At that moment, Gu Qingnian decisively unleashed every means at his disposal. Although he was injured and his Sea of Consciousness had suffered damage, he was fortunate that it was over, and he had successfully blocked off some of the interference from Tang San's divine sense.
However, Gu Qingnian would be unable to use mental attacks for a while. Fortunately, he could pass it off as a problem with his martial soul.
Afterward, Gu Qingnian settled down to recuperate. By morning, his condition had improved considerably, and he woke up. As for the explanation he gave Wang Dong, he said that her spiritual power had been depleted too severely, that her condition had simply resulted from excessive strain, and that he had helped clear things up for her.
Wang Dong then checked her own condition and did indeed seem to feel much more at ease. Inexplicably, her resistance to soul tools had also lessened a little.
Throughout all this, however, one question kept troubling Gu Qingnian: had Tang San noticed? Since he had suffered a counterattack toward the end, he strongly suspected that Tang San's divine sense had detected something.
Before he could think it through any further, he was called over to the arena to hold the fort. Helpless, he could only set the matter aside for now. There was nothing else he could do.
The following round-robin matches went well enough. Ma Xiaotao and the other two could generally handle them. Most of the time, Gu Qingnian came merely to keep everyone in check. His earlier disappearance for so many days had left the various academies intensely curious after their investigations turned up nothing.
There were even all sorts of rumors that Gu Qingnian was a fake, though no one believed them. This time, however, they were actually