What If I Really Am a Titled Douluo?

Yang Xing pushed open the wooden door riddled with gaps, as casually as if he were returning to his own home.

Well, in fact, this was his home.

"Come in. Sit wherever."

Without looking back, he walked inside.

"I'll pour you some tea."

Ning Rongrong stood at the doorway without moving.

Her gaze swept from the cracks in the door to the crooked frame, then to a wooden plank on the roof that looked ready to fall at any moment. Her expression was like someone had forced her face-first toward a cesspit.

"You... live here?"

Pinching her nose, she spoke in a muffled voice.

There was no response. Yang Xing had already gone inside.

Ning Rongrong stood at the door for another three seconds before finally taking a deep breath.

She immediately regretted it, because the air she inhaled carried the scent of old, rotting wood.

Then she tiptoed into the house step by step as though she were walking through a minefield.

The first thing she did upon entering was cautiously let go of her nose.

She sniffed.

To her surprise—there was no strange odor.

There was none of the foul stench she imagined from a man living alone, no moldy or rotten smell, and even the scent of dust was faint. Though the house was unbearably dilapidated, its interior was clean.

Ning Rongrong's expression eased slightly.

"At least this part is acceptable."

She delivered her assessment in that lofty tone, like a little princess inspecting her territory and scoring her servants.

"At least you don't live like those disgusting boys I've seen in Heaven Dou City, whose homes are like pigsties."

Yang Xing rummaged around inside for teacups and did not respond.

Ning Rongrong looked around.

The house was small, and its furnishings were minimal.

A wooden plank bed, a table missing a leg and propped up with a stone, and two stools.

A bundle lay piled in the corner, beside the sign that read "Uncannily Accurate Predictions."

That was all.

He was thoroughly poor.

Ning Rongrong chose one of the stools that looked slightly cleaner. She wiped it left and right with her sleeve, rubbing it seven or eight times before reluctantly sitting down. Only a third of her bottom touched the stool, her back was perfectly straight, and her legs were pressed together, as dignified as though she were seated on a carved rosewood chair in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.

Yang Xing came over carrying a chipped earthenware cup. Steam rose from it—plain hot water.

Seeing how Ning Rongrong had wiped the stool again and again before barely deigning to sit, he rolled his eyes.

"For Miss Ning Rongrong to grace my shabby little home with her presence and even sit on my stool, I must be blessed for three lifetimes."

Ning Rongrong heard the mockery in his words.

But she did not feel mocked in the slightest.

"Of course."

She raised her chin, as though it were only natural.

"For this young lady to be willing to enter your shabby house and sit on your shabby stool is already an enormous blessing and honor for you."

After saying that, she folded her arms.

Yang Xing held the earthenware cup out before her.

Ning Rongrong glanced at its chipped rim, then reached out and pushed it away.

"I won't drink it."

Her tone was crisp and direct as she got straight to the point. "Fraud, stop dragging this out. Dissolve the master-disciple contract."

Yang Xing set the returned cup on the table, then picked it up and took a sip himself.

He looked at Ning Rongrong with a smile.

"What's the rush?"

"Who's rushing?!"

"The contract has already been signed." Yang Xing spoke slowly, carrying the composure that made Ning Rongrong want to hit him. "Dissolving it now is the same as dissolving it later. Does Miss Ning really not want to hear... the method I deduced for turning the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda into the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda?"

He tilted his head.

"Or... see what benefits there are to taking me as your master?"

He raised one finger.

"Just listen. You have nothing to lose. You can decide whether to dissolve it after you hear me out."

Ning Rongrong let out a derisive laugh.

It was filled with utter disdain.

"Even if you told me, I wouldn't believe you."

She stared into Yang Xing's eyes, her tone certain.

"Our Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect has searched for a method for a thousand years. A thousand years! Countless generations of Soul Masters exhausted their lifetimes trying to achieve it, and none succeeded."

She pointed at Yang Xing.

"And you, some nameless fortune-teller by the roadside, managed to deduce it?"

She cocked her head, her gaze carrying a condescending scrutiny.

"What is your cultivation?"

Yang Xing did not answer.

Ning Rongrong answered her own question. "Don't tell me you're a Titled Douluo?"

Her gaze swept across the shabby room, and she scoffed.

"Seeing you live in a place like this, you're probably not even a Soul Master. No matter how down-on-his-luck a Soul Master is, he wouldn't live in such a leaky, rundown shack."

She shook her head, and the disgust in her tone gradually shifted into something resembling pity.

"Forget it. This young lady thinks you don't seem all that bad. Although you tricked me, still..."

She waved her hand, magnanimous as a noble bestowing charity.

"Take out that master-disciple contract and tear it up in front of this young lady. Then I won't pursue this matter. We'll pretend it never happened."

After saying that, she waved impatiently.

"Hurry up, hurry up. This young lady still needs to rush to Shrek Academy to register. If I'm late, I'll have to wait until tomorrow. What a hassle."

Yang Xing looked at the spoiled little face before him, so arrogantly self-righteous.

The twelve-year-old girl's manner at that moment was exactly like the noblewomen he had seen at the marketplace.

They were clearly doing you a favor, yet expected you to be endlessly grateful.

He was not angry.

He even found it a little funny.

"What if I really am a Titled Douluo?"

Yang Xing asked lightly.

Ning Rongrong froze for a moment.

Then she laughed.

It was not a polite laugh. She genuinely found it hilarious, so hilarious she could not hold it in.

"You?"

She bent over laughing, one hand clutching her stomach.

"You just said you're only eighteen! An eighteen-year-old Titled Douluo?"

She finally managed to stop laughing and looked at Yang Xing as though he were an idiot.

"Do you think this young lady is stupid? You're trying to fool me with something not even a three-year-old would believe?"

She raised one finger and waved it from side to side.

"This young lady read a copy of the History of Douluo Continent in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's library. It records clearly that the youngest Soul Sage in the entire continent's history was not even eighteen."

She stared at Yang Xing.

"A Soul Sage couldn't do it, yet you're telling me you're a Titled Douluo?"

Yang Xing's expression changed after hearing that.

He raised a hand and wiped at the corners of his eyes. The gesture was flawless, vividly portraying someone wronged and desperately holding back his grievances.

"It hurts me so much for you to say that..."

Ning Rongrong's expression turned cold.

She had already seen how quickly this man could change his face. She was not falling for it.

"Stop acting."

Yang Xing wiped twice more and found Ning Rongrong staring at him expressionlessly, her eyes clearly saying, "If you keep pretending, I'm leaving right now."

His hand paused.

Then his expression returned to normal.

It returned to normal incredibly quickly.

Like a switch had been flipped.

One moment he had looked pitiful and aggrieved; the next, his brows relaxed, a faint smile hung at his lips, and his entire presence shifted from "poor little victim being bullied" into a confidence Ning Rongrong could not quite describe.

That confidence was not an act.

Or rather, even if it was, he made it look more real than anyone she had ever seen.

"Fine."

Yang Xing spoke with an easygoing tone.

"Miss Ning Rongrong, don't be in such a hurry to leave."

He looked at her, his gaze carrying a strange certainty.

"Would you like to see what I, as your master, can teach you?"

He leaned forward slightly.

"Perhaps after you see it, you won't want to dissolve this contract anymore?"

Ning Rongrong frowned.

"Have you forgotten who this young lady is?"

She enunciated every word.

"The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect. One of the continent's three great sects. The wealthiest sect."

She raised two fingers.

"Sword Douluo and Bone Douluo. Two Titled Douluos. This young lady's dearest grandfathers."

She lowered her hand, her gaze filled with undisguised contempt.

"You think your abilities of unknown origin can compare to this young lady's Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect? Compare to the methods of my two Titled Douluo grandfathers?"

She tilted her head.

"Don't you think you're overestimating yourself?"

Yang Xing smiled after hearing that.

He did not refute her.

He merely raised his right hand.

Extending his index finger, he lightly tapped Ning Rongrong on the forehead.

Ning Rongrong froze.

This fraud actually dared to touch her?!

She was just about to explode—

Bang.

Yang Xing vanished before her eyes.

It was not invisibility, nor was it an evasive maneuver. His entire body had simply disappeared into thin air.

Ning Rongrong's pupils abruptly widened.

Before she could react, she felt an incredibly slight weight on top of her head.

It was so light that she could barely feel it.

Like a feather settling onto her hair.

Ning Rongrong went stiff.

Slowly, she raised her hand toward the top of her head. Her fingertips touched a small, warm, soft thing with the texture of feathers.

"Chirp."

A clear birdcall came from above her head.

Ning Rongrong's hand froze in midair.

She slowly lowered her head and looked at the empty, shabby room before her.

Then she slowly raised her head, her gaze moving upward with difficulty.

A little bird was perched atop her hair, its head tilted as it looked down at her with round black-bead eyes.