Yet Tianmeng paid no attention to Huo Yutong's slightly stiff expression. With her hands behind her back, she circled halfway around Huo Yutong.
Her voice brimmed with undisguised pride. "Yutong, your big sister Tianmeng has given you an unprecedented intelligent soul ring! This first soul ring has four whole soul skills! Well? Surprised? Excited?"
Hearing this, Huo Yutong's clear eyes instantly went perfectly round.
Four soul skills?!
An ordinary first soul ring could only have one soul skill. Only a hundred-thousand-year soul ring could grant two soul skills in a single ring.
Yet she had received four in one go! Sister Tianmeng's generosity was outrageously extravagant!
Looking at Huo Yutong's dumbstruck, adorably dazed little face, Tianmeng felt her vanity thoroughly satisfied.
She produced a pair of pitch-black sunglasses from somewhere and perched them on her nose, then actually started wriggling her petite waist in a little-girl hip-wiggling dance.
The sight was simply unbearable to watch.
"Hahaha! Worship me to your heart's content!" Tianmeng took off her sunglasses and cupped her hands over her heart, putting on a deeply affectionate expression. "I am the most gorgeous flower, and you are that hardworking gardener. Go on, shower me with fertilizer!"
"Hehehe... Sister Tianmeng, you're amazing! Unite the soul beast world and live for ten thousand years!" Huo Yutong looked exceedingly unnatural, the corners of her mouth twitching wildly, but she still cooperatively raised both hands and offered a convincing round of thunderous applause.
Seeing Huo Yutong looking as though she had been "forced to perform," Tianmeng grew even more pleased with herself.
She extended a fair-skinned finger and pointed haughtily at Huo Yutong, her other hand on her hip, a mysterious smile curling her lips. "That's not all! Besides these four soul skills, I've also opened up a slot for an ice-type martial soul with neither form nor soul. That means once you absorb your first ice-type soul beast, you'll be able to awaken a second martial soul later in life!"
"Sister Tianmeng, you... you really are incredible!" This time, Huo Yutong covered her little mouth, her eyes full of shock.
Those words came from the bottom of her heart.
Tianmeng lifted her chin, thoroughly enjoying the praise, but soon the smile gradually faded from her face, replaced by a trace of complicated melancholy.
She sighed softly.
"Incredible, sure, but my biggest headache right now is that I don't know what sort of second martial soul to choose for you." Tianmeng's voice lowered.
In the Extreme North, Tianmeng was like a walking "great elixir of immortality" before supreme beings nearing the ends of their lifespans.
Which of those powerful soul beasts did not yearn to devour every last bit of her so they could live a second life?
Tianmeng continued, "My dream is actually very simple. I don't want to die such a pathetic death. I want eternal life.
"More importantly..."
She tightened her little fists slightly, her voice carrying an almost obsessive yearning. "I don't want to remain a mere worm forever. I want to transform too. I want to ascend into a butterfly!"
Listening to Tianmeng's string of words, so narcissistic yet so impassioned, Huo Yutong felt a taut string inside her suddenly loosen.
Looking at this grown-up little girl before her, dressed in silkworm pajamas, her golden hair sticking out every which way and her eyes as bright as starlight reflected in a glacial river, she suddenly felt a peculiar resonance between them.
Because they had both been bullied by the "will of tyranny."
Huo Yutong remembered that cold duke's mansion, those condescending gazes, the vicious words, the servants' brutal beatings.
The high walls of the White Tiger Duke's Mansion were as thick as a prison's. She had lived there for so many years, shrinking into herself, every breath feeling stolen.
And Tianmeng? She had been hunted, treated as walking food, coveted by countless soul beasts.
They were the same.
Both were people lashed by this world who had yet to admit defeat.
The last trace of wariness in Huo Yutong's gaze as she looked at Tianmeng finally vanished completely, like the first crack opening across a frozen lake in spring.
She even reached out on her own and gently stroked Tianmeng's long golden hair. It was soft, with a slight chill, like winter sunlight falling on snow.
Tianmeng froze at her touch, then promptly snuggled closer, wrapping her two short little arms around Huo Yutong's arm. Her fluffy silkworm hood rubbed against the hollow of Huo Yutong's shoulder, and she nuzzled her cheek against her arm twice like a kitten, her voice sweet and syrupy. "O bewildered maiden~ After forming a pact with you, your big sister has already come to know everything in your heart. Your pain, your resentment-my heart aches for all of it. From now on, we two beauties will join forces, become invincible under heaven, and then enjoy becoming gods!"
Hearing her say "we two beauties will join forces," Huo Yutong could not help the corners of her mouth lifting.
She lowered her eyes, looking at Tianmeng's fluffy golden head rubbing against her arm, and felt warmth in her heart.
Because now she had Tianmeng, she had the means to become a powerful soul master, and she could clench her own fists and smash through her predicament with both hands!
Huo Yutong slowly clenched her fists.
She wanted revenge.
She wanted to sever the White Tiger Duke's lineage.
Those who had humiliated and abused her would one day kneel at her feet and look up at her.
Tianmeng seemed to sense the change in her emotions. She lifted her face from Huo Yutong's arm, her blue eyes reflecting Huo Yutong's expression at that moment.
Then she extended her index finger and wagged it before Huo Yutong. "Also, you absolutely must remember-what happened today, my identity, the million-year soul ring, the four soul skills, and the second martial soul: don't mention any of it to anyone for now. Remember, anyone."
Huo Yutong nodded slowly, then nodded firmly and earnestly. "Mm, I know. I won't tell anyone."
"Good girl." Tianmeng reached out and patted the top of Huo Yutong's head. "All right, all right, all this talking has made me thirsty. Hurry up and log off. That Gu Xingyue outside should be waking up soon-"
Huo Yutong murmured an assent and was just about to close her eyes and leave her spiritual sea when, out of the corner of her eye, she suddenly caught sight of a white, fluffy mass lying quietly in an open area of the spiritual sea a short distance away.
Looking closely, she discovered that Tianmeng had somehow already flopped over there, clutching a cushion larger than her entire body, printed with a cartoon silkworm. Her golden hair lay scattered across the water, a glistening trickle of drool hung from the corner of her mouth, and she was snoring softly and evenly.
Her snores were as quiet as a kitten dozing, one long and one short, occasionally mixed with indistinct sleep-mumbling, as though she were still muttering words like "become a butterfly" and "eternal life" in her dreams.
Huo Yutong stood there watching her for a long while, the corners of her mouth curving higher and higher. Lowering her voice, she said softly, "Sister Tianmeng, I'm going now."
Before you continue