"Arrogant! What gives you the-"
Before Dugu Yan's indignant rebuke had finished, An Jing slowly raised his right hand and casually closed it around the empty air before him!
Hum!
No dazzling Soul Ring lit up, nor was there even a violent storm of Soul Power.
Yet the transparent breeze flowing beside Dugu Yan seemed to solidify in that instant into tangible, transparent shackles, like layers of indestructible vacuum film that bound her entire body without leaving a single gap!
Under Ye Lingling's terrified gaze, Dugu Yan had no time even to release her Martial Soul before a gentle but irresistible invisible current lifted her several meters into the air!
The noble students and teachers passing by after class all stared, dumbfounded.
Kidnapping a Titled Douluo's own granddaughter in the street, then dangling her in the sky like a kite?!
"Bastard! What did you do to me?! Let me go!"
Dugu Yan struggled frantically within her shackles of air, but the surrounding air was as supple and resilient as refined gold. No matter how she urged her Jade Phosphorous Serpent Martial Soul into action, she could not budge it in the slightest and could only scream in the sky, beside herself with humiliation and fury.
"Stop screaming."
An Jing could not even be bothered to raise his head. His indifferent voice carried a trace of undisguised malice:
"Relax. I don't have the slightest worldly desire for you.
Your figure can't compare to this big kitty beside me, and your looks fall even further short. Don't think so highly of yourself."
Zhu Zhuqing, who had still been maintaining the bearing of a cold, beautiful assassin, unexpectedly heard An Jing's almost public declaration of his opinion,
Especially that teasing "big kitty." Her fair, translucent earlobes instantly flushed a burning crimson. She turned her face away in embarrassment, but pressed her lips together without a word.
High above them, Dugu Yan's face flushed even redder with rage, her serpentine eyes raking viciously over An Jing:
"Bastard! You'd better put me down right now! Otherwise, when my grandfather returns, he'll tear you into ten thousand pieces and torture you to death with ten thousand poisons devouring your body!"
"There's no need to wait for him to return. I'll take you to him right now."
An Jing waved a hand, and the transparent current binding Dugu Yan followed steadily behind him through the air, as though drawn by invisible strings. She truly looked like a human-shaped kite.
Having witnessed this entire, almost miraculous display, Zhu Zhuqing, half a step behind him, could no longer suppress the shock in her heart and asked softly:
"Senior... is this some special Soul Skill innate to your Martial Soul?"
An ability that could silently turn air into a prison without any pulsing Soul Rings was utterly unheard of in the traditional Soul Master theories of the Douluo Continent!
"A Soul Skill?"
An Jing strode forward on his long legs, offering instruction in a casual tone:
"Those are merely rigid formulas that weaklings copy through Soul Rings.
Once your development and control of your Martial Soul's essence reach a certain level, it becomes an extension of your limbs and blood. With a single thought, all creation bends to your will."
His Martial Soul was the sky.
Wherever the sky reached was his domain.
This was not one of those crude templates from Douluo I or even Douluo II that relied on Soul Rings for power, but a "child of the sky" with absolute control over air currents, clouds, thunder, and even weather and atmospheric pressure.
Even without being fully equipped with divine-grade Battle Armor and Soul Tool Technology, his application of microscopic aerodynamics alone was already an utterly overwhelming dimensionality reduction strike in this era of extremely primitive, backward Martial Soul Theory.
"Deep... control over a Martial Soul?"
Zhu Zhuqing murmured to herself, towering waves of shock surging through her heart.
Every Soul Master on the continent sought older Soul Rings and stronger externally granted Soul Skills, yet this mysterious, powerful senior before her had pointed out another great path leading straight to the essence of a Martial Soul!
For a moment, an unusual light shimmered in the girl's cool black eyes as she quietly wondered:
If I could develop my Nether Civet Martial Soul to its limits as Senior has, what wondrous heights could it reach?
Just as Zhu Zhuqing became absorbed in her intense yearning for and contemplation of the path of the strong.
Smack!
A crisp, clear sound suddenly rang through the air.
Without warning, a broad, warm, powerful palm landed with utter naturalness on her full, pert bottom, firm and springy beneath her tight black leather pants.
The leather yielded in an elastic curve, accompanied by a slight jiggle, as a hot, tingling sensation shot up her spine to the crown of her head like an electric current!
"Mm...!"
Zhu Zhuqing had never expected anything like this. Caught completely off guard, a faint, soft, girlish whimper escaped her throat, and her entire body went rigid as though struck by electricity.
Her delicate face, normally as unapproachable as ten-thousand-year-old ice, flushed from her cheeks all the way down her elegant, snow-white neck. She froze in place, so embarrassed she seemed about to bleed crimson.
"S-Senior... you... what are you doing?!"
One of Zhu Zhuqing's delicate hands instinctively reached behind her to shield herself. She resembled a kitten whose tail had been stepped on, her entire body as taut as a fully drawn bowstring.
Her delicate, pretty face, usually cold as frost and forbidding to strangers, was now covered in a deep crimson blush, while a watery sheen of shame and anger rose in her eyes.
Born into a ruthless, cold-blooded family of the Star Luo Empire's highest nobility, she had spent her entire childhood guarding against assassination and betrayal, forging defenses around her heart stronger than ten-thousand-year-old black iron.
Never mind letting another man touch her body-even Dai Mubai, her nominal fiancé, who had ultimately fled alone to the Heaven Dou Empire, had never made such an outrageous, improper advance!
Yet this white-haired young man before her had delivered that slap so cleanly and decisively that she had been taken advantage of before she even realized when he had moved...
Meanwhile, An Jing, the culprit himself, never slowed his steps. His unhurried voice drifted back from ahead:
"Stop standing there in a daze. Fairly firm to the touch-a barely passing grade. Keep up. Let's go."
"You..." Zhu Zhuqing clenched her teeth, her fingertips trembling with embarrassment.
Before she could protest, An Jing's careless voice rang out again:
"Besides, I did save your life from your pursuers, even if it was only in passing.
According to those hackneyed storybooks on your continent, you ought to repay a life-saving debt by giving yourself to me."
An Jing turned his head and glanced sidelong at her, a faint, playful smile tugging at his lips:
"Still, I'm not particularly interested in little brats.
Let's compromise. Your punishment will be to stay beside me as my personal maid.
Serve tea and water ordinarily, and when necessary... warm my bed while you're at it.
Perhaps one day, when I'm in a good mood, I'll casually give you a pointer or two. That'll be enough for you to break free of your pathetic family destiny completely."
Warm his bed?!
Those words exploded in Zhu Zhuqing's mind like a thunderclap.
She had suffered since childhood and fought with everything she had to become stronger, all so she could command her own fate. When had she ever imagined sinking to the point of becoming someone's bed-warming maid?!
"That sort of thing... absolutely not!"
Ashamed and furious, Zhu Zhuqing backed away repeatedly like a black cat with its fur bristling, shaking her head like a rattle drum.
"No?"
An Jing stopped and tilted his head slightly, his fathomless eyes looking down upon her. He slowly raised two fingers and gave an almost imperceptible beckoning motion in the air.
"You seem to have misunderstood something. You aren't in any position to bargain with me right now."
He tipped his chin toward the sky and reminded her coldly:
"If you don't keep up, I wouldn't mind hanging a cat up there too.
I'm flying a kite either way. Two would make a nice pair."
Bound up in the sky...?!
Zhu Zhuqing instinctively looked up at Dugu Yan, tightly imprisoned in transparent air above them.
With the vacuum film wrapped so closely around her, every detail of Dugu Yan's graceful curves was outlined. Suspended by the current like a ridiculous doll, she looked ready to die from humiliation and rage at this forced "public execution"...
Merely imagining herself in the same position, hanging in the sky and paraded through the streets, made Zhu Zhuqing's entire face flush from her ears to the crown of her head. Her toes nearly curled inside her leather boots.
That degree of social death would be a hundred times worse than simply killing her!
"I... I understand."
Zhu Zhuqing practically forced the words through her teeth. Biting her lower lip hard, she dared not offer another word of protest and could only move her long, shapely legs, jogging to stay close behind An Jing.
Before you continue