A Chance Encounter with Zhu Zhuqing (Please Vote with Monthly Tickets)

The plain was empty and silent, with sparse grass and scattered trees.

Jiang Mingyang sat before a fire. He took out some raw meat he had prepared, threaded it onto a bamboo skewer, and slowly began roasting it.

After so long on the road, Jiang Mingyang estimated that another two days would bring him to the little tavern outside Slaughter City.

He was not especially worried about going to Slaughter City. His fifth Soul Skill alone should put him among its strongest fighters.

His fifth Soul Skill was called Spiritual Holy Sword. It came from a Myriad-Heart Deer more than thirty-seven thousand years old.

The Myriad-Heart Deer was an unusual Soul Beast, born with formidable mental power and an exceptional talent for it.

It was not particularly strong in a fight. To defend itself against powerful enemies, it sharpened its memory, recording every last detail of what it saw and storing countless memories in its mind.

In theory, possessing memories should also mean possessing intelligence.

But the Myriad-Heart Deer only remembered; it never thought. Its mind was like a memory palace: it took a memory out when needed and left it untouched otherwise.

As a result, a ten-thousand-year-old Myriad-Heart Deer was less intelligent than the ten-thousand-year-old Windwhistle Wolf King Jiang Mingyang had encountered before.

When facing death, it transferred all its memories into the mind of the Soul Beast attacking it. The immense flood of memories and mental power killed that Soul Beast outright.

During an ordinary hunt, it could also condense its mental power into weapons to attack.

So although the Myriad-Heart Deer was not strong, a ten-thousand-year-old one held a lofty position in the Star Dou Great Forest. After all, no one wanted to trade their life for its.

The fifth Soul Skill Jiang Mingyang gained from it, Spiritual Holy Sword, let him condense mental power into weapons and attack with them.

The difference was that the Soul Skill formed through his Martial Soul acted on the mind and had a fifty-percent chance of striking the soul directly.

On Douluo Continent, the so-called mental attacks of mental-type Soul Masters were little more than crude contests of raw mental power.

With his fifth Soul Skill, Jiang Mingyang could wield a blade in such a contest while his opponent fought barehanded.

Mental attacks themselves were not what mattered most to him. Other Soul Masters surely had Soul Skills that could achieve something similar.

What truly mattered was the fifty-percent chance of striking the soul directly.

With his current mental power, Jiang Mingyang could condense five or six swords at most. Any more, and he might faint on the spot. In theory, that meant three swords could strike the soul.

The thought delighted him. A direct blow to the soul—what did that even mean?

Most Soul Masters would be finished after a single strike.

In special cases, such as mental-type Soul Masters, they might merely be left in a vegetative state.

As for a Titled Douluo... Hmm. He felt there was a good chance, but he had never tried it.

After all, mental power generally grew as one advanced, and so did the strength of the soul. His swords might not even cut a Titled Douluo. Still, Jiang Mingyang felt his chances were good. Killing one instantly, though, was next to impossible.

The greatest advantage of his fifth Soul Skill was that Douluo Continent had virtually no medicinal herbs that could heal a wound dealt directly to the soul. Once struck, there was no saving the victim.

That was why Qian Renxue, worried as she was, still believed Jiang Mingyang had a good chance of making it out of Slaughter City.

Two kilometers away.

A female Soul Master whose Martial Soul resembled a civet cat had entered Martial Soul Possession. She raced forward, glancing back again and again as though something were chasing her.

At the sight of a faint firelight, she hesitated.

If she ran toward it, she might, with a little luck, shake off her pursuers.

But... it was the middle of the night. What if the pursuers her elder sister had sent had lit that fire and were waiting there? Even if they had not, approaching a stranger so recklessly was too dangerous.

In the end, the young Soul Master ran to the right of the firelight, keeping her distance.

Barring any surprises, she would pass four or five hundred meters to its right and leave the fire behind.

Then came a surprise. After the young woman had run about a kilometer, two Soul Masters suddenly appeared on her right.

She recognized them at once as the pursuers her elder sister had sent to kill her.

Forced to veer left, she found herself within two hundred meters of the firelight!

Jiang Mingyang was surprised to see someone arrive. One glance told him roughly what was happening: two Soul Masters were hunting down a young woman.

But he had no intention of meddling. After all, he did not know why they were chasing her.

Without knowing the circumstances, there was no need to disrupt their business, proclaim himself righteous, and stick his nose where it did not belong!

Jiang Mingyang wanted no part of it. Yet when the two pursuers spotted him, one said slowly, "Kid, this is Zhu Family business. Stay out of it and leave!"

The Zhu Family? At this time, and with a girl her age... Zhu Zhuqing? What does that have to do with me?

Zhu Zhuqing was not especially gifted, when all was said and done. She was hardworking, but plenty of people in the world were hardworking. Jiang Mingyang could not look after them all! To him, Zhu Zhuqing was, in a sense, just a passerby.

With that in mind, Jiang Mingyang nodded and made to leave.

But the two Soul Masters did not pursue Zhu Zhuqing, as though they were not worried about her escaping at all.

Jiang Mingyang considered this. So that's how it is?

Then he heard the taller pursuer whisper, "The eldest young lady ordered us not to kill the second young lady, but we can't let word of this get out.

"If this kid spreads the story, won't that put the eldest young lady in danger?"

The shorter Soul Master replied, "He doesn't necessarily know she's behind it!"

The taller one said, "Better to kill the wrong man than let him go!"

The shorter one nodded.

Then the two of them quietly closed in on Jiang Mingyang.

Watching them approach, Jiang Mingyang could only sigh. So this was what came of getting caught up in someone else's affairs. Even if you had no wish to interfere, simply witnessing it was a crime!

Once they surrounded him, the young woman seemed to feel guilty and came back. From the look of it, she meant to fight alongside him.

Even so, she remained wary of Jiang Mingyang. Her eyes moved between him and the two Soul Masters who had been chasing her.

Jiang Mingyang smiled at Zhu Zhuqing. Not bad—she had actually come back. Then he sensed the pursuers' auras. Both were merely Soul Grandmasters in the twenties!

Jiang Mingyang summoned his Martial Soul, the Tianya Sword, and instantly unleashed his fifth Soul Skill, Heart Sword. There was no sword energy. He merely made two light strokes through the air, and both men toppled over, unconscious.

Jiang Mingyang glanced at the Tianya Sword. Was his luck really that good? Both men had been struck in the soul.

He sent a thin arc of sword energy toward them. With that, both their souls and their bodies died.

Seeing Zhu Zhuqing watching him warily, Jiang Mingyang smiled at her.