A servant from Dugu Bo's estate in Heaven Dou City arrived at the Crown Prince's Residence, picked up Yun Chen, and hurried him over to Dugu Bo's home.
Qian Renxue stood at a second-floor window, watching Yun Chen leave with an exceptionally tender gaze.
But then something seemed to occur to her, and her expression darkened. She tightly crumpled the letter in her right hand into a ball.
"Hmph! That woman..."
The truth could not stay hidden forever. Over at Spirit Hall, Bibi Dong had also learned about her relationship with Yun Chen.
"You want to break me and my little Chen apart? Dream on!"
"Isn't it Spirit Hall's power you love so much?"
"Heh..."
Qian Renxue sneered, looking far into the distance in the direction of Spirit City.
"At the end of the day, Spirit Hall still belongs to my Qian Family."
"And my Qian Family decides who becomes its pope. If you really refuse to see reason, there's no reason my little Chen couldn't take that seat."
Qian Renxue's attitude toward Bibi Dong had undergone a tremendous change. With her father having died young and a generation gap between her and her grandfather, she had once yearned for her mother's love.
But things were different now. Yun Chen's arrival had fulfilled all of Qian Renxue's needs, and she had shifted nearly all her unmet emotional needs onto him.
Most people might have found that difficult to accept. After all, that emotional deprivation had made Qian Renxue intensely controlling.
But Yun Chen was different. He had never liked socializing much; his favorite activities were eating and getting frisky.
On top of that, Yun Chen had been an orphan in his previous life too, leaving him with significant emotional deprivation of his own. Even if he rarely showed it, his instinctive wariness toward outsiders was plain to see.
Yun Chen enjoyed the special attention Qian Renxue lavished on him and was more than willing to accept it. His acceptance, in turn, gave Qian Renxue an immensely reassuring sense of security.
They were like two bugs in a program that somehow worked perfectly together, an S and an M forming a pair. The result was a somewhat warped relationship that nonetheless left them both thoroughly satisfied.
Under the servant's guidance, Yun Chen arrived at Dugu Bo's estate.
Dugu Bo certainly lived up to his status as an imperial retainer. Even with his loosely affiliated position, the Heaven Dou Imperial Family had provided him with a very fine residence.
The estate before him was nearly as large as the Crown Prince's Residence.
Still, in the original story, Dugu Bo did not seem to have lived here much, or at least not for very long.
After all, his attitude toward Xue Xing and the Heaven Dou Imperial Family had never been particularly good in the original story. He was essentially an unaffiliated idler loosely attached to their ranks.
"His Excellency Dugu is waiting for you in the reception hall."
"Please forgive this old servant for not accompanying you inside."
"His Excellency Dugu instructed that you should enter alone."
Yun Chen nodded. He had expected this from Dugu Bo. The matter was important, after all, so naturally the attendants had to be dismissed. As for his own safety, he was not worried.
Knowing Qian Renxue, she would never let him walk into danger on his own. Unless something unexpected had happened, at least one of She Long or Ci Xue was following him from the shadows at this very moment.
The reception hall's doors slowly swung open, letting the daylight spill inside. An old man with a full head of dark green hair and a rugged face sat in the seat of honor. His eyes were emerald green, and the instant he saw Yun Chen, his pupils turned snake-like.
A single glance into those eyes left Yun Chen feeling a chill in his blood, as though a venomous snake had fixed its sights on him.
But in the next instant, the instincts of the Golden-Haired Lion Mastiff made his blood burn and boil anew. A surge of fighting spirit even shot straight into his mind.
His fear came from the gap in their strength, but his instinctive fighting spirit sprang from a deep-seated dignity that would brook neither violation nor provocation.
A king could not be insulted.
At that moment, Yun Chen's Golden Eyes shone as brightly as daylight once more, blazing with fierce fighting spirit. Within those never-dimming Golden Eyes surged the aura of his bloodline and the will of a king.
Even Dugu Bo's Martial Soul, the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor, began to tremble.
He narrowed his eyes slightly. His strength as a Titled Douluo allowed him to stabilize his Martial Soul in an instant, suppressing the trembling and urge to submit that rose from the depths of his bloodline.
Yun Chen's never-dimming Golden Eyes stared at him, making him instinctively reluctant to meet that gaze. When he recovered, he found himself at a loss for words.
How is this possible? That brat clearly isn't that strong, yet he makes me feel afraid on an instinctive level.
Dugu Bo had never received systematic training, and the Heaven Dou Empire had not widely publicized Yun Chen's Martial Soul.
As a result, he did not recognize Yun Chen's Martial Soul.
He therefore had no idea that Yun Chen's Martial Soul was not some ordinary golden lion, but a true Golden-Haired Lion Mastiff, a being whose might intimidated every Soul Beast under heaven.
In the world of Soul Beasts, the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor was nothing more than a spicy snack for the Golden-Haired Lion Mastiff.
That instinctive sense of being hunted and the terror rooted in his bloodline were precisely what fueled his subconscious fear, leaving him unable to resist it.
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