Yuanen Huihui, Heart of a Child

Could Di Tian really matter that much to her?

Was she heartbroken because of Di Tian?

Gu Yuena's hand suddenly tightened.

Tiny claws, tremendous strength.

With one swipe, she blasted apart Di Tian's dormitory security system. With a loud bang, the door fell straight to the ground.

Sure enough, Di Tian was nowhere to be seen.

Yet the pain in Gu Yuena's heart persisted.

Combined with the surrounding students' gossip, even a rumor became truth after enough repetition.

Six years of cultivating composure, ruined in a single day.

It had all been an illusion.

"Di Tian!"

"You bastard!"

"I won't let you get away with this!"

At the same time, elsewhere.

Di Tian, who had returned to the Soul Beast Forest, suddenly felt an itch in his nose.

"Achoo~"

Di Tian immediately sensed that something was wrong.

Everything about him felt wrong.

Even his head felt unbearably itchy.

"Hiss~"

"What the hell is going on?"

"Is someone thinking about me? Or is someone cursing me?"

"Maybe it's both." Bi Ji covered her mouth and chuckled beside him.

"Uh... perhaps."

"I just hope someone's merely talking behind my back, and that nothing unpleasant is happening."

During the years of rebuilding one's cultivation after taking human form, unexpected complications were hardly a wonderful thing.

"Oh my~"

Bi Ji's little hand reached out before Di Tian, carrying a fragrant breeze that slipped into his nose and soothed his turbulent emotions.

"Since it's only an ordinary annoyance, don't overthink it."

"Think about something else and squeeze the troublesome thoughts away."

"For example, Yuanen Huihui."

"Yun Lan said she would bring her to see you. She should be arriving soon, right?"

"Mm."

Di Tian sat by the Lake of Life, lifting his head at a forty-five-degree angle to gaze into the sky.

The moon shone brightly amid sparse stars, while night blanketed the heavens.

"They're here."

Before his words had fully faded—

A rainbow divine bridge leaped out from the Elf Divine Tree where the elves lived, directly connecting to the shore of the Lake of Life where Di Tian was.

The rainbow divine bridge was not particularly long.

Di Tian's cave abode stood at one end of the Lake of Life, while the Elf Divine Tree inhabited by the elves stood at the other.

The bridge only needed to cross the Lake of Life. In the blink of an eye, the Elf Queen, Yun Lan, and her group appeared before Di Tian.

The moment they appeared—

The first person Di Tian noticed was Yuanen Huihui, hiding behind Yun Lan.

It was already night.

Yuanen Huihui had turned into a girl as well.

Pink hair drifted around her, and her eyes were a pair of heterochromatic twins.

However, Di Tian was not drawn in by her appearance, but by her heart.

"A pure heart." His golden eyes narrowed slightly as he made his judgment.

"A pure heart?" Yun Lan frowned. It was the first time she had heard such a term.

She gently led Yuanen Huihui toward Di Tian.

"Mm."

"She truly has an innocent heart."

"Free of greed, anger, and delusion."

"Ah?" Yun Lan and Bi Ji exclaimed in surprise almost simultaneously. "Does such a thing really exist?"

Yun Lan in particular lowered her head to look at Yuanen Huihui.

Her personality was indeed rather simple.

But she was still far from deserving the kind of innocent heart Di Tian had described.

"For intelligent beings like us who have gained sentience, an innocent heart in the strict sense does not exist." Di Tian put it more precisely. "Only stones are without greed, anger, and delusion."

"Even stones, once they become spirits, will likewise develop the seven emotions and six desires."

"However."

"An innocent heart in the narrower sense does exist."

"A pure heart, an unblemished spirit, and a lucid mind."

"She can focus her attention one hundred percent. That is also why her cultivation speed far surpasses that of ordinary people."

"So that's how it is." Realization dawned on Yun Lan.

"Her parents did mention it."

"Huihui's Soul Power cultivation speed far exceeds that of ordinary people. If she could maintain it, she would at least reach five rings before the age of twelve."

"They all speculated that this was a special condition caused by her elven-human mixed blood."

"A presumptuous guess." Di Tian shook his head.

"If Huihui's martial soul had been the twin martial souls of the Purple Star Spirit Bow and the Titan Giant Ape, their speculation would have had some basis."

"But Huihui cannot even manifest the Titan Giant Ape bloodline inherited from her father as an external martial soul. How could her soaring Soul Power cultivation speed possibly be caused by mixed blood?"

"It is because of her innocent heart."

As she listened to Di Tian's explanation, Yun Lan's eyes grew brighter and brighter.

"In other words."

"Huihui, who possesses an innocent heart, will continue cultivating at an astonishing pace in the future. My elven lineage will have a successor!"

"Is there any way to remedy Huihui's overly simple and insecure personality?"

She had experienced Di Tian's vast knowledge many times.

If anyone could help Huihui, it would be Di Tian.

"Her overly simple personality is caused by her inborn innocent heart."

"That cannot be changed."

In Di Tian's memories, Yuanen Huihui had indeed been simple enough.

So simple that it was excessive.

In the original timeline.

When Yuanen Huihui first encountered the little Dragon God, Lan Xuanyu, not only was she sold off by Lan Xuanyu with just a few words, she even happily helped him count the money.

During Shrek's entrance examination, Lan Xuanyu used Yuanen Huihui as bait to fish, luring the surrounding beasts into attacking her while that cursed fellow followed behind collecting the spoils.

The beasts he drew over nearly killed Yuanen Huihui.

Then he came out to save her.

He rescued Yuanen Huihui from dire straits—but as for how those dire straits came about? Never mind that.

Yuanen Huihui did not suspect a thing.

After knowing Lan Xuanyu for only a day, she even blurted out the secret of her sex, which she had been meant to keep hidden.

Such a simple personality could not be developed after birth.

It could only be inborn.

"Her insecurity, on the other hand, can be changed."

"Choose one sex and settle on it."

"Prevent her peers from pointing fingers at her. Otherwise, with her simple personality, she will inevitably become insecure."

"At the same time."

"This also concerns whether her innocent heart can be preserved."

"An innocent heart can shatter too?" Yun Lan's surprised voice carried a trace of worry.

"Yes."

"When one encounters major upheavals in life and finds it difficult to maintain a pure state of mind, the innocent heart will naturally shatter."

"Once a mirror breaks, it can never be made whole again."

Di Tian was helpless as well.

Under normal circumstances, a pure heart would not shatter so easily.

But this was the Douluo Continent.

There were plenty of situations where one got trapped between two sides.

Yuanen Huihui's paternal family wanted Yuanen Huihui to become a man, while her maternal line wanted her to become a woman.

Both sides kept pulling at her, neither willing to give in.

Yuanen Huihui had always been simple-minded and could not handle being squeezed from both sides.

As a result, she was nearly an adult and still had not decided whether to be a girl or a boy.

By day, she hung around with the boys; by night, she became best friends with a whole group of women.

No matter how pure a child's heart was, it would still be tainted into a muddled mortal heart by that shit.

Di Tian finally understood.

Yuanen Huihui's cultivation speed had clearly been peerless in the early stages, yet later on, it had strangely fallen behind.

So this was where the root of the problem lay.