At that moment, Lin Yuan walked over to the two men, who were chatting.
"Masters, I'll take my leave now."
Du Busi and Cao Xin nodded, and Lin Yuan left.
After changing into a clean set of clothes, Lin Yuan headed straight out of the Nine Treasures Glazed Sect.
He was going to the slums of Nine Treasures City to tidy up the hovel he hadn't returned to in half a year.
It was all junk, but he still felt attached to it, so he'd set aside half a day to go back and clean up.
When he entered the ramshackle wooden hut, everything had, just as he expected, been cleaned out.
Before leaving, Lin Yuan had stored quite a bit of dried meat he'd hunted in the mountains inside the hut.
Now it was all gone. Even the only piece of furniture, the rickety plank bed, had vanished without a trace.
It was all exactly as Lin Yuan had expected.
He walked to the center of the hut, transformed his hand into a dragon claw, and reached down into the earth.
It didn't take long to dig up a simple little wooden box.
He opened it gently. There wasn't much inside.
A small pouch of coins, a few scattered children's toys, and a wooden pendant.
Aside from the money, all of it had been left to Lin Yuan by his birth parents.
After his parents died, his relatives had descended like sharks scenting blood and snatched up everything in the Lin family home.
The fact that Lin Yuan had household registration in Nine Treasures City showed that his family hadn't been poorly off. But when the people were gone, the warmth had faded.
He picked up the wooden pendant and gazed at it, feeling a pang of nostalgia.
The wood was of excellent quality. It must have been made from some kind of Plant-type Soul Beast.
A mysterious pattern had been carved into it. At first, Lin Yuan had thought the pendant might have some mysterious power—or that an old man lived inside it.
But no matter what he tried, the pendant never budged. In the end, he concluded it really was just an "ordinary" pendant.
He hung it around his neck, put the rest of his childhood toys into his Soul Tool, and headed back toward the Nine Treasures Glazed Sect.
Pushing open the rotting wooden door, Lin Yuan was surprised to see someone waiting outside.
A group of ragged street children stood in front of his home, blocking his way back.
They were all malnourished, but their faces carried the distinctive fierceness of the slums. Lin Yuan immediately realized he was being robbed.
"Good sirs, do you happen to know me?" Lin Yuan asked helplessly.
He said that because when he'd lived in this area, he'd beaten every street child nearby into submission.
Lin Yuan sympathized with how hard things were for these children. If they got hurt, they might not even survive the winter.
The fact that he couldn't recognize a single face among them made it clear that nearly all the children he'd once known had probably died.
That was the Douluo death line—or, rather, the death line of a feudal dynasty.
At his words, the children exchanged confused looks.
"Looks like all the kids who knew me before are dead," Lin Yuan said, his gaze downcast.
"Cut the crap!" A boy stepped forward, full of bluster, clutching a shabby, rusty blade.
"Hand over all the money on you, and take off your clothes!"
Being threatened by a little squirt like that struck Lin Yuan as funny.
He had no interest in getting tangled up with these street children any longer. His Thousand-Year Soul Ring appeared in an instant.
"A S-Soul Master..." The pressure from the Thousand-Year Soul Ring made the children take a step back.
Even if they were uneducated and didn't know what the color of a Soul Ring meant, their instincts told them that the terrifying pressure coming from this kid meant he was someone they absolutely shouldn't mess with.
"All right. I don't want to hurt you. Let me pass." Lin Yuan's eyes were sharp. Looking straight at him felt like having a blade hack into them.
Lin Yuan was being more than reasonable. Under normal circumstances, the children would have moved aside without a fuss.
"Y-You bastard, we're not afraid of you..." The little squirt who'd been yelling at Lin Yuan was trembling like a leaf.
"Our boss is a Soul Master too! He's got the best Yellow Soul Ring a Soul Master can have! We've robbed several Soul Masters already. You're definitely no match for him!" The little squirt pointed at Lin Yuan and shouted.
Just mentioning their boss seemed to put some steel in his spine.
"Your boss?"
"Y-Yeah! Scared now? Our boss is right here!" The little squirt stepped aside.
The other street children nearby moved aside as well.
But to Lin Yuan's and the children's bewilderment, the leader who should have been standing there was nowhere to be seen.
Lin Yuan didn't suspect that the children were trying to bluff him. When he'd revealed his Soul Ring, he really had felt a flicker of Soul Power vanish in an instant.
A skilled boy of about eight or nine panted as he fled down a narrow alley.
His name was Yan Feng. His Martial Soul was the Bone Dragon, and he was an eighteenth-level Power Attack System Soul Master.
He was also the leader of the street children. He'd only started living on the streets here five months ago.
Yan Feng came from a minor noble family in the Heaven Dou Empire. He'd had a house and land, and life had been carefree.
In theory, with the same Martial Soul as the Nine Treasures Glazed Sect's Sect-Protecting Douluo from ten thousand years ago, he shouldn't have ended up in such dire straits.
But the Shrek Supervisory Corps had launched a peacekeeping campaign, striking almost indiscriminately at anyone with a dark attribute or a Martial Soul with related traits.
Ever since Yan Feng's Martial Soul Awakening, his parents had led him from place to place, living in constant fear.
In the end, the Shrek Supervisory Corps had still come knocking at his door.
His parents had sent him out the back door to cover his escape.
Yan Feng had been living like this for a year now. All traces of childishness had vanished from his face.
Like a rat in a gutter, he dodged the Soul Masters who hunted him on behalf of Shrek and other forces.
When he saw Lin Yuan release his Soul Ring, Yan Feng didn't know how a Soul Master could possibly absorb a Thousand-Year Soul Ring. But his instincts told him that his only priority now was to run!
That young man was definitely the son of some powerful family. If Yan Feng got tangled up with a Soul Master of that status, powerful forces would inevitably come after him.
He didn't want to go back. If he was caught and handed over to Shrek, it would mean certain death.
Shrek might not do much to Soul Masters from the Holy Spirit Cult, but with a dark-type Martial Soul like his—one that didn't even count as an Evil Soul Master—they'd nab him every time!
He had to survive. He couldn't let his parents' sacrifice be in vain.
"You're running so fast. Aren't you worried I'll kill your underlings?" A voice, eerily calm, rang out beside Yan Feng.
"Ah?!"
Yan Feng turned to look and let out a startled cry. Lin Yuan was right beside him, wearing a calm expression and matching his pace.
Compared to Yan Feng's disheveled state, Lin Yuan looked utterly relaxed.
"You're not much of a leader, are you? I can tell those people really trust you."