Night lay still as death.
The faint crack of a roof tile breaking outside sounded like the Grim Reaper rapping his knuckles on the door.
Su Yun sat on the bed, his back taut as a drawn bow.
He didn't move. He even deliberately slowed his breathing. Beneath the covers, his hand clenched the cold Pope's Order so tightly his knuckles whitened.
He was here.
The madman from the legends, who had hammered his way across the world undefeated and even dared to beat up the Pope, was here.
"Whoosh..."
A gust of night wind blew open the half-shut window.
The cold moonlight was suddenly blocked by a hulking shadow, broad as an iron tower.
The shadow didn't come inside. He merely crouched silently on the windowsill.
He wore a battered black cloak. The stench of liquor poured off him, along with a suffocating killing intent, as if he had just walked out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
Su Yun couldn't see his face, but the scarlet eyes glittering beneath the hood were like twin skinning knives, carving into him.
No pointless chatter.
No opening pleasantries.
A terrifying pressure from his Soul Power crashed down like Mount Tai!
Boom!
The tables and chairs in the room instantly crumbled to dust. Even the expensive rosewood bed groaned under the strain.
This was the domain of a Titled Douluo!
An ordinary level-twenty Soul Grandmaster would have been crushed to a pulp by now.
But Su Yun was, after all, the owner of a god-tier Martial Soul.
Humm!
The Judgment Angel Martial Soul within him automatically sprang to his defense. A faint golden light shone from his body, carving out a foothold amid the tsunami of pressure.
Su Yun's face was pale, and cold sweat trickled down his forehead, but a crazed smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
He lifted his head, stared straight into those scarlet eyes, and rasped with a hint of mockery:
"Coming to crouch at someone else's window in the middle of the night instead of sleeping..."
"Uncle, do you have a peeping habit?"
The shadow on the windowsill visibly froze.
Clearly, he hadn't expected this insignificant brat to still run his mouth with death staring him in the face.
"Hmph."
The snort boomed in Su Yun's ears like a muffled thunderclap.
"Sharp-tongued brat."
"You dared lay a hand on my son. You dared steal something from the Tang Clan..."
The shadow slowly raised his right hand. A pitch-black little hammer covered in demonic patterns took shape in his palm.
He hadn't even released his Soul Rings, yet the aura of destruction pouring from the hammer subtly warped the surrounding space.
The Clear Sky Hammer!
It really was Tang Hao!
"Die!"
Tang Hao didn't hesitate. The heavy hammer in his hand swelled against the wind, crashing down with enough force to shatter the entire courtyard and its foundations.
This strike was called "Chaos Cloak."
This strike was called "No Martial Virtue."
Who could have imagined that the mighty Clear Sky Douluo would actually try to kill a six-year-old child?
Su Yun's pupils contracted.
He couldn't block it!
There was no way he could block it!
Forget being level twenty. Even a Soul Douluo would have to kneel before this blow.
Was he really going to get a game-over right after transmigrating?
Just as the terrifying gust tore at Su Yun's cheeks and the black hammer-shadow was about to smash him into mincemeat, at the very moment between life and death—
Su Yun abruptly raised the token in his hand, gathered his strength, and shouted with all his might:
"Gui Mei! If you don't come out right now, I'm dead!!!"
That cry was utterly heart-wrenching—and utterly righteous.
If he was going to live off someone else, he might as well own it!
When trouble hit, call the grown-ups!
The instant Su Yun shouted those words—
A mass of black mist, darker than the night, suddenly surged from the corner of the pitch-black room.
It moved impossibly fast, like a Ghost Fire leaping across space. In an instant, it appeared before Su Yun and transformed into a black shield.
Clang!!!
The Clear Sky Hammer slammed into the Black Shield.
A deafening crash of metal rang through the sky.
A terrifying shock wave spread outward in a ring, tearing the roof off the entire courtyard in an instant. The tiles shot in every direction like shrapnel.
Amid the billowing dust, Su Yun was protected by a gentle force and emerged completely unharmed.
Tang Hao, however, grunted. The rebounding force hurled him more than ten meters away, and he landed on the courtyard's artificial mountain, crushing it beneath his feet.
"Who?!"
Tang Hao steadied himself, a flash of suspicion in his eyes.
The black mist before Su Yun slowly gathered into a tall, slender figure.
He was clad in Ghostly Armor, his face obscured. Only the eerie green Ghost Fire flickering in his eye sockets was visible.
Ghost Douluo Gui Mei, a level-ninety-five agility-type Titled Douluo!
"Tang Hao."
Ghost Douluo's voice drifted unpredictably, carrying the chill of the Nine Netherworld Hell:
"Long time no see. You're still as useless as ever."
"Back then, His Holiness the Pope chased you around like a dog. And now you've sunk to bullying a child?"
"You've dragged the Clear Sky Douluo's name through the mud."
Tang Hao stared at Ghost Douluo, the veins bulging across the hand gripping the Clear Sky Hammer.
"Gui Mei?!"
"Spirit Hall sent you to protect this brat?"
He'd assumed Su Yun would have, at most, a Soul Douluo as a guard. He hadn't expected Ghost Douluo himself to be standing watch!
What did that mean?
It meant Bibi Dong valued this boy far more than he'd imagined!
"Now that you know it's me, why don't you get lost?"
Nine Soul Rings rippled around Ghost Douluo—two yellow, two purple, and five black. He unleashed the full pressure of a Titled Douluo, meeting Tang Hao head-on.
If Tang Hao had been at full strength, Gui Mei might have been wary of him.
But Tang Hao was now badly injured, his old wounds still unhealed, and years of heavy drinking had weakened him considerably.
If it came to a fight to the death, there was no telling who would end up dead!
Tang Hao clearly understood that, too.
He glanced at Su Yun, shielded behind Ghost Douluo. Killing intent seethed in his eyes, but in the end, reason won out.
This was Notting City, with a Spirit Hall branch nearby. If he got bogged down here and drew more powerful opponents, he really wouldn't be able to escape.
"Fine! Very well!"
Tang Hao ground his teeth and took a long look at Su Yun, as if he meant to carve that face into his bones.
"Lucky you, brat."
"But remember, some things aren't yours to take."
"One day, I'll take them back with my own hands!"
Having delivered his threat, Tang Hao didn't waste another second. He flashed away, vanishing into the night as a streak of black light.
That was the Clear Sky Douluo for you.
If he could win, he fought. If he couldn't, he ran. Flexibility was the name of the game.
The dust settled in the courtyard.
Su Yun peeked out from behind Ghost Douluo and watched the direction Tang Hao had disappeared in. He let out a long breath.
His legs were a little weak.
Really.
When that hammer came down, he'd honestly thought he was about to meet his great-grandmother in the afterlife.
"Thank you for saving my life, Elder Gui."
Su Yun brushed the dust off himself and cupped his hands to Ghost Douluo.
Ghost Douluo turned around. The eerie green Ghost Fire in his eyes swept over Su Yun, and his voice held a hint of bafflement.
"Don't thank me."
"It was His Holiness the Pope's order."
Gui Mei paused, his tone growing somewhat complicated:
"Your Highness, you really should stop getting into trouble."
"His Holiness said you should focus on cultivation and stop thinking about combing the Rabbit's hair all day."
After saying that, Ghost Douluo seemed to realize how awkward it sounded. His figure flickered, then vanished into the shadows as black mist once more.
Su Yun: "..."
Combing her hair?
How did Bibi Dong know I'd combed Xiao Wu's hair?
Su Yun froze for three seconds, then suddenly figured it out.
Holy crap!
She was spying on me!
That old woman wasn't just reading my Diary—she'd even sent someone to monitor me in real time?
This wasn't being the Holy Son. This was prison!
"Bibi Dong, you've gone too far!"
Su Yun was consumed by righteous indignation.
The joy of surviving had vanished in an instant, replaced by the suffocating feeling of being watched by his parents from every direction.
"No. I'm not swallowing this."
"If you're going to spy on me, I'll make you regret it!"
Fuming, Su Yun returned to the bedroom, now missing half its walls. He plopped down on the rubble, pulled out his Diary, and started furiously writing!
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