onto the lesson.

It wasn't until class ended that he finally cast his gaze toward the girl from earlier.

She was looking at her notebook with a distressed expression, glancing here and there, then using her pen to scribble things out. Clearly, the content of this lesson was somewhat difficult for her to grasp.

Without realizing it, Huo Yuhao's gaze became glued to her.

"Um... classmate, you..." Just as the girl wanted to ask Huo Yuhao for help, she noticed him silently staring at her.

Yet, she didn't seem the least bit startled; instead, she took the initiative to lean closer to Huo Yuhao.

"Classmate, is there something on my face?"

"Ah... oh, it's nothing..." Huo Yuhao snapped out of it and hurriedly pulled back, his eyes darting around, not knowing where to look.

However, just as Huo Yuhao had known her to be, she stood up and leaned in even closer. After a brief moment of thought, she arrived at an answer.

"Classmate, you want to be friends with me, right!"

"Eh?" Huo Yuhao was stunned, then hurriedly nodded:

"Uh, yes, friends, friends!"

Having found a way out, Huo Yuhao accepted the answer without hesitation and extended a hand toward her:

"My name is Huo Yuhao. Nice to meet you."

"Huo Yuhao, huh... hehe, I'm Dong'er! From now on, we're good friends!"

Dong'er took Huo Yuhao's hand, and instantly, she felt the roughness of his palm.

"Huo Yuhao, your hand..."

Dong'er grabbed Huo Yuhao's hand to examine it closely. He clearly looked to be the same age as her, so why were there such thick calluses on his hands?

"I have to help my mother with chores at home. Don't mind it," Huo Yuhao explained with a smile.

"I see... it seems our homes are quite different. When I'm at home, Second Uncle and Third Uncle never let me do any work. They always say it's my parents' arrangement, that I should be well-cared for until I grow up."

Speaking of this, Dong'er was clearly a bit troubled. She propped her chin on her hand, her feet swinging back and forth.

"Is that so..." Huo Yuhao thought to himself. The Second Uncle and Third Uncle Dong'er spoke of were likely the two friends of his mother-in-law from his past life, the Sky Azure Bull Python and the Titan Giant Ape. It seemed they were still alive in this world.

But suddenly, he realized something that didn't quite add up:

"Dong'er, you... do you not have a surname?"

Dong'er shook her head:

"No. I've asked the others at home, and I even asked Second Uncle and Third Uncle. They said it was because... my parents hadn't decided what I should be called before they left... Because I was born in winter, they just gave me the name Dong'er, and it's been that way ever since."

"Though, I actually quite like this name."

Dong'er explained, but she couldn't hide the slight disappointment in her tone.

"Forget it, we just made new friends, let's not talk about this."

Dong'er took the initiative to end the topic, and the ten-minute break was almost over.

"Anyway, let's focus on class. If you want to chat, let's go to the cafeteria together tonight." Dong'er smiled at Huo Yuhao, and then they both sat back in their seats.

The afternoon passed quickly, but Huo Yuhao had to admit that the density of the curriculum was slightly stressful even for him, let alone the other children.

Therefore, by the last period or two, many children had started doing their own things at their desks, either doodling aimlessly or looking around.

The other teachers weren't as strict as Zhou Yi; they seemed to understand that these children couldn't sit still, and as long as they didn't cause a major disturbance, they turned a blind eye.

But precisely because of this, Huo Yuhao, who had maintained a high level of focus until dinnertime, successfully drew the attention of every teacher that day. The teachers frequently asked him to answer questions, and his responses were always watertight.

"Come on, come on, or we won't be able to grab any food later!" As soon as the teacher announced the end of class, Dong'er couldn't wait to drag Huo Yuhao toward the cafeteria, completely ignoring Huo Yuhao, who was running alongside her while shouting, "The Spirit Soul Academy has ten cafeterias, there's no way we won't get food!"

Ten minutes later, after placing their trays on the table, Dong'er pressed her palms together and bowed her head toward the still-panting Huo Yuhao with the utmost apology.

Of course, it wasn't just a verbal apology; the two extra chicken legs on Huo Yuhao's tray compared to Dong'er's were paid for by her.

"It's fine, it's fine... I just wasn't used to it for a second. This level of exercise is... alright for me."

Huo Yuhao smoothed out his breathing, finally stabilizing his rhythm, and then picked up one of the chicken legs and placed it on Dong'er's tray.

"Since we're good friends, we should eat the same thing. Just buy me a chicken leg."

"Otherwise, I won't forgive you." Huo Yuhao's slightly threatening tone successfully convinced Dong'er. Moreover, her appetite, in Huo Yuhao's eyes... was truly impressive, so good that one couldn't tell she was just a little girl.

However, one could still tell a little bit; at least there wasn't any soup or sauce on her face or clothes.

Perhaps it was some kind of special technique? Huo Yuhao ate heartily while glancing in Dong'er's direction from time to time.

Her personality was somewhat different, much more well-behaved than in his past life, but she seemed no different from the childhood Wang Dong she had once described to him.

Her face... it hadn't fully matured yet, but he could see it would be exactly the same as in the future.

The biggest change was the shift in the timeline... In his past life, she should have still been in the Clear Sky Sect acting as their little princess, but now... she had been sent here to attend school, and as her original gender, no less.

Huo Yuhao looked around. The only possibility he could think of that would allow the Clear Sky Sect to feel at ease sending their six-year-old young mistress to the academy was that there were people from the Clear Sky Sect nearby, keeping a close watch.