Ah Yin

After that, Gu Yue'er helped Huang Tian test his Innate Soul Power. There was no doubt about it: he had innate level ten, with full Soul Power.

To surpass level ten required divine favor—in other words, someone up in the heavens had to be pulling strings.

By the time they were done, the sky was already bright. Perhaps awakening two new Martial Souls had taken a lot of energy; his stomach soon began to growl, and he felt several times hungrier than usual.

Huang Tian steamed a huge pot of rice and stir-fried several dishes. Gu Yue'er only sampled a few bites, but she had to finish everything else before she finally felt her strength return.

Once her disciple-husband had eaten his fill, his master-wife immediately stood up, unable to wait any longer.

"Do you have anything here that's especially important to you? Pack it up. We're going Soul Hunting.

"We won't be coming back afterward. We'll stay in Notting City for a few months, then move to Heaven Dou City."

They would wait a few months in Notting City so they could take Xiao Wu with them.

As for moving to Heaven Dou City, Huang Tian needed an enormous archive of high-quality material to study the Soul Ring Limit Formula. Only Spirit Hall could provide that. And there was a fake crown prince there who dressed as a man.

Huang Tian shook his head.

"There's nothing important to me, but I want to visit my parents' graves and tell them I'm about to become a Soul Master."

His parents' graves were on the hill behind the village, less than a kilometer away. The land there wasn't suitable for farming, so the villagers buried their dead there.

Huang Tian hadn't rejected his parents in this life just because he had memories of a previous one. Nor did he feel that dying when he was four meant they hadn't done much for him.

Whatever else, they had given him this body. His weakness and their deaths from illness hadn't been their choice. They were just people dealt a hard lot in life.

He kowtowed properly, prayed according to local custom, and told the two of them about his Martial Soul Awakening and the journey he was about to take.

On the way back, Huang Tian was about to stop by and tell the village chief, so the man wouldn't worry if he suddenly disappeared.

From a distance, he saw and heard Wang Defa clutching the back of his head, looking utterly speechless as he spoke to his father.

"The village's Martial Soul Awakening will have to be delayed a few days. I left Notting City before dawn, but somewhere along the way, some heartless bastard ambushed me. The Martial Soul Awakening stone and the Soul Power testing crystal ball are both gone."

The village chief was aghast.

"Are you hurt? Did you see what the attacker looked like?"

"I didn't see him. I didn't even sense him getting close. But I'm sure he was a Support-type Soul Master.

"I took a hard blow to the back of the head and passed out on the spot. When I woke up, the blood on the stick was still fresh, but there wasn't a scratch on my head, and I couldn't feel any pain. He must've felt bad after hitting me, so he healed me."

Huang Tian lowered his head in silence.

Who could this heartless yet kindhearted criminal possibly be? What a tough question. Damn it, I just can't guess.

There aren't many Martial Souls with healing abilities. For a Support-type Soul Master to take down a combat-type Soul Master in one blow, they'd need to be at least two major realms stronger. And I didn't sense them approaching at all—so they must've had at least two rings, if not more.

Wang Defa is a Soul Elder. More than two rings above him would make the attacker a Soul Emperor or higher. Add in the fact that this happened in the Heaven Dou Empire, and that the attacker wasn't from Spirit Hall...

Then there's only one answer. Ning Fengzhi, are you going to confess?

You came all the way to this remote border region so no one would suspect you. You could even make it look like a Star Luo Empire attack. What a devious plot!

"Teacher, do you have any money?"

"No. Why?"

Huang Tian didn't press her on why a dignified Titled Douluo couldn't even spare a single coin. He decided that once they reached Notting City, he would borrow some money from a few wealthy custodians who had no scruples and share it with the villagers.

The villagers hadn't done anything major for him, but they'd helped him out with little things time and again. The fact that they hadn't left him to be swallowed up after his parents died was already enough to be grateful for.

Gu Yue'er made up an excuse for the village chief. She said that while flying overhead, she'd spotted Huang Tian training and had been curious about the boy. She'd helped him awaken his Martial Soul, only to discover that he had excellent talent, so she planned to take him on as her disciple and teach him with everything she had.

After saying goodbye to the village, Huang Tian was carried in her arms as they flew deep into the mountains.

This place could serve as the border between the two empires because it was full of layer upon layer of steep mountains, easy to defend and difficult to attack. It wouldn't be easy for either side to force its way through.

Along the way, his wife and master occasionally explained things Soul Masters needed to watch out for as they cultivated.

Her husband and disciple listened intently, committing each point firmly to memory. Not everyone got to have a God King personally teach them cultivation experience.

About half an hour later, they came upon a small hill, two or three hundred meters high, nestled in the middle of a ring of mountains. A sheer cliff faced them, and a waterfall poured down from its summit.

The surrounding hills were lush with greenery, and beneath them lay a tranquil lake blue as a sapphire.

At first glance, Huang Tian felt the terrain looked awfully familiar. The moment he figured out why, his heart leaped with joy.

When it came to the Blue Silver Saint Emperor's First Soul Ring, there really was no better choice than this.

Even with the Silver Dragon King's power suppressed to the level of a Titled Douluo, her spiritual power's range and precision were astonishing.

Though it was her first time here, she moved as if she knew the place by heart.

With a sweep of her arm, the water surged upward. With another, she smashed through the mechanism hidden in the rock wall, revealing a deep passage concealed behind it. Then she carried Huang Tian inside.

The passage ended in a small stone chamber, about ten square meters in size, exactly as the original story had described.

A finger-width hole had been drilled through the ceiling and connected to the mountainside. The morning sun didn't shine straight through it, so only a faint glimmer reached inside. The chamber was dim.

The room was bare, with no furnishings at all. In the center sat a small mound of earth, not even fifty centimeters tall.

A vivid blue plant, its surface patterned with gold and silver and bearing a faint resemblance to his Martial Soul, grew atop the mound.

What a crime!

He'd already read about it in the book, and countless fanfic authors had condemned it through their protagonists.

Even so, Huang Tian couldn't help shaking his head with a sigh.

According to Tang Hao, no matter how grievously injured Ah Yin was, she could return to life within forty-nine days. And as long as the Blue Silver Emperor was in the forest, she was invincible, able to absorb the life force of other plants to restore herself.

Yet he had put his own wife in this sunless cave, where, as a plant, she had no sunlight above her and not enough soil or water below.

Her most powerful life and absorption attributes were useless, too, since there were no other plants for her to touch.

Some fanfic authors suspected that Tang Hao knew there could only be one Blue Silver Emperor and wanted to wait until his son grew up before trying to claim the vacant position.

He was afraid his wife would die completely and a new emperor would be born, but he was also afraid she'd recover quickly and reclaim the throne. Keeping her half-dead was the best option.

Huang Tian hadn't been sure before, but looking at this, it really might not have been an baseless suspicion.

That rat was a master schemer, and a remarkably good actor, too.

Gu Yue'er didn't waste time brooding. She lightly slapped the wall beside her, triggering a mechanism. A heavy lead box, two meters long, promptly dropped out.

Then she grabbed Ah Yin by the stem and pulled her out, roots and all. She didn't even bother to cover her tracks. She simply flew away with Huang Tian as brazenly as could be.

(Note: Ah Yin will be the protagonist's Soul Ring early on, then transform into a Soul Spirit midway through the story, and come back to life later. She's also one of the female leads.)