The Humiliation I Suffered Today-This Seat Will Remember It!

Ning Wen lay down on the soft, spacious bed.

The next moment, Xiao Wu pressed herself against him without hesitation. She wrapped her slender, fair arms around his right arm and held it tightly against her chest.

Her long, shapely legs curled around his waist, close and clingy.

Her pink-and-white knee-high socks hugged the lines of her legs, their cuffs fitting comfortably.

A faint blush colored Xiao Wu's delicate face. Her expression was gentle, her long lashes lowered.

She nestled against Ning Wen without a trace of caution, soft and warm as a sweet milk cake.

Who could resist that?

But Ning Wen did.

He couldn't help it. To him, Xiao Wu was just a little girl.

He wasn't into little girls, so he felt nothing of the sort.

[Outrageous! Utterly outrageous!]

[You Little Rabbit, you've pushed your luck too far! Such an insult to a god!]

[Let go at once, Little Rabbit! Do not defile This Seat's pure and spotless divine body!]

[You've ruined This Seat's innocence! My dignity is in tatters!!]

[The Heavenly Dao is unjust!! How unjust!!]

[You're infuriating This Seat!! Never have I suffered such humiliation!!]

[This Seat will remember the humiliation I suffered today!!!]

Ning Wen's mouth twitched.

What was the big deal? Did he have to be so dramatic?

The rest was one thing, but how had he managed to blame the Heavenly Dao?

What did the Heavenly Dao have to do with any of this?

You're too loud. Could you be quiet? I'm trying to sleep!

Meanwhile, Xiao Wu was delighted by her fiancé's outward composure. Inwardly, he was fuming, yet he could do nothing about her and could only swallow his grievance.

Then she remembered who she was. The mischief in her eyes faded, replaced by a trace of sadness.

After a long while, Xiao Wu looked up at the boy beside her. Her voice was soft, carrying a hope she could not quite hide beneath her unease. "Brother Wen, do you think... Soul Beasts and humans could ever live in peace?"

It was a question that had troubled her for a long time.

Her mother's final moments in the Great Star Dou Forest came back to her, along with scene after scene of Soul Masters entering the forest to hunt Soul Beasts.

Soul Masters needed Soul Rings to grow stronger, and Soul Rings appeared only when Soul Beasts died. That had been the unchanging rule of this continent since time immemorial.

Ning Wen paused.

He hadn't expected Xiao Wu to ask that all of a sudden.

[Why did Little Rabbit suddenly ask about that?]

[The strong prey on the weak. That's the law of the world.]

[Humans hunt Soul Beasts, and Soul Beasts devour humans.]

[How could they ever truly live in peace?]

[Strength is the foundation of any power to have a say.]

Xiao Wu's eyes dimmed.

"Well... in theory, it isn't impossible."

Ning Wen's answer was rather vague.

"What would make it possible?" Xiao Wu asked eagerly.

"Soul Masters need to hunt Soul Beasts for Soul Rings. That's a conflict they can't avoid."

Ning Wen considered it for a moment before continuing. "If that conflict were resolved, then, in theory, humans and Soul Beasts could live in peace."

He silently added, In theory, anyway.

After all, Legend of the Dragon King had already shown that even after human Soul Masters solved the Soul Ring problem, life for Soul Beasts remained difficult—if anything, it became worse.

"Say someone came up with a way to obtain Soul Rings without killing Soul Beasts."

Seeing that Xiao Wu still looked confused, Ning Wen put it in simpler terms.

Xiao Wu's eyes dimmed further.

A way to obtain Soul Rings without killing Soul Beasts?

How could that be possible?

Soul Rings only appeared after Soul Beasts died.

For millions of years, everyone, every Soul Master, had followed that rule to cultivate and grow stronger.

Without hunting Soul Beasts, where would Soul Rings come from?

[Ten thousand years from now, the Child of Destiny of that era created Soul Spirit technology before ascending to the Divine Realm.]

[As the name suggests, it used a special method to draw a Soul Beast's soul out of its body. The soul then formed a contract with a Soul Master and became a Soul Ring.]

[A Soul Beast that once provided just one Soul Ring and one Soul Skill could provide two or three of each after becoming a Soul Spirit.]

[It was an alternative superior to Soul Rings. It harmed Soul Beasts less while maximizing the boost to a Soul Master's abilities.]

Ning Wen paused.

In the Voice Pack's version of events, Tang San had died at the hands of Ning Wen's future self long ago. Naturally, no one had been left to manipulate the fate of Douluo II's protagonist, the Child of Destiny Huo Yuhao.

According to what the Voice Pack had said earlier, Huo Yuhao had created the God of Death godhood himself and become the sixth God King of the Divine Realm.

Ning Wen hadn't expected Huo Yuhao to create Soul Spirit technology as well.

That meant Golden-Finger Grandpa Electrolux had still arrived as promised.

Perhaps that was the path the Child of Destiny Huo Yuhao had always been meant to take, free of Tang San's control.

In the original story, however, he had inherited the God of Emotions godhood.

The God of Emotions godhood was powerful, second only to the Five Great God Kings, but it clearly wasn't a perfect fit for Huo Yuhao.

After all, Huo Yuhao had two crucial advantages: the million-year Soul Beast Sky Dream Ice Silkworm and a fragment of Undead Scourge Electrolux's divine consciousness.

In terms of attributes, those were spirit and death.

The God of Emotions godhood was clearly tied only to spirit. What, then, had become of Undead Scourge Electrolux's legacy?

And the most precious part of that legacy was undoubtedly the knowledge and experience needed to create the Undead Demiplane.

From that perspective, the Douluo Plane Consciousness must have wanted Huo Yuhao to create his own godhood, perhaps even another Divine Realm. It simply hadn't expected Tang San's schemes to lead him astray.

At the same time, Xiao Wu jerked her head up. Her clear eyes lit up, bright light gleaming in her dark pupils.

Ten thousand years might have seemed a very long time to humans.

But for Soul Beasts, it wasn't that long.

She had never expected someone in the future to devise a way to obtain Soul Rings without killing Soul Beasts.

[But twenty thousand years from now, Soul Beasts hadn't grown more numerous despite Soul Spirits becoming widespread.]

[The reason was simple. Soul Spirits could be passed down to descendants and were even more precious than Soul Bones. But that stirred human greed and brought unimaginable disaster upon Soul Beasts.]

[It wasn't hard to understand. Soul Bones already drove Soul Masters to do anything to get them. What would they do for Soul Spirits, which were even more valuable?]

[The ruler of the Great Star Dou Forest, a subordinate of This Seat's first wife, naively believed humans and Soul Beasts could coexist through Soul Spirits. As a result, the forest kept shrinking until it was less than one percent of its current size.]

[By then, the Great Star Dou Forest had become nothing more than a warehouse where Soul Masters stocked up on supplies.]