Remember to Follow Traffic Rules

A month was neither long nor short.

It was enough time for Luo Yan to sample every wild fruit he could find along the road, and enough time for Zhu Zhuqing to settle on one thing: this person was her companion.

They passed through three towns and four small cities.

At every stop, Zhu Zhuqing went to inns, taverns, trading houses, and even the city gates to ask about the same person.

She never gave details, only asking, "Has a young man from Star Luo passed through recently? Tall, with blond hair."

Luo Yan leaned by the doorway, sometimes cracking sunflower seeds, sometimes staring at the sky, occasionally chatting with passersby.

"No." she said after coming out.

"Mm." Luo Yan answered and followed.

They never walked side by side. One was always ahead of the other, separated by three steps.

Once, beneath a fine drizzle, they took shelter in a ruined temple. Zhu Zhuqing stood before the Buddha, looking at the half-collapsed clay statue, while Luo Yan crouched nearby, took off his soaked coat, and wrung out a small puddle of water.

"Do you believe in gods?" he asked.

"No." Zhu Zhuqing said.

"Then why are you staring at it?"

"It's the only place that doesn't leak." she said.

Luo Yan laughed. He said nothing more.

At night, Zhu Zhuqing occasionally woke up. She did not know why—perhaps because of the wind, perhaps because of dogs barking in the distance.

But every time she woke, the fire was still burning. Luo Yan sat on a rock, sometimes with his eyes closed, sometimes looking at the sky. She had never asked whether he slept, and he had never asked why she always opened her eyes in the middle of the night.

That was how they traveled.

Until one night, when Zhu Zhuqing washed her face by a river.

Luo Yan crouched in a tree and suddenly said, "You're about to reach level twenty, aren't you?"

Zhu Zhuqing did not look up. "Soon."

"How far?"

"A thread."

Luo Yan jumped down from the tree, landing lightly. "Then you'd better not move much these next couple of days. The people following us won't give you the peace to break through."

Zhu Zhuqing froze. Water dripped through her fingers, breaking the river's surface into several ripples.

"How long?" she asked coldly.

"About half a day."

Luo Yan spoke lazily. "Their presence feels... disgusting."

Zhu Zhuqing straightened up without wiping her face and looked at him. "Disgusting?"

"Fallen Soul Masters."

Luo Yan jumped down from the tree, landing lightly. "They've most likely taken a liking to you, pretty little lady."

Zhu Zhuqing shot him a glare and activated Martial Soul Possession.

Luo Yan's smile faded as well, and he slowly took two steps closer behind her.

The two stood back to back. The wind in the forest stopped.

Then the bushes on the left rustled softly, and two people stepped out.

Both wore old gray-black robes, their faces mostly hidden beneath their hoods, revealing only pale chins.

Two more had appeared on the riverbank to the right at some point.

One of them was as thin and tall as a bamboo pole, slowly wiping a dagger.

The other crouched on a rock like a toad.

"Six people," Luo Yan said quietly. "One in the tree, one behind the tree."

Zhu Zhuqing tightened her grip on her short blade. Her back pressed against Luo Yan's.

Neither of them was particularly warm, but at that moment, this was the only place that felt steady.

"Oh, standing back to back?"

The sixth person walked out from behind the tree. He was the tallest and wore no hood.

He smiled and gave them a slight bow. "Little girl, don't be nervous. My brothers and I merely want to give you a ride."

"Where to?" Luo Yan asked.

"A good place."

The tall Evil Soul Master smiled. "With the Soul Power your friend has, she can't keep traveling without someone to protect her. Why not come with us? Our place is especially good at taking care of people. Especially pretty ones like her—they're just right."

Zhu Zhuqing said nothing.

Her breathing was extremely soft, and her long nails gleamed with a ghostly light.

A mask slowly formed over Luo Yan's face.

He slowly raised both hands.

His ten fingers spread naturally, palms facing outward.

"Gentlemen."

His voice, filtered through the mask, had become somewhat scattered. He smiled as he said, "Why don't you discuss among yourselves who'll be the first to tell me what exactly your lousy organization wants with my cat?"

"Cat?" The tall Evil Soul Master narrowed his eyes.

With her back to Luo Yan, Zhu Zhuqing did not turn around. She merely gave a faint snort through her nose.

"That's right." Luo Yan still held up his hands.

"You've been chasing us for half a day. That couldn't have been easy, so how about this? Let's take half an incense stick to sit down and have a slow chat. I can even write down your names, so you'll at least die with some dignity."

The tall Evil Soul Master narrowed his eyes, one hand already resting behind his waist.

"Forget it."

Luo Yan suddenly laughed. "Let's fight first. Talking wastes too much breath."

He abruptly clenched his fists.

One yellow and one purple Soul Ring surged up from beneath his feet.

The purple ring in particular shone blindingly bright beside the dim riverbank.

The purple light beneath Luo Yan's feet hummed outward, like a red-hot iron dropping into water.

Before anyone could move, they felt the ground tremble beneath their feet.

Boom—!

The ground beneath the Evil Soul Masters suddenly bulged upward.

As if they had stepped on something alive, one after another lost their balance.

Some fell to their knees on the spot, while others were knocked backward by rocks.

The tall Evil Soul Master reacted quickly. With a tap of his feet, he swept backward.

But the purple light had already reached him. The air before him seemed to be sucked away, and his vision went white for an instant.

In that instant, Zhu Zhuqing moved.

She sprang out from behind Luo Yan without a sound, leaving only the whistle of claws cutting through the wind.

The nearest Evil Soul Master had only just regained his footing when five lines appeared across his throat.

The man let out a hoarse gasp, clutching his neck as he fell. Zhu Zhuqing was already gone from before him.

The second Evil Soul Master raised his blade to slash, but before it had reached halfway, he suddenly heard an incomparably grand sound, a deep roar that made his eardrums tremble.

Woooo—!

The shadows of the trees to the left were violently torn apart, and two intensely bright beams shot out like eyes.

Then, a colossal thing that had never appeared on Douluo Continent charged out from within.

It had an iron-cast body, a square head, four round wheels, and a dark red frame.

The sound was too close, too loud, too unreasonable. It pressed the entire forest into the earth.

It rammed straight toward the Evil Soul Masters.

One Evil Soul Master tried to dodge, but he had only turned halfway before the iron head sent him flying.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, he spun half a turn in the air and crashed into a pile of rocks, never rising again. Another was swept beneath the wheels.

Before he could even scream, a third was knocked down by his flying companion and rolled into the river, where a small patch of dark red surfaced.

Three were killed on the spot.

Luo Yan still stood where he was, his eyes curved beneath the mask.

"Oh my~ You need to remember to follow traffic rules~"

His voice drifted through the wind, yet seemed supported by something, spreading into the forest in wave after wave.

The three Evil Soul Masters had gone silent. The remaining two stood by the riverbank, their hands and feet trembling.

It was not that they had never seen anyone killed. They had simply never seen killing like this. When that iron beast came, they could not even sense any Soul Power. By the time they heard that "Woooo—," people were already flying through the air.

"Save... save me—!" One Evil Soul Master finally came to his senses, turned, and ran toward the edge of the forest.

But after only three steps, he suddenly bent over as if someone had seized his throat.

Both hands clawed at his neck. His mouth opened as wide as it could, yet he could not draw in a single breath. Veins bulged along the sides of his face, and strange "Hah... hah..." sounds squeezed from his throat.

The other soon dropped to his knees as well.

He braced himself against the ground, his chest rising and falling faster and faster, but the more desperately he tried, the less air he could draw.

"What's wrong?"

Luo Yan's voice floated from behind them, mixed with countless voices—an old man's, a child's, a woman's, and his own.

The voices overlapped into one mass. "Weren't you good at chasing just now? Why can't you even catch your breath now?"

The tall Evil Soul Master had already retreated farther away. Every step he took felt as though dozens of invisible threads were cutting into his flesh.

He pressed a hand to his chest, his face livid as though he were struggling against something.

He turned around and met Luo Yan's curved eyes.

"I suddenly understand the fun those people at the tavern were having."

Luo Yan slowly walked forward. At last, the yellow Soul Ring beneath his feet lit up.

When the enemy's heart is gripped by fear, they will have difficulty breathing and be unable to mobilize Soul Power.

His head tilted slightly as he studied the three prey trapped in the cage. "Torturing fallen people is pretty fun."