It was night.
When Xiao Wu returned, drenched in sweat,
Ning Rongrong was wearing a brand-new pink dress.
She turned around once in front of Xiao Wu.
"How is it?"
Xiao Wu looked at Ning Rongrong's clothes, her eyes full of envy.
"You bought new clothes?"
"Lu Ning... didn't take you girls to train today?"
Ning Rongrong smiled and shook her head.
"Nope."
"We spent the whole day having fun in Suotuo City."
"We ate lots of delicious food and bought lots of things. I haven't had this much fun shopping in ages."
The more Xiao Wu heard, the more annoyed she became. Ning Rongrong wafted a sweet fragrance, while she was covered in mud, even the ends of her hair caked with dust. Compared to Ning Rongrong, she looked like a wild woman who had just crawled out of the mountains.
"Aaah!"
"I don't want to train with Third Brother and the others anymore."
"Could you talk to Lu Ning and let me come train with you girls?"
"I feel like this training plan..."
"Is so grueling!"
Xiao Wu pulled a bitter face.
Ning Rongrong covered her mouth, laughing nonstop.
If she told Xiao Wu that despite shopping all day, they hadn't fallen behind on their Soul Power cultivation at all, Xiao Wu would probably be half-dead with anger.
What was more, Lu Ning was still exploring a way to increase their soul ring ages painlessly.
Elsewhere.
Zhu Zhuqing was holding that piece of whale rubber with a troubled expression.
Although she knew what this stuff was used for,
she had never fully understood it.
Even if it were used,
she couldn't possibly be the one taking it!
Zhu Zhuqing tapped the hardened thousand-year whale rubber, wondering whether she could swallow such a small piece in one gulp.
But after hesitating for a long while,
she slowly placed it in a pot instead.
"It seems it needs to be cooked first... right?"
Zhu Zhuqing lit a fire.
She began cooking the whale rubber.
She wasn't afraid of failing in her attempt. Lu Ning had plenty more of this stuff, so it wouldn't matter even if she ruined it.
Before long,
the whale rubber gave off an enticing aroma.
But the flames weren't hot enough.
The little cooking fire wasn't enough to melt the whale rubber; it only removed some impurities and softened it a little.
If Lu Ning had been there,
he would certainly have known that this whale rubber was still far from ready to consume.
But Zhu Zhuqing didn't know that.
While the whale rubber was soft,
she swallowed that small piece of thousand-year whale rubber whole.
The scalding whale rubber slid down Zhu Zhuqing's throat.
Zhu Zhuqing knitted her brows tightly.
"Is this... how you're supposed to eat it?"
But regardless,
she had already swallowed it.
All she could do was wait for the whale rubber to take effect.
She locked her door, sat quietly on her bed, and began circulating her Soul Power to digest the whale rubber she had just swallowed.
Driven by her Soul Power, the whale rubber
began to take effect.
Zhu Zhuqing's body began to grow warm.
Her face grew increasingly flushed.
If consumed properly, it would certainly have provided a considerable improvement.
But Zhu Zhuqing's crude method
multiplied the whale rubber's original side effects, while her physique, which should have improved, showed little response.
"I... I was tricked?!"
Zhu Zhuqing spoke with a flushed face.
But then she shook her head, dismissing her own thought.
She had taken the whale rubber herself.
Even if side effects really did occur,
Lu Ning wasn't here, so there was no way he could gain the slightest benefit from her.
So the only possibility was...
Something had gone wrong with the way she took it!
"How do I transform this power?"
Zhu Zhuqing's mind began to grow hazy.
Her fair hand began reaching downward, hoping to resolve the whale rubber's effects this way.
But her hand stopped over her skirt.
It went no further.
It wasn't because she had resisted.
It was because she simply didn't know how!
None of the lessons she had studied since childhood had ever covered this!
She knew where the problem was.
But she couldn't just poke around with her fingers!
"..."
Knock, knock, knock!
Someone knocked on Lu Ning's door.
Lu Ning, who had drunk the Jade Spring Spirit Wine, had been about to sleep. Hearing the sound, he slowly stood and walked toward the door.
There was no helping it.
Yu Xiaogang's training plan really had been designed to push every one of them to their limits.
Dai Mubai had high Soul Power and a strong physique.
But his burden was just as great.
He had gone to bed early and was sleeping soundly.
Never mind answering the door.
He might not even hear the house collapsing.
Ma Hongjun hadn't come to stay the night at all.
In the past, he came over because they had returned from having fun in the pleasure district, or simply to exchange experiences when they had nothing to do.
But today...
Yu Xiaogang's training had left him so exhausted he couldn't even raise his little phoenix.
How could he have the energy to come chat?
Only Lu Ning and Dai Mubai remained in the entire dormitory.
The door opened.
Zhu Zhuqing stood outside in a strange posture.
Her legs were pressed tightly together, her cheeks were crimson, and even her speech had become halting.
"Lu Ning."
"I took that piece of whale rubber."
"But... I don't know whether I took it the wrong way or whether something was wrong with that piece of whale rubber."
"Not only do I feel no improvement in my physique at all,"
"but I also feel..."
"Strange."
When Zhu Zhuqing said those last few words,
her voice was so faint it almost vanished.
If he hadn't been standing so close,
Lu Ning wouldn't have heard what she was saying at all.
"Strange?"
"That's impossible."
"It's normal for whale rubber to have some side effects, but even if the results were poor, it couldn't have no effect at all, could it?"
Lu Ning had taken whale rubber himself, so he naturally knew its effects.
"How did you take it?"
Zhu Zhuqing looked at Lu Ning, her eyes already somewhat unfocused, her speech growing increasingly indistinct.
"I cooked it over a fire."
"Then took it after it softened a little."
Listening to her method, Lu Ning evidently noticed nothing wrong with it.
Previously, he had also had Ma Hongjun melt it with Phoenix Flame before taking it.
This method...
Shouldn't have caused any problems.
Could Zhu Zhuqing be allergic to whale rubber?
Whales were seafood too! Didn't cats like eating fish?
"Why don't you come over to my place and take a look?"
"I'll try to recreate it for you."
The thoughts in Zhu Zhuqing's head had already tangled into a mess.
She squeezed her legs together even more tightly.
At this point, she couldn't spare a thought for anything else.
She only wanted to get this problem completely resolved as quickly as possible.
"All right."
Lu Ning glanced at Zhu Zhuqing's abnormal state.
He decisively headed toward her residence.
Even if he was going to solve Zhu Zhuqing's problem, he at least needed to know how it had happened, didn't he?
The moment they entered Zhu Zhuqing's room,
Lu Ning looked at the fire in the corner, which hadn't yet gone out completely, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
"You mean..."
"You melted the whale rubber using nothing but this ordinary wood? And then ate it?"
Zhu Zhuqing nodded emphatically.
Lu Ning looked at her with a strange expression.
"You took it wrong."
"Even if you didn't ask a fire-attribute Soul Master to soften the whale rubber,"
"you should at least have used some hundred-year-old plants as fuel, right? How is eating it like this any different from swallowing whale rubber raw?"
"Those side effects... could swell you to death!"
When Lu Ning had heard Zhu Zhuqing identify the whale rubber's effects in a single remark during the day,
he had thought she knew a great deal about it.
So he hadn't said anything more.
But looking at it now,
never mind a Soul Grandmaster like her-even if a Titled Douluo ate it this way, it would burst that part of their body!
What sane person ate the raw ingredient just like that?!
Zhu Zhuqing looked at Lu Ning's strange gaze.
By now, her eyes were gradually losing focus; her vital signs were clearly beginning to decline.
"Then what..."
"Should I do?"
Before you continue