Qian Renxue, a goddess?
Hearing his brother take the initiative to ask, Xu Fan immediately perked up.
"There's so much! I couldn't finish telling you all the stories in three days and three nights."
As soon as the words left his mouth, he suddenly remembered something. The excitement on his face faded a little, replaced by a measure of relief.
"Bro, you just said the second and third princes are still alive, so that puts my mind at ease.
At the very least, we're still more than a decade away from the Heaven Dou Palace Coup in the novel."
More than a decade was enough for him to persuade his brother to quit his job and move to a little town with beautiful mountains and clear waters, where they could live and work in peace.
Qian Renxue's hand paused slightly.
"The Heaven Dou Palace Coup?"
Xu Fan nodded and explained matter-of-factly:
"That's the coup Qian Renxue launched to seize the throne after spending more than a decade undercover."
He spoke casually.
But Qian Renxue did not let it pass so lightly.
What concerned her more was just what Xu Fan knew, and whether it was accurate.
Anyone could make offhand claims about the future.
But things in the present could not be faked.
Her expression unchanged, she asked:
"You mentioned Qian Renxue, the Pope's daughter, going undercover? What's that about?"
Xu Fan's eyes lit up.
"Now that we're talking about Qian Renxue, I'm wide awake!"
Qian Renxue: "..."
"Bro, did you know? Qian Renxue is one of the top goddess-tier characters in this novel!"
Xu Fan spoke with his face alight. If his body had not still been weak, he would have sat right up and given his brother a proper sales pitch.
"First, there's her talent. Her innate Soul Power is rank twenty! Do you know what that means? Her talent is just ridiculous."
Qian Renxue's fingers quietly tightened.
Innate Soul Power of rank twenty.
Xu Fan had actually named her innate Soul Power rank.
Her expression showed no obvious change as she merely asked:
"Is it really that extraordinary?"
"Of course!"
Xu Fan's answer was decisive as a blade cutting through iron.
"And then there's her Martial Soul, the Six-Winged Angel! That's an incredibly powerful light Martial Soul!
Both her talent and her heritage are extremely special.
Add the Angel Soul Bone Set, and you can tell how incredible it is just from the name, right?"
The room fell silent for a moment.
The faint trace of ease on Qian Renxue's face slowly faded.
The Angel Soul Bone Set.
Even in Spirit Hall, this was not information that ordinary Soul Masters could casually learn.
Yet Xu Fan seemed completely oblivious to anything unusual and continued enthusiastically.
"Of course, the most important thing is that she's beautiful!"
Qian Renxue: "..."
"According to the novel's description, she has outstanding looks and an exceptional bearing.
Skin fairer than snow, a face of peerless beauty.
Talented, powerful, and beautiful-who wouldn't like a character like that?"
The tips of Qian Renxue's ears gradually grew warm.
In all her years, this was the first time anyone had praised her like this.
She lowered her eyes and raised a hand to straighten her already neat cuff, an unusual glint flashing through her eyes.
This Xu Fan certainly has a good eye.
In the shadows, two presences lingered, barely perceptible.
A voice transmission went straight into Qian Renxue's ear:
"Young mistress, this boy actually knows the secrets of the Angel God Martial Soul inside out. Let me kill him!"
It was none other than Porcupinefish Douluo and Snake Lance Douluo, who had been hiding in the shadows all along.
She Long's voice transmission followed leisurely:
"Pufferfish, don't be so impulsive. Even in the Elder Hall, only a handful know this information. I'm starting to wonder whether this novel he mentioned is real."
"Novel or no novel, secrets are secrets! Who cares where he learned them? We can't let someone like him live!"
"It's precisely because we don't know where he learned it that we can't kill him." She Long's voice grew serious.
Xu Fan, lying on the bed, remained entirely unaware. He was simply engrossed in talking about a character he liked.
"Ah, it's just a pity..."
Xu Fan's voice suddenly grew subdued.
Qian Renxue raised her eyes.
"What's a pity?"
Xu Fan sighed softly.
"She's actually pretty pitiful."
This time, Qian Renxue did not immediately respond.
Pitiful?
It was the first time anyone had described her that way.
Something seemed to stab at her heart.
Xu Fan continued on his own:
"She was the Pope's daughter, yet she ended up having to bear humiliation and shoulder a heavy burden in the Heaven Dou Imperial Palace at such a young age, spending almost twenty years undercover."
Qian Renxue's gaze lingered on his face.
Almost twenty years?
She could treat his earlier praise as a reader's fondness for a fictional character;
she could also continue investigating the source of his information about Martial Souls and Soul Bones.
But that sentence alone made it impossible for her to remain as composed as before.
She was indeed carrying out an undercover mission in the Heaven Dou Imperial Palace.
And she did indeed need to conceal her identity for a long time and act cautiously.
But almost twenty years?
She had never imagined she would spend so long here.
If the novel Xu Fan spoke of was not fabricated nonsense, could the story he described truly become her future?
At that thought, she clenched her teeth for a moment.
"This Qian Renxue you mentioned," she began, her voice betraying not the slightest ripple, "what else did the novel say about her?"
Xu Fan scratched his head, a little embarrassed.
"Actually, bro, Qian Renxue isn't the novel's protagonist."
Yet Xu Fan had completely failed to notice the change in her tone.
"The protagonist is called Tang San. The novel mainly revolves around Tang San,
and Qian Renxue is a very important character in the later plot.
All I can remember are her more famous experiences."
Xu Fan spoke openly and frankly.
"Most of the rest was pieced together bit by bit through discussions among the novel's readers.
Bro, you seem really interested in this Qian Renxue."
The doubts in Qian Renxue's heart did not disappear because of that.
Could a novel really contain all this?
And just how much of this future Xu Fan described was true?
She needed more information.
But at least for now, she could not jump to conclusions.
Qian Renxue looked at Xu Fan, her tone becoming calm again, as though everything before had been nothing more than idle chatter.
"It's nothing. I'm just a little curious."
She paused.
"Go on. I want to hear more."
Xu Fan immediately smiled.
"Sure!"
It was rare for his brother to take an interest in a novel he liked, so naturally, he had no reason to refuse.
He was just about to speak when his stomach growled at an inopportune moment.
Xu Fan's words immediately caught in his throat.
He looked at Qian Renxue rather helplessly.
"Um... bro."
"Yes?"
"I'm hungry."
As his words fell, the room suddenly went quiet.
For a moment, Qian Renxue did not respond.
Just then, she had still been pondering the mysterious novel Xu Fan had mentioned,
calculating how to coax more information about herself out of him.
Who could have known the subject would change so abruptly that she would fail to react for a moment?
Hungry?
That was hardly a major issue.
But the question was, what should she do next?
She instinctively glanced at Xu Fan's legs.
The boy still lay weakly in bed. Never mind getting up to make himself something to eat-even shifting his body slightly would probably be difficult.
And according to the earlier investigation, his brother usually handled most of his day-to-day care.
As for cooking...
Qian Renxue fell silent.
As the dignified young mistress of Spirit Hall, when had she ever personally cooked a meal for anyone?
Yet right now, she could not afford to reveal even the slightest flaw.
Seeing that she still had not responded, Xu Fan could not help blinking.
"Bro?"
Qian Renxue came back to her senses, a rare hint of awkwardness on her face.
She opened her mouth before finally stammering out:
"Then... then I'll go make you some noodles."