White Moonlight

"Young master, have you had your fill of fun and finally decided to let me out?"

Leng Nu Jiao strolled out of the shadows at an unhurried pace. She had always been aloof and proud before others, but over the past several hours, Tang Qingye's endless stream of remarks and scheming tricks had thrown her off her stride. Now, only helpless reproach remained on her lovely, cool face.

Tang Qingye shrugged innocently. "Sister Nu Jiao, this is called a battle of wits and courage, making reasonable use of resources."

Leng Nu Jiao shot him a sidelong glance, the corners of her lips twitching slightly, as though she were restraining herself from rolling her eyes in front of outsiders. Yet when her emerald-green eyes left Tang Qingye and settled on Mu Xi and Ouyang Zixin opposite her, her indulgence froze in an instant.

Hum!

Leng Nu Jiao raised her delicate hand slightly, and a slender, richly lustrous stalk of ink jade spirit bamboo extended from her palm. Its stem shone with the dark, mellow luster of ink jade, three patterns flowing and intertwining across it, magnificent and captivating.

Immediately afterward, three dazzling Soul Rings spiraled up from beneath her feet.

Purple, purple, purple.

Three magnificent purple Thousand-Year Soul Rings, carrying the pressure of a three-ring Soul Elder, instantly suppressed every tide of spiritual energy around them.

The moment the still-indignant Mu Xi saw those three purple Soul Rings clearly, her face turned deathly pale. She staggered back three steps, her strength somewhat drained. Beside her, Ouyang Zixin's long lashes trembled too, her eyes filled with astonishment.

A three-ring Soul Elder, with three Thousand-Year Soul Rings. This was simply not someone they could contend with at their age. In fact, they would not be able to at the next age bracket either.

"You... you..." Mu Xi stared fixedly at Leng Nu Jiao's tall figure. Then, as though something had occurred to her, she abruptly turned to glare at Tang Qingye, who was leaning against an oddly shaped rock. Her voice grew somewhat shrill with fury. "Didn't you just say you were alone and had no companions at all?! You liar!"

Tang Qingye spread his hands innocently, not a trace of shame on his handsome face:

"That's right. I really am the only person here. I don't have any companions, either."

He tilted his head to glance at Leng Nu Jiao and added leisurely, "Sister Nu Jiao is my wife. How can my wife count as a companion?"

"Your... wife?!"

Mu Xi's eyes suddenly widened, and her pretty face flushed scarlet. Although she was still young, having been born on the Romance Continent, how could she not know what that word meant? Beside her, Ouyang Zixin also gave Tang Qingye a rather strange look, clearly stunned by his skin, thick as a city wall.

Leng Nu Jiao, who had been used as a shield, also had a barely perceptible blush quietly creep onto her cold, proud face. She gritted her teeth almost imperceptibly and shot Tang Qingye a somewhat flustered glare, inwardly cursing the little brat for having no respect for his elders and daring to spout any sort of nonsense.

But in front of outsiders, she quickly reined in her emotions. Holding the ink jade spirit bamboo across her body, she spoke in a voice as cold as ice:

"Leave the spiritual energy. You can go."

Terrifying frost spread along the bamboo leaves, and the surrounding temperature abruptly dropped to freezing.

Mu Xi looked at the ink jade spirit bamboo poised to strike before her, then at Xu Xiaoyu, who had already turned into a streak of light, her heart locked in a fierce battle. She was immensely proud to her very bones, but the situation before her left her no room whatsoever to resist.

What made her feel even more wronged was that the female Soul Elder was clearly targeting her, without so much as glancing at Ouyang Zixin beside her.

"Why are you targeting me? Why am I the only one who has to leave?!" Mu Xi shrieked, her composure cracking as her beautiful eyes glared fixedly at Tang Qingye.

With his hands in his pockets, Tang Qingye looked at the furious Mu Xi, then at the breathtakingly beautiful girl with the blue ponytail beside her, who had remained quiet and compliant from beginning to end. Then he blinked at Mu Xi rather innocently and leisurely delivered a sentence:

"Because you're not as pretty as her, or as gentle. Hmm, your figure isn't as good as hers, either."

The air seemed to fall silent at that instant.

The power of those words was no less than an airborne, slipper-wearing Lü Bu with a double-Broken-Army enchantment build, slamming a ten-thousand-point critical hit into Mu Xi's young heart.

Mu Xi froze on the spot, nearly unable to catch her breath. Her delicate face first flushed red, then turned livid. As the daughter of a Saint Craftsman, she was a moon surrounded by stars even at Eastsea Academy. When had she ever suffered such humiliation of both body and mind?

"You... you... bastard!"

Faced with an absolute gulf in strength and that mental blow, Mu Xi gritted her teeth hard, her beautiful eyes glaring daggers at Tang Qingye. In the end, she reluctantly raised her hand, turning the spiritual energy she had yet to fully absorb into white light that drifted toward him.

Then she angrily slapped the signaling device on the back of her hand and, amid a distortion of white light, left the Spirit Ascension Platform with a heart full of pent-up grievance.

Tang Qingye's Big Stomach Bag filled a little more again. He could weigh himself now.

With Mu Xi's departure, only Tang Qingye with his hands in his pockets, Leng Nu Jiao holding her long bamboo, and... Eastsea Academy's campus beauty, Ouyang Zixin, who seemed somewhat at a loss because of Tang Qingye's assessment, remained.

She looked at him, he looked at her, she looked at him. A strange atmosphere spread between them. In the end, the quiet Ouyang Zixin spoke first. "Why do you keep looking at me?"

"Weren't you the one who looked at me first?"

"You really are shameless," Ouyang Zixin said with a hint of reproach.

"Your teammates have all left. Aren't you leaving?" For once, Tang Qingye said something decent.

"You have the nerve to ask... It wasn't easy getting in here. I don't want to leave so soon." Ouyang Zixin shook her head, a trace of dejection flashing across her innocent face.

"Although that fellow bullied the weak and feared the strong, he wasn't wrong. With your personality, you really are liable to get the short end of the stick," Tang Qingye said mildly.

"Then do you think I should change?" Ouyang Zixin blinked her lively eyes and looked straight at him.

Tang Qingye paused, then fell silent for a moment. "You're better this way..."

They had lingered here for quite some time, and the spiritual energy had been sucked dry. Tang Qingye was ready to leave as well.

"Until we meet again." Tang Qingye nodded to her.

"My name is Ouyang Zixin. What's yours?" A sweet voice came from behind him.

"Tang Qingye."

"Why have you gone quiet again, young master? Still thinking about that girl just now?" Leng Nu Jiao teased.

"Seeing a real-life white moonlight just stirred something in me, that's all," Tang Qingye replied with a perfectly serious expression.

Tang Qingye truly was not lying. With Ouyang Zixin's looks and personality, in the society of his previous life, the line of simps pursuing her could stretch from here to Paris.

"Tch, I think you're just lusting after a pretty face. So young, and already picking up bad habits!" Looking utterly unconvinced, Leng Nu Jiao stated her opinion bluntly.

Tang Qingye shook his head helplessly. "Sister Nu Jiao, hearing you speak of your young master like that truly chills my heart. Even if I were lusting after a pretty face, I should start with you. After all, your beauty could topple cities and kingdoms."

Leng Nu Jiao's ears quietly reddened. "Pah! Never a serious word out of you!"

Roar! The deafening roar of a ferocious beast came from afar. Even through the dense woods, the savage pressure contained in that sound could be felt clearly.

"Young master, that commotion... should be a thousand-year soul beast."

"Yes, this fellow is a veteran actor. Let's go, Sister Nu Jiao." Tang Qingye's expression remained calm.

The second mid-lane wave had arrived.