Only then did Huang Heyun notice Dai Youheng. However little presence Youheng had, failing to see him at this point would have meant he was truly blind.
"Dai Youheng? It's you, you damned simp!" Huang Heyun's eyes instantly turned bloodshot, his fury drowning out all reason and thought. "You dared to ambush me? You're asking to die!"
Clearly, Huang Heyun had mistaken Youheng for that simp.
After all, apart from their Martial Souls and bearing, their appearances were utterly identical.
He had no time to consider why his opponent's attack carried such a bizarre, freezing attribute, nor how he had approached without a sound. Anger and humiliation had already robbed him of his judgment.
Dai Youheng's face broke into a smug, vicious, arrogant smile that perfectly suited the simp's identity. He slammed Huang Heyun into the ground, stepped forward, and raised his foot before viciously stomping on his face. His sole ground against that face twisted with rage and humiliation, pressing it into the icy dirt!
"Hmph! I'm returning to Shrek Academy tomorrow." He mimicked that nauseating, self-important tone. "I came here today to give you one last warning! Stay away from Princess Jiujiu from now on. She belongs to me! Trash like you has no right to covet her!"
He pressed down harder, feeling the muffled roars and struggles beneath his foot.
"If you refuse to listen, and I catch you harboring improper thoughts about Princess Jiujiu again..." He bent down, his voice as cold as ice. "I'll make you regret ever being born!"
After delivering those carefully crafted lines designed to stoke hatred to its limit, Dai Youheng snorted coldly and withdrew his foot. Without sparing another glance at Huang Heyun, who lay utterly wretched on the ground, consumed by fury, he turned and walked away at an unhurried pace. His figure swiftly vanished into the thick darkness, as though he had never appeared.
"Dai! You! Heng!"
A full fifteen minutes passed before Huang Heyun barely managed to dispel some of the chill within him and struggled to his feet.
His face was covered in mud, shoe prints, and blood, leaving him a miserable sight. He stared fixedly in the direction Dai Youheng had disappeared, his chest heaving violently and his eyes brimming with savage killing intent!
An unspeakable humiliation! An utterly unspeakable humiliation!
A simp he had always looked down on had ambushed him and humiliated him by trampling his face! How could he possibly swallow this insult?
"Aaaaargh!!!" He let out a beastlike growl and smashed the boulder beside him to pieces with one punch. "You damned simp! Just you wait! Once you leave Star Luo City... I'll make you pay! No one will be able to save you!"
He had completely cast aside the inexplicable power of that earlier attack. All his seething fury and killing intent were now firmly focused on the "Dai Youheng" who would return to Shrek tomorrow!
Meanwhile, the true mastermind, Dai Youheng, had already returned to the inn. He dismissed his Soul Skill and washed his hands, as though he had merely gone out for a stroll.
"The bait has been scattered, and the blade has been sharpened." He chuckled to the Snow Empress within his mind. "Now all we need to do is wait until tomorrow and watch that enraged Dark Demon Tiger sink his teeth into that unsuspecting simp."
He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes, a faint smile lingering at the corners of his mouth.
He would set off tomorrow, and the journey would hardly be dull.
Within his mind, the Snow Empress's cool voice rang out with a peculiar inflection. "Your methods are somewhat despicable, but... perfectly suited to the occasion."
Dai Youheng raised his eyebrows slightly and replied inwardly, "Oh? Sister Snow Empress, don't you think this trick of killing with a borrowed blade is a little beneath us?"
"Beneath us?" There was a trace of contempt in the Snow Empress's voice, as though she had heard something ridiculous. "What does that even mean? The weak are meat for the strong. That has always been the most fundamental law of heaven and earth. In the Far North, staying alive and growing stronger are the only things that matter."
Her tone grew distant, as though she were recalling an exceedingly ancient past. "Do you think I was born the seven-hundred-thousand-year-old Lord of the Far North? I, too, was once weak, struggling to survive beneath the claws and fangs of countless Soul Beasts stronger than myself. Had I lacked cunning, had I not known how to exploit my surroundings, my opponents' weaknesses, and even the conflicts between them, I would long ago have become nourishment for another Soul Beast's advancement. I could never have grown step by step into the sovereign who ruled the Far North."
"Stay alive and reach the summit. The process never matters." The Snow Empress's voice was decisive, carrying the ruthlessness and pragmatism of the sovereign of ice and snow. "Your method is efficient, saves effort, and conceals you as thoroughly as possible while avoiding risk. That is good. Such is the world of Soul Beasts, and it seems the human world is no different. If anything, it is even more hypocritical and complicated."
She paused, then concluded, "So I see nothing wrong with what you have done. On the contrary, you are clever. You understand how to exploit every available resource, including your opponent's anger. That is how the strong should think. As for that worthless wretch who only knows how to wag his tail and beg for favor, he does not even deserve to be a stepping stone."
Hearing this, Dai Youheng's smile deepened. It seemed this sovereign of ice and snow from the Far North shared a philosophy of survival remarkably compatible with his own.
"In that case, let's get some proper rest." Dai Youheng relaxed his mind. "Tomorrow, the show begins."
Silence settled over the hotel room. Only the cool moonlight streamed through the window lattice, spilling across the young man's calm face and its hidden edge.
A hunt targeting another version of himself had silently begun. And his ally was a queen of ice and snow who likewise believed in the law that the weak were meat for the strong.
The next morning, in a relatively secluded courtyard within the White Tiger Duke's Mansion.
Youheng the simp finally finished packing after much dawdling. His mother, a beautiful woman whose brow carried an inescapable air of sorrow and meekness, carefully straightened his collar, her reminders flowing without pause.
"Heng'er, once you reach the academy, you must rein in your wandering thoughts and cultivate diligently." Her voice was gentle, but carried a barely perceptible catch. "Shrek Academy is the finest academy on the continent. This is a rare opportunity. Although your father is usually rather strict with you brothers, sending you there means he hopes you will achieve something."
She sighed softly and looked toward Dai Luoli, who stood quietly nearby, his eyes filled with dependence on and envy toward his older brother. "Your mother is only a concubine, and Luo Li's talent is... ah, the future hopes of our branch rest entirely on you. Only when you become strong yourself will life in this mansion improve for the three of us. Do you understand?"
Dai Luoli's talent was the poorest among the Dai Family's brothers, so she could only place her hopes in Dai Youheng.
Looking into his mother's earnest, worried eyes, Dai Youheng felt a rare pang of guilt.
Though he was a simp, he still respected his mother.
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