"All right, your teacher will be here soon. We should go welcome her. As it happens, quite a spectacle is unfolding on Blue Star. It can serve as her welcome show."
"Okay."
Zhi Xin nodded and answered.
Just then, Leng strolled over from behind.
She was still clutching the little cake Zhi Xin had handed her earlier. She took a bite and looked Yan up and down as she chewed, her gaze sweeping over her twice before her lips slowly curved into a meaningful smile.
"Well, well."
Leng swallowed her cake, brushed the crumbs off her hands, and folded her arms. Tilting her head at Yan, she said, "Got what you wanted, Thunderclap War God?"
Yan paused midstep.
She turned her face and gave Leng an expressionless look, her golden eyes brimming with a warning: say another word, and I'll bury you in the sand as a statue.
Yet beneath that warning lay a trace of languor she could not conceal, like petals thoroughly warmed by the sun, taking some of the edge off even her threat.
After trading barbs with Yan for so many years, how could Leng miss it?
Far from holding back, she stepped closer and lowered her voice, her teasing tone almost overflowing. "Tsk, tsk. Three days. Yan, this is the first time I've seen you come off a battlefield looking this energetic. Looks like that boy Qin Feng is pretty capable."
"Leng."
Yan's voice sank, but it faltered slightly at the end.
"All right, all right, I'll stop."
Leng raised both hands in surrender, but she could not suppress the curve of her lips.
Meanwhile, in Tianhe City.
The Taotie warships hovered over the city like a flock of steel vultures, their belly-mounted cannons continually spewing dark purple energy beams. Every beam that struck