Ning Rongrong wore a rose-red slip dress and fastened the three buttons on her long gloves, clearly outlining her little hands.
At seven years old, she was dressed like a princess.
"Daddy, will I get to see the people from the Divine Realm Empire tonight?"
"Yes." Ning Fengzhi smiled gently, as though he could already see what his daughter would look like grown up. "Daddy invited our friends from the Divine Realm Empire to the ball."
"That's wonderful."
When Ning Rongrong stood and walked out of the room, Ning Fengzhi tried to straighten her clothes, but she dodged him.
She thought everything she wore was perfectly elegant and needed no further adjustment.
At the doorway, Ning Rongrong turned and asked, "Daddy, has the Divine Realm Empire's greatest genius arrived?"
"He has." Remembering Long Yue's behavior in the dining hall, Ning Fengzhi's expression turned rather interesting. "Long Yue is... heh, wild and unrestrained. Quite a character."
"The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's wine really has character, too!" Long Yue raised his glass and drank heartily, his face flushed as he hooked an arm around Feng Xiaotian's neck. "Xiao, wouldn't you agree?"
Feng Xiaotian was fairly handsome, but with Long Yue's arm around him, he looked like a frightened quail, all his poise gone. "Um, Long Yue, could you first..."
"Ahem!"
Long Yue's gaze suddenly turned fierce, and Feng Xiaotian immediately changed his tune:
"...Brother Long, please let go of me. Two grown men tugging at each other like this doesn't look good."
The moment he uttered "Brother Long," sorrow welled up in Feng Xiaotian's heart.
He just had to run his damn mouth. Seeing Long Yue drinking alone, he had actually gone over to greet him, only to get dragged into drinking together-and suffer the humiliation of calling him "Brother Long."
Feng Xiaotian was seventeen this year, a full five years older than Long Yue.
How could this bastard from the Divine Realm Empire have the nerve? Wasn't he afraid of shaving years off his life?
"Xiao."
Long Yue pointed solemnly at the only girl among the Blazing Fire Academy students. She was tall, with long dark-red hair, and wore a gold-and-red school uniform. "It's because of that girl, isn't it? Forgetting your friends at the sight of a pretty face, you bastard!"
"Brother... Long, we only met tonight, didn't we? I've known Huo Wu longer than I've known you!"
Feng Xiaotian tried once again to wriggle out of Long Yue's arm.
Sadly, he discovered that it was as though a mountain had pinned him down. No matter how he moved, he couldn't escape Long Yue's grasp.
"I can teach you how to win her over. Want to learn?" Long Yue voluntarily released Feng Xiaotian and raised his eyebrows rakishly, like a seasoned veteran of romance.
As the saying went, a melon forcibly twisted off the vine wasn't sweet. Long Yue didn't necessarily need to keep an arm around his shoulders.
"Yes!"
Now Feng Xiaotian couldn't bear to leave Long Yue. He kept sidling closer, nodding eagerly and begging for guidance.
"..."
The other Godwind Academy members scattered, unable to bear watching their captain's ridiculous behavior.
Long Yue wasn't trying to fool Feng Xiaotian, either. He asked, "Her name is Huo Wu?"
"Yes." Like an ancient poet reciting verse, Feng Xiaotian began singing of his love for Huo Wu. "Brother Long, I've actually liked her for a long time..."
"You animal! You're seventeen, almost an adult. How can you have the nerve?" Long Yue looked heartbroken. "When you were working through Five Years of Competitions, Three Years of Simulation at the Soul Master Academy, Huo Wu was still wearing a Young Pioneer's red scarf."
"Slander! Shallow!" Feng Xiaotian hadn't understood Long Yue's strange comparison, but he could tell that Long Yue was mocking their considerable age gap.
Feng Xiaotian puffed out his chest like an ancient Greek scholar engaged in debate:
"A gap of five years is merely two neighboring waves in the long river of time. One may seem ahead and the other behind, but both rush toward the same ocean. It only seems enormous in youth because we're still at the river's source. When you're ninety, what's wrong with finding someone who's eighty-five?"
You, philosopher, yes?
Long Yue was thoroughly stunned. A philosopher had actually appeared in a world as lacking in humanistic thought as the Douluo Continent!
Long Yue felt like a player of lofty mountains and flowing waters who had found someone who understood his music, or like Bole discovering a thousand-mile steed. At last, all his horse-appraising talents had somewhere to shine:
"Well said, Xiao! What love truly cares about isn't our static positions on the coordinates of time, but the shared growth vector of our souls toward the future!"
"Y-you, you! You... really put that beautifully, Brother Long!" Long Yue's words stunned Feng Xiaotian so deeply that his scalp tingled.
Having someone sum up the feelings in his heart that he couldn't put into words felt wonderful from head to toe-even better than Huo Wu confessing her love to him.
This "Brother Long" was spoken with genuine feeling.
Long Yue and Feng Xiaotian's mental states somehow meshed perfectly. Like a turtle taking a shine to a mung bean, their minds suddenly clicked.
Feng Xiaotian asked quite honestly, "To tell you the truth, Brother Long, I came over to find out your level. Our academy has prepared a secret weapon this time, but we still have too little information about you. We don't feel confident."
That so-called secret weapon probably meant the Four Elements Academy joining forces to pressure the Heaven Dou Royal Academy into changing the sparring rules.
Long Yue thought, Luckily, I already heard about it from Tang Yuehua. Still, these people from the Heaven Dou Empire are underestimating the Soul Ancestors from the Divine Realm Empire. They really think a group fight will let a flurry of wild punches beat a seasoned master.
"Hey! You've already called me Brother Long. What else can I say?" Long Yue slapped his chest and promised, "Ask whatever you want. I'll definitely tell you the truth!"
Feng Xiaotian was an honest fellow, too, and actually asked, "Brother Long, what's your martial soul? What level are you? Do you have any soul bones or self-created soul skills?"
Wait, you're actually asking?
"My martial soul is the mountain dragon. Level forty-five. No soul bones, and no self-created soul skills." Long Yue was an honest fellow, too. A real man's word was a nail driven home.
Except that he concealed the information about his soul bone.
On the Douluo Continent, any soul bone, even the most ordinary kind, was something money couldn't necessarily buy. Conversely, being weak while carrying a soul bone was like a child holding gold in a bustling marketplace.
If word got out that Long Yue possessed a soul bone, even being from the Divine Realm Empire wouldn't stop people with ulterior motives from setting their sights on him.
As for the other information, even if he revealed it to Feng Xiaotian, Feng Xiaotian wouldn't necessarily be able to defeat him.
"Then I can't just ask without giving anything back."
A man who wore his heart on his sleeve, Feng Xiaotian disclosed his own information on the spot. "I have innate full soul power, a Gale Twin-Headed Wolf martial soul, and I'm a level thirty-four battle Soul Elder. No soul bones. My self-created soul skill is Gale Demon Wolf Twelve Consecutive Slashes!"
After saying that, Feng Xiaotian proudly raised his head, like a wolf lifting his tail... or a dog waiting for praise.
Long Yue smiled in understanding. He had seen through Feng Xiaotian's intentions. He claimed to be probing Long Yue's strength, but he was really just showing off.
That was right. Feng Xiaotian, a Soul Elder, was showing off in front of Long Yue, a Soul Ancestor younger than him.
All because of his self-created soul skill, Gale Demon Wolf Twelve Consecutive Slashes.
That self-created soul skill had given Feng Xiaotian courage.
In the understanding of the Douluo Continent's inhabitants, any soul master capable of creating their own soul skill was a dazzling, extraordinary talent.
After all, something like a soul bone could still be explained away with "a wealthy family and powerful backing" or "good personal luck." But self-created soul skills arose from a soul master's individual circumstances and depended entirely on personal talent.
However, Long Yue felt that Feng Xiaotian's talent had been wasted on self-created soul skills. This was the most serious problem that could arise in a soul master's cultivation: straying down the wrong path.
The next step would be cultivation deviation.
Before you continue