The Idol in Huo Yun'er's Heart

On the road back to the Star Luo Empire.

Huo Yuhao gazed at the scenery of his homeland, his expression conflicted.

"The White Tiger Dai Family, the former Star Luo Imperial Family, descendants of Dai Mubai, a deity of the Divine Realm... Once His Grace the duke returns, we won't have to fear that duchess from the Zhu Family anymore."

Huo Yuhao had grown up hearing those words from his mother. But in the end, his mother had never lived to see that day.

But what did Huo Yun'er have to pin her hopes on besides Dai Hao? He, Huo Yuhao, was a useless good-for-nothing with mediocre talent. Even a household servant at the Duke's Mansion cultivated several times faster than he did. He could not become someone his mother could depend on.

Under those circumstances, he had the least right of anyone to accuse his mother of doing anything wrong.

Even though the Huo Yuhao of this life had once reached great heights, when he looked back on those days in the woodshed, he still could not think of a way out. Before meeting Brother Sky Dream and Elder Yi, he had been a complete good-for-nothing with an innate soul power of rank one.

And in the jungle that was the Douluo Continent, which had gradually revealed its true face since Tang San became a God-King, even breathing was a crime for a good-for-nothing.

During those long years in the Divine Realm in his previous life, Huo Yuhao had tried his best to bury his head in the sand and play his role as [Huo Yuhao], but sensitive as he was, he could still discern what the looks that Dai Mubai, Dai Hao, and their whole crowd directed at him and his mother meant.

After the Great God Realm emerged from the black hole, Huo Yuhao returned to the Douluo Continent without dwelling on why the Spirit Pagoda he had left there had ended up opposing Tang Wulin, the crown prince of his father-in-law [Tang Bingqing]. Now, after opening "Douluo Continent" in the [Audience] interface, he understood. It was simply that the Spirit Pagoda, responsible for awakening martial souls for everyone on the continent who might become a soul master, had been marked by the Tang family because, like Spirit Hall, this act truly gave the mud-legged peasants a possible path to rise above their station.

In the Tang family's eyes, he, Huo Yuhao, had always been a mud-legged peasant who had risen in the world, an upstart who had rooted up their family's precious cabbage. The Spirit Pagoda was merely an extension of that image. People of the Qiangu Family, whose Coiling Dragon Staff martial soul cultivated evil-breaking power, had lost their minds and colluded with evil soul masters? It was merely the same script as when Tang San rose to prominence and Spirit Hall just happened to have a madwoman named Bibi Dong become its pope.

After settling his emotions, Huo Yuhao reached the gates of Star Luo City, clenched his fists, and entered.

Not long after entering the city, Huo Yuhao appeared like a phantom in a small stretch of hills surrounding the Duke's Mansion. This was where he had spent his childhood. Soon, he arrived before a grave. Back then, the young Huo Yuhao had been utterly incapable of giving his mother a grand burial. Her grave had held only a wooden headstone he had carved himself and a mound of yellow earth.

But now, that wooden headstone was gone.

All that remained on the grave was a string of words forming a curse: "Lowly bitch, don't think you'll find peace even in death."

The dark-attribute soul power lingering on those words had undoubtedly been left by an evil soul master. Had evil soul masters invaded the White Tiger Duke's Mansion? Of course not. Clearly, the duchess had hired some rogue evil soul masters who had failed to gain acceptance into the Holy Spirit Cult to do this. Of course, Huo Yuhao did not know whether this was instead the work of the Tang family in the Divine Realm after discovering something unusual about him.

Although God King Tang had planted inner demons in Huo Yuhao during his previous life through Wang Dong, Tang Wutong, and the Haodong Three Wonders, he was no fool. He had never doubted how ruthless the Tang family could be when discarding a pawn.

When they needed you, you were their sweetheart; when they didn't, you were dog shit. The Tang family carried that approach to its absolute extreme.

With the divine consciousness of a God-King who had lived two lives, Huo Yuhao soon found his mother's remnant soul in the Netherworld of the Douluo Continent's plane. By then, the curse had eaten away at Huo Yun'er's soul until it was riddled with holes. Huo Yuhao used Elder Yi's Necromancy to bestow a blessing upon her soul.

Seeing that her son seemed able to see her, Huo Yun'er was both startled and frightened. "Little Yuhao, why have you come? Hurry and leave! It's dangerous here! Especially lately, after the duchess brought those strange people here..."

Huo Yuhao reassured her, "Mother, rest easy. There's no danger. Come with me. I'll take you somewhere safe."

Hearing Huo Yuhao say this, Huo Yun'er was overjoyed. "Little Yuhao, you've mastered a trade? Let's hurry and find Brother Hao. He'll arrange a good position for you. You won't have to worry about having nowhere to put your skills to use and wasting away your years."

Hearing those words in his mother's consciousness, Huo Yuhao raised his eyebrows, and fierce hatred welled up within him. Always thinking the best of others, believing they would reciprocate those feelings.

That was Huo Yun'er's true nature, and it was the outlook she had instilled in him-utterly useless in this wholly self-serving world.

He was about to erupt in anger, but when he saw his mother's fragile soul, Huo Yuhao ultimately swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue.

Huo Yun'er truly had done everything she knew how to do for him. What right did he, her son, have to demand more from the person who had given birth to him and raised him?

Forcing down the towering malice in his heart, Huo Yuhao smiled. "Mother, I want to ask you something. If a man's feelings for a woman are sincere, do you think he would entrust those feelings to a dagger? If that so-called duke truly wouldn't forget you, as you said, then what is all that talk he spreads throughout the Star Luo Empire every day about the pure love between him and the duchess?"

Huo Yuhao's words left Huo Yun'er stunned. Still in soul form, she seemed to forget that she no longer had a body and reached to clasp Huo Yuhao's hand tightly. She had never imagined her son would say such things to her. As the God of Emotion in his previous life, Huo Yuhao had commanded emotions and was acutely sensitive to their fluctuations. He knew that his words had struck a heavy blow against Huo Yun'er's fanatical trust in Dai Hao, the trust upon which she unconditionally pinned all her hopes for happiness.

This was an opportunity-an opportunity to shatter the perfect idol of Dai Hao in Huo Yun'er's heart.

Huo Yuhao continued, "Mother, I'll soon take you to see that Dai Hao you've been longing for. But I must warn you: whatever you see, don't get worked up. After all these years, after no one spared you a thought when you died miserably in that woodshed, you should be prepared for many things."

In the White Tiger Duke's Mansion, the duke's room was lavish to the extreme. Not a single item there was made of anything other than gold, silver, agate, or diamonds.

Using Necromancy to conceal his presence, Huo Yuhao slipped outside the window with Huo Yun'er's soul and let her listen to the conversation taking place inside.

At that moment, Dai Hao was in a towering rage.

Because the Sun Moon Empire had not deployed its forces on a large scale over the past few years, the troops along its border with the Star Luo Empire consisted only of its second- and third-rate divisions. Dai Hao could lead the Star Luo Empire's million-strong main force to harass the Sun Moon border troops for a while, have his soldiers slaughter a bunch of Star Luo border residents as easily as slicing melons and chopping vegetables to claim military merit, then make a few respectable public remarks such as "A man who can't control his third leg isn't a real man" and put on a show of pure love with the duchess. Just like that, he could package himself as the nation's dream man, the White Tiger God of War.

But lately, the fighting strength of those second- and third-rate Sun Moon divisions had increased dramatically, shattering that sweet arrangement. Over the past three months, one sortie of his had cost him seventy thousand soldiers in a single day.

His incompetence, which had lost troops and disgraced the nation, lay exposed before everyone. How was he supposed to clean up this mess?

"My lady, you wouldn't want your husband to become the laughingstock of the Star Luo Empire, would you?" Dai Hao asked calmly, looking at the duchess as she sobbed into her handkerchief.