At the stairway, Huo Yuhao came face-to-face with a youngster with pink-and-blue hair. She held a small bundle in one hand, slung over her back, and a dormitory key between the fingers of the other.
Huo Yuhao could see the three digits engraved on the key: 108. It seemed she was his roommate.
Huo Yuhao studied her, but she held her head high with an imperious air and strode briskly out of the stairwell.
Huo Yuhao shrugged. With Wang Dong's temperament, she won't touch my things before I arrive anyway.
There was no need to waste time following her back. He might as well look around the Shrek campus first, so he turned and continued out of the dormitory.
Just as he left the dormitory building, he heard an aged, leisurely voice say,
"Young man, you've got a steady stride. You're not from an ordinary noble family, are you?"
Huo Yuhao paused and looked back. Mu En was lying in a reclining chair, gently rocking it with a creak, creak, watching Huo Yuhao with an utterly unruffled air.
Huo Yuhao couldn't help glancing down at his legs. After spending these past few years in military camps, he had unconsciously picked up a military bearing even when he walked.
He raised his head and cupped his hands toward Mu En. "You have a keen eye, senior. I'm the son of a city defense officer. My father has trained me strictly since I was little."
Mu En nodded. Huo Yuhao's words were half true and half false, a story he had already coordinated with Dai Hao.
As it happened, the city defense officer in the city that had written his recommendation letter was also surnamed Huo. By the time Huo Yuhao received the letter, everything had already been arranged.
Even if Mu En actually traced Huo Yuhao's recommendation letter and investigated, he would find a child named Huo Yuhao listed in that generation of the defense officer's family genealogy.
Unless he arrested that officer outright and tortured him for a confession, there would be no holes in the story.
After all, the Douluo World didn't have the technology to test DNA.
Mu En nodded and looked at Huo Yuhao with interest. "Oh? Interesting. What's your name?"
Huo Yuhao bowed to Mu En. "My name is Huo Yuhao, senior."
Mu En nodded, then waved him on. "Off you go. Shrek Academy certainly encourages diligent cultivation, but there's no need to walk as though you're charging through wind and fire."
Huo Yuhao acknowledged him, then deliberately controlled his steps as he walked away, trying to make his gait as ordinary as possible.
Although today was the final day of official admissions, it wasn't over yet, so naturally the class assignment lists hadn't been posted.
On this outing, Huo Yuhao merely checked the bulletin board's location in advance and toured most of Shrek Academy's outer courtyard.
When he reached a small bamboo grove, he saw a girl sitting on a bench beside it.
The girl looked very short, petite and delicate, almost like a figurine.
She wore the same new-student uniform as Huo Yuhao, with identical colors and overall design, except that the lower half was a long skirt.
The girl noticed Huo Yuhao looking at her and also saw his new-student uniform. She gave him a polite smile.
Huo Yuhao nodded without saying anything and simply walked into the grove.
After making a circuit of the grove and returning to the entrance, Huo Yuhao saw that the girl was still sitting there, looking lost in thought.
Figuring that one more acquaintance was always better than one more enemy, he couldn't resist speaking up.
"Hello, I'm Huo Yuhao. May I ask your name?"
Huo Yuhao's voice interrupted the girl's thoughts. She raised her head to look at him, then nodded after a moment and answered,
"My name is Xiao Xiao. It's nice to meet you."
Huo Yuhao froze briefly. Am I really this lucky? In this short stretch of time, I've run into both Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao, and Mu En even struck up a conversation with me.
Though Mu En was more likely to have spoken to him because his footsteps were a little loud and had disturbed him.
Huo Yuhao took two steps closer, moving out of the main path, then stopped at a polite conversational distance from Xiao Xiao and asked,
"What are you thinking about?"
Xiao Xiao hesitated for a moment, then smiled at Huo Yuhao. "Nothing."
With that, she prepared to stand and leave. Huo Yuhao didn't stop her. Thinking it over, if she really had been contemplating something private,
there was no way she would tell someone she had only just met today. That was hardly strange, though he still couldn't help glancing at Xiao Xiao.
After a moment's thought, Huo Yuhao deliberately let out a laugh. Xiao Xiao couldn't help turning back to look at him, a little more wariness in her eyes.
"What are you laughing at?!"
Huo Yuhao shook his head, then said to Xiao Xiao, "I remembered a joke I heard from a storyteller on the road. There was someone with twin martial souls who wanted to catch up with a peer who had three soul rings, all because of his vanity. So, when he'd cultivated one of his martial souls to two rings, he added a soul ring to his second martial soul as well."
"Then he told that three-ring peer, 'Now we both have three soul rings, so you have nothing to laugh at me about.'"
Xiao Xiao's face went pale in an instant. She then looked at Huo Yuhao with even greater wariness, nodding with a smile that never reached her eyes as she said,
"That's it? What's so funny about that?"
Huo Yuhao smiled at Xiao Xiao. "Twin martial souls only have two advantages. One is that your soul power is more condensed than with an ordinary martial soul. The other is that you can add nine high-level soul rings to your second martial soul."
"As soul masters, we all know that absorbing a soul ring often brings a substantial increase in soul power. In other words, if he cultivated his primary martial soul to nine rings before adding soul rings to his second one, he could greatly accelerate the growth of his cultivation."
Xiao Xiao glanced at Huo Yuhao, then nodded. The wariness in her eyes actually faded a little as she continued,
"So that's how it works. Then it really is quite funny."
Huo Yuhao nodded, then said to Xiao Xiao, "My sudden laughter might have offended you. I'm sorry."
Xiao Xiao shook her head, then said earnestly to Huo Yuhao, "It's all right, because... I might offend you a little too."
Now it was Huo Yuhao's turn to freeze. I've never heard of people on the Douluo Continent being this fierce. Even if there was a certain implication, and I told a joke that had something to do with her, surely she wouldn't attack me here over that?
But thinking of the competitive Xiao Xiao from the original story, it really was possible. Huo Yuhao sighed at how hard it was to be a good person and prepared to take a defensive stance.
Yet in the next instant, Xiao Xiao stepped forward and said to Huo Yuhao, "Could you let me touch your face?"
Huo Yuhao: "???"
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