Leng Yaozhu Successfully Checked In

But as Li Qingyue looked at the woman, he found himself momentarily dazed.

The next second, the Goddess Codex automatically began a check-in in his mind.

[Leng Yaozhu day 1 check-in successful. Congratulations! Reward: Phoenix Origin fragment (1/2)]

[Phoenix Origin: The core legacy of the ancient Phoenix God. Its power is no weaker than the Dragon God's legacy, making it an exceedingly rare inheritance.]

[Special codex entry unlocked: Leng Sisters. Meet her younger sister, Leng Yulai, and complete a check-in to obtain the other half of the fragment and fully possess the Phoenix Origin.]

Hearing that string of system notifications, Li Qingyue froze again.

He stared at the breathtakingly beautiful woman before him, bewildered.

He had never expected one of this body's parents to have a connection to such a formidable figure.

The discovery left him quietly stunned.

At that moment, however, the woman was looking at him, her expression perfectly calm.

Her gaze merely swept over Li Qingyue. Apart from that slight nod earlier, she had not spared him so much as another glance.

Then she sat there in silence, as though nothing around her had anything to do with her.

The woman who had brought Li Qingyue over gave him a helpless look and gestured for him to hurry into the car.

Once Li Qingyue and Na'er had climbed in, the three-car convoy slowly pulled away and drove smoothly toward the edge of the city.

The cars traveled quickly, yet the ride was remarkably smooth.

Before long, they left the urban district and reached the outskirts.

There stood an enormous military base sprawling across a vast area.

As the vehicles came to a gradual stop, Leng Yaozhu was the first to step out.

Her gaze was calm and distant. She did not look at Li Qingyue or the others, her manner decidedly cold.

The group did not linger. They soon boarded an enormous jet-black Mecha.

With a low rumble, the black Mecha carried them swiftly off in another direction.

Clearly, their stop here had been nothing more than a brief detour.

Li Qingyue had no idea what lay behind it.

Even so, he stayed quiet, neither speaking up nor asking too many questions.

After all, he was now nothing more than an orphan with no one to rely on.

To put it bluntly, he did not even know which of his parents belonged to the Leng Family, let alone anything else.

Leng Yaozhu remained silent beside him. She had not said a word to him since they boarded.

The woman who had come to fetch him seemed to be some sort of secretary to Leng Yaozhu.

She treated Leng Yaozhu with utmost respect, taking care in nearly everything she did.

Leng Yaozhu, in turn, barely acknowledged her.

They traveled like this for a long while before the Mecha finally slowed to a stop.

From inside, they could not see anything outside, nor could they tell where they were.

Only when Li Qingyue stepped out and looked up did he see skyscrapers soaring into the clouds on every side.

At the sight, his throat bobbed involuntarily.

He had no idea where he was.

But judging by those buildings alone, this was no small town.

This must be a big city. I wonder where we are. As the thought crossed his mind, Li Qingyue murmured it aloud.

The little girl beside him looked at him in confusion and blinked, but said nothing.

Leng Yaozhu, walking at the front, turned her head slightly and glanced his way.

Her calm voice rang out. "This is the Leng Family headquarters in Shrek City. I brought you here to awaken your Martial Soul. You're six years old this year, aren't you?"

As she spoke, she regarded Li Qingyue evenly.

Meeting those almost impossibly beautiful eyes, Li Qingyue blinked, then nodded without hesitation.

A smile appeared on his face. "That's right, pretty big sister. I'm six this year. May I ask what to call you?"

He kept his eyes on Leng Yaozhu as he spoke.

Such a forward remark from anyone else might have made her uncomfortable.

But coming from Li Qingyue, with his delicate, almost feminine features, it did not seem presumptuous at all.

Far from taking offense, Leng Yaozhu paused in surprise.

She was silent for a moment before speaking slowly.

"You can call me Aunt Leng. I'm a cousin of your mother's."

"Come with me."

"If you awaken a Fire Phoenix, or a similar Martial Soul, you can return to the Leng Family. The family will support you."

"But if you awaken a different Martial Soul, that's all right too."

"Your mother and I were on fairly good terms. I'll give you some help when the time comes."

As Leng Yaozhu looked at the boy before her, her voice grew quietly subdued.

A member of the Leng Family's main line, Leng Yaozhu was now the head of the entire family.

She also held the greatest power and possessed the greatest strength within it.

Li Qingyue's nominal mother, however, had belonged to a distant branch of a branch.

Her status and standing had been unremarkable.

At first, she had merely been a companion to the Leng sisters during their studies—in plain terms, little more than a maid.

But the three of them had spent every day together for several years and grown very close.

Even after Leng Yaozhu and Leng Yulai had fallen out completely, Leng Yulai had made a point of asking her to look after that little girl.

No one had expected that, only a few years after leaving the Leng Family, the little girl would have a child with an outsider.

Still more unexpected was that someone had killed her on her way back to the Leng Family.

Leng Yaozhu had investigated the matter for a long time, but had never found a useful lead.

Only when the body was dug up this time had she finally seen her remains.

That was why her feelings were so complicated when she faced Li Qingyue.

Strictly speaking, someone from such a distant branch could hardly even be considered a true member of the Leng Family.

At most, they shared the Leng surname.

By the usual reckoning of bloodlines, those people had long since ceased to have any real connection to the Leng Family.

Leng Yaozhu herself had never paid much attention to those distant branch families.

But she truly had been close to that little girl. The girl could, just barely, have been called her friend.

Now she was gone, leaving behind only the child before her.

The way Leng Yaozhu looked at Li Qingyue grew all the more complicated.

Li Qingyue, however, had no inkling of any of this.

He had not even taken what she had just said particularly seriously.

He merely blinked and followed Leng Yaozhu inside.

The two entered the house and went straight to the living room.

There was no one in the spacious room.

The house was enormous—more accurately, it was a magnificent villa.

Looking around, Li Qingyue saw that it stood amid a seemingly endless expanse of villas.

To possess such a vast villa complex in a place like Shrek City spoke volumes about the astonishing status, standing, and strength behind it.

After all, even the Yuanen Family, a great clan with several supremely powerful figures to its name, had barely managed to establish a family settlement near Shrek City.

The Leng Family, meanwhile, had established an entire family district within Shrek City itself.

That alone was enough to show the extraordinary position the Leng Family held within the Federation.