Mu En was a pretty decent old man, which was why Ye Qing felt no aversion to him at all.
If it had been Yan Shaozhe instead, Ye Qing might really have needed to be on his guard. Though master and disciple were both light-attribute Soul Masters, Mu En was clearly a little brighter, while Yan Shaozhe seemed more like a knockoff light-attribute Soul Master.
And credit where credit was due, Mu En really was generous.
At first, Ye Qing had merely seen him drinking tea and, out of curiosity, asked for a cup. After discovering how good it tasted, he had asked for some tea leaves.
Seeing how freely Mu En gave them away, Ye Qing had assumed the tea leaves might be a little expensive at most. It had never occurred to him that they were made from the Golden Tree's tender leaves...
The Golden Tree's tender leaves! Apart from Mu En, the master of the Sea God Pavilion, who would dare disturb so much as the soil around the Golden Tree?
Let alone pluck its leaves to make tea.
Yet Mu En had given him several boxes without batting an eye. Ye Qing had only learned what they were later, when old Ye Feng happened to see him brewing tea and recognized that the leaves came from the Golden Tree.
That had sent Ye Qing into a teensy billion-sized panic.
Holy shit, the reward I fucking picked was dark-attribute! And it was the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger blessed by Tang San, Douluo's evil god, at that! The Golden Tree is a top-tier plant with so much light energy it practically spills out of the screen. Am I really going to be okay drinking so much tea made from its leaves?
Just like fire and water, darkness and light are sworn enemies, aren't they?
At that moment, Ye Qing had panicked completely.
He was genuinely afraid that, barely after winning his resurrection match, he would get himself killed all over again by carelessly eating and drinking whatever came his way.
But unexpectedly, drinking Golden Tree leaf tea had not caused Ye Qing any problems. Instead, his health kept improving. His body was sturdy, and everything tasted delicious. He neither stayed up late nor smoked, fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow every day, and got a full eight hours, never carrying his exhaustion over into the next day.
Even Mu En's examination reports said he was healthy.
Since drinking the stuff did not harm his body, he might as well keep drinking it. Tea made from the Golden Tree's tender leaves was something most people could not get even if they wanted it. Calling it a supreme treasure of heaven and earth would be no exaggeration.
After all, this was the Douluo Continent's source of life.
Though old Ye Feng also used plenty of good things to temper his body, none came remotely close to the effects of a pot of this tea. As everyone knew, development before the age of six could affect the quality of one's Martial Soul Awakening at six.
No matter how he looked at it, even knowing that this stuff did not quite match his attribute, Ye Qing could only pretend he did not know.
As long as nothing goes wrong when I drink it, there are only benefits and no drawbacks.
Everyone knows light and life are the two attributes best suited to healing. If they're only being used to nourish the body, there shouldn't be any attribute rejection, right?
Probably?
In any case, nothing had gone wrong.
Ye Qing could see his constitution growing stronger by the day.
Only by strengthening his constitution further could he awaken the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's power more completely when his martial soul awakened at six. There would be nothing wrong with classifying this martial soul as a divine martial soul.
If his body ended up too weak to withstand the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger martial soul, causing it to regress into the Ye family's hereditary Shadow Tiger instead, that would be a real joke.
"Ah, having a martial soul that's too powerful isn't always a good thing." Ye Qing gazed forlornly at the steaming tea before him, blew on it to cool it a little, then decisively downed it in one gulp.
But Ye Qing had clearly overlooked one problem.
Before the age of six, an unawakened martial soul indeed would not give the body an attribute. But a martial soul's existence was rooted in the soul, and the soul was deeply bound to the body.
Any change in the body would immediately be reflected in the soul.
Especially for someone like Ye Qing, whose soul was unstable after transmigrating, his soul was even more susceptible to the influence of his physical body.
After drinking so much tea brewed from Golden Tree leaves and spending practically all his days bathed in the Golden Tree's radiance, his body and soul taking on the light attribute was already a done deal. His martial soul was therefore bound to be affected as well.
Put another way, when he awakened his martial soul, it was one hundred percent certain to mutate.
Still...
Even if Ye Qing knew that his martial soul would mutate under the Golden Tree's influence, he would probably have done the same thing anyway.
The foundation he had inherited upon transmigrating was too poor. Ye Feng had already worked hard to lay a foundation for the former Ye Qing, but unfortunately, the former Ye Qing had a problem with his soul, so naturally his body could not develop properly either.
If he really awakened his martial soul at six in that condition, it was entirely foreseeable that he would be unable to withstand the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger.
If it merely regressed, that would be fine.
But if he could not control it and suffered a backlash from the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger martial soul, he would really be done for.
"If I'd known, I wouldn't have picked this guy just because he looked cool."
At that thought, Ye Qing looked even more forlorn.
A few days later.
As expected, old geezer Mu En kept his word, bringing a dim-looking kid about Ye Qing's age, with short, tousled blue-purple hair, before him.
"This is your grandson?" Ye Qing studied Bei Bei and asked curiously.
"Yes, this is my grandson. His name is Bei Bei," Mu En said with a chuckle. "You two are about the same age. I'm sure you can become good friends."
Mu En lowered his head and gently stroked Bei Bei's hair, affection showing in his eyes.
Like Ye Feng, he too had a younger descendant who gave him headaches, and this boy was now the sole heir to his Radiant Sacred Dragon lineage. Even his circumstances matched Ye Qing's: both parents were dead, and only his great-great-grandfather remained alive.
More coincidentally still, Bei Bei's late parents and Ye Qing's late parents had died on the same mission, at the hands of the very same Soul Douluo Evil Soul Master.
After that mission, however, Shrek Academy had lost track of that Soul Douluo Evil Soul Master. Only recently had Mu En found his trail again. According to reports from the Inspection Corps, that Soul Douluo Evil Soul Master was currently within the Heaven Dou Empire's borders.
And this time, Mu En intended to act personally.
He would use his cultivation as a Limit Douluo to go after a Soul Douluo Evil Soul Master-not for justice, but for hatred.
Looking at the troubled child before him, who seemed somewhat withdrawn, Ye Qing softly drew in a breath of cold air.
Good grief. No wonder he's such a schemer when he grows up. He's been a sealed gourd since childhood.
This won't do.
If you keep yourself bottled up too tightly, how am I supposed to get close to you, then cling to your great-great-grandfather's powerful leg along the way, and throw in a little "Old geezer, cough up some gold"?
"Hello, my name is Ye Qing!"
Before you continue