Grandpa's letter

Li Mingzhu thought, Forget it, forget it. Stringing a fool along for this long isn't much fun anymore.

"Stop, stop, stop!"

Realizing that Yu Xiaogang could no longer provide any emotional satisfaction, Li Mingzhu waved a hand and cut him off.

"Ganzi, save that soul beast for when you reach rank thirty. I've already acquired my soul ring."

Li Mingzhu's voice was plenty loud, but Ganzi still acted as though he hadn't heard clearly.

"What? You've already acquired a soul ring? Impossible! That's impossible!"

Looking at the incredulous Yu Xiaogang, Li Mingzhu said irritably, "There's nothing impossible about it. I took leave precisely to go soul hunting."

Yu Xiaogang clenched both fists, digging his fingertips deep into his flesh.

If Li Mingzhu had already acquired a soul ring, what had all his efforts amounted to?

Yu Xiaogang apparently still harbored a sliver of hope. Left with no choice, Li Mingzhu could only crush it completely.

With a thought from Li Mingzhu, a yellow soul ring slowly rose from beneath his feet. Its yellow radiance shone mercilessly across Ganzi's face, seemingly mocking his ambitions.

Li Mingzhu wasn't worried about exposing his soul ring's age, either. What soul master on the Douluo Continent had a first soul ring over nine hundred years old? No one had ever seen one to judge it against, so who the hell could guess its exact age? Besides, the violet tint within the ring was invisible amid the yellow light.

Although the truth of Ganzi's published limit soul ring theory remained uncertain, no one would suspect a soul ring's age exceeded that figure. They would only guess lower, never higher.

The yellow light still lingered on Yu Xiaogang's twisted face, but the last trace of hope in his heart had vanished without a trace.

His eyes were now vacant, and he looked as though he had lost his soul.

Before Li Mingzhu could watch Yu Xiaogang wallow in grief for long, Yu Xiaogang excitedly sidled up to him.

"After your martial soul absorbed the soul ring, how did the soul skill turn out? Did any harmful mutations occur?"

Faced with the remarkably thick-skinned Yu Xiaogang, Li Mingzhu had lost count of how many times his mouth had twitched that day. Such brazen shamelessness had truly opened his eyes.

Li Mingzhu had no solution for Yu Xiaogang's lack of boundaries, so he could only take a few more cracks at his defenses.

"Little Ganzi, I'm terribly sorry, but not only did my soul skill suffer no harmful mutations, its effects are actually powerful."

As though those words had dealt him too heavy a blow, Yu Xiaogang slumped to the ground, his bespectacled eyes vacant.

He kept muttering, "His soul skill couldn't possibly have avoided mutation. This is all fake. It must be fake."

"Then hurry up and tell me! What is your soul skill?"

Unable to maintain even a shred of his scholarly air, Yu Xiaogang shouted at Li Mingzhu like a madman.

After wasting so much breath on Yu Xiaogang, Li Mingzhu couldn't be bothered to say any more. He headed straight toward the teaching building, leaving one last remark as he went.

"A soul skill is every soul master's secret. Why should I tell you? Besides, the dean has already verified mine. Who are you, a rank twenty-nine piece of trash, to judge it?"

Those words completely ground Yu Xiaogang's last scrap of dignity to dust.

He roared, "Damn it, I'm not trash! I'm the Grandmaster, a grandmaster of theory!"

As Li Mingzhu walked farther away, the voice behind him grew fainter. He believed that after such a provocation, Yu Xiaogang would quiet down for a while.

If he still refused to behave, Li Mingzhu would have no choice but to go, "Heh, heh, heh."

After the morning passed, Li Mingzhu explained his request to stop attending classes to Dean Lin and reported Ganzi's harassment.

Dean Lin readily agreed to excuse him from classes. After all, geniuses had their own ideas.

But when it came to Ganzi, Dean Lin had no solution either, once again using the excuse that he couldn't afford to offend the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.

Ganzi was a thorny problem, like a lump of gristle that defied every cut. No matter how they tried, they couldn't deal with him properly, leaving both Dean Lin and Li Mingzhu helpless.

With the problem unresolved, Li Mingzhu could only leave, though his impression of Dean Lin was no longer as favorable as before.

Back at his lodgings, Li Mingzhu lay on the soft couch and grumbled at the ceiling:

"An old fox is still an old fox. This Lin Ruo won't commit to either side. If he can't withstand Yu Xiaogang's pressure, he'll probably sell me out outright. When that happens, I'll have to cough up twice what I've gotten from him."

"Looks like I need to make plans early, too. Without a little vigilance, I could be sold out without even knowing it. Sure enough, self-interest comes first between people!"

Li Mingzhu relaxed and stopped dwelling on it. Once he grew strong enough, every problem would unravel like bamboo beneath a blade.

He then began meditating.

Knock, knock, knock!

A series of knocks came from outside the door. Li Mingzhu's brow furrowed slightly, and he said angrily, "It's barely been any time at all. Has Yu Xiaogang still not changed his rotten ways?"

Helpless, Li Mingzhu could only end his meditation and stomp angrily over to the door.

When he opened it, what greeted him wasn't Yu Xiaogang's zombie-like face, but a middle-aged man he had never seen before.

Before Li Mingzhu could speak, the middle-aged man asked, "Are you Li Mingzhu? There's a letter for you!"

"A letter?"

"Yes, I'm Li Mingzhu!"

With that, Li Mingzhu took the letter from the middle-aged man's hand.

Once he had delivered the letter, the middle-aged man left without further ado.

Li Mingzhu wondered, I don't really know anyone in Nuoding City. Who could have sent me a letter?

Amused, Li Mingzhu patted his own head. Why think so much about it when he could simply read it?

He gently opened the envelope, revealing a yellowed sheet of letter paper inside.

Only after seeing the signature did Li Mingzhu realize it was from Grandpa Li Mu.

There wasn't much written on the paper, only a few brief lines.

"Mingzhu, come back quickly. There's something important we need to discuss..."

After reading the letter, Li Mingzhu's heart sank. I only visited home recently, and Grandpa has already sent me a letter. Could something have happened?

A day earlier, in Greenleaf Village, Li Mu had been sitting cross-legged in his room. He was actually meditating! Had Li Mingzhu been there, he would have clearly noticed a faint wisp of soul power surrounding Li Mu's body.

Li Mu had always known how to meditate. After all, his beloved had once cultivated, too.

Ending his meditation, Li Mu slowly opened his eyes. With a thought, an iron bar appeared before him.

Li Mu still couldn't believe that he actually possessed soul power now. He thought, Could this be the effect of the whale rubber Mingzhu gave me last time? This is truly unbelievable. It looks like I need to write him a letter.

Li Mu was no fool, either. He knew that giving an ordinary person soul power had enormous implications. If anyone found out, it would surely bring disaster down on him.

That was why Li Mu hadn't described the matter in his letter. He had only asked Li Mingzhu to return quickly so they could discuss it together!

Li Mingzhu couldn't gamble on what might have happened to Li Mu. Li Mu was the person he cared about most in this world, and he had to hurry back.

If there was danger and something happened to Li Mu, he would blame himself for the rest of his life!

Li Mingzhu immediately put the letter away in the Domain Space and hurried to Dean Lin to explain the situation. Without waiting for his approval, he set off toward Greenleaf Village.

Lin Ruo was now filled with regret. He knew all about Li Mingzhu's everyday affairs. Even when Li Mu's letter arrived, the gatekeeper had reported it to him first before passing it on to Li Mingzhu.