At first, Kong Bo had helped Qian Renxue tremendously. He had a real talent for soul cultivation, and Qian Renxue had very much wanted to help him become a god. After all, she had gained a wealth of experience on her own path to godhood, and she was sincerely willing to help Kong Bo ascend as well.
But when Qian Renxue saw all the things Kong Bo did that made her "lose sanity points," she was appalled. Unable to persuade him, she went to speak with Electrolux in Kong Bo's mind. "Elder Yi, you're one of his teachers. Can't you do something about him?"
"What am I supposed to do?" Electrolux stretched lazily. "Kids do a few experiments. So what? If I were in charge, I'd have assembled an army of undead puppets long ago. Why waste so much time making these things? This kid Kong Bo is actually interested in individual puppets—or the structures inside a human body. I don't understand him at all."
Electrolux wasn't exactly a good man, either. As he saw it, Kong Bo was wasting far too much time. His own plan was to kill the Evil Soul Masters, then turn their corpses into puppets that obeyed his commands. He could use them to replace the Xu Family, or simply march north with his puppet army and attack Shrek Academy. Electrolux believed in mass production, not in using Evil Soul Master "mecha" for academic research like Kong Bo did.
To put it another way, when it came to salvaging Evil Soul Master mecha, Electrolux wanted to build a military and civilian industry, while Kong Bo advocated high-end academic research. That was where the two of them disagreed.
Back to Qian Renxue. After entering Kong Bo's mind, she saw what he had done since then, and no longer wanted to help him become a god. His fervor and obsession with theoretical research, his utter lack of restraint or boundaries, and his contempt for the gods all made her extremely uncomfortable. Even so, Qian Renxue tried to persuade Kong Bo.
"Kong Bo, I don't know what you're trying to achieve with all these... experiments, as you call them. If you want to become a god, I can help you. If you're willing to uphold the Angel God's creed, I can help you obtain her divine seat, too," Qian Renxue said.
Kong Bo's answer left Qian Renxue both shocked and furious. He listened, then replied coolly, "I don't need it." At the time, he was assembling an Evil Soul Master, and his hand holding the scalpel didn't pause. It was as if—
"I don't need it... You don't need it?" Kong Bo's cold response stunned Qian Renxue, then filled her with uncontrollable fury. In her eyes, whether she wanted to help Kong Bo was her own business. But whether Kong Bo respected the Angel God's legacy was another matter entirely. Now she had offered him the divine seat she valued most, and he hadn't even glanced at it. To Qian Renxue, that was contempt for the thing she cherished above all else.
"Kong Bo, do you know what that means?" Qian Renxue shouted.
"What does it mean? A First-Level God's divine seat that still gets you killed by Great God King Tang? You lost, too. If I did what you taught me, wouldn't I... still lose?" Kong Bo said coldly.
"What do you know!" Qian Renxue's voice turned furious. Kong Bo was telling the truth, after all. Lies didn't hurt; the truth cut like a knife. "When Evil Soul Masters ran rampant across Douluo Continent, the Angel God was the one who wiped them out. You dislike that kind of faith? Do you prefer indulging in evil deeds?"
"Oh, how sacred. How pure," Kong Bo sighed theatrically, but there was not a trace of respect in his voice.
Qian Renxue hated it most when Kong Bo spoke like that. "Kong Bo, say what you mean. Don't use that sarcastic tone with me. Even now, I absolutely won't let you insult my faith. The teachings of the Angel God, my ancestor, are the noblest and purest things on Douluo Continent!"
"What value is there in something perfectly pure and white?" Kong Bo asked. "It's fragile, pale, unchanging, boring, and full of flaws. Of all people, you ought to understand what I mean. Otherwise, why did Spirit Hall lose? If I were in charge, Spirit Hall would never have lost. Maybe the Upper Three Sects and Shrek Academy would've become my test subjects, too." As he spoke, Kong Bo set down the scalpel.
"You, the Pope of Spirit Hall?" Qian Renxue laughed in disbelief. "Even my mother, though she became the Rakshasa God, fell into darkness out of desperation. She didn't embrace it willingly, the way you do." Her tone turned scornful. "Fine, fine. If you'd been in Spirit Hall back then, the Rakshasa God would've sought you out instead of my mother. That wouldn't have been so bad."
Kong Bo had just finished stitching an Evil Soul Master to a Soul Beast. He sealed the puppet in a jar again, then began cleaning the workbench. "The Rakshasa God? What would a woman who only knows how to fan the flames understand about evil? Evil can be pure. It can be noble. It's not that I need the Rakshasa God's approval. It's that—"
"Fine." Qian Renxue was speechless after hearing Electrolux. She found herself an excuse and used it to convince herself. "At least Kong Bo is using Evil Soul Masters and other utterly wicked people for his research. Let it go. Let it go."
And so Qian Renxue was forced to become a legendary investigator in Ming Capital alongside Kong Bo. The Evil Emperor controlled Skaven, who worked at the Underground Soul Fighting Arena run by the Xishui Alliance. Skaven then found a way to write to his superiors in the Xishui Alliance: "The Aodu Chamber of Commerce has brought in some capable people lately, and we've suffered a lot of casualties. I hope headquarters can send more members at the Soul Elder and Soul Ancestor levels. Those are the only ranks we need."
After receiving the letter, Xishui Alliance leader Nangong Wan sent back a reply. In essence, it said that the message had been received, and that headquarters had plenty of Soul Elders and Soul Ancestors. Skaven should wait at a certain place at xxxx—some time that evening—to meet them.
When those Evil Soul Masters arrived at the designated meeting place, Skaven, under the Evil Emperor's control, would lead the Soul Elders and Soul Ancestors to an isolated spot. The Evil Emperor would then strike them with a mental shock, making them easy pickings for Kong Bo. Kong Bo had stopped conducting stitching experiments. His next project concerned a formula for strengthening the body.
As for its effects, Kong Bo naturally wanted the results to take hold as quickly as possible—and the side effects to be as severe as possible. He planned to use a Douluo Continent-style "enhancement formula" to make money off Shrek Academy.
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