Having tasted a small victory, Qian Renxue would crave a great one. And what counted as a great victory? Naturally, completing the seemingly almost impossible Nation-Stealing Plan.
She would probably think that Tang Mo siding with her meant one win for her and one loss for Bibi Dong.
She had one win, while Bibi Dong had none. She had two wins, and Bibi Dong had two losses...
By this nesting-doll logic, Qian Renxue would keep winning, and Bibi Dong would keep losing.
This way, she could stay happy for a long time and feel more motivated in everything she did.
In modern terms, Qian Renxue had not only swallowed the pie-in-the-sky promises Tang Mo, that blackhearted boss, had fed her, but had thoroughly enjoyed them.
Seeing this, Tang Mo turned his head away, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly where Qian Renxue could not see. All according to plan.
Meanwhile, Ning Rongrong and Hu Liena were still absorbing the medicinal power of the Crimson Yang Pill. Their physical constitutions were inferior to Tang Mo's, and their soul power levels were lower than Qian Renxue's, so absorbing its medicinal power naturally took time.
"Hahaha... I really am a genius! I'm already level thirteen! Hahaha..." The first thing Ning Rongrong did upon waking was stand up, holding the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda in one hand and planting the other on her hip as she burst into wildly arrogant laughter.
"Your big sister is level thirty now~" Hu Liena, who had awakened before Ning Rongrong, watched her act a little crazy for a while, then reached out with both hands and pinched her cheeks, an irrepressible sense of superiority in her slightly husky voice.
"Wuwa, wuwa..." With her cheeks pinched by Hu Liena, a string of unintelligible murmurs escaped Ning Rongrong's mouth against her will. Feeling the slight pain in her face, she raised her hands to smack Hu Liena's mischievous hands away. "Old woman! Let go!"
Hu Liena anticipated Ning Rongrong's movements and withdrew her hands ahead of time, leaving Ning Rongrong swatting at empty air.
After her palms struck nothing, Ning Rongrong rolled her eyes at Hu Liena, then lunged at her like a little tiger.
As the Little Demoness whom no one in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect dared provoke, when had Ning Rongrong ever suffered such a slight? Disregarding the gap between herself and Hu Liena, she intended to settle the score on the spot.
After all, the difference between them was not merely seventeen levels of soul power, but also the difference in physical constitution between a Control-Type Battle Spirit Master and a support system Soul Master.
Although Hu Liena's focus on charm left her somewhat weak physically, foxes were still predators, which gave her physical constitution some enhancement.
Hu Liena could easily have picked Ning Rongrong up with one hand and beaten her, but she did no such thing. Instead, she laughed and ran out of the room, heading straight for Tang Mo's room.
Bang!
Hu Liena kicked the door open and quickly hid behind Tang Mo, a pitiful look in her eyes.
"Junior Brother, save me." Hu Liena's voice was full of frailty, as though a bully were hunting her down.
Then Tang Mo saw Ning Rongrong charge inside, baring her fangs and brandishing her claws like a little tiger.
Ning Rongrong did not know what a scheming, innocent-looking girl was, but Hu Liena's behavior made her extremely unhappy.
"Aaaaah... Old woman! Die!" she roared, charging toward Hu Liena behind Tang Mo.
She had only just jumped when Tang Mo caught her beneath the armpits. Then, as though time were flowing backward, Ning Rongrong returned to her original spot exactly as she had leaped from it.
"Huh?" She looked down at her situation, utterly unable to register what had happened.
"Handsome! Get out of the way! Watch me teach that fox a lesson!" Once she recovered, she tried charging at Hu Liena again, only for Tang Mo to extend a hand and press it against her forehead.
In an instant, Ning Rongrong could only remain where she was. No matter how she windmilled her arms, she could not get a fraction closer to Hu Liena.
"Good Junior Brother, all my affection for you wasn't wasted." Standing behind Tang Mo with curved lips and narrowed eyes, Hu Liena looked just like a little fox that had stolen a tasty morsel.
At the sight, Ning Rongrong's entire face reddened visibly, not from embarrassment, but from anger. Simply put, she was overheating.
"Little Senior Sister, what did you do to her?" Tang Mo asked Hu Liena behind him.
"Hmm~" Hu Liena pressed her index finger to her lips and tilted her head, her face innocent. "I only pinched her cheeks."
Having practiced the Observation Method, Tang Mo could sense that although Hu Liena was not lying, there was a hint of guilt about her. He could tell at a glance that she had employed a little verbal artistry: pinching Ning Rongrong's cheeks was only one reason for her anger.
The charm of language was just that absurd. There was no need to lie; merely concealing a few key factors, or even reversing cause and effect, was enough to create a false impression heading in the exact opposite direction from the truth.
Tang Mo glanced at Ning Rongrong, then picked up Hu Liena and Ning Rongrong, one in each hand, and tossed them out the door.
Standing at the doorway with puzzled expressions, the two exchanged a glance, quickly reconciled, and pressed their ears beside the doorframe, hoping to hear what was unusual inside Tang Mo's room.
After noticing that something was off about Tang Mo, they recalled the bulging quilt on his bed and immediately realized there was someone else in his room.
If that person were Xue Qinghe, there would have been no need to hide in such an "cover your ears while stealing a bell" fashion.
In other words, the person in the room was very likely a stranger, perhaps even a woman.
This instantly piqued their curiosity, so they decisively set aside their differences and became a pair of little eavesdropping thieves.
"Ahem, ahem, ahem..."
Just as the two were listening carefully for sounds inside, Tang Mo coughed, neither loudly nor softly.
Only then did Hu Liena and Ning Rongrong belatedly realize that, standing in the sunlight outside the door, they would cast shadows across the gap beneath it.
With their eavesdropping plan exposed, the two could only leave Tang Mo's room in chagrin.
"All right, come out." Listening to their footsteps recede, Tang Mo turned around, lifted the quilt, and called for Qian Renxue to leave his bed.
Back in the light, Qian Renxue wore a hint of guilt and lingering fear on her face. For a moment, she actually seemed afraid to come out from beneath the quilt.
"Wait, what are you feeling guilty about?" Tang Mo sounded surprised. He could understand Qian Renxue's lingering fear, since she did not want to expose her identity, but where had the guilt come from?
The Secret Technique Qian Renxue used to disguise herself as Xue Qinghe had a cooldown. In other words, once the Secret Technique was dismantled, rebuilding it took some time.
But Hu Liena's sudden arrival had given her no chance to renew the Secret Technique, so the instant Hu Liena kicked the door open, she had hidden beneath the quilt.
"Uh~" Only now did Qian Renxue realize: What the hell was I feeling guilty about? She rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed, an extremely awkward expression on her face. "I didn't quite react in time."
"Since you've broken through to level fifty too, you might as well get your soul ring out at sea before leaving. It'll also give me a chance to prepare a little gift for you." As he spoke, Tang Mo took a Sea Soul Beast Compendium out of Eight Thousand Miles of Clouds and Moon, turned to a particular page, and handed the book to Qian Renxue.
Although the book's title called it a compendium, the sea soul beasts recorded within were merely the vast majority of those currently known to coastal Sea Soul Masters. It was a collection compiled from sea soul beast information gathered by Spirit Hall in coastal cities such as Vast Sea City.
The sea soul beast recorded on the page Tang Mo had turned to was called the Deep Sea Lanternfish. It closely resembled an ordinary lanternfish and could control the intensity of the light it emitted.
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