You wretched man — what are you WAITING for!
Su Jiu'er fretted silently, cheeks burning.
When had the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox Empress of an age ever been this nervous? It nearly rivaled sixteen years ago, walking into the three-headed demon dragon's trap.
What she feared most was the silence stretching on.
She cracked one eye open the tiniest slit — and found the man wasn't wearing the greedy, can't-wait leer she expected.
He was simply watching her. Quietly. Gently.
His gaze was clear water, without one grain of lechery in it — the way one admires a work of art — and on that handsome mouth hung a smile warm as polished jade.
This...
This she had not seen coming.
Su Jiu'er had been born with enchantment in her bones. Every frown and smile pulled at men like gravity; every time she appeared before people, greedy eyes swarmed her.
It was the thing she hated most in the world.
And yet she understood, too: what man under heaven wasn't moved by beauty? How many could hold their heart steady before a creature like her?
She loathed it, grieved over it — and could never escape it.
And now she had offered up her lips, laid herself out like fruit for the picking. There couldn't be a man alive who could hold himself back.
But the man in front of her... had.
Wonder flooded through her. "You... what are you doing?"
"Auntie, you're too beautiful. Flawless as white jade. It feels like one kiss from me would be a kind of blasphemy." Neither humble nor performative — he simply meant it.
Thump... THUMP!
Su Jiu'er's heart lost its rhythm entirely. Her gaze fled; she actually did not dare meet those bright, sincere star-lit eyes.
"But... but people say Auntie is a wicked enchantress who brings chaos to the world — a fox-charmer temptress!"
"Who said that? I'll kill them." A blade-edge flashed across that handsome face. "That's envy, nothing more. Envy of a face that could topple cities."
"A man's mouth — a lying ghost! You hunger for Auntie's body too. Don't think I don't know!!!"
There was no anger anywhere in it — it was pure, blushing, wronged-girl protest.
Luo Fanchen spread his hands, all innocence. "If my intentions were filthy — then when the chance was right there just now, why didn't I take the kiss?"
Su Jiu'er froze. That's right. Why DIDN'T he?
"Pah!"
"Who said the kiss was for you anyway? Shameless boy."
"You closed your eyes," Luo Fanchen said.
"I was tired. Resting them." Her mouth would not lose.
"Right, right, of course." He raised both hands in surrender, then grinned. "Take a look at my great treasure, and I'll let you rest."
"What great treasure?"
The question was barely out before her pretty face flamed scarlet. Her eyes went sharp and upright, one long leg lashed out, jade foot flashing, bells chiming —
"PTUI! Barely grown and already rotten to the core — DEGENERATE!!"
Luo Fanchen found himself kicked clean off the bed. Rubbing his backside, he protested from the floor, "Auntie! How was that degenerate?! You just KICK me now?!"
Su Jiu'er's eyes were perfectly round. "Sixteen years I've raised you — I know exactly how many taels you weigh. What 'great treasure' could YOU be hiding?"
"I meant this — I want you to look at this map." He climbed to his feet and drew the sheepskin scroll from his robes.
"Ah. That."
Su Jiu'er was struck instantly mute.
Her surface stayed queenly-cool — but Luo Fanchen could see, below the fox-fur hem, ten toes white as mutton-fat jade curling hard into the bedsheet.
She cleared her throat and produced her chilliest sovereign voice.
"Bring it, then. Let me see."
He recognized the vixen's little topic-change trick for what it was, laughed inwardly, and mercifully didn't expose it.
Su Jiu'er took the sheepskin map half-heartedly. She didn't expect Luo Fanchen to produce anything that could genuinely surprise her.
One rough glance — and she snapped bolt upright.
"Where did you get a map of the continent this detailed? No ordinary person could have drawn this. The Soul Martial Continent is vast and every road on it crawls with danger — an ordinary man couldn't cross one country's borders in a lifetime of trying."
The longer she looked, the harder her heart pounded. Suddenly her head jerked up, finger stabbing at one marked route, eyes blazing:
"Isn't this the road to MY home?!"
"What? To YOUR home?"
Luo Fanchen reeled too, half unable to believe it. This was supposed to point at a treasure-land.
How did it lead straight to the in-laws'?
Su Jiu'er stared at him as if at a ghost, unblinking, until his skin crawled and he had to speak:
"So it points to your home. Is that worth this much shock?"
"'SO it points'??" She was worked up now. "Qingqiu is the hidden sanctuary of the heavenly fox clan — a true land beyond the world. Outside the clan, NO ONE knows where Qingqiu lies. And your map marks it plain as daylight."
"Even the fox beauty who betrayed me over the three-headed demon dragon didn't dare breathe a word of Qingqiu's location — her secrecy oath wouldn't let her."
The weight of it finally landed on Luo Fanchen.
"Where did you get this map?"
"Would you believe I picked it up off the ground?" He shrugged.
Su Jiu'er gave him one long, deep look — he didn't want to say. She didn't force it, and bent back over the map instead.
"This route doesn't just lead to Qingqiu. Its final destination is the Qingqiu Forbidden Ground." She sucked in a breath of cold air, genuinely shaken.
"The Qingqiu Forbidden Ground?"
Seeing his blank face, she steadied her breathing. "You're family — no harm telling you. The Forbidden Ground is said to seal something terrible inside. No fox is permitted to set foot there. Ever."
"And no one's ever gone in for a look?"
She shook her head. "Above all else, my clan honors rules — and keeps its oaths."
"And yet somebody still managed to commit betrayal," Luo Fanchen muttered.
"Asking for a beating! You just HAD to pour salt in that exact wound, didn't you!"
Her leg swung up to kick — but the long leg and lotus foot only came to rest against his chest in the end. She couldn't bring herself to follow through.
"This map matters to you?"
Luo Fanchen figured the System had been reliable enough so far — it wasn't going to send him off to deliver his own head. He nodded.
"Mm. It matters."
"All right. When I'm back in Qingqiu, I'll find a way to scout it."
"Be careful. If it's not possible, drop it."
"Do you need the map back?"
"No. I've memorized it."
Her lips parted. "Why on earth would you sit around memorizing a map?"
"I didn't." Luo Fanchen blinked. "Doesn't everyone remember things after one glance?"
"You're bluffing," she said, narrow-eyed.
So Luo Fanchen raised a finger and traced the routes through the empty air, line for line. With supreme comprehension, perfect recall was now truly effortless.
This time Su Jiu'er was well and truly stunned.
At her level of soul strength, photographic memory was nothing. But for a boy who had awakened his martial soul YESTERDAY, this was heaven-defying aptitude, plain and simple.
Martial soul grade was only ever one axis of talent.
Soul, physique, comprehension of sword or spear or any of the hundred paths — each was its own gift. It was simply that people with strong martial souls tended not to be weak elsewhere.
That Luo Fanchen could already do this meant his soul strength alone could thrash anyone his age.
His physique needed no discussion — reaching peak body tempering as easily as breathing had frightened her once already.
A one-of-a-kind evolving martial soul, and now gifts stacked on gifts. Her little man was going to defy the heavens themselves.
Su Jiu'er quietly marveled — and worried.
"That reminds me. You've memorized the map, but you don't actually know what any of those places ARE, do you?"
"Mm."
"Fine. Auntie will give you the short course. It'll make everything easier later."
She traced the map patiently as she taught. "The continent holds four great gatherings of soul beasts."
"The Eastern Oasis. The Southern Death Desert. The Western Coast. The Far-North Ice Plain."
"The Western Coast is the paradise of the sea soul beasts — unfathomably deep. Almost no one sets foot there."
"The Eastern Oasis is the most flourishing, with the most species — so soul masters hunting rings all go east. It's also nearest to us."
"We are here: the Azure Dragon Empire. The White Tiger Empire lies west, the Divine Phoenix Empire south, and the Black Tortoise Empire north. Four powers propping up the sky, forever at odds — and those four houses hold the continent's supreme beast martial souls."
"Ten sects wielding the supreme ITEM martial souls each back an empire of their choice, scattered through the four territories. The Temple and the other powers stand outside all borders. The deeper secrets would take all night — you'll learn them in time."
Luo Fanchen's eyes grew brighter and brighter, as if some vast, mysterious scroll-painting were unrolling before him.
A world that had been a stranger's took on shape and clarity under Su Jiu'er's voice.
It left him itching, impatient to be out the door and exploring it.
He reined himself in. "All right. It's late — I'll stop keeping you from your rest, Auntie."
"Aren't you forgetting something?" she huffed softly.
"Nope." And he walked briskly out of the room. Su Jiu'er stared at the closed door, biting her lip in fury.
You absolute BASTARD!
I OFFER the kiss and you don't even take it?
She could not swallow this!
Her lovely eyes turned — click — with an idea.
Oh, there's a way. Hmph. Let's see how long you can keep up the saintly act!!!
Su Jiu'er slid off the bed and went digging through her chest of things.
Back in his room, Luo Fanchen patted his chest over and over.
Whew. Close one. Good thing he'd retreated fast — if the vixen had turned on even a fraction more charm, he'd never have held the line.
There was a reason he'd gritted his teeth and refused her first kiss.
She was moved because tomorrow meant parting — that's what had put the kiss on offer. But take it, and it was a one-time deal: afterward she'd revert straight to cool-and-untouchable, business as usual.
Which meant this exact moment called for restraint — and then striking while the iron stayed hot, moving the relationship forward for real.
No, he hadn't gotten the kiss. But her feelings for him had visibly climbed a whole rung.
Greedy monkeys burn their mouths on hot tofu.
And what do we call this technique? Loosening the line to set the hook.
A little patience now would buy a far sweeter return later. His mouth curved: right about now her heart would be itching like a cat was clawing it. Odds were decent she'd come after him. And if she didn't — no matter. Hold steady.
He understood women.
Was any of this wrong of him?
Not at all.
The way Luo Fanchen saw it, everything he did only made love burn hotter, and every word of it was sincere — that's called romance, thank you. The scum were the men who cheated hearts, took no responsibility, and left women crying.
He kicked off his shoes, sat cross-legged on the bed, swept his mind empty, and for the first time set the Ancestral Dragon Heaven-Devouring Art in motion.
"ROOOAR!"
In an instant his spirit swam.
He seemed to see it: a dragon-shadow beyond all description coiling through the void, head thrown back in a long, endless cry.
And when its jaws opened to swallow — sun, moon, and stars poured down its throat.
"Whoosh, whoosh—"
At the same moment, suction bloomed across Luo Fanchen's skin. The spiritual qi of heaven and earth came threading in from all around, sinking into his body, running the meridians along paths of profound design — and pooling, all of it, in his dantian.
"BOOM!"
"BOOM-BOOM!"
Sound after strange sound rolled out from inside him.
A long while later Luo Fanchen opened his eyes, surprise written across his face. Where his dantian had held a single qi vortex before the session, four more now spun beside it — and he had no idea what that meant.
But it had to be good rather than bad: his strength and spirit were plainly severalfold what they'd been before he sat down. This Ancestral Dragon art was every bit as profound as advertised.
"Knock, knock, knock."
His attention snapped back.
"Come in. It's not locked."
The instant a carefully dressed-up Su Jiu'er stepped through the door, Luo Fanchen's eyes went wide with wonder — his nose one twitch from bleeding.
And she, sensing the freshly-broken-through aura rolling off him, dropped her little mouth wide open in shock of her own.
"You..."
"YOU!"
Beauty stared at beauty — and they said it in perfect unison.