Qian Renxue

"All right, it's getting late. Let's go."

Xu Jiujiu suppressed the reluctance in her heart and urged them on with a smile.

Yin Chen nodded, giving Xu Jiujiu one last deep look, as though he wanted to carve her appearance into his heart.

Then he turned, took Lan Susu and Lan Luoluo with him, and boarded the spacious Soul Guidance Carriage.

The carriage door closed. Amid a faint ripple of Soul Power, the carriage slowly started forward, racing east along the broad official road toward the continent's foremost academy.

Xu Jiujiu remained where she was, watching the carriage gradually vanish at the end of the road, unable to move for a long time.

The breeze lifted her hair and carried away the figure of the departing traveler.

Inside the carriage, Yin Chen reclined against the comfortable cushions, watching the scenery flash past the window. The parting sorrow had vanished from his shattered-gold eyes, replaced by anticipation for the new journey ahead.

The spacious Soul Guidance Carriage sped east along the official road. After several days of travel, it stopped beside a roadside station where travelers could rest and resupply.

Yin Chen led Lan Susu and Lan Luoluo out of the carriage, intending to stretch their limbs.

There were few people at the station. Apart from them, only another seemingly ordinary carriage, one that faintly exuded an extraordinary aura, stood nearby.

Just then, the door of that carriage opened, and a young girl hopped down first.

She appeared to be around eleven or twelve years old, with an upright figure and dazzling golden hair like sunlight. Her skin was fair, her features exquisite as those of a porcelain doll, and her clear, lively azure eyes carried an innate nobility and an indescribable liveliness whenever she looked around.

She curiously surveyed her surroundings, and her gaze was quickly drawn to Yin Chen's group.

Yin Chen's striking silver-white short hair, exceptionally handsome face, and calm, distinctive bearing made unconcealed surprise and admiration flash through her eyes.

The identical, sweet-looking sisters Lan Susu and Lan Luoluo behind Yin Chen were likewise a beautiful sight, making the golden-haired girl glance at them a few more times.

Their eyes met briefly. The golden-haired girl offered Yin Chen a friendly yet slightly curious smile in greeting.

Yin Chen responded with a slight nod, his expression calm.

However, when the person behind the golden-haired girl fully stepped out of the carriage, the still waters of Yin Chen's heart suddenly surged into towering waves.

It was a figure clad in a voluminous black robe, its entire body and even its head shrouded in shadow. Its face could not be seen, and its humanoid shape could only barely be discerned from its build.

She stood silently one step behind the golden-haired girl, like a shadow.

To others, she might have seemed like the somewhat peculiar but understandable guard of some noble young lady.

But Yin Chen's heart was far from calm.

He did not know the golden-haired girl, but how could he possibly fail to sense what the black-robed figure beside her was when others could not?

It was a Nirvana Corpse—a Nirvana Corpse terrifyingly powerful, even more terrifying than Lingyuan Douluo, who had escaped with her life from Yan Shaozhe and Manyi in the Star Dou Great Forest.

Yet such a terrifying Nirvana Corpse was traveling with a golden-haired human girl. Was she being kept as emergency food?

Watching the girl's innocent manner, completely unaware of anything and even occasionally turning back to whisper and laugh with the black-robed figure, Yin Chen truly felt a faint stir of pity.

Such a vivid, beautiful life might have been in extreme danger without even knowing it.

But that trace of pity was instantly suppressed by his absolute rationality.

Save her?

Setting aside whether his guess was even correct, even if it was, what could he use to save her?

If Manyi were here, she would probably just be delivering herself into the other party's hands.

His only potentially effective trump card was to use Castorice and invoke the authority of the True Blood of Myriad Karmas to influence this Nirvana Corpse.

But what would the consequences of that be?

One of his greatest secrets—his identity as the source of the Nirvana Corpses—would be directly exposed before this terrifying and unfathomable Nirvana Corpse.

Once his identity was exposed, he would become the public enemy of the entire Douluo Continent.

Most importantly, was it worth gambling everything he had painstakingly built for a stranger he had never met?

The answer was obviously no.

People died in this world every moment—wronged souls, senseless deaths, innocents... too many to count.

He could save one person, but not everyone, even if part of the suffering this girl was about to endure was a sin of his own making.

But he could not put himself in danger for a fleeting impulse of kindness.

If this Nirvana Corpse had not been so powerful, he would not have minded doing a good deed and saving a life.

But this was the strongest being Yin Chen had encountered so far, far stronger than those consecrated elders of the Star Luo Imperial Family.

He calmly withdrew his gaze from the golden-haired girl and the black-robed figure, as though they were merely ordinary travelers he had encountered on the road.

He softly said to Lan Susu and Lan Luoluo, "We've rested enough. Let's get back in the carriage and continue on our way."

The twin sisters obediently nodded. Although they found the black-robed figure somewhat strange, they did not sense anything unusual.

Yin Chen turned first and boarded the carriage. From beginning to end, he never looked back in that direction.

Yet in his heart, he had already marked that strange pair—especially that utterly terrifying Nirvana Corpse—as someone to be wary of and avoid.

The carriage started again and gradually traveled away.

Beside the station, the golden-haired girl watched Yin Chen's carriage depart, blinked her azure eyes, and softly said to the black-robed figure beside her:

"Ancestor, that person... he feels so special. And his hair is silver-white. It's so pretty."

From beneath the black robe came a somewhat low female voice, though its original cool, noble quality could still be heard. It merely sounded as though it had been covered in dust.

"Yes, he is indeed special."

The black-robed figure called "Ancestor" was Qian Renxue, the Angel God whose divine seat had shattered ten thousand years ago. She slowly said:

"At such a young age, his Soul Power cultivation is already close to that of a Soul Ancestor. His foundation is incomparably solid, and his aura exceptionally refined. In terms of talent, he is the... most terrifying genius I have ever seen."

Her tone was calm, yet it carried a trace of barely perceptible amazement. Looking at the golden-haired girl beside her, she compared them.

"He is far more formidable than you, Xiao Guyi."

At this, Qian Renxue's consciousness involuntarily drifted back ten thousand years, to the moment that had decided the fate of her life.

That blue-haired figure wielding the Seagod Trident, the opponent into whom she had once poured her feelings, only to be utterly defeated by him in the end—the Sea God Tang San.

Even Tang San, at his age, was nowhere near as good.

The conclusion surfaced in her heart, carrying an indescribably complicated taste.

The man she both loved and hated, the man who had ultimately shattered her pride and divine seat completely, seemed to have been surpassed by this unfamiliar silver-haired boy in terms of pure innate talent.

Yet this passing thought did not stir many ripples in her heart.