Liu Erlong

Everyone turned toward the voice.

A girl was sitting on a branch of the old locust tree by the roadside.

She looked about sixteen or seventeen, with long black hair simply tied back with a red cord.

She wore a practical dark-red outfit, with a short sword at her waist.

The girl had delicate features, arched brows, bright eyes, a straight nose, and skin that wasn't especially fair. It was the healthy, sun-tanned complexion of someone who had spent years training outdoors, and it only made her features look more sharply defined.

She was pretty, but the aura surrounding her made people keep their distance.

Bald Scar clearly didn't take the girl who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere seriously. Instead, he gave her a lewd grin. "Well, well, another little girl? What, wanna play with your uncles?"

The girl didn't answer. She simply leapt down from the old locust tree.

"First Soul Skill: Tyrant Dragon Possession!"

Her voice was cool and crisp. She wasted no words on taunts before the fight, and didn't even spare Bald Scar a proper glance.

A layer of dark-red light burst from her body. The phantom image of dragon scales appeared on her skin, then instantly condensed into a translucent layer of armor that covered her arms and torso.

Her pupils turned into slits in the light. Her black hair, tied behind her head, stirred without a breeze, and the aura around her surged in an instant.

Bald Scar's grin froze on his face.

He instinctively took half a step back, then realized how humiliating the move was and forced his foot back into place.

"What are you afraid of? She's just a little girl!" Bald Scar roared, trying to bolster his own courage as well as rally the two henchmen beside him, who were still staring blankly. "Get her together! Take her down!"

Bald Scar's roar still echoed through the air when the girl vanished from where she stood.

Bald Scar's vision blurred. A dark-red afterimage flashed past, and the next instant, a tremendous force slammed into his stomach.

Brother Scar didn't even have time to see how the dragon-scale-covered fist had struck him before he was sent flying like a kite with its strings cut.

He crashed into a crooked tree by the roadside. The trunk snapped in half, and a shower of branches and leaves came crashing down.

"Boss!" The Thin Tall Man on the left had barely shouted before the girl's attack was upon him.

She used no fancy moves, just a simple elbow strike that landed precisely on the Thin Tall Man's chin.

He didn't even have time to scream. His vision went black, and he toppled straight to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Seeing this, the others scattered, not daring to resist the girl at all.

Deng Tianxin looked at the girl and couldn't help swallowing.

He wasn't afraid; he'd just instinctively thought of Bibi Dong spanking him.

"Hmm?"

Just then, Deng Tianxin noticed a fragment inside the girl, too.

It was much smaller than the fragment inside Bibi Dong, but Deng Tianxin wasn't picky.

The girl walked up to Deng Tianxin and looked him over, then asked curiously, "Little guy, what's going on with your head? Is it because of your Martial Soul?"

Deng Tianxin came to his senses and instinctively reached up to touch the dragon horns on his forehead.

He'd spent so long at Spirit Hall this past year that everyone around him knew him. No one ever bothered to ask what was up with his horns.

Having a stranger bring it up out of the blue left him momentarily stunned.

"It's not. It's a physical condition," Deng Tianxin said, shaking his head.

The girl nodded and smiled as she introduced herself. "Little guy, my name is Liu Erlong. What's yours?"

As Liu Erlong looked at Deng Tianxin, she felt an inexplicable urge to get close to the adorable little boy in front of her.

But she remembered that she and the boy were strangers, so she suppressed the feeling.

Deng Tianxin paused, not expecting to run into Liu Erlong.

He naturally knew who she was: Yu Xiaogang's future wife, and also his cousin.

Deng Tianxin quickly came to his senses and smiled brightly in thanks. "Thank you, big sister. My name is Deng Tianxin."

Liu Erlong bent down and reached out to ruffle Deng Tianxin's hair. Her fingers accidentally brushed against the dragon horns on his head. They felt cool and smooth, and she couldn't help touching them a couple more times.

Deng Tianxin felt uncomfortable all over. He wanted to dodge but felt too embarrassed to, since she had just saved him. So he could only stiffen his neck and let her ruffle his hair, silently grumbling about how female Soul Masters all seemed to have a habit of touching people's heads without permission.

"Deng Tianxin." Liu Erlong withdrew her hand and repeated the name. Her eyes suddenly lit up. "That's a lovely name! Much better than mine. Liu Erlong sounds like a man's name. I've lost count of how many people have mistaken me for one over the years."

After saying that, she burst into hearty laughter, open and unbothered. She clearly didn't truly care about it.

Deng Tianxin studied Liu Erlong up close, quietly comparing her with the description in the original story.

Her dark-red outfit accentuated her agile figure, and the hilt of the short sword at her waist had been worn smooth and shiny. It was clearly well used.

Her features were more sharply defined than those of most women, and her brows held a hint of heroic spirit. When she smiled, her eyes curved like crescent moons.

She was a completely different type from Bibi Dong.

Bibi Dong was elegant and composed, with calculation woven into her very bones. When she was angry, she didn't shout or make a scene. She would only look at you with a smile, then grab your ear when you were most relaxed.

Liu Erlong, on the other hand, was like a blazing fire, intense and direct. If she disliked someone, she beat them up; if she liked someone, she smiled at them. Every emotion was written on her face, plain for all to see.

Still, when it came to love, Liu Erlong and Bibi Dong were cut from the same cloth.

When Bibi Dong's love life went wrong, she wanted to destroy the entire Douluo Continent; when Liu Erlong's did, she slaughtered the Soul Beasts in Soul Hunting Forest.

"Little guy, you're all alone out here in the wilderness. Aren't you afraid a Soul Beast will snatch you away?" Liu Erlong planted her hands on her hips and looked down at Deng Tianxin, acting like a big sister interrogating a child.

"I came out to train," Deng Tianxin said, lying without batting an eye.

"To train?" Liu Erlong looked him up and down. The little guy seemed rather composed, but however she looked at it, he was only six or seven years old. "How old are you? And you're already out training?"

"Seven," Deng Tianxin answered.

"You're going out alone at seven? Your family's okay with that?" Liu Erlong frowned, disapproval creeping into her voice.

"I'm a disciple of Bibi Dong, the Saintess of Spirit Hall. My teacher sent me out to train," Deng Tianxin said, invoking Bibi Dong's name.

The old witch was far away in Slaughter City. There was no way she could suddenly pop up and expose him.

Liu Erlong's expression clearly faltered for a moment. Then she nodded in sudden understanding. "So you're from Spirit Hall. No wonder a little kid like you dares to wander around a place like this. I've heard of Bibi Dong, too. They say she's a once-in-a-century genius at Spirit Hall."