I want to report someone harboring a fugitive

Flender froze for a moment, then visible anger rose between his brows.

"Where did this Soul Beast come from!"

This was the disciple he had searched so long to find to inherit his mantle. He usually could not bear even to scold him loudly, yet this damned Soul Beast dared to bully him like this. It was practically courting death!

Powerful Soul Power abruptly surged through his body, and his Cat Owl Martial Soul instantly possessed him. The pressure of a Soul Saint's Soul Power poured out like a tide, engulfing the small area before the door.

Seven Soul Rings appeared beneath his feet at once-two yellow, two purple, and three black. The first Yellow Soul Ring suddenly lit up, and Flender became a grayish-brown afterimage as he lunged toward Pikachu.

Pikachu was having fun on Ma Hongjun's face when it suddenly felt an intensely oppressive presence pouring out from the shop entrance. Its ears snapped back. In the instant before Flender's Soul Power-infused hand could touch its fur, the entire mouse turned into a streak of golden light and shot toward the alley directly opposite the shop entrance, vanishing into the interwoven shadows deep within it.

Flender's hand caught nothing. He stared in the direction where the streak of light had vanished, his brows tightly knitted. Then he hurried forward to help Ma Hongjun up from the ground, his face bruised and swollen. Only after confirming that his disciple had suffered nothing more than superficial injuries did he relax. He then asked, "What happened? How did a Soul Beast with nearly seven hundred years of cultivation appear inside Suotuo City?"

"It was those two little bastards from just now!" Ma Hongjun rubbed his cheeks, which ached from Pikachu trampling them, and cursed through bared teeth. Then he spilled everything that had happened like beans pouring from a bamboo tube. At the end, he swore viciously, "They'd better not let me run into them again! If I do, I'll make them pay!"

After hearing the whole story, however, Flender frowned. He could not remember ever cheating the two children Ma Hongjun had described.

Judging by the description of their clothes, they should have come from elsewhere. He had never seen those faces in Suotuo City before.

If that was the case, how had that little boy so firmly insisted that this was a crooked shop and he was a dishonest merchant?

And that Soul Beast...

Flender had a strange feeling he could not quite put into words. He kept feeling that something was about to happen.

But it did not matter. Although he had no noble status, he had built up quite a few connections during his years in Suotuo City. As long as those two children still had that strange Soul Beast with them, he would have no trouble finding them.

After a moment of silence, Flender patted the back of Ma Hongjun's head and gave him a push toward the shop. "All right, go inside and wipe your face. Stop standing around out here. You'll have your chance to vent your anger later."

Meanwhile, deep in the alley.

Su Lin held a Poké Ball in his hand. The golden streak of light that Pikachu had become arrived in an instant and crashed into his arms.

This was the Poké Ball's recall function. As long as a Pokémon that had formed a contract with Su Lin remained within a certain range, wherever it was, he could instantly return it to the Pokémon Space by actively triggering the Poké Ball's recall function.

However, Ah Yin was currently living in the Pokémon Space, so the summoning could only be halted midway.

Seeing Pikachu return, Xiao Wu stopped dwelling on what had just happened. She shook Su Lin's arm and asked, her eyes full of anticipation, "Where are we going next? Are we going to keep looking for a Storage Soul Tool?"

Su Lin raised his hand and rubbed the Poké Ball, a sly smile curling at the corners of his mouth. He shook his head. "No rush."

He was not someone who would take a loss lying down. Although the Douluo Continent also had an old saying that a gentleman could wait ten years for revenge, only half of it applied to him. When circumstances allowed, he took revenge from morning till night.

Although he and Pikachu were currently nowhere near a match for a Soul Saint like Flender, and a head-on clash would be serving themselves up on a platter, they were not the only ones in Suotuo City with strength. There were not many people in this city who could wrestle with Flender, but there were certainly some.

"Come on, I'll take you somewhere." Su Lin pulled a map from his pocket and glanced over the route. Giving Xiao Wu a deliberately mysterious smile, he took her hand, turned along the main street, and headed toward the city center.

Xiao Wu blinked, brimming with curiosity, and obediently followed at his side, unable to figure out what Su Lin was planning the whole way.

And so, half an hour later, the two stopped before the solemn, imposing entrance of the Suotuo City Spirit Hall Branch.

White jade steps rose tier upon tier. Two armed guards stood at the entrance, dressed in standard Spirit Hall robes.

Su Lin stepped forward, looked at the young guard at the door, and said clearly, "I want to make a report."

The guard was in his early twenties, with Soul Power around rank sixteen or seventeen, merely an ordinary Soul Grandmaster. Seeing only two half-grown children before him, he assumed they were complaining after some childish quarrel and paid little attention. He simply waved a hand and said casually, "Kid, this is Spirit Hall. Making a report isn't something you joke about. You have to take responsibility for what you say. Don't make trouble here."

Without hurrying, Su Lin took his Spirit Hall-certified Soul Master credentials from inside his clothes. Tilting his face up, he looked at the guard with a solemn expression. "I discovered Zhao Wuji, the Immovable Wisdom King wanted by Spirit Hall, on the outskirts of the city."

"What!?" The guard jolted, his heart giving a sudden thump. Naturally, he had heard Zhao Wuji's name. Years ago, Zhao Wuji had been wanted by both Spirit Hall and the Heaven Dou Empire over a serious case with far-reaching implications. He had escaped from several Spirit Hall deacons and had remained missing all these years. The guard had never expected to hear news of him even after ten years had passed.

This was no longer a minor matter, nor was it something he could decide himself. Without hesitation, the guard hurriedly stepped aside and pushed open the hall doors, bowing as he said, "I'll take you to the deacon. Please follow me."

The deacon the guard spoke of was a middle-aged man in his early forties named Luo Nan. Dressed in a deacon's robe patterned in yellow, he was a rank forty-three Soul Ancestor and oversaw the Suotuo branch's routine patrols and bounty arrests.

Inside the office, Luo Nan spread out a yellowed portrait scroll. It depicted none other than the burly, fierce-faced Zhao Wuji. He looked up at Su Lin and asked gravely, "Young man, are you sure this is the fellow you saw?"

"I'm sure. He was in a village outside the city. He said he taught at an academy called Shrek." Su Lin kept his little face utterly serious, making sincerity his main approach.

"Shrek Academy?" Luo Nan's brows knitted tightly. He had served in Suotuo City for years and had never heard of this academy. He immediately turned toward his assistant beside him. "There's a Shrek Academy in Suotuo City? Why don't I remember it at all?"

The assistant was a young Soul Master in his early thirties. He looked equally puzzled, but he wasted no time, turning and hurrying out of the office. About an incense stick's worth of time later, he jogged back with a stack of documents in his arms. "Found it. It's a small private Soul Master Academy south of the city. It was registered many years ago. Over the years..."

"Over the years, it's been involved in quite a few cases involving deaths, but the administrative office suppressed them all. Hardly anyone pursued the matter."