Moved

Li Hanche carefully placed the soul bone back into the jade box, closed the lid, then stored the box inside his storage soul tool ring.

After finishing all that, he walked around the desk and stopped in front of Xue Qinghe.

Then he spread his arms and pulled Xue Qinghe into a hug.

His arms locked around Xue Qinghe's shoulders, his head resting against the side of his shoulder as he held him tightly.

"Big Brother, my real big brother! I love you to death."

Xue Qinghe's body stiffened.

His hand froze in midair as countless thoughts flashed through his mind. This was the first time anyone had dared to hug him like this.

He should have pushed him away. But he did not move.

A moment later, his voice carried undisguised disdain.

"Get lost already. Go back and find your Ning Rongrong."

Only then did Li Hanche let go and take a step back.

He wore a smile that made Xue Qinghe want to throw another book at him.

"I knew it. That stinking idiot Xue Beng can't compare to me in Big Brother's heart. I'm in a good mood today, so I'll go run into Xue Beng by chance. Big Brother, do you know where he is?"

"In the imperial palace. Go on, then."

The moment Li Hanche heard the words "imperial palace," his footsteps halted at once.

"Then forget it. I should give your father some face, after all."

He turned and headed for the door, only to look back again when he reached it.

"I'm off, Big Brother. When I come back from the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect someday, I'll bring you some local specialties from there."

Xue Qinghe watched his back disappear through the doorway.

Lately, whenever this brat returned from the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, he would always leave some "local specialties" in his study.

Last time, it had been an emerald ornament the size of an egg. The time before that, a fine sapphire bracelet. Before that, an uncarved rough ruby.

Of course, Xue Qinghe knew Ning Fengzhi could not possibly have given Li Hanche those things, nor could Ning Rongrong have gifted them to him.

Yet he had put every last one of them into a drawer, never returning a single item.

Li Hanche pushed open the villa door. Before he could even step inside, he heard a sour voice coming from the living room.

"Big Brother, Big Brother, all you ever know is that Big Brother of yours! I'm your big sister!"

Ning Rongrong sat on the sofa with her arms crossed, her little lips pouting.

Li Hanche changed his shoes, entered the living room, and sat down across from her.

"Don't make a fuss. My big brother called me over to give me something."

Ning Rongrong's pout rose even higher.

"Hmph, you even swiped my things. Weren't those gifts for you too?"

Li Hanche choked on her words.

He recalled the emerald and those gemstones he had taken. He really had not gotten her permission.

"Yes, yes, yes. I like the things Rongrong gave me too."

Ning Rongrong gave a huff, but the corners of her lips could no longer hold back from curling upward.

After playing a few rounds of dice with Ning Rongrong, Li Hanche won without mercy as usual, while Ning Rongrong lost as usual and cursed him for being a cheating damned Li Hanche.

Afterward, he went to the courtyard.

He adjusted his gravity wristband to five times gravity.

Invisible pressure crushed down on him from every direction. His internal organs sank all at once, and his heart felt as though an invisible hand had clenched around it.

He took a deep breath and gripped the Dark Nether Ice Soul Spear.

Under five times gravity, every move of the Cold Gleam Spear Art felt like dancing through mercury, the spear shaft weighing heavily against the web of his thumb.

By the time he finished a full set of spear techniques, sweat had soaked his entire body. He sat on the courtyard's bluestone paving, gasping for breath.

Extreme training under gravity did not merely temper the body—it also tempered the will.

Every moment of persistence at the edge of exhaustion, every resolve not to let go beneath crushing pressure, was a honing of mental strength.

Two days later, in the villa hall.

Three items sat on the table before the sofa.

The Starry Cold Marrow was sealed inside a crystal case. It was the size of a fingernail, gleaming with a deep blue, icy radiance beneath the sunlight. Just looking at it sent chills seeping through the cracks of one's bones.

The Spirit-Concentrating Jade Marrow was the size of a thumb, smooth and warm as rich cream, emanating gentle ripples that soothed the mind.

The Nine-Jointed Spirit-Nurturing Bamboo was sealed inside a long jade box, its bamboo joints lush and verdant.

Within each joint, a drop of liquid could faintly be seen slowly flowing.

That was Innate Spirit-Nurturing Liquid, a legendary heavenly treasure capable of directly strengthening one's spiritual power.

Xue Qinghe, Sword Douluo Chen Xin, Ning Fengzhi, and Ning Rongrong sat on the sofa.

Li Hanche stood before the table, looking down at the three items laid out on it.

The hall fell silent for quite a while.

He was no fool.

Starry Cold Marrow came from the ten-thousand-zhang ice abyss of the Far North, while Spirit-Concentrating Jade Marrow was a treasured reserve of Heaven Dou's imperial treasury.

The Nine-Jointed Spirit-Nurturing Bamboo existed only in legend, yet his teacher had personally gone to the Star Luo Empire to search for it.

An old man nearing a hundred had traveled thousands of miles in search of a stalk of bamboo that might not even exist.

And then there was Xue Qinghe's ten-thousand-year head spirit bone—an item tens of thousands of years old—which Qian Daoliu had cleaned up perfectly and handed over without hesitation.

When he received that spirit bone, he had only been happy, only concerned with throwing his arms around him and calling him big brother.

Now, standing before these three items, he suddenly realized that what his big brother had given him was far more than a single spirit bone.

He understood it clearly in his heart.

At the beginning, all of this had indeed been a matter of mutual benefit.

Xue Qinghe needed a genius pawn, his teacher needed an heir to his mantle, and Ning Fengzhi needed a powerful future ally for the sect.

Why else would an orphan from the slums be cherished in the palms of these people's hands? Wasn't it because he was worth investing in?

He understood. He had always understood.

But mere interests would not make His Highness the Crown Prince personally accompany him to the Far North to hunt his first spirit ring, nor would they make Ning Fengzhi mobilize the entire sect to gather items that could strengthen spiritual power.

Nor would they make Sword Douluo Chen Xin, nearly a hundred years old, sleep rough and live off the elements in the dense forests of the Star Luo Empire.

Interests could not accomplish such things. Only affection could.

Li Hanche's eyes grew a little hot. He blinked hard, his Adam's apple bobbing as he tried to say something, only for the sourness surging up from his chest to clog his throat.

"Thank you, Teacher. Thank you, Uncle Ning."

His voice was slightly hoarse, carrying a tremor he tried to suppress but could not completely hide.

"I won't let everyone down."

Ning Rongrong sat in the corner of the sofa, her large black eyes fixed on him without blinking.

She had known Li Hanche for two years. She had seen his cheeky, grinning side, and she had seen him act so shamelessly obnoxious that people wanted to beat him up.

But she had never seen him like this—eyes reddened, voice choked with emotion. It was far too rare.

She tilted her head, the corners of her lips lifting.

"Ohoho, Li Hanche, you can actually cry? I thought your skin was thicker than Grandpa Sword's Seven Kill Sword!"

Ning Fengzhi reached out and patted Ning Rongrong's head.

"Hanche, these past years in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, your teacher and I have never treated you as an outsider. You've called me Uncle Ning for two years; I've long regarded you as one of my own children. When one's own child is attempting to obtain a ten-thousand-year spirit ring, isn't it only right for his uncle to lend a hand?"

Sword Douluo Chen Xin sat beside Ning Fengzhi. There was little expression on his face, and his voice remained as calm as ever.

"Just don't let yourself down. Over these past two years, I have seen every hardship you endured, every beating you took, every drop of blood you shed. A ten-thousand-year spirit ring is what you deserve."

Xue Qinghe sat on the sofa with his arms folded, wearing an expression of profoundly complicated disdain.

It was the sort of awkwardness where one had been moved but absolutely refused to admit it, and so covered it up with even stronger disdain.

As he watched Li Hanche's reddened eyes and trembling lips, his brows furrowed tighter and tighter. At last, unable to bear it any longer, he spoke.

"Don't be like this. I'm not used to it."

He turned his head away, refusing to let his gaze fall on Li Hanche.

"Pull yourself together. Go back to being your shameless, thick-skinned self."