Yang Xing pushed open the wooden door full of cracks and gaps as casually as if he were returning to his own home.
Well, in fact, this was his home.
“Come in, make yourself at home.”
He walked inside without looking back.
“I’ll pour you a cup of tea.”
Ning Rongrong stood at the doorway, unmoving.
Her gaze swept from the cracks on the door panel to the crooked doorframe, then to the wooden plank on the roof that looked like it might fall at any moment.
Her entire expression was as if someone were forcing her head into a cesspit.
“You…
live here?”
She pinched her nose, her voice muffled.
No response.
Yang Xing had already gone inside.
Ning Rongrong stood at the doorway for another three seconds, then finally took a deep breath.
She immediately regretted it, because the air she inhaled carried the scent of aged, decaying wood.
Then, tiptoeing as if stepping on landmines, she stepped into the house one careful step at a time.
The first thing she did upon entering was cautiously release her pinched nose.
She sniffed.
Surprisingly—there was no strange odor.
None of the foul stench she had imagined from a man living alone, no smell of mold or rot, not even a strong scent of dust.
Although the house was pitifully dilapidated, the inside was clean and tidy.
Ning Rongrong’s expression softened slightly.
“This part is acceptable.”
She evaluated in that haughty tone, like a little princess inspecting her territory and grading her servants.
“At least it’s not like those filthy boys I’ve seen in Tiandou City, whose living spaces resemble pigsties.”
Yang Xing rummaged inside for teacups, not responding.
Ning Rongrong looked around.
The room was small, with minimal furnishings.
A wooden plank bed, a table missing a leg propped up by a stone, and two stools.
In the corner of the room, a cloth bundle was piled up, next to it the “Foresight and Wisdom” signboard.
That was all.
Utterly impoverished.
Ning Rongrong chose one of the stools that looked slightly cleaner, first wiping it left and right with her sleeve about seven or eight times before reluctantly sitting down.
Only a third of her bottom touched the stool’s surface, her back ramrod straight, legs pressed together, as dignified as if she were sitting on a rosewood carved chair in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
Yang Xing walked over holding a coarse pottery cup with a chipped rim, steam rising from it—plain hot water.
Seeing Ning Rongrong’s manner of wiping repeatedly before barely sitting down, he rolled his eyes.
“For my humble little shack to have the honor of Ning Rongrong gracing it with her presence, even sitting on my stool—I am truly blessed for three lifetimes.”
Ning Rongrong detected the sarcasm in his words.
But she didn’t feel it was directed at her at all.
“Of course.”
She lifted her chin, utterly matter-of-fact.
“For this young lady to be willing to enter your shabby house and sit on your broken stool is a tremendous blessing and fortune for you.”
After saying this, she crossed her arms.
Yang Xing handed the coarse pottery cup to her.
Ning Rongrong glanced at the chipped rim and pushed the cup away with her hand.
“I won’t drink.”
Her tone was straightforward, getting straight to the point: “Swindler, stop dawdling.
Cancel the master-disciple contract.”
Yang Xing placed the pushed-back cup on the table and took a sip from it himself.
He looked at Ning Rongrong with a smile.
“What’s the hurry?”
“Who’s hurrying!”
“The contract’s already signed.” Yang Xing’s tone was unhurried, carrying that kind of composure that made Ning Rongrong want to hit someone.
“Dissolving it now is dissolving it, dissolving it a bit later is also dissolving it.
Does Miss Ning really not want to hear at all…
the method I deduced for the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda to transform into the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda?”
He tilted his head slightly.
see what benefits there are in taking me as your master?”
He raised a finger.
“Just listen.
You won’t lose anything.
It’s not too late to decide whether to dissolve it after you’ve heard.”
Ning Rongrong snorted a laugh.
That laugh was filled with utter disdain.
“Even if you told me, I wouldn’t believe it.”
She stared into Yang Xing’s eyes, her tone certain.
“Our Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect has searched for a method for a thousand years, a thousand years!
Something that generations of Soul Masters have exhausted their entire lives trying to achieve.”
She pointed a finger at Yang Xing.
“And you, a nameless, roadside fortune-teller, deduced it?”
She tilted her head, her gaze carrying a kind of condescending scrutiny.
“What’s your Cultivation Base?”
Yang Xing didn’t answer.
Ning Rongrong answered her own question: “Could it be that you’re actually a Titled Douluo?”
Her gaze swept over this shabby room, and she scoffed.
“Looking at the place you live in, I’m afraid you’re not even a Soul Master, are you?
Even the most down-and-out Soul Master wouldn’t live in such a leaky, dilapidated shack.”
She shook her head, the disdain in her tone gradually turning into something akin to pity.
“Forget it.
You don’t seem like a terribly bad person.
Even though you deceived me, but…”
She waved a hand, magnanimous like a noble dispensing charity.
“Take out that master-disciple contract and tear it up right in front of me.
I won’t pursue this matter further.
We’ll pretend it never happened.”
After saying this, she urged with a wave of her hand.
“Hurry up, hurry up.
I still need to rush to register at Shrek Academy.
If I’m late, I’ll have to wait until tomorrow, what a hassle.”
Yang Xing looked at the proud, self-righteous little face before him.
The twelve-year-old girl’s posture at this moment was exactly like those noblewomen he had seen in the marketplace.
Clearly bestowing charity upon you, yet still expecting your gratitude.
He wasn’t angry.
He even found it somewhat amusing.
“What if I really am a Titled Douluo?”
Yang Xing said lightly.
Ning Rongrong was stunned for a moment.
Then she laughed.
Not a polite laugh, but the kind of genuinely amused laugh that she couldn’t hold back.
“You?”
She laughed so hard she bent over, one hand clutching her stomach.
“You just said yourself you’re only eighteen!
An eighteen-year-old Titled Douluo?”
She finally managed to stop laughing, looking at Yang Xing with a gaze as if he were an idiot.
“Do you think I’m stupid?
Trying to trick me with words even a three-year-old wouldn’t believe?”
She extended a finger, wagging it side to side.
“I’ve read a book in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect’s library called ‘Records of the Douluo Continent.’ It’s clearly recorded there: the youngest Soul Saint in the entire continent’s history wasn’t even eighteen years old.”
She stared at Yang Xing.
“Even a Soul Saint couldn’t do it, and you’re telling me you’re a Titled Douluo?”
After hearing this, Yang Xing’s expression changed.
He raised a hand and wiped the corner of his eye, his movements perfectly executed, vividly portraying the look of someone wronged yet holding back their grievance.
“You saying that about me…
hurts my feelings so much…”
Ning Rongrong’s expression turned cold.
She had already seen this person’s speed at changing expressions.
“Stop acting.”
Yang Xing wiped his face twice, then noticed Ning Rongrong staring at him expressionlessly, her eyes clearly saying, “If you keep pretending, I’m leaving right now.”
His hand paused.
Then his expression turned serious again.
Extremely quickly, it turned serious.
As if a switch had been flipped.
One moment he looked pitiful and wronged, the next his brows relaxed, a faint smile curling at the corners of his lips.
His entire aura shifted instantly from “a bullied little victim” to a kind of confidence Ning Rongrong couldn’t quite put into words.
That confidence didn’t seem fake.
Or even if it was an act, it was more convincing than anyone she had ever seen.
“Alright.”
Yang Xing spoke, his tone carefree.
“Miss Ning Rongrong, don’t be in such a hurry to leave.”
He looked at her, his gaze carrying a strange certainty.
“Would you like to see what I, as your master, can teach you?”
He leaned slightly forward.
“Maybe after seeing it, you won’t want to break this contract anymore?”
Ning Rongrong’s brows furrowed.
“Have you forgotten who I am?”
She spoke word by word.
“The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
One of the three great sects on the continent.
The wealthiest sect.”
She raised two fingers.
“Sword Douluo, Bone Douluo.
Two Titled Douluos.
My dearest grandfathers.”
She lowered her hand, her eyes filled with undisguised disdain.
“Do you think your skills, whatever their origin, can compare to my Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect?
Can they compare to the methods of my two Titled Douluo grandfathers?”
She tilted her head.
“Don’t you think you’re overestimating yourself?”
After listening, Yang Xing smiled.
He didn’t argue.
Instead, he raised his right hand.
Extending his index finger, he gently tapped Ning Rongrong’s forehead.
Ning Rongrong froze.
How dare this fraud touch her?!
She was about to explode—
“Poof.”
The Yang Xing before her vanished.
Not invisibility, not evasion.
He disappeared into thin air.
Ning Rongrong’s pupils dilated abruptly.
Before she could react, an extremely slight weight settled on top of her head.
So light it was almost imperceptible.
Like a feather landing on her hair.
Ning Rongrong stiffened.
Slowly, she raised her hand, reaching toward the top of her head.
Her fingertips brushed against something warm, soft, and feathery.
“Chirp.”
A clear birdcall sounded from above her head.
Ning Rongrong’s hand froze mid-air.
She slowly lowered her head, looking at the empty, dilapidated room before her.
Then, even more slowly, she raised her head, her gaze shifting upward with difficulty.
A small bird was perched atop her hair, tilting its head, looking down at her with round, black-bean-like eyes.