Granny Si is jealous of Hu Liena's beauty???

Qin Mu muttered something.

Then he rose from the bluestone and casually patted the dust off his backside.

As for the three Black-Scaled Monsters that had already lunged into midair, their bloody maws wide open and ready to bite through Hu Liena's neck, in Qin Mu's eyes, they seemed no different from the chickens and ducks raised at home.

The Azure Ox lying beside him was even too lazy to lift an eyelid. It merely flicked its tail in mild disgust to drive away the mosquitoes and insects nearby.

The monster at the very front was already less than three meters from Hu Liena.

And at that very moment, the last trace of sunset in the sky sank completely below the horizon.

The sky went dark in an instant.

An indescribably eerie feeling swept in from every direction across the wilderness.

At the village entrance, the four moss-covered stone statues that had originally looked utterly ordinary suddenly gave a hum, and a layer of pale golden firefly-like light abruptly lit up around them.

In the blink of an eye, a vast circular light barrier instantly enveloped all of Crippled Old Village.

And the spot where Hu Liena stood happened to be one step outside the edge of the barrier.

The Black-Scaled Monster at the front opened its bloody maw, its reeking fangs now less than half a foot from Hu Liena's neck.

Sitting on the large bluestone, Qin Mu looked at this big sister who, though battered and disheveled, had warned him just now. He lightly clapped his hands.

"Perfect. Let's see if the circles Grandpa Deaf drew just now actually work."

Qin Mu mumbled under his breath. Then his two little feet stomped hard against the ground.

Buzz!

With a crisp, ringing vibration spreading out at the village entrance, a dazzling burst of brilliant light suddenly bloomed around Qin Mu without the slightest warning.

Immediately afterward, four blood-red rings of light, accompanied by five incomparably radiant pure-golden rings, sprang out from beneath his feet and rapidly pulsed up and down around his body.

Those four red rings were as crimson as blazing balls of fire, exuding a baleful aura that made one's heart pound with fear.

And those five golden rings carried an indescribable sense of holiness and majesty, their radiance so bright it nearly made it impossible to open one's eyes.

The instant the nine rings of light appeared, the enormous illusory figure of a White Tiger flickered vaguely behind Qin Mu.

Hu Liena, who had already shut her eyes and waited for death, only felt a blinding light suddenly flare before her.

When she instinctively opened her eyes and clearly saw the scene before her, her entire body felt as if it had been struck by lightning, and her mind went completely blank.

"Red... red spirit rings? Four hundred-thousand-year spirit rings?!"

"And those five golden ones—what level of spirit rings are those?"

Hu Liena screamed almost madly in her heart, her beautiful fox-like eyes widening until they were larger than bronze bells.

As the Holy Maiden of Spirit Hall, she had seen much and knew much, but this little brat in front of her, who looked only about ten years old, actually had a full nine spirit rings on him!

And the lowest configuration among them was a red spirit ring at the hundred-thousand-year level!

Before Hu Liena could recover from this terrifying visual shock, Qin Mu activated the first red ring beneath his feet.

The Black-Scaled Monster that had already lunged into midair did not even have time to let out a scream.

The red ring flashed, and an extremely sharp white claw-light formed out of thin air. Like slicing tofu, it instantly split that massive monster in two.

Blood and entrails spilled all over the ground with a wet splatter.

When the two monsters following behind saw this, they were so frightened their souls nearly left their bodies. Their four legs kicked hard against the ground, and they turned around, fleeing for their lives toward the black forest behind them.

But the instant they had just turned around, the darkness outside the village, thick as ink, surged over like an avalanche.

Two muffled screams came from deep within the woods. The two monsters were instantly swallowed clean by the darkness, leaving behind only a burst of chewing sounds that made one's scalp go numb.

At that moment, night had fully descended upon the Great Ruins.

The pale golden barrier emitted by the four stone statues at the village entrance blocked the darkness firmly outside.

And Hu Liena was currently collapsed on the ground just one step outside the barrier, watching as the endless darkness behind her began searching toward her.

"Big sister, it's dark outside. It's very dangerous."

Standing inside the warm light barrier, Qin Mu smiled and reached out a fair, tender little hand toward Hu Liena.

"Come in quickly."

Hu Liena looked at the little hand extended in front of her, then at the nine red and golden rings still slowly rotating around the boy's body. For a moment, flustered and frantic, she grabbed Qin Mu's hand and used his strength to scramble and tumble into the golden barrier.

The second her feet stepped into the barrier, the endless darkness behind her slammed into the boundary with a bang, producing a dull, thunderous impact.

Hu Liena collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath in great gulps, her entire body trembling uncontrollably.

She looked at the night behind her, filled with endless strangeness and the sounds of bones cracking, then turned her head to stare at Qin Mu in front of her.

By now, Qin Mu had already withdrawn the nine rings of light around him and had once again become that harmless-looking little cowherd.

"You... are you also a spirit master who was teleported here from Douluo Continent?"

Hu Liena swallowed, her voice trembling with undisguised fear and disbelief.

In her understanding, since he possessed spirit rings—and spirit rings so heaven-defying they completely overturned common sense—then this little boy was absolutely the same as her, an unparalleled monster from Douluo Continent!

"Could it be... you're some peerless genius secretly hidden away by an ancient secluded sect?"

Hu Liena guessed silently to herself.

If that were not the case, there was simply no way to explain how a ten-year-old child could possess four hundred-thousand-year soul rings and five god-level soul rings. Even that fleeting phantom behind him just now was clearly some extremely high-ranking dragon-and-tiger divine beast!

When they heard Hu Liena say this, the entire Douluo Continent outside the light screen erupted completely.

In Spirit City, inside the Supreme Pontiff Palace.

Bibi Dong looked at Qin Mu, who was sitting at the village entrance patting dirt off himself, and her face filled with lament.

"It's over. Nana is going to get led in circles."

And it was not just her. On Shrek Academy's field, Yu Xiaogang, Tang San, and the others also looked at one another.

Because they all knew those were not real soul rings at all, but something that deaf old man had drawn with a brush!

But Hu Liena inside the Sky Screen did not know any of this, and had even mistaken him for someone from Douluo Continent as well.

At this moment, Qin Mu listened to the fresh terms coming out of Hu Liena's mouth, and his dark, bright eyes rolled as a hint of slyness flashed through them.

"Douluo Continent? Soul master?"

Qin Mu tilted his head and crouched in front of Hu Liena, putting on an extremely curious and confused look.

"Big sister, what kind of place is this Douluo Continent you're talking about? Is it fun?"

"And that soul master thing—are they people like Pharmacist Grandpa, who catch bugs and boil soup every day?"

Seeing Qin Mu's completely innocent, clueless appearance, Hu Liena was stunned on the spot.

"You... you don't know about Douluo Continent?"

Hu Liena widened her eyes in disbelief and pointed at Qin Mu's chest.

"Then those nine circles that came out of your body just now, and those divine beast phantoms behind you—weren't they your martial soul and soul rings?"

Qin Mu smacked his little lips, casually pulled up a blade of grass, held it in his mouth, and shook his head somewhat indifferently.

"Big sister, you mean those shiny circles?"

"I saw that weird old man who got caught by the big centipede today stepping on them, and it looked fun, so I ran off and asked Grandpa Deaf behind the village to draw a few for me too."

"Grandpa Deaf said that old man's circles were too ugly, all yellowish and gross, so he used red ink and gold paint to smear a few on me."

As Qin Mu spoke, he casually gestured in the air a couple of times.

"As for those four big guys behind me, Grandpa Deaf thought just having circles was too plain, so he casually dipped a big broom in ink and added them on for me. He said they were called Azure Dragon and White Tiger or something, and that they were pretty useful for scaring little loaches in the mountains."

Hearing Qin Mu say all this so casually, Hu Liena felt her head buzzing.

Drawn... drawn on???

Four hundred-thousand-year soul rings, five god-level soul rings, and that terrifying four-born divine beast martial soul...

They had all actually been drawn by a deaf old man with a brush and ink?

How was that possible!

She took a deep breath, trying hard to calm herself down. Looking at this cowherd boy who seemed easy to get information from, she asked cautiously.

"Little brother, then that weird old man who was caught and brought back—how is he now?"

Qin Mu shrugged, his face full of innocent naivety.

"Oh, Pharmacist Grandpa said the cultivation technique he practices is too trashy, and that he couldn't even withstand a sneeze from my Niu Niu."

"But he said the few circles under that old man's feet have some research value. He's planning to strip off his circles and use them as fertilizer to feed the bugs, then throw that old man into the Myriad Poison Cauldron and boil him into a pot of rich broth to nourish Little Black and the others."

Hearing the words "strip off his soul rings as fertilizer" and "throw him into the cauldron and boil him into soup," Hu Liena's legs once again went weak despite herself.

The weird old man in the apothecary—she could figure out with her toes that he was definitely Poison Douluo Dugu Bo, who had been teleported over in the same batch as her!

He was a rank ninety-two Titled Douluo!

Yet in the eyes of these villagers, he was only worthy of being boiled into soup to feed bugs?

Hu Liena swallowed, forcefully suppressing the fear in her heart as she tried to get more information about this world out of this seemingly simple child.

"Then... little brother, what exactly kind of place is this Crippled Old Village of yours? What powerful elders are there in the village?"

Qin Mu looked at Hu Liena's somewhat nervous expression, and a darkly amused smile flashed through his eyes. Yet his face remained an honest, simple, and obedient look.

"Our village is just called Crippled Old Village. There are only nine elders in the village, and they're all pretty ordinary elders."

Qin Mu counted slowly while bending his chubby fingers one by one.

"There's Village Chief Grandpa, but he doesn't have any limbs, so he can usually only lie on a stretcher and sun himself."

"There's Butcher Grandpa, but he only has an upper half, and every day he takes a pig-slaughtering knife to the riverside to chop meat."

"And there's Granny Si. She likes sewing clothes the most. Tonight, she's probably thinking about what new skin suit to sew for the hunter they just caught..."

Qin Mu listed the disabled old people in the village one after another, as if he were reciting a menu.

And outside the light shield, as he continued speaking, Hu Liena's face had already gone from deathly pale to livid.

A village chief with no limbs, a butcher with only an upper half, Granny Si who liked peeling off human skin to sew clothes...

What kind of terrifying demon den was this?!

Hu Liena steadied herself, looked at Qin Mu, and asked somewhat unwillingly, "Then... little brother."

"Do you know what land lies outside these Great Ruins?"

"Have you ever heard of Spirit Hall, or powers like the two great empires?"

Qin Mu tugged at the blade of grass in the corner of his mouth and shook his head.

"No. I've lived in the Great Ruins with my elders since I was little. Village Chief Grandpa said the outside world is too dangerous and wouldn't let me run around out there."

"But I heard Grandpa Pharmacist and Grandpa Blind Man mention a few things while they were chatting today. They said the seal on the Great Ruins seems to have loosened a bit lately, and there are always some strange unfamiliar faces with glowing rings under their feet running in."

After saying that, Qin Mu also looked curiously at Hu Liena's somewhat tattered silver clothes.

"Big sister, what kind of sect is this Spirit Hall you mentioned?"

"Is it also a place that specializes in putting rings under people's feet?"

When Hu Liena heard Qin Mu ask in return, she took a deep breath, feeling that this might be a good chance to figure out the other party's background.

She leaned against the bluestone, and though she was somewhat weak, when she mentioned her own sect, the pride of Spirit Hall's holy maiden still unconsciously showed from her very bones.

"Spirit Hall is the most powerful soul master force on Douluo Continent. Where we are, there are..."

As Hu Liena organized her words, she explained to Qin Mu in meticulous detail the soul master ranks of Spirit Hall, the distribution of the two great empires, how soul masters hunted soul beasts to obtain soul rings, and the cultivation system of awakening martial souls.

She wanted to use this information to see whether she could find some entry point in this higher-dimensional world that resonated with their system, so she could win a slim chance of survival for herself and Dugu Bo.

But she had no idea that the ten-year-old cowherd sitting before her was scratching his ear while rapidly calculating in his heart.

So outside the Great Ruins, there's actually a peculiar world called Douluo Continent...

No spirit embryo, no divine treasures. They cultivate entirely by awakening some animal thing and putting on rings. What a strange lower plane...

As Qin Mu listened, a profound light flickered in his pair of clear, bright eyes.

And just as Hu Liena spoke until her mouth was dry, and Qin Mu had more or less extracted all the information about Douluo Continent...

From the dirt road deep within Crippled Old Village, there suddenly came the unhurried sound of cloth shoes scraping against the ground.

"Tap, tap..."

The sound was especially clear in the somewhat scorchingly black night of the Great Ruins.

When Qin Mu heard the footsteps, his little face, which had still been crouching on the ground pretending to be deep and profound, immediately fell. He helplessly patted the seat of his clothes and stood up.

"Granny, why did you come over too?"

Qin Mu scratched the back of his head and called toward the pitch-black village path.

The layer of pale golden fluorescent covering trembled slightly, and then an old woman with a hunched back, carrying a bamboo basket in her hand, slowly walked out from the shadows.

The old woman looked to be seventy or eighty years old, her face covered in wrinkles like old tree bark, her head of white hair messily pinned behind her head with a wooden hairpin.

She also held a gleaming bone needle in her hand, a length of red thread winding back and forth around her fingertips. She looked just like an ordinary peasant woman from the countryside.

This person was naturally Granny Si, who had just come out from the inner room.

When Granny Si heard Qin Mu's complaint, she irritably knocked the bone needle against the bamboo basket.

"You brat, it's already dark and you won't come back inside to eat, insisting on standing at the village entrance eating wind."

"If this old woman didn't come out for a look, who knows which wild cat or stray dog might have hooked your soul away again."

As Granny Si scolded Qin Mu in her hoarse voice, her slightly cloudy eyes turned faintly and landed directly on Hu Liena, who was slumped beside the bluestone.

In that instant, within Granny Si's old eyes that had originally looked nearly blind, an unusual sharp gleam suddenly flared.

She stepped forward and reached Hu Liena in just a few strides.

Her withered old hand, like a chicken claw, lifted slightly, using that gleaming bone needle to raise Hu Liena's chin as she carefully sized her up, like she was choosing the freshest, most tender cabbage at the market.

"Oh my, this old woman wondered what it was. Turns out it's a rather pretty young lady."

As Granny Si looked her over, she made admiring tsking sounds.

"Tsk, tsk. This figure, this fine skin and tender flesh. It must feel as smooth as satin."

"Perfect. The hunter's outfit this old woman cut a few days ago didn't fit quite right. The skin kept slipping when I wore it."

"This girl's hide is nice and taut. Using it to alter a new jacket for autumn would be just right."