Jiang Nannan

On the Dou I side, Dai Mubai had been unconscious for three days. Only after Teacher Shaoxing and a treatment-type Soul King brought in from Suotuo City had done everything they could for him did he finally wake.

"Are you saying my hand really can't be reattached?!"

Dai Mubai's face was full of fear and unwillingness. His only remaining hand clutched the edge of the bed so tightly that his fingertips turned white.

Teacher Shaoxing patted him on the shoulder.

"There was no time. Besides, an extremely troublesome strand of Soul Power clung to the severed surface of your hand. Even if a Nine Heart Begonia Martial Soul healer had been here, reattaching it would have been impossible."

"Try to look on the bright side."

He patted Dai Mubai on the shoulder again, then had no choice but to leave the room.

Only Zhao Wuji remained.

"Tell me! Who did this? I'll go teach him a lesson for you!"

"Damn it, someone dares bully our Shrek Academy!"

Looking at Teacher Zhao, who was genuinely concerned for him, Dai Mubai's eyes reddened. But three days had passed; the culprit was probably long gone.

Dai Mubai had no choice but to tell Zhao Wuji what had happened that night. He deliberately hid the fact that he had started the trouble, instead claiming that Ye Guchen had relied on his strength and tried to forcefully take the twin sisters at Dai Mubai's side.

He had followed the school motto that a Soul Master who never stirred up trouble wasn't a proper Soul Master. Besides, the other party had started it, so he had been forced to fight back. Unfortunately, his strength had been slightly inferior, and he had lost.

After listening, Zhao Wuji felt a bellyful of anger welling up in his chest. He slapped the table.

"Damn it! Rest and recover. I'll go search Suotuo City!"

With that, he headed straight for Suotuo City without looking back.

"Old Zhao!"

Just then, Flender appeared and called out to Zhao Wuji, whose rage had burned away his reason.

"I already went. I asked around about that kid, but he's already left!"

"Damn it!"

At that, Zhao Wuji smashed the table beside him with a single slap.

Inside the room, the blow seemed to have knocked some sense into Dai Mubai. At last, he remembered who the woman had been.

"Zhu Zhuqing! No wonder she looked familiar. She even stirred up my Martial Soul."

"I never thought you'd escape by throwing yourself at a man, you bitch!"

Meanwhile, Ye Guchen and Zhu Zhuqing had arrived safely in Heaven Dou City.

"Relying on others is ultimately a poor strategy. I should establish a trading company of my own and deal with them that way!"

The moment he set foot in Heaven Dou City, Ye Guchen changed his mind about joining Qian Renxue.

"Zhuqing, instead of wandering around aimlessly like this, I want to establish a trading company of our own!"

Zhu Zhuqing looked at Ye Guchen in surprise. With his talent, cultivating was the proper path. Once he was strong enough, wouldn't money come easily? Why take on such a laborious undertaking?

But since it was Ye Guchen's idea, Zhu Zhuqing wholeheartedly supported him.

She tightened her arm around his. "All right! I'll support you. But what are you going to call this trading company?"

"The Hundred Treasure Pavilion!"

Of course, since Ye Guchen had decided to start a trading company on the Dou I timeline, he couldn't leave the Dou II timeline idle either. He planned to begin setting up this trading company, which would conduct business across both timelines, as soon as he returned.

The bulk of Ye Guchen's business would naturally still come from reselling goods between the two timelines.

Seeing Ye Guchen suddenly spacing out, Gongyang Mo waved a hand in front of his face.

"Hey, I'm talking to you! Are you thinking about that girl from the outer courtyard?"

Ye Guchen came back to his senses and pushed Gongyang Mo away.

"Get lost, get lost! What are you talking about? Nannan and I are just ordinary friends. I only helped her because she was in a difficult spot."

"My pet beast needs meat anyway, so I figured I'd hire her to manage that shop I opened to buy Soul Beast meat."

Chen Zifeng understood and nudged Ye Guchen's shoulder.

"You still say you're not interested in her? Come on, confess already. If all you wanted was to help her, hiring her to look after the shop would've been enough. What's the point of leaving the Geng Metal White Tiger with her?"

Then he glanced at Ma Xiaotao, who was absorbing her Soul Ring, and cautiously leaned close to Ye Guchen's ear.

"Sister Xiaotao's already fiery enough to keep you on your toes. You still dare to look for someone else? And I've noticed the way Ling Luochеn looks at you, too. She's probably interested in you. Seriously, brother, I admire you!"

As he spoke, he even gave Ye Guchen a thumbs-up.

But the weakest person there was still a Soul Ancestor, so everyone heard him loud and clear.

The first person who couldn't take it anymore was Ling Luochеn herself.

"Chen Zifeng, are you trying to get yourself killed? I was just... just admiring his Ultimate Ice!"

But the more Ling Luochеn tried to explain, the less anyone believed her. That flustered expression was exactly how someone looked when their secret feelings had been exposed.

Everyone knew what was going on and privately grumbled that Ye Guchen wasn't even leaving them a drop of soup.

Seeing that everyone seemed convinced, Ling Luochеn hurriedly steered the conversation back to Jiang Nannan.

"Tell us about you and that girl!"

With everyone looking at him, eager for gossip, Ye Guchen could only shake his head helplessly.

"Honestly, there isn't much to tell."

"When I enrolled, we happened to be in the same class. By a twist of fate, we became friends."

Yao Haoxuan, who had been quiet until then, came over as well.

"Oh~! A twist of fate?"

Sometimes, all it took was a single drawn-out word to make someone's meaning perfectly clear. Yao Haoxuan obviously thought there had been more to this friendship than met the eye.

"Do you want to hear the story or not?"

Ye Guchen didn't explain, since that would only make things look even more suspicious.

"There was someone named Xu Sanshi pursuing her, but Nannan wouldn't accept him. The infuriating part was that Xu Sanshi even used her sick mother to get to her. Fortunately, Nannan trusted me enough to tell me about her mother."

Ye Guchen rubbed his nose, a tactical gesture.

"Luckily, I had a bit of money, so I found a treatment-type Soul Saint to cure her mother."

Everyone stared at him in disbelief. "You call that a bit of money? You mean a whole mountain of money!"

"After that, worried Xu Sanshi might do something else out of line, I had her bring her mother to live in Shrek City. I also gave her some money to rent a place and hired her to look after my shop."

"You did the right thing! With Shrek watching, Xu Sanshi wouldn't dare do anything out of line."

Xi Xi's face was full of indignation, as if she were standing up for Jiang Nannan.

"Oh, I get it. You left the Geng Metal White Tiger pet beast with her, supposedly to protect your property, but really to protect that girl!"

Chen Zifeng slapped his forehead, looking as if he'd finally figured it out.

"You're the clever one!"

Ling Luochеn listened quietly. "A hero-rescues-the-beauty kind of story? If it were me..."

She left the rest unsaid, pressing the words back between her lips.

But in her mind, a scene was already unfolding: she was in danger, and at the very last moment, Ye Guchen descended from the sky...

While Ye Guchen and the others were discussing Jiang Nannan, inside a shop in Shrek City near the Star Dou Great Forest, a beautiful woman with a pair of rabbit ears atop her head, a stunning figure, and fair skin was busy assessing the meat brought in by Soul Masters returning from their hunts.

"This is only a Hundred-Year Soul Beast, and it's not very big. It's worth only eighty Gold Soul Coins."

Seeing that Jiang Nannan was just a frail-looking young woman, the man was about to haggle when a pair of icy eyes stared him down.

Only then did he notice the two-wan-year-old Geng Metal White Tiger crouched behind Jiang Nannan.

Xiao Bai merely watched the Soul Elder calmly, but that was enough to scare him witless.

"Fine... then... eighty Gold Soul Coins!"

Jiang Nannan deftly stored the Soul Beast's corpse in a specially made storage Soul Tool ring filled with Ultimate Ice, then handed the Soul Elder eighty Gold Soul Coins.

Her expression hadn't wavered once throughout. Clearly, this wasn't the first time something like this had happened.

Jiang Nannan had been busy for two hours before her shift ended. She only worked two hours a day, anyway.

Jiang Nannan stretched her slender waist and shut the shop's door.

"Let's go, Xiao Bai!"

The Geng Metal White Tiger, nearly four meters long, shrank to the size of a kitten and leaped into Jiang Nannan's arms.

Jiang Nannan deftly laid a hand on its back and smoothed its fur.

At a glance, it really did look like she was holding a cat.

She turned her gaze toward Shrek Academy's inner courtyard, her eyes full of tenderness.