Almost as soon as the announcement of Gui Jiankui's elimination ended, another announcement followed. "Mu Shengsheng has been eliminated by Jiang Nannan."
Without Gui Jiankui, her teammate who specialized in powerful control, to hold Jiang Nannan back, Mu Shengsheng was on her own. However fast she was, she could not outrun Jiang Nannan's teleportation. If she could not even compete in speed, her greatest strength, how could a three-ring Soul Elder like her defeat Jiang Nannan, a Four-Ring Soul Ancestor?
Not to mention Dai Youheng, who stood nearby, watching like a tiger eyeing its prey. Jiang Nannan soon spotted an opening and sent her out of the arena with a fierce combination of attacks.
With the fighting momentarily over, Jiang Nannan let out a soft breath, walked over to Dai Youheng, and said sincerely, "Thank you for helping me, junior." Her tone was much gentler than when she spoke to Xu Sanshi.
Dai Youheng merely nodded, his voice calm and even. "You're welcome."
Yet this seemingly ordinary scene instantly ignited a towering blaze of jealousy in someone who had just followed the noise to find them.
"What are you two doing?"
A furious roar came from the other end of the passage. Xu Sanshi stood there with the Xuanming Shield in hand, his face livid and his eyes practically spitting fire as he stared fixedly at Dai Youheng and Jiang Nannan, who were standing rather close together.
Here he comes, just as expected. Dai Youheng laughed inwardly. Everything's going according to plan.
See? As long as Jiang Nannan's here, I'll find Xu Sanshi sooner or later.
"Xu Sanshi, what's gotten into you?" Jiang Nannan's slender brows shot up as she immediately rebuked him coldly. "If Youheng hadn't helped me in time, Gui Jiankui and Mu Shengsheng might already have teamed up to eliminate me! I was only thanking him!"
Seeing Jiang Nannan defend Dai Youheng made Xu Sanshi so furious his liver ached. He cried out to her aggrievedly, "Nannan, I've been looking for you all this time! Even if this brat hadn't shown up, I would've found you right away and saved you in time! One look at him tells you he's up to no good. He's been pestering you since last year. He's obviously lusting after your beauty and plotting something!"
At those words, Dai Youheng timed his expression perfectly, showing a trace of "helplessness" and the bitterness of "being misunderstood." He said, "Senior Xu, you've really misunderstood me. You weren't the only one I used to pester besides Senior Jiang, were you? There was also Senior Bei Bei, Yuhao, Wang Dong, Xiao Xiao... Are you saying I was lusting after every one of you?"
He paused, turning his gaze toward Jiang Nannan, his tone becoming especially sincere. "Senior Jiang, please believe me. What I did before was purely an investment born of necessity."
He lowered his head slightly, his voice sinking as though he were recounting a painful secret he could barely bring himself to speak of. "Although I come from the White Tiger Duke's Mansion, I'm only a concubine's son. I've been unwanted since childhood, constantly oppressed by my father's principal wife and her sons. Every step I take within the family is a struggle. The only reason I went out of my way to please people and make connections was because I could tell that Wang Dong, Senior Bei Bei, and Senior Xu came from extraordinary backgrounds and would surely become dragons and phoenixes among men. And you, Senior Jiang, may be a commoner, but you're one of the three greatest talents among the outer court's senior students. Your future achievements will surely be limitless."
He raised his head. "I only wanted to make more friends, so that perhaps, when my family abandons me completely, I'll still have a way to survive-someone willing to give me a hand. It truly was a helpless choice forced upon me."
Two-faced, two-faced, two-faced. Right now, the words were practically written all over Dai Youheng's face-the very picture of calculated innocence.
This half-true, half-false speech, blending calculated innocence with a bid for pity, worked remarkably well when paired with his slightly forlorn air.
Especially those words, "forced upon me." They struck Jiang Nannan's heart like a heavy hammer! She instantly recalled the humiliating past when, to save her mother, she had been forced to strike a bargain with the Xu family and sell herself to them.
That helplessness and pain of being swept along by fate, unable to decide for herself-she knew them all too well!
In an instant, Jiang Nannan's impression of Dai Youheng rose from "a kind junior I think well of" to "a poor soul who shares my suffering." She even felt a little protective of him.
She abruptly stepped forward, shielding Dai Youheng behind her, and glared at Xu Sanshi, her voice cold enough to chill him to the bone. "Xu Sanshi, get lost. Don't go around hurting people because of those ridiculous, filthy thoughts of yours!"
"You're telling me to get lost? Nannan, for his sake... you're actually telling me to get lost?" Xu Sanshi looked as though lightning had struck him. Clutching his chest, he wore an exaggerated expression of hurt disbelief.
But a moment later, that hurt became a violent rage consumed by jealousy!
Unable to contain his fury any longer, he made his purple Thousand-Year Soul Ring flare brilliantly!
"Fourth Soul Skill, Black Tortoise Swap!"
The target of this soul skill was none other than Jiang Nannan! However, the move did no damage; its effect was to exchange positions with the target. Light flashed, a strange spatial ripple swept past, and Xu Sanshi and Jiang Nannan instantly traded places.
Dai Youheng, who had been sheltered behind Jiang Nannan, suddenly found himself face-to-face with the furious Xu Sanshi. Jiang Nannan, meanwhile, had been moved to the other end of the passage.
"Dai Youheng, today I'll beat you so badly you'll never dare take another step toward Nannan!" Xu Sanshi roared, swinging the Xuanming Shield viciously at Dai Youheng, its surface wreathed in a dense black glow!
Pretending to be caught off guard, Dai Youheng hastily crossed his arms. The Evil Shadow Demon Tiger's shadow power gathered around them as he forcibly blocked the shield.
Bang!
A dull impact rang out. Dai Youheng was driven back two steps, seemingly at a disadvantage.
"Xu Sanshi, stop!" At the other end, Jiang Nannan was both shocked and furious, and tried to rush over to intervene.
But just then-boom!
A thick stone wall abruptly rose beneath her feet, instantly cutting her off completely from the battlefield on this side.
The maze's shifting layout had, with perfect timing, created an ideal setting for Xu Sanshi to settle his score.
Excellent... The stage is set, and the audience has been shut out. Looking at Xu Sanshi, whose rage had gone to his head and who wanted nothing but to beat him senseless, Dai Youheng's eyes flashed with an almost imperceptible cold gleam.
Faced with Xu Sanshi's four-ring soul power and furious onslaught, Dai Youheng, whose cultivation appeared to be only that of a rank-thirty-two Soul Elder, naturally fought while retreating, making it look like a desperate struggle.
Nimbly exploiting the speed and agility granted by the Evil Shadow Demon Tiger Martial Soul, he darted and twisted through the maze passage, narrowly avoiding the Xuanming Shield's heavy strikes time after time.
Yet his retreat followed a carefully chosen route. He always kept just the right distance from Xu Sanshi, neither letting him catch up easily and land a fatal blow nor allowing a suddenly appearing moving wall to separate them. He needed this mad dog, Xu Sanshi, to keep chasing him.
"Bastard, stop running! If you're a man, take my shield head-on!" Burning with rage, Xu Sanshi roared incessantly. His attacks grew fiercer and fiercer, yet always missed by a hair.
At the corners of Dai Youheng's lips lingered an almost imperceptible
smile.
Running? I'm not running. I'm... leading the way!
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