Exchange students

"Extinguish desire to purify the heart; extinguish desire to preserve heavenly principle."

"Calm the Mind and Quiet the Qi; Embrace the Origin and Return to Unity."

The morning sunlight had only just spilled onto the ground when Snow Girl began her meditation practice for the day. Huo Yuhao could see that her drive to advance along the path of a Soul Master closely resembled his own in his previous life.

Watching the gentle dawn light spill through the window, Huo Yuhao felt a rare peace within.

"Yuhao, what's wrong? Cheer up. After all, we survived this catastrophe!"

Snow Girl, who had awakened from a round of arduous meditation, asked as she watched the boy's brows quickly knit together, then glanced at the dawn light outside.

"Snow Girl, can you hear it? Those sounds outside-the sounds of children crying, of women crying!" At this point, Huo Yuhao's breathing grew rapid.

"We survived, but countless children lost their fathers in this disaster, and wives lost their husbands."

"Amid all this wailing and weeping, I feel deeply ashamed to have survived. Why was I the one who survived?"

Although he had not personally triggered this Sun Moon Lightless Doomsday, Huo Yuhao knew that its roots still lay with him.

Had he, Huo Yuhao, not refused to join the Tang Sect and go to Shrek, then hidden away in Sun Moon, preventing Shrek's Golden Tree from gathering fortune in a way that looked natural and reasonable to the Divine Realm, why would Shrek have planned this great explosion? Why would it have inflicted calamity on Sun Moon to gather fortune for Shrek, where the Golden Tree stood, and for the nations of Douluo, where Shrek was located?

Huo Yuhao, who possessed a profound understanding of the workings of fortune and had been deeply involved in many of his father-in-law's schemes in his previous life, understood one basic principle: even if blessings and calamities could transform into one another, their opposing nature-either blessing or calamity-still held true.

If someone wins money in a gambling house, someone else must have lost money. That is the essence of fortune. Fortunately, the way of heaven takes from those with excess to replenish those with too little, so fortune is, on the whole, distributed randomly and evenly.

All manipulation of fortune creates localized exceptions.

And I, this Son of the Plane, am myself an accidental, localized exception! Huo Yuhao thought.

From the moment he chose not to go to Shrek, the resulting chain reaction of Shrek Academy's setbacks in the Soul Fighting Tournament over these past days had made the vast share of this planet's fortune held by Shrek, built around the Golden Tree, look "unnatural" from the Divine Realm's perspective, no matter how one viewed it.

If the Tang Family did not want the God of Destruction investigating the secrets within the Golden Tree, they had to do something to keep their claim-that "the concentration of the entire Douluo Star's fortune at Shrek Academy is a reasonable natural phenomenon"-at least nominally defensible.

Thus, the most direct method was for Sun Moon to suffer calamity and bear ill fortune. In the past, this had taken the form of rampaging Evil Soul Masters from the Holy Spirit Cult, established with Blood Infant Douluo as its theoretical founder.

The Evil Soul Masters are in Sun Moon, and the beast tide was triggered by the Body Sect. They brought calamity upon themselves and took on their own ill fortune. It is perfectly reasonable, then, for our Shrek to become the destination fortune itself seeks out.

But now that explanation no longer holds water! A Son of the Plane into whom the Plane Consciousness poured everything never even went to Shrek. Then how do they explain the immense fortune Shrek has amassed over all these years, or the two-thirds of the entire planet's life energy it monopolized by drawing on that fortune?

Striking at the Star Dou Great Forest was something the Tang Family had to do! After becoming an [Audience], Huo Yuhao had glimpsed the true history by reading "Douluo Continent" and "Peerless Tang Sect." He now understood that the Emperor Auspicious Beast had already been five thousand years old during the era of Supreme God Tang San's rise.

Before his ascension to the Divine Realm, Tang San had not fully mastered the Asura God's divinity. Naturally, he was no match for the Silver Dragon King, whose essence amounted to half of the Dragon God Divinity.

But once Tang San held power in the Divine Realm, the last obstacles to his taking the Star Dou Great Forest firmly in hand were the God of Destruction and the Goddess of Life.

Without Huo Yuhao, or if Huo Yuhao slipped beyond their control, the Tang Family would have no need to treat the Emperor Auspicious Beast politely by saying, "Qiu'er is also Tang Wutong."

For the current situation was this: the Tang Family had to refine either Huo Yuhao or the Emperor Auspicious Beast, who represented the fortune destiny had allotted to Soul Beasts. Otherwise, they had no way to conceal what they had done within the Golden Tree.

In this life, up to now, my main abilities have all resided in the Eye of Destiny. The only ability I have currently inscribed upon this weapon is Eternal Instant, a skill that controls time.

If the Tang Family unleashes every means available to it on the Douluo Continent in this era, hunting me through heaven and earth, I might have a chance of survival. But Snow Girl and the others...

"Snow Girl, get ready. In three days, once the social aftermath of this Sun Moon Lightless Doomsday has largely settled, we're moving."

"But for these three days, we won't go anywhere. The blood and filth weighing on this city are so heavy that there's no telling how long they'll take to dissipate..."

After noticing that Tang Wutong did not yet carry the Emperor Auspicious Beast's aura-in other words, she had not yet devoured the Emperor Auspicious Beast-Huo Yuhao knew there were many things he had to face.

You once died for me. How could I stand by and watch you suffer!

Snow Girl said little upon hearing Huo Yuhao's words. That day, after the two of them performed a second round of bone-setting treatment on Ye Guyi, Snow Girl went shopping at the Daily Necessities Supermarket on the grounds of the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy.

Huo Yuhao, meanwhile, went to Teacher Xuan's Laboratory Three to obtain some alloys for making Soul Tools.

Naturally, such a devastating explosion made it impossible for the Soul Fighting Tournament to continue.

Three days later, Crown Prince Xu Tianran presided over the closing ceremony.

"As I am sure you all know, this catastrophe has left a million of our nation's residents dead or injured. I deeply regret that this tournament could not reach a successful conclusion. Yet flowers will bloom again: I look forward to the day I reunite with all of you who came to our nation to compete in this tournament."

As Xu Tianran delivered these pleasantries, his voice and expression both carried sorrow. He concealed his joy very well: his father had suffered such a fright in the great explosion that he had only days left to live, and Xu Tianran would soon ascend the throne.

Xu Tianran's verdict on the catastrophe was straightforward: it had been an enormous terrorist attack orchestrated by the Heaven Dou Empire's Body Sect. Sun Moon therefore declared war on the Heaven Dou Empire.

At this closing farewell ceremony, the more Xuan Zi looked at the young crown prince, the more he liked him. Of course, Shrek was located within the Heaven Dou Empire, after all, so he could hardly display his excitement openly.

"Crown Prince of the mortal realm's Sun Moon, I have a request. Might you grant it?"

"Two people from your nation distinguished themselves in this tournament: they defeated the students at Shrek Academy, which my Father God left in the mortal realm."

"My Father God wishes to nurture such outstanding talents... Crown Prince, would you be willing to part with them and let these two attend Shrek Academy as exchange students for a year?"

Xu Tianran patiently listened as this daughter of a god conveyed the heavenly god's will, while using a Communication Soul Tool to speak with Long Xiaoyao in the shadows.

After seeing Long Xiaoyao shake his head in warning-telling him it would be best not to clash with Tang Wutong-Xu Tianran inadvertently met Tang Wutong's gaze.

Pink light was already shooting from Tang Wutong's eyes!

Soft-Boned Enchanting Rabbit, Dazzling Eyes-divine skill, Bewitchment!

For an existence such as the Heavenly Empress, a single thought within her mind could contain three thousand worlds. Even with a Level 9 Soul Tool protecting him, how could Xu Tianran resist an illusion cast by the divine power the Heavenly Empress had left within Tang Wutong?

At once, Xu Tianran's eyes also began to glow pink.

"If offering those two up would please the heavenly god, how could I dare refuse?" Xu Tianran said calmly.