You Have to Pay to Awaken Your Martial Soul?

"Hiss!!"

After waking, Qian Renxue rose from the bed. The movement tugged at the wound on her back, making her suck in a sharp breath.

The pain instantly cleared the fog from her little head.

She suddenly remembered encountering a Fallen Soul Master, being knocked off a cliff by him, and landing by chance in a mountain river. Then... then there had been no then.

She had passed out on the spot and remembered nothing of what happened afterward.

Qian Renxue sat on the bed, her brows knitted tightly. Ever since her birth, aside from training, she had never been injured under the protection of her grandfather and Spirit Hall's Titled Douluos.

This was the first time in her life that she had been hurt so badly.

Qian Renxue: (｀へ´)=3 Damn Fallen Soul Master! Just you wait!

Qian Renxue scowled angrily, but she no longer looked like an adult. She had become a six-year-old girl, and her scowl held not a trace of authority. Instead, she was so adorable that anyone would have wanted to give her a good squishing.

After sulking for a while, Qian Renxue looked down at the cloth wrapped around her chest and noticed the herbal scent rising from her body. She knew someone must have saved her.

She immediately looked around and found that the room was empty.

Just as Qian Renxue was puzzling over this, the shabby door opened from outside, its creak reaching her ears.

At the sound, Qian Renxue's ears twitched, and she instantly grew wary.

Qian Renxue had woken to a completely unfamiliar world ten thousand years in the future, with both her age and strength drastically reduced. On top of that, she had recently encountered a Fallen Soul Master and nearly died.

All of this left Qian Renxue with a profound lack of security. Every whisper of wind and cry of a crane sounded like an enemy; the slightest rustle put her on guard.

But when Qian Renxue followed the sound and turned her large golden eyes warily toward the door, she discovered that the person entering was actually a six-year-old boy. Her guarded heart immediately relaxed.

Qian Renxue breathed a sigh of relief, thinking, So it's just a six-year-old child.

As the possessor of the Six-Winged Angel martial soul and innate level 20 soul power, Qian Renxue was confident that she was absolutely invincible among those her age.

Even injured, she could thrash ten six-year-old children with one hand!

The one who entered was none other than Chen An. Once inside, he noticed that the blonde girl had already awakened and immediately said with a smile, "You're awake!"

Qian Renxue asked, "Who are you?"

Chen An introduced himself with a smile. "Hi, my name's Chen An. This is Qinghe Village. At noon, I was taking a walk by the river when I saw you floating in the water, so I jumped in and dragged you ashore.

"Oh, right, the wound on your back was pretty bad. My parents were hunters and knew quite a bit about treating injuries. I used the herbs they left behind to dress your wound. How do you feel? Is anything bothering you?"

After hearing Chen An's answer, Qian Renxue realized that the six-year-old boy before her was her savior, and her tense little face softened.

"Thank you for saving me," Qian Renxue said gratefully. Then she asked, "By the way, where are your parents? How come I haven't seen them?"

Chen An's expression grew slightly awkward, and his voice carried a hint of sorrow. "My parents were killed by an Evil Soul Master when they went hunting in the mountains two years ago."

At this, Qian Renxue thought, Oh no. I said the wrong thing.

For a moment, the atmosphere between Chen An and Qian Renxue grew awkward.

In the end, Chen An was the first to break the awkward silence.

Changing the subject, Chen An said, "By the way, I haven't asked your name yet."

At that question, Qian Renxue's mind took a turn, and she decided to conceal her true identity.

"My name is Ren Xue," Qian Renxue said. "You can call me Xue'er."

Chen An thought, Ren Xue? I never heard that name when I read Peerless Tang Sect. She's probably some unimportant minor character.

As someone from Blue Star in his previous life, Chen An had naturally read Third Young Master's claim to fame—and three installments of it, at that. He had no recollection of anyone named Ren Xue.

Then Chen An and Qian Renxue began chatting.

Though both looked like six-year-old children, one was Spirit Hall's young mistress, who had spent years undercover in the Heaven Dou Empire, replacing Prince Xue Qinghe in an attempt to become its emperor.

The other was a college student who had lived two lives, possessed a mature mind and foreknowledge, and understood the course of events on the Douluo Continent in extraordinary depth.

They were chess players meeting worthy opponents, generals encountering equally gifted rivals.

Each put on an act for the other, playing the part of a six-year-old child to perfection.

Neither noticed anything unusual about the other, and both took the other for an ordinary child.

After chatting with Chen An for a while, Qian Renxue gained a basic understanding of him.

He was an ordinary village child with dead parents and a tragic past. He had not even awakened his martial soul. He simply could not have been any weaker.

At this point, Qian Renxue completely dropped her guard around Chen An.

When she learned that Chen An had not awakened his martial soul because he could not afford to hire a Soul Master, Qian Renxue was even more bewildered.

How could anyone be unable to awaken their martial soul because they had no money? Spirit Hall had always awakened martial souls for every child of the appropriate age.

Unless... Spirit Hall...

At that troubling possibility, Qian Renxue became eager to get information from Chen An.

She could not help it. What that Fallen Soul Master had said, along with Chen An's circumstances, weighed far too heavily on her mind.

She knew very little about the world ten thousand years in the future and desperately wanted some common knowledge, especially information about Spirit Hall.

She urgently wanted to know whether that Fallen Soul Master had told the truth—whether Spirit Hall really had been destroyed by Tang San.

As Spirit Hall's young mistress, Qian Renxue regarded it as her home. How could she sit still when someone else had destroyed her home?

Qian Renxue rubbed between her brows, pretending to have a headache, and said to Chen An, "My head really hurts, and my memories are a bit muddled. Could you tell me about history?"

Hearing this, Chen An studied the blonde girl before him, feeling that something was a little odd.

But he did not dwell on it. After all, telling her some history would cost him nothing, so he began recounting it.

Five minutes later, Qian Renxue's large golden eyes had lost their focus, and she stared blankly at the ceiling beams.

Tang San had become the Sea God and Asura God, invincible in strength. Even though she and her mother had both become deities and joined forces, they had been no match for Tang San and had been killed by him.

The victor became king, the defeated became outlaws. Spirit Hall had been branded evil...

Shrek Academy had established its campus on Spirit Hall's former site...

Four thousand years ago, the Sun Moon Continent had collided with the Douluo Continent, and the Sun Moon Empire had invaded the Douluo Three Kingdoms.

Shrek Academy had led the three great empires to defeat the Sun Moon Empire, becoming the continent's foremost academy, its prestige blazing like the sun at its zenith...