Notting City's Last Bit of Fun

"Hey, what's with that expression on your face?"

Xiao Wu abruptly turned her head away and sniffed hard. "What's wrong with my expression? My expression is perfectly fine!"

"Perfectly fine?" Luo Yan leaned a little closer and tilted his head at her. "So you really are a rabbit, huh? No wonder your eyes are so red."

"Tang San, be careful. It might be contagious."

"You...!"

"Alright, alright."

Tang San soothed the Xiao Wu who was on the verge of exploding and looked seriously at Luo Yan.

"Where's your first stop?"

"Heaven Dou City."

Xiao Wu opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she only gave an "Oh."

Tang San nodded and asked no more.

The three of them stood at the school gate for a while.

The wind blew in, carrying the earthy scent of soil and the smell of cooking smoke from afar.

Luo Yan hitched his bundle higher onto his shoulder.

"Alright, I'm off."

With that, he turned and left.

He neither waved nor looked back.

Xiao Wu unconsciously took half a step forward, but Tang San gently caught her wrist.

She stopped there and watched Luo Yan's shadow stretch longer and longer over the stone-paved road as he walked farther and farther away.

He did not look back.

Not even once.

Xiao Wu pressed her lips together tightly. "Remember to write to us!"

Only after that figure turned into an alley beyond the city gate and vanished from sight did she turn her face away. Her voice was so quiet it was almost inaudible. "That bastard... he couldn't even spare one glance back."

Tang San said nothing.

He was still staring at that empty alley.

Meanwhile, inside the alley, Luo Yan stopped walking.

He leaned against a mottled wall, lowered his head, and closed his eyes.

A few breaths later, he raised a hand and lightly brushed it across his face.

The Elation Mask silently appeared.

An extremely faint ripple of Soul Power spread from the mouth of the alley.

One yellow and one purple Soul Ring bloomed beneath his feet.

Luo Yan looked at the purple ring glowing beneath him, and his thoughts returned to the day he absorbed his second Soul Ring.

He had skipped class that day.

Calling it skipping class was generous. He had simply climbed over the back wall and could not even be bothered to submit a leave request afterward.

There were not many places around Notting City where one could hunt thousand-year Spirit Beasts. He made his way into the middle region of Soul Hunting Forest and waited for two days before finding suitable prey near a cliff.

A Millennium Shadow Leopard.

The creature was grayish-black all over, and when it lay still, it nearly blended into the rocks.

Luo Yan took one look from afar and decided to give up.

What a joke.

The Shadow Leopard had shadow attributes. It was fast, could conceal itself, and had a thousand years of cultivation. He only had one Soul Ring—how was he supposed to fight that thing?

He crouched behind a tree, intending to wait for it to leave before looking for another target.

Yet the moment he took half a step back, the Elation Mask suddenly flew out on its own.

"..."

Luo Yan watched helplessly as the mask spun through the air like a thrown metal disc, then shot straight at the Shadow Leopard.

The leopard reacted swiftly. It kicked off with its forepaws, its entire body turning into a gray blur as it was about to disappear into the forest.

Then it got bitten.

The mask bit down on the Shadow Leopard's neck.

The Shadow Leopard desperately shook its head, rolled around, and even used its claws to claw at its own shadow, but the mask would not come off.

It was smiling.

Luo Yan stood frozen in place. Though he was far away, he could see it clearly.

The corners of the mask's mouth really were curling upward.

The Shadow Leopard's body began to convulse.

Waves of Soul Power beneath its gray-black fur seemed to have had their bones pulled out, gradually going limp.

In the end, it collapsed to the ground without even managing a cry and stopped moving.

The mask slowly flew back and obediently landed in Luo Yan's palm, not even stained by a single drop of blood.

Luo Yan lowered his head to look at the mask, then raised it to look at the Millennium Shadow Leopard lying in the distance. He was silent for a long time.

"Are you sick?" he said.

Naturally, the mask did not answer.

The Soul Ring had already risen, its purple radiance making the surroundings flicker between light and dark.

After careful consideration, Luo Yan chose to sit down and absorb it.

The entire process went exceptionally smoothly.

As the thousand-year Soul Ring entered his body, he did not even feel pain. There was only laughter constantly whispering in his ears, faint as though it had leaked from the mask, yet also as though it had grown from within his own mind.

Once the Soul Ring had completely stabilized, Luo Yan immediately examined his second Soul Skill.

He had assumed that with the Shadow Leopard's attributes, it would at least grant him a concealment, traversal, or even offensive Soul Skill.

But it did not.

When the second Soul Skill appeared in his mind, he was completely dumbfounded.

"From this moment onward, your mask will continuously absorb the emotions around it to form Willpower. And you... what will you use this Willpower for? Disguise yourself as someone else? Interfere with reality? Create things that do not belong here? Or construct an Emanator? Ahahahahahaha~"

That was right. That was the Soul Skill description.

But this was absolutely not an effect a thousand-year Soul Skill should have had.

It was Aha's handiwork.

Luo Yan pulled his thoughts back to the present.

Come to think of it, when he had taught that wandering Soul Master a lesson in the south of the city that night, he had already tested it a little.

He liked this Soul Skill very much.

Aha had finally done something decent for once.

Luo Yan grinned as purple light flashed around him. "Second Soul Skill, Floating Life Like a Dream."

When the ripple faded, the person standing there was no longer a handsome young man.

Instead, it was a girl facing the wall, her twin ponytails tied high.

Her red dress and silver ornaments complemented one another. A crimson beauty mark lay beneath each eye, while the straps of her flip-flop sandals wound tightly around her ankles, their little bells jingling softly.

She casually raised a hand and swept away the hair hanging beside her ear.

She turned around and glanced toward the alley entrance.

A sweet yet dangerous smile slowly bloomed across the face that belonged to Sparkle.

"Well then, for the sake of this Soul Skill."

Her voice was crisp, carrying a hint of lightheartedness that did not belong to Luo Yan himself.

"Let's bring a tiny shock of Elation to Douluo Continent!"

She kicked the tip of her boot. Her skirt spun, and like a red butterfly, she drifted lightly into the crowd.

Luo Yan had originally been close to the south gate.

But the commotion coming from a street corner made her stop.

Several people in Spirit Hall uniforms had gathered in the middle of the road. At their head was a young man with an inspector's badge pinned to his chest, and he had just kicked a white-haired old man to the ground.

Beside the old man knelt a child in their teens, forehead pressed against the ground, voice trembling. "Sir, my grandfather didn't do it on purpose. We really didn't mean to offend you..."

"Didn't do it on purpose?"

The young man dusted off his sleeve. "You can run into me without meaning to? If you did mean to, wouldn't you have killed me?"

"Sir, please, my grandfather really knows he was wrong..." The child sobbed so hard they could barely catch their breath.

The spectators stood three layers deep around them, yet no one stepped forward.

Several street vendors hunched their shoulders and did not even dare look too closely.

The people of the Notting City Spirit Hall Branch were the heavens here.

Even the City Lord's Manor had to give them some respect, let alone ordinary citizens.

Luo Yan watched the scene and smiled.

It was not his fault for looking for fun. This fun had practically run right into him.

He stepped forward and headed toward the crowd.

The bells at his ankles rang softly, yet for some reason, everyone around him instinctively parted to make way.

Like a flame in the dusk, the red dress burned its way out of the drab crowd and straight toward the Spirit Hall group.

"My, my, how lively."

Sparkle stopped, clasped her hands behind her back, and bent slightly at the waist. She looked at the old man on the ground, then at the kneeling child, before finally settling her gaze on the young man's face.

"Big brother, what's going on here? I came over to watch the excitement, but looking at you all, you don't seem to be an acrobat troupe."

She smiled, her voice sweet and soft.

The young man frowned and gave her a once-over. "Where did this little girl come from? Spirit Hall is conducting business. Don't go looking for trouble."

"Conducting business?"

Sparkle tilted her head. "But big brother, aren't you bullying people?"

"You—"

Before he could finish, Sparkle clapped her hands with an "Ah!" "I get it! Are you helping them train their bodies? Kick them once, and their backs will straighten later. Make them kowtow, and their necks will be properly aligned afterward. Right?"

Someone in the crowd could not hold it in and let out a quiet laugh.

The young man's expression instantly darkened. "You fucking..."

"Oh my, big brother, don't use bad words."

Sparkle took half a step back as if startled. "I was praising you. That white-haired grandpa is so old, yet you can still help train his body. How impressive. How about after his body recovers, you try it on me?"

She lifted a foot and lightly tapped it against the ground. A bell rang with a clear "Ding."

"As for me, I'm especially good at training other people's bodies."

The young man finally snapped. "Get lost! Say one more word, and I'll take you along with—"

Before he could finish, purple light flowed past his feet.

One yellow and one purple Soul Ring silently spread out beneath Luo Yan's feet.

His back was to the crowd, so no one could see his expression.

But the Spirit Hall people all saw it.

A thousand-year second ring.

The young man's face froze instantly, and the lackeys behind him stiffened as well.

"Y-you're that person?" His voice was filled with shock and uncertainty.

Luo Yan said nothing.

She merely raised a hand and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her eyes shining as though they held a sky full of stars.

"My name is Sparkle. I'm just a kindhearted passerby."

She took two more steps forward, reached the white-haired old man, bent down, and helped him up. "Weren't you having fun just now? Then let me play too, alright?"

The young man was just about to shout, "Take her away," but when he met those eyes, he suddenly felt as though something had clogged his throat.

"Come on."

Sparkle spoke softly. "Whoever runs first, I'll make sure both their feet never move again. Want to try?"

All their faces turned green.

"Not running?"

Sparkle blinked. "Very well. Then I'll teach you a little lesson."

She extended a hand and made an extremely light gesture.

Willpower silently spread out, crawling across the ground toward them.

"You will each viciously stomp on the foot the others used to kick people earlier!"

The young man desperately tried to refuse.

But in the next second, one of the lackeys behind him had already raised a foot and stomped hard on the top of his foot.

"Ah—!"

"Sorry, boss! I-I can't control myself!"

"You—"

"Ah! Boss, I'm sorry!"

The street descended into chaos.

The Spirit Hall men stomped on one another's feet, howling in pain and cursing like a group of puppets being tugged by strings.

At first, the onlookers held it in. Then someone did not know who burst out laughing, and soon the entire street was laughing.

Sparkle stood amid the laughter and gently patted the child's head. "Don't be afraid. Sometimes bad people need to learn what it feels like to be kicked too."

The child stared blankly at her, even forgetting to wipe away their tears.

Luo Yan turned around and disappeared into the crowd.

With her back to the center of the street, she raised a hand and gave a little wave.

The bells rang three times, and she was already gone.