Huo Yuhao hurriedly made his way to the Star Dou Forest.
Because he needed to tell Xu Jiujiu many things, and he had learned that Princess Xu Jiujiu was currently soul hunting in the Star Dou Forest under the protection of the royal guard.
The fact that he—now with a status not much different from a commoner—could learn of this princess’s whereabouts was simple enough: the real power of the Star Luo Empire had never truly left the hands of the Dai and Zhu families.
He was intimately familiar with the Star Dou Forest of this era.
After walking for several days, he sensed Xu Jiujiu’s aura, along with the fluctuations of soul power from a fierce battle taking place.
“This hundred-thousand-year soul beast is no easy opponent!”
“Royal Guard, heed my command: protect the Princess!”
The officers of the royal garrison around Xu Jiujiu all wore grim expressions.
None of them had expected that on this day—merely accompanying the princess to hunt on the outskirts of the Star Dou Forest—they would encounter a hundred-thousand-year Heavenly Horse.
As light and shadow flickered, the royal guard escorting Xu Jiujiu had already suffered heavy losses before they could retreat far.
Watching the confrontation between the young princess’s guards and that hundred-thousand-year Heavenly Horse, Huo Yuhao did not immediately rush in to certain death.
From their auras, Huo Yuhao could tell that both the guards and the Heavenly Horse were Rank 9 Titled Douluo-level powerhouses.
If his current frail body were to get caught up in that, he could very well lose his life.
Only when he was certain that both sides had exhausted themselves did Huo Yuhao secretly mobilize a thread of his origin’s divine sense, channeling it through his Spirit Eye martial soul to unleash the “Soul Deprivation” skill upon the Heavenly Horse.
Feeling pain in its soul and sensing that an expert was targeting it from the shadows, unwilling to risk mutual destruction and be picked off by a scavenger, the Heavenly Horse retreated.
Only after the Heavenly Horse had left did Huo Yuhao reveal himself.
“Who are you?” Upon seeing that Huo Yuhao had just employed a technique that scared off the terrifyingly powerful Heavenly Horse, the captain of Xu Jiujiu’s royal guard stepped forward and asked.
“I am Huo Yuhao.
You were fighting so fiercely here that you’ve surely alerted many soul beasts already.
It’s impossible for you to continue hunting here…”
“Senior, Jiu Jiu is well aware of her own limitations…” Xu Jiujiu spoke in a low voice.
Though this person appeared as young as she was, anyone capable of frightening away a hundred-thousand-year Heavenly Horse was likely a powerhouse who had locked their vitality and showed no signs of aging.
“Senior?
I hardly qualify as your senior,” Huo Yuhao said with a light laugh.
“Princess, my age is roughly the same as yours—I don’t deserve such a title.
Just call me Huo Yuhao.”
Hearing Huo Yuhao’s words, Xu Jiujiu suppressed the shock in her heart.
She knew all too well how terrifyingly powerful that hundred-thousand-year Heavenly Horse had been—it had just slaughtered most of her royal guard.
Even if the Heavenly Horse had been exhausted, the fact that this person before her could frighten it away, and if he were truly a youth of similar age to her, his talent would be beyond imagination.
Xu Jiujiu’s cultivated poise made this first contact with Huo Yuhao go quite smoothly.
Before long, he accompanied the princess and her escort back to Star Luo City.
“Princess, you truly are a cautious one!” Huo Yuhao praised her.
“You didn’t even choose a place near the imperial palace for our discussion.”
After returning to Star Luo City, in a plain, quiet chain restaurant, the two chatted calmly.
There was no third person present.
Xu Jiujiu pretended to say casually, “Brother, you should know that in Star Luo City, there are eyes and ears everywhere.
The more ordinary a place, the better it is for discussing important matters.”
As the princess of the Star Luo Empire and the pillar of the Xu family’s new generation, Xu Jiujiu, though still young, had already developed a personality adept at handling all sides.
“Then let’s get straight to the point: Princess, I came to see you because I have some information to share.”
Hearing Huo Yuhao’s words, Xu Jiujiu offered a gentle smile.
“Brother Yuhao, what kind of information is this?
If possible, why not find a way to let my imperial brother know, instead of telling me?”
Huo Yuhao’s face was also full of smiles.
“Princess Jiu Jiu, your distant relative—though a generation older than you—the Baroness Xu Xiaoyu, or rather, the mother of the White Tiger Duke’s mansion’s young master Dai Luoli—well, she may be in danger.
You should warn her to be careful!
And of course, this matter cannot be brought to His Majesty’s attention, because in His Majesty’s heart, the glory of the White Tiger War God—who is wholly devoted to the nation and chaste as jade—cannot be defiled.”
Though Huo Yuhao didn’t spell it out directly, Xu Jiujiu immediately understood what he was implying.
“How did you know…”
“Me?
Let’s just say I have some grievances with certain people in the Duke’s mansion.” Huo Yuhao spread his hands.
“Princess, the White Tiger Duke is, after all, a divine descendant.
Trying to use one divine-descended family to deal with another is more likely to end not in successfully leveraging power, but in being ganged up on.
I’ve said my piece…”
The conversation did not go any deeper, as at that moment, a waitress entered with the food.
That day, after taking leave of Xu Jiujiu, Huo Yuhao stayed the night at the restaurant.
“Yuhao, are you saving Dai Luoli and his mother because you see your own past in them?” That night, lying in bed, Huo Yuhao heard Tianmeng’s voice in his spiritual sea.
“Brother Tianmeng, you understand everything again—” Huo Yuhao found that whether in his previous life or this one, Tianmeng was always the one who “understood” him.
During his childhood in the White Tiger Duke’s mansion, aside from his mother Huo Yun’er, only a few people had ever shown him warmth.
Among them was a woman—Dai Hao’s concubine.
She was a woman equally targeted by the Duchess’s hostility, and she was Dai Hao’s secondary wife, Xu Xiaoyu.
This female baroness from the imperial collateral line had taken great care of the mother and son.
For a long time after Huo Yun’er and her son had been driven into the wood shed and cut off from income when Huo Yuhao was only two, it was Xu Xiaoyu who had sent food and clothing to them.
If not for Xu Xiaoyu’s help, he, Huo Yuhao, might not even have lived to leave the Duke’s mansion.
Huo Yuhao remembered clearly: the last time he saw Aunt Xu, his mother had introduced her by saying, “This aunt held you in her arms when you were little!”
Of course, after the Duchess intervened, such meetings became difficult.
Huo Yuhao was not saving Xu Xiaoyu and Dai Luoli because he saw himself in them.
Even if Xu Xiaoyu was merely a concubine, her noble status as a baroness in the Douluo Continent’s rigidly hierarchical society was not something his mother Huo Yun’er could even aspire to.
“You don’t want the Dai family to reclaim the throne!” It wasn’t long after Huo Yuhao fell silent that Ilex’s aged voice echoed in his spiritual sea.
“Elder I, you truly are a mind reader,” Huo Yuhao muttered to himself.
“Indeed, I will not let the Dai family take back the throne of the Star Luo Empire.”
Huo Yuhao looked at Tianmeng, then at Ilex, and said, “Birds of a feather flock together.
These families that follow the Tang family all piss in the same chamber pot as them.
They’ve made things far too beautiful in their imaginations.”
“Back when the three Douluo nations first made contact with the Sun Moon Empire and clashed, the Dai family was routed.
Having lost all face and authority, they handed over the hot potato of the throne to the Xu family—leftover remnants of the Spirit Hall whose position was awkward but who had performed well in the war against the Sun Moon—while they themselves lay low.
In reality, they continued to control Star Luo’s military and political power.
They made it seem as if the Xu family were rats who had scrambled onto the table and stolen a windfall.”
“The Xu family, out of fear, went so far as to fervently oppose Angels, launching so-called campaigns to purge the remnants of the Spirit Hall to prove their loyalty to the Dai and Zhu families and their ilk.”
“I only ask: why?
Is the Xu family unworthy of the Star Luo throne?” Huo Yuhao said coldly.
“And starting with the failure of the Dai and Zhu families’ plan to make Dai Luoli disappear, the early confrontation between the Xu family and the Dai-Zhu alliance will mark the beginning of the collapse of these two greater idols—much larger than the single idol of Dai Hao himself.”