Dong'er

"Classmate... is something wrong with your ears?" The girl was clearly getting anxious. Huo Yuhao quickly came back to himself, and after making sure Zhou Yi hadn't noticed, hurriedly pulled out a pen and handed it to her.

The girl didn't hesitate. She snatched the pen and hurried back to her seat, narrowly avoiding Zhou Yi's puzzled gaze.

"Did I hear wrong...?" Zhou Yi didn't give it much thought. Every year there were a few troublemakers. She just had to find a chance to make an example of one of them.

Huo Yuhao lowered his head. It took several deep breaths before he managed to calm down.

"Yuhao, are you okay? Your Sea of Consciousness just shook like an earthquake. I was almost buried!"

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

Huo Yuhao hurriedly laughed it off, answering dismissively as he quickly steadied his Sea of Consciousness. Tian Meng finally settled down, but suddenly grew curious. For his Sea of Consciousness to shake so violently, Huo Yuhao must have experienced an intense emotional upheaval.

Too bad. If Huo Yuhao were a little weaker, he could have temporarily taken over Huo Yuhao's senses and seen what had happened.

"Hmm... so curious... I'm really so curious..." Tian Meng muttered to himself, then sank back into a deep sleep.

Huo Yuhao let out a breath of relief. Fortunately, after obtaining his First Soul Ring, he had regained much of his control over his Sea of Consciousness. It wasn't hard for him to plant a desire to sleep in Tian Meng, who was in a self-imposed seal. Otherwise, if Tian Meng's curiosity had gotten the better of him and he'd insisted on getting to the bottom of things, Huo Yuhao would have had a hard time explaining.

He forcefully suppressed his curiosity and focused his mind on the lesson.

He waited until class ended before glancing toward the girl from earlier.

The girl was looking at her notebook with a troubled expression. She kept glancing at one spot, then scribbling over another. Clearly, she was having trouble understanding the lesson.

Before he knew it, Huo Yuhao's gaze had become glued to her.

"Um... classmate, you..." The girl had just been about to ask Huo Yuhao something when she noticed him silently staring at her.

But she didn't seem startled at all. Instead, she leaned toward Huo Yuhao.

"Classmate, is there something on my face?"

"Ah... oh, it's nothing..." Huo Yuhao came back to himself and quickly leaned away. For a moment, he didn't know where to look.

Yet, just as Huo Yuhao knew she would, she stood up and leaned closer. After thinking it over briefly, she reached a conclusion.

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

"Huh?" Huo Yuhao froze, then quickly nodded.

"Uh, yeah. Friends, friends!"

Grabbing onto this lifeline, Huo Yuhao accepted her answer without hesitation and held out a hand.

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

"Huo Yuhao... Hehe, I'm Dong'er. We're best friends from now on!"

Dong'er took Huo Yuhao's hand. The moment she did, she felt how rough his palm was.

"Huo Yuhao, your hand..."

Dong'er took his hand and looked it over carefully. They looked about the same age, so why were his hands covered in such thick calluses?

"I have to help Mom with chores at home. Don't mind it." Huo Yuhao smiled as he explained.

"I see... I guess our families are different. When I'm at home, my second and third uncles never let me do any chores. They always say it's what my parents wanted, and that I should be taken good care of until I grow up."

As she spoke, Dong'er looked a little troubled. She propped up her chin, swinging her feet back and forth.

"Is that so..." Huo Yuhao thought about it. The second and third uncles Dong'er mentioned were probably his future mother-in-law's two friends from his previous life, the Sky Azure Bull Python and the Titan Giant Ape. So they were still alive in this world.

But then he realized something was off.

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

Dong'er shook her head.

"No. I asked the other people at home, and then I asked my second and third uncles too. They said it was because... Mom and Dad hadn't decided what to name me before they left. I was born in winter, so they gave me the name Dong'er for the time being. And it just stuck."

"Although, I actually quite like this name."

Dong'er explained, but she couldn't quite hide the disappointment in her voice.

"Forget it. I just made a new friend, so let's not talk about this."

Dong'er ended the subject herself. The ten-minute break was nearly over.

"Anyway, let's focus on class for now. If you want to chat, we can go to the dining hall together tonight." Dong'er smiled at Huo Yuhao, and then they both returned to their seats.

The afternoon passed quickly, but Huo Yuhao had to admit that the dense schedule felt a little overwhelming even to him, let alone the other children.

By the last couple of classes, many of the children had started doing their own thing at their desks. Some scribbled and doodled, while others looked around.

The other teachers weren't as strict as Zhou Yi. They seemed to understand how hard it was for the children to sit still. As long as nobody made too much of a fuss, they turned a blind eye.

But because of that, Huo Yuhao, who stayed intensely focused right up until dinner, caught the attention of every teacher that day. They often called on him to answer questions, and his answers were always flawless.

"Come on, hurry up, or we won't get any food!" As soon as the teacher announced the end of class, Dong'er grabbed Huo Yuhao and hurried toward the dining hall, not noticing him running alongside her and shouting, "Spirit Soul Academy has ten dining halls! There's no way we won't get food!"

Ten minutes later, after setting their trays on the table, Dong'er clasped her hands together and bowed her head toward Huo Yuhao, who was still catching his breath, her apology written all over her face.

And she hadn't just apologized with words. The two extra chicken legs on Huo Yuhao's tray—more than Dong'er had—were on her tab.

"It's fine, it's fine... I'm just not used to it yet. This much exercise is... no big deal for me."

Huo Yuhao caught his breath, finally steadying it, then picked up a chicken leg and placed it on Dong'er's tray.

"Since we're best friends, we should eat the same amount. You only need to buy me one chicken leg."

"Otherwise, I won't forgive you." Huo Yuhao's lightly threatening tone convinced Dong'er. Besides, her appetite seemed... really good to him, so good you'd never guess she was a little girl.

Still, he could tell she was a girl in one respect, at least: she hadn't gotten any soup on her clothes or face.

Was that some kind of special skill? Huo Yuhao ate heartily, glancing over at Dong'er from time to time.

Her personality was a little different. She was much more well-behaved than in his previous life, but seemed no different from the way she'd once described herself as a child—as Wang Dong.

Her face hadn't fully grown into itself yet, but he could already tell it would look exactly the same as it did later.

The biggest difference was the change in the timeline... At this point in his previous life, she should still have been living like a little princess in the Clear Sky Sect. But now... she had already been sent to school, and she was using her original gender.

Huo Yuhao looked around. The only reason he could think of for the Clear Sky Sect to feel comfortable sending its six-year-old young master to the academy was that someone from the sect must be keeping a close eye on the area.