Ning Rongrong's cry for help pierced through the night sky.
The staff's shadow descended, less than half a foot from her forehead.
Everyone's hearts skipped a beat.
Then—
A hand reached out from thin air.
Its five fingers spread open, casually blocking the Dragon-Patterned Staff head-on.
Bang.
With a dull thud, the staff struck that palm and did not budge. It was like a chopstick poking a city wall.
Li Yusong's pupils shrank to pinpoints in that instant.
The owner of that hand stepped out from the void before Ning Rongrong. His figure went from nonexistent to vague, then from vague to clear, all within a single breath.
He looked like a young man of seventeen or eighteen.
He wore a decent brocade sleeping robe, its sash hanging loose and one shoulder exposed, his collarbone and muscular lines fully visible beneath the moonlight. His hair was a mess like a bird's nest, with several stray locks stuck to his forehead.
The most outrageous thing was his face.
His cheeks, neck, and even the exposed half of his shoulder were densely covered in lipstick marks. Dark red, pale pink, dusky purple—every color imaginable, as if someone had stamped his face seven or eight times.
He looked exactly like a standard playboy.
Yet his five fingers closed around the tip of the Dragon-Patterned Staff.
Without moving an inch.
The night breeze swept past.
Everyone on the grounds saw the young man who had appeared out of nowhere.
And his hand.
That hand which had casually pinched between five fingers the full-force strike of a level sixty-three Soul Emperor.
Yang Xing yawned.
He glanced downward.
The girl in the white dress lying on the ground had disheveled short hair, a face drenched in sweat, and skin as pale as paper. She raised her dirt-stained little face and looked at him with an indescribable expression.
Yang Xing yawned again.
"Why are you screaming?" His voice was muffled, thick with the irritation of having just woken up. "It's the middle of the night. Why aren't you asleep?"
He paused, lowered his head to inspect Ning Rongrong's bedraggled state, and frowned slightly.
"Good disciple, how did you get yourself into such a mess?"
Ning Rongrong lay on the ground as tears poured out uncontrollably.
It was not grievance. It was not fear. It was an emotion she had suppressed for too long, one she only dared release after someone had caught her.
"Why did you come so late?!" Her voice was hoarse and sharp, trembling with tears. There was blame in her tone, but also the faint, moving relief of finally letting down her guard. "I almost got beaten to death! You liar of a master!"
Yang Xing looked down at her for two seconds.
His expression was somewhat helpless.
He vaguely remembered that, in the original story, Ning Rongrong had indeed had a serious conflict with Shrek during her first two days at the academy. He had been too busy moving into his new home, building up the city lord's residence, and spending day and night with sixteen maids, so he had completely forgotten about it.
Of course, part of it was also because he had assumed that Ning Rongrong would be fine.
After all, she had been perfectly fine in the original story.
But looking at her little face, so pale it was bloodless, Yang Xing awkwardly scratched his own face. His fingertips brushed over a lipstick mark before he quickly pulled them back.
"All right, all right. It's okay now." His voice softened, as though he were soothing an angry cat with its fur standing on end. "Master is here."
Ning Rongrong's nose stung, but she gritted her teeth and said nothing else.
Yang Xing's gaze shifted from Ning Rongrong's face to the white-haired old man before him.
Li Yusong still gripped the Dragon-Patterned Staff. But his hand was shaking.
Not from fear. From shock.
His full-force strike as a level sixty-three Soul Emperor had been caught one-handed by a young man who looked seventeen or eighteen.
Caught.
Not blocked. Not countered.
Five fingers had pinched the staff's tip as though it were a fire poker, and it had not moved in the slightest.
Li Yusong exerted more strength. The Dragon-Patterned Staff did not move.
He added another thirty percent of his strength.
Still, it did not move.
That hand seemed welded to the staff's tip.
Li Yusong's pupils contracted violently. He raised his head and met Yang Xing's eyes.
Those eyes were half-open, carrying the lazy languor of someone not fully awake. They looked as though they were watching a mosquito that had accidentally flown in front of him.
There was no hostility. No anger.
Only indifference.
Cold sweat instantly soaked Li Yusong's back.
He was no stranger to that feeling. Back when he had roamed the Soul Arena in his youth, he had once seen a Soul Douluo pass through the city gates from afar. That person had merely glanced at him casually, yet it had made the then-Soul Ancestor-level Li Yusong go cold from head to toe.
It was exactly the same feeling.
No, even stronger.
The young man before him gave off no Soul Power fluctuations at all. He was as quiet as a stagnant pool. Yet it was precisely that calmness that made every hair on Li Yusong's body stand on end.
Unfathomable.
And far too young.
Even if someone had the means to preserve his youth, neither his temperament nor bone structure could lie. Everything about the man before him carried an effortless ease, nothing like the demeanor of an old monster who had cultivated for decades or centuries.
That made Li Yusong even more uneasy.
The less he could see through him, the more terrifying he was.
"Who are you?" Li Yusong's voice deepened. He loosened his grip on the Dragon-Patterned Staff, but did not withdraw it. The staff lay across his chest in a defensive stance.
Yang Xing did not answer.
He released the staff tip from his grasp. Casually, as if letting go of a useless branch.
The Dragon-Patterned Staff sprang back into Li Yusong's hand, humming twice before falling still.
Yang Xing took a step forward.
Just one step.
Li Yusong's body instinctively retreated half a step.
The moment that half-step was taken, the old man's expression changed. He realized he had backed away. A level sixty-three Soul Emperor had instinctively retreated a step before a young man whose depths he could not discern.
Humiliation.
But he had retreated. His body was more honest than his mind.
Yang Xing did not continue advancing.
He stopped before Ning Rongrong, turning sideways to stand between her and Li Yusong.
His posture was as casual as if he were waiting for someone by the roadside.
His loose sleeping robe hung off his body, while the exposed skin of his shoulder and neck was covered in lipstick marks of varying colors. His messy hair stuck up in every direction, and his eyes were lazily half-open. His entire being radiated the aura of someone who had been dragged out of a warm bed and was very displeased about it.
Yet it was precisely this posture, so obviously full of openings.
On him, everyone found it perfectly natural.
As though a natural powerhouse ought to be like this. Unkempt, unconcerned, and simply by standing there, the rules themselves.
The training ground fell utterly silent.
Tang San's gaze fixed on Yang Xing's back.
His eyes gradually turned grave.
From the instant Yang Xing appeared, Tang San had been assessing him. One hand had caught a Soul Emperor's full-force strike, with no Soul Rings released and no Soul Power fluctuations—pure physical strength crushing everything.
This was already beyond anything he could assess.
Dangerous.
Extremely dangerous.
Without revealing anything, Tang San shifted his center of gravity half an inch backward. His right hand hung by his waist, his thumb unconsciously rubbing the jade on his belt.
Zhu Zhuqing stood slightly behind Tang San.
A trace of astonishment remained on her eternally cold face.
This was Ning Rongrong's master?
The mysterious figure who had taught Ning Rongrong Wind Empress Qimen?
When Ning Rongrong had displayed those unbelievable abilities during the day, Zhu Zhuqing had imagined what this "master" might be like. She had considered many possibilities: a reclusive expert, a white-haired elder, an unrivaled powerhouse in an ancient temple deep in the mountains.
She had never imagined someone with lipstick marks all over his face, dressed in a sleeping robe, looking like a playboy who had just emerged from a pleasure house.
But that oppressive feeling was real.
Zhu Zhuqing's catlike pupils narrowed. She could feel the hairs on her back rising one by one. As an agility-attack Soul Master, her perception of danger was far sharper than an ordinary person's.
This mysterious master of Ning Rongrong's was very strong.
So strong that it instinctively made her wary and tense, while also stirring an unconscious desire to explore.
The thought flashed through her mind before she suppressed it again.
Xiao Wu stood beside Tang San.
Her reaction was different from everyone else's.
The moment Yang Xing appeared, her pupils had widened. Astonishment, surprise, curiosity—those emotions had indeed existed for the first two seconds.
But when Yang Xing casually pushed aside Li Yusong's staff, frightened off a level sixty-three Soul Emperor, and then casually stood before Ning Rongrong with that lazy yet powerful bearing—
Xiao Wu's sixth sense suddenly tightened.
It was as if something had exploded.
Fear.
An inexplicable, utterly baseless fear surged up from the deepest part of her body.
To her senses, the young man in a sleeping robe standing barely ten meters away was not human.
He was a prehistoric beast that could not be approached.
A black hole that swallowed all light.
Her instincts were screaming. Calling for her to leave.
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