Na Nali

To others, the girl looked no more than fifteen or sixteen. Her short top and skirt left her fair arms and thighs exposed, her skin snowy white, her appearance pure and captivating.

But through the perceptions Big Baby relayed, a lingering, icy gloom lurked deep within those eyes.

Beneath her enticing body lay faint wisps of inky black mist. The mist churned silently, every strand carrying an eerie, evil aura that corroded the soul. This Evil Soul Master's Soul Power was remarkably pure!

Tang Qingye looked at the girl in the image and her signature bell, his expression turning rather colorful. One of the Holy Spirit Cult's Four Heavenly Kings-Dark Bell Na Nali.

He swiftly scanned every scene and aura, his gaze gradually deepening. In that enormous hall, Na Nali was actually the only Evil Soul Master.

So this wasn't a terrorist attack organized by the Holy Spirit Cult...

Tang Qingye breathed a sigh of relief. He certainly didn't want to get attacked on his very first train ride. Wouldn't that make him just like his younger brother Wulin?

Still, that wasn't necessarily true. There weren't any normal people in the Holy Spirit Cult, and Na Nali was a lunatic herself. Who knew whether she might have a screw loose and come here alone to kill people and vent her anger?

He still needed to confirm it...

"Master, who's the conductor of our train?" Tang Qingye squeezed Leng Yaozhu's palm.

"Hmm... the conductor of this train is Huang Ba."

Tang Qingye: Huang Ba... what a domineering name. I feel like there's no need to worry anymore.

"This man has been a conductor for over eight years, and there has never been an accident during his tenure," Leng Yaozhu explained, stroking his head.

Aside from Wulin, the soul-device killer, the other person who could trigger a train's underlying code was the legendary conductor Mo Lan.

Tang Qingye couldn't be bothered to care how Na Nali had gotten here anymore. That wasn't important. What mattered was that she was alone, and the rogue Gourd had already set its sights on her.

His eyes rolled as a plan took shape in his mind, only for him to reject it. He could simply have Big Baby attack, take a beating, and lure her over to him, then borrow his master's power to deal with her. But that would put the hall and its travelers through a terrible ordeal.

Tsk, I'm still too kind. I should take the Immortal Venerable as my example.

Tang Qingye glanced at his precious master beside him. The time had come to show off his first-class acting skills.

"Master, I have something important to tell you."

"What is it?" Seeing his serious expression, Leng Yaozhu flicked a finger, cutting off outside perception, then bent down.

Beside them, Leng Nu Jiao pursed her lips. That rotten young master is whispering to Teacher again, and leaving me out again!

Tang Qingye's lips hovered an inch from Leng Yaozhu's ear. Threads of warm breath brushed her earlobe, making his master's long eyelashes tremble incessantly.

But when he finished speaking, Leng Yaozhu suddenly stiffened all over. Her gentle, phoenix-shaped eyes flew wide, and she cried out, "What!"

Tang Qingye narrowed his eyes slightly at Big Baby far away and spoke solemnly, enunciating every word.

"When the plan starts in a moment, your job is to lure her in, and then..."

"Huh?"

The little Gourd bounced, expressing its displeasure.

"You're the foremost general under my command. If even you back down, how is this family supposed to function... don't you want to show Jiu'er your glorious record?"

"Goo goo ga ga!"

The little fellow puffed itself up and remained silent for a while, clearly still filled with reluctance.

After a long time and some careful consideration, it ultimately failed to resist this temptation. It wanted to be the boss!

Na Nali sat listlessly on a chair, swinging her long, fair legs back and forth. She didn't know what she had come here for.

Some mysterious intuition had drawn her here. In principle, a Soul Master at her level wasn't yet qualified to sense the stirrings of opportunities or ominous premonitions the way Yun Ming and the others could.

But she had come anyway. After she arrived, that feeling vanished. Just what was it? An opportunity to break through, if she simply devoured a certain passenger to aid her cultivation?

Or was she about to meet her destined one? At that thought, a somewhat sickly smile surfaced on Dark Bell's pretty face.

Dark Bell's perversion stemmed from certain events in her early years, which had made her worship strength to an extreme degree. She desperately wanted to kill those who had once been stronger than her, while simultaneously longing for someone stronger than herself to savagely lash her body.

A classic case of the left brain battling the right. Childhood trauma again, with the family of origin once more shouldering the enormous blame, having cultivated a madwoman who opposed the Federation.

But just then, a pretty young boy in a short top and shorts entered Na Nali's sight. He had a slender frame, simply tied green hair, a little face as exquisite as jade, and delicate, handsome features.

"Pretty sister, may I sit in this chair beside you?" the harmless-looking boy asked, his beautiful eyes looking at Na Nali.

"Of course, little brother. No one's sitting here." Na Nali's gaze fell on Tang Qingye as she released a little Spiritual Power to probe him discreetly.

Hmm, perfectly calm, without the slightest fluctuation of Soul Power. An ordinary person without a Martial Soul, unable to cultivate Soul Power.

What a waste of that lovely shell. If he had Soul Power, I'd want to take him back as my sex slave. Training him myself would be more reassuring, after all. Since I'm already here, I can't exactly go home empty-handed.

Still, those eyes are nice. Keeping him around as eye candy wouldn't be bad either. I could use him when I needed to.

"Thank you, pretty sister. You're so nice. I'm exhausted from walking."

The corners of the girl's lips lifted slightly in a lovely smile, but when her gaze landed on him, it held the appraising scrutiny of someone inspecting an object. "Little brother, you really do delight me," she said lightly.

"Where's your family, little brother?"

"They don't like me, so I ran away." He lowered his head slightly, putting on a dejected, heartbroken look.

"How wonderful. Can you tell me about it and make me happy?"

Tang Qingye: ? What did I ever do to you?

I'm looking right at you like this. Don't you feel guilty? You have no heart.

"Ah... haha, I speak my mind. Don't take it to heart. What I actually meant was that you shouldn't bottle things up. I'm willing to listen." For the sake of hearing a story, Na Nali had actually managed a rare sentence of decent human speech.

Tang Qingye began to recount his tale.

... (Flashback)

"You used to take my side in everything. Why did everything change after he came back?"

His mother's expression was complicated, but her tone carried an unquestionable sense of entitlement. "Be more sensible. He's the child who shares our family's blood. He suffered out there for eighteen years, and we owe him far too much. Isn't it only right that we love him a little more?"

His father spoke next, his voice heavy. "We raised you for eighteen years. We've already done everything kindness and duty demand. The family's resources and assets should belong to our own flesh and blood in the first place. You can't fight him over everything."

"Mom, Dad, I've actually felt uneasy all along. I took my older brother's life and enjoyed everything that should have belonged to him. Now that he's back, if I keep staying here, it'll always feel like a cuckoo occupying a magpie's nest."

His older sister immediately knitted her brows, grabbed hold of him, and turned a fierce gaze on Tang Qingye. "Tang Qingye! Your little brother has already gone this far, and you still won't let it go? He's so softhearted. Do you have to force him to leave?"

Tang Qingye hung his head, his voice faint and aggrieved. "That's the situation as it stands. I couldn't stand such a brain-dead family, so I left."

"Boo hoo. How touching! To think there'd actually be such a clichéd plot."

Tang Qingye: What's touching about it?

"Art comes from life, sister." Tang Qingye indicated that this was barely anything-a single hair from nine oxen, a grain in the vast sea, the tip of an iceberg, utterly insignificant...

"My childhood was actually very unfortunate too, so I killed them all." Na Nali looked pitiful and helpless.

Tang Qingye: I didn't hear anything.

"Since they don't want you, how about becoming my little brother? I happen to need a playmate." Na Nali licked her red lips.