Nalan Yanran: Three...

"Nine Stages of Dou Qi? Are you sure you didn't get that wrong?"

Seated in Five Cauldrons Tower, the hottest restaurant to emerge in Wutan City in recent years,

Nalan Yanran stared wide-eyed at the youth before her.

As if afraid he had misunderstood what she meant, she pressed him again.

"Are you sure that Xiao Yan of the Xiao Clan, who lost all his Dou Qi three years ago, is now at the Ninth Stage of Dou Qi? Wasn't he still at the Third Stage not long ago?"

"Nine Stages of Dou Qi... no mistake there."

Picking up a slice of braised pork, Xiao Yan closed his eyes to sense his Dou Qi and slowly nodded.

No mistake. After squeezing Yao Lao dry and refining a bottle of Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid, he really had reached the Ninth Stage of Dou Qi.

He had retraced the path of cultivation more times than he could count. With energy to support him, there was no difficulty at all.

Compared to that, Xiao Yan cared more about the girl before him.

He had come to eat at a restaurant he owned, only to encounter a stunning girl asking about him.

It was hard for Xiao Yan not to take notice.

He had come to withdraw some money from his own restaurant while buying precious medicinal ingredients, only to encounter a stunning girl asking about him.

Knowing a thing or two about his own romantic luck, Xiao Yan was not particularly surprised. He decisively stepped up to play an all-knowing passerby.

As everyone knew, all kinds of all-knowing passersby easily spawned in other worlds. Whether it was the past of powerful experts, rare techniques, or scarce divine weapons and artifacts, there was nothing they did not know.

So it was not strange for a youth who knew everything about Xiao Yan to appear, was it?

"Wasn't there something wrong with his body? Could he have recovered long ago?"

Nalan Yanran's red lips parted slightly. She still found it somewhat unbelievable.

Yet from the youth's words, she could tell there was not the slightest concealment. Whether it was his expression, the flicker in his eyes, or his subtle reactions, everything was utterly frank.

"Not really. It was probably only a few days ago. But I can say this: as of yesterday morning, he was still at the Third Stage of Dou Qi."

Seeing Nalan Yanran so shocked that she stopped eating, Xiao Yan curled his lips. What was this supposed to be?

How could she stop eating over something like that?

Looking at the dishes from his previous life that he had brought to the Dou Qi Continent, Xiao Yan chuckled and shook his head, using the serving chopsticks to place two portions of sweet-and-sour pork tenderloin on her plate.

Though the Dou Qi Continent seemed enormous, and Wutan City was merely a remote corner of the northwest, Xiao Yan could not guarantee anything at the higher levels. But in the low-end scene, his dishes were absolutely crushing the competition.

It was precisely this restaurant that had made him basically financially independent.

After all, during those three years when he could not cultivate Dou Qi, he had not trained too hard. Instead, he had poured a great deal of time into body refinement, Artifact Refining, and making use of the advantages of being a transmigrator.

Though he was not especially skilled at business, it was enough. Xiao Yan dared to boast that, when it came to the big picture, he was inferior to no one in this world.

That was also why he had long since become financially independent, enough to support his Artifact Refining and reckless pill consumption.

"Hiss—" Nalan Yanran sucked in a breath, her beautiful eyes wide. The news was too shocking for her to believe at once.

But... looking at the clear eyes of the youth before her, Nalan Yanran took a deep breath and steadied herself.

It had to be said that although they had only known each other for a short time, this youth gave her no sense of aversion. He possessed an unusual charm, and his unpretentious frankness left her with quite a favorable impression. Unconsciously, she began comparing him to her never-before-met fiancé, Xiao Yan.

But only a few seconds later, Nalan Yanran threw that thought out of her mind. Why compare two outstanding people who had absolutely nothing to do with each other? Only an idiot would do something like that.

Rather than thinking about that, she might as well think about what to eat tonight.

Serving herself, Nalan Yanran inhaled the enticing aroma and looked over the dazzling spread on the table.

Though she had eaten those precious ingredients before, this style of cooking was exceptionally novel. The unfamiliar dishes spread before her deeply captivated her taste buds.

Yet as they ate and chatted, she suddenly realized something seemed off.

"That's not right." Nalan Yanran looked the handsome youth before her up and down.

"None of this sounds like information an outsider could know. How do you know it?"

When she had arrived near Wutan City, Nalan Yanran had pondered for a long time before having the convoy stop temporarily. She had brought only a small number of people with her and proceeded discreetly.

Rather than immediately visiting the Xiao Clan, she had been inexplicably moved to first look into the local situation herself, telling the Misty Cloud Sect members accompanying her to rest for a while.

She had come to solve a problem, not create one. Trying to think from the perspective of the Xiao Yan she had imagined, many things she had previously overlooked suddenly became clear.

Encountering a reliable source of information in this restaurant was undoubtedly a good thing, but the information seemed a little too wild. It did not seem like something an outsider could know.

"Why can't I know?" Xiao Yan raised an eyebrow.

He was still wondering where this girl had come from. Why was she so concerned about him?

And had this girl really only noticed the problem now?

"Are you from the Xiao Clan?"

Nalan Yanran narrowed her eyes. Her intuition was very sharp. During the time she had spent talking with Xiao Yan, she could tell that he was not good at lying—or rather, he simply disdained lying.

Even if he did lie, she would be able to see through it easily.

"That's right."

Xiao Yan nodded, without slowing his eating in the slightest. The beautiful girl across from him was paying for this meal. Though it was his own business, free food was free food.

"You!" Nalan Yanran glared at Xiao Yan, who was competing with her for food, then scooped herself a huge spoonful of Eight-Treasure Tofu without the slightest pretense.

"Do you know Xiao Yan?"

"I do know him." Xiao Yan nodded. There was nothing to say about that—he certainly knew Xiao Yan.

"Then are you close with Xiao Yan?"

That question stumped Xiao Yan. After pondering for two seconds, he nodded heavily.

"We're doing all right, I guess?"

Nalan Yanran wore an expression that said she had known it.

As she listened to the youth before her tirelessly recounting Xiao Yan's deeds,

Nalan Yanran recalled the exchanges from their earlier letters, and her expression suddenly grew somewhat dazed.

"He really did it. So he really wasn't just talking..."

Xiao Yan, who had been singing his own praises, immediately raised an eyebrow.

What did that mean? Did this girl know him? No, more accurately, had she heard of him?

Could she be a friend of Sister Ya Fei from the Mittel Auction House? Or perhaps a friend of Xiao Yi Xian from Qingshan Town, where he had gone training before?

Xiao Yan looked the stunning girl up and down, yet neither possibility felt right.

Her figure was just beginning to blossom, and she was probably around his age. Her green clothes bore no markings, but his soul power could sense that her Dou Qi cultivation was at the early Dou Zhe level, around two or three stars...

Could she be Xun'er's friend?

"Three..."

However, after only a few breaths, Xiao Yan saw that Nalan Yanran had quickly adjusted her state of mind. Still, she continued murmuring something that began with "three," too softly to make out.

Unable to figure out what she meant by those words beginning with "three," Xiao Yan merely served her a spoonful of Three Non-Stick.

But when he looked up, the expression in her eyes was extraordinarily complicated: thirty percent relief, thirty percent bewilderment, forty percent just as I thought, and ninety percent utter enlightenment.

Xiao Yan: "..."

Why was there so much drama in that look?

Why did it feel like she was about to attain enlightenment on the spot?