Chapter 38: Hot Body, Hotter Temper
The Sunset Forest was a muggy, oppressive green. Thick, humid air, buzzing with insects, clung to the skin. In a small clearing, a young woman was pacing, her face flushed with anger.
Although the woman was undeniably beautiful, with a well-endowed and voluptuous figure that her tight-fitting clothes did little to hide, her temper was even more fiery. Her resentful and unwilling expression made her look like an active volcano, perpetually on the verge of erupting.
Her identity was precisely Liu Erlong, one of the original Golden Triangle of Love, the Dragon Lady.
Following a few steps behind her was a thin, gray-robed Elder. His presence was muted, his shoulders slumped in resignation, and his voice was low but respectful as he tried to placate her.
"Miss, my mission is to accompany you while you hunt for your fourth spirit ring, and then I am to escort you back to the academy, or home."
After speaking, he didn't forget to add the most critical, and most inflammatory, part: "This is the Second Master's order."
Hearing the three words 'Second Master,' Liu Erlong's eyes instantly reddened. All the grievances in her heart, all the years of shame and anger, seemed to erupt at that single moment.
She whirled around and glared at the gray-robed Elder, her voice rising to a shout.
"Second Master? Second Master! That scoundrel again! I graduated from the academy long ago! And as for home, where do I even have a home anymore?!"
Tears of rage welled in her eyes. "If he truly cared that much, he wouldn't have dared to do something and not take responsibility for it back then! If he had any courage, any honor, my mother wouldn't have died of depression!"
"Miss, please be careful with your words." The gray-robed Elder sighed softly, his face a mask of weary duty. "No matter what, the Second Master is still your biological father."
As the saying goes, every family has its own troubles, but the troubles of a Great Clan were on another level. This so-called "Second Master" was none other than Yu Luomian, the second in command of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.
However, because he had conceived Liu Erlong with a woman of ill repute, his reputation had been stained. In a place like the Douluo Continent that emphasized one's background and bloodline above all, Yu Luomian dared not bring this illegitimate daughter home.
He had always fostered her outside, making her take her mother's surname, hiding her like a dirty secret.
Fortunately, Liu Erlong's talent was undeniably good. In her early twenties, she had already reached the Spirit Ancestor realm, breaking through the Level 40 bottleneck.
Yu Luomian had also, in his own way, secretly taken good care of her over the years, though always at a distance.
Besides sending her to a high-class Spirit Master academy that only nobles could enter, whenever Liu Erlong reached a spirit power bottleneck, this gray-robed Elder would be sent to help her obtain a spirit ring.
However, these things—this guilt-ridden, arm's-length "support"—were destined to never compensate for the lack of fatherly love in Liu Erlong's heart. They could never heal the pain of her mother's untimely death, a death she squarely blamed on her father's cowardice.
Just as the Elder was about to sigh again, a rustling sound of leaves came from deep within the jungle, attracting the attention of both of them.
Shhh-shhh-CRUNCH.
It was the sound of something moving, and fast.
"It seems like someone is there. Let's go take a look!" Without giving the gray-robed Elder a chance to refuse or even advise caution, Liu Erlong's fiery temper took over. She darted into the jungle with a single, powerful stride.
In an instant, she disappeared from the gray-robed Elder's sight.
"Miss! Wait! Sigh..." Looking at the place where Liu Erlong disappeared, the gray-robed Elder felt a profound sense of helplessness.
He then thought that most of this part of the Sunset Forest consisted of 1,000-year Spirit Beasts. 10,000-year ones were extremely rare and kept to the core.
Those who came to hunt for spirit rings here were, at most, other Spirit Ancestors or Spirit Kings. With her temperament, there would likely be no danger.
With the intention of appeasing Liu Erlong, he sighed and followed her.
Once her curiosity is satisfied, this little lady should settle down, right? The gray-robed Elder comforted himself in this way.
The two of them disappeared into the jungle, one after the other.
Liu Erlong burst through the undergrowth, stopping in a sun-dappled clearing just as a figure swept past, high above her in the trees.
It was a flash of red and gold, moving with impossible speed.
She subconsciously looked up. Her long, dark hair, like a waterfall, fluttered in the wind, and what met her eyes was a perfect half-profile, as if polished by a mountain spring.
Even more striking was his tall and slender figure, and the noble, almost regal aura that the Vermillion Bird, sealed within his Spirit, now naturally possessed. It was an aura that felt as if it were heaven-made.
Just one glance. In the eyes of most women in this World, it would be ten thousand years. A single look that imprinted on the soul.
...If he weren't holding a pregnant woman in his arms.
Liu Erlong's mind, which had been momentarily stunned by his appearance, came to a screeching halt.
A pregnant woman?
Wait.
A pregnant woman?!
Her eyes narrowed. Bringing a pregnant woman to the Soul Beast Forest?
Could it be...
Her mind, already inflamed by the memory of her own mother, leaped to a dark conclusion. Could it be that she had encountered a beast in human skin? A pervert who liked pregnant women? A monster who would bring a helpless woman out here to...
Mm-hmm. The Dragon Lady, with a temper and figure that were equally fiery, whose mind was simple and whose limbs were well-developed, began to overthink again, her assumptions fueled by her own trauma.
At the same time, high above, Qin Xuan had already discovered her. The moment their figures crossed, he glanced sideways briefly, registered a Level 40 Spirit Ancestor and an older, more powerful follower, and then paid no more attention.
They were irrelevant. His only focus was getting Jingni to safety.
"Husband, do you know that girl?" Jingni, held securely in his arms, called out softly from his chest.
Qin Xuan smiled, his voice low as he continued to leap from branch to branch. "She's probably just a noble young lady from some Spirit Master family, out on an excursion. No need to pay attention to her."
As he finished speaking, Liu Erlong's angry roar sounded from behind him, much closer than before.
"BEAST! Let go of that girl immediately!"
Liu Erlong, her Spirit Power flaring, was following closely on the ground, crashing through the forest. Her mind was filled with the image of her own mother, who had been ruthlessly abandoned by Yu Luomian while pregnant, left alone and helpless.
If that pregnant woman, she thought, her rage building, were to be humiliated by this beast in human skin, she would surely suffer the same fate as my mother! Shunned by the world!
"Are you sure you don't know each other? She seems to know you." Jingni looked back at the charging, furious Liu Erlong and asked, somewhat confused.
She hadn't been in this World for long and hadn't fully mastered the language of the Douluo Continent. From Liu Erlong, she didn't feel any killing intent.
But the anger was exceptionally obvious. Those dark, bright eyes were almost spitting fire, as if she was looking at a scumbag who had abandoned someone after seducing them.
"I really don't know her," Qin Xuan's face twitched violently. This is a hassle. "That girl is shouting at me… Uh, in short, you'll understand once you learn the language of this World."
He decided this was not worth the effort of evasion. He landed on the ground in a clear patch ahead, his feet touching the earth silently. He gently set Jingni down, helping her find her balance.
At this moment, Liu Erlong followed, bursting into the clearing. The fullness below her neck, due to running at full speed, rose and fell violently, outlining breathtaking curves.
"Girl, don't be afraid!" she shouted, ignoring Qin Xuan for a moment and focusing on Jingni. "I'll save you right away!"
Then, she rounded on Qin Xuan, her eyes blazing. "Beast! If you know what's good for you, let her go immediately, or I'll make you regret it!"
She didn't wait for an answer. She first spoke to comfort Jingni, then swung her right fist. Flames spewed from her palm, her Spirit Power surging, and she smashed it directly towards Qin Xuan's face.
Qin Xuan didn't even lift his hands. He leaned back slightly, his head tilting just enough. Liu Erlong's fist, wreathed in fire, passed harmlessly by his cheek, the wind from the blow ruffling his hair.
Seeing that her attack missed, she didn't stop. She lightly stomped her right foot on the ground, using the momentum to spin. Her whole body flew into the air, her left leg sweeping out in a powerful whip kick aimed directly at Qin Xuan's temple.
And then there was no then.
Qin Xuan, with a sigh, took half a step back.
Liu Erlong's whip kick passed through the space where his head had just been. Having lost her target and overextended, she was now suspended in the air, her body completely unbalanced, and she began to fall backward.
As a good, promising young man from Blue Star, he should cherish and protect women... or at least, not let them crack their skulls on a rock if he could help it.
Qin Xuan opened his arms.
Liu Erlong fell directly into his embrace.
The two stared at each other, her leg still half-raised from the kick, her body pressed firmly against his. An ambiguous, charged atmosphere quietly permeated the air.
Qin Xuan was fine. He was completely unbothered.
He had seen many beauties. Not to mention that Jingni, standing right behind him, was a peerless beauty capable of toppling nations.
Although the woman in his arms was undeniably good-looking, she was far from Bibi Dong's divine, mature level, and certainly not the wild, untamed Ah Yin who hadn't yet met the Hao Brothers.
Heck, even that "big shark" attendant in the City of Slaughter was not much worse looking than this young girl.
Qin Xuan looked down. The surging waves, mere weapons of flesh, could not disturb his Dao heart, which had been tempered by a year of slaughter.
But Liu Erlong was miserable.
Facing Qin Xuan's "Embrace Kill" move, her mind, which had been filled with righteous fury, went completely blank. The feeling of the hard, solid chest under her, the clean, masculine scent of him... she almost instantly turned into a steaming beauty, her face flushing a deep, powerful scarlet.
"I say... little sister, have you misunderstood something?" Qin Xuan asked, his voice calm. He felt somewhat speechless and slowly set Liu Erlong down on her feet.
If he hadn't seen that the other party had no true malicious intent, merely a case of good intentions gone horribly wrong, he would have...
Well, with Qin Xuan's decisive ruthlessness, honed from a year in the City of Slaughter, he would have taken her life long ago.
Even like this, Jingni thought, she still doesn't recognize him? Jingni looked at Qin Xuan in confusion. She couldn't understand their conversation at all.
But in Liu Erlong's eyes, Jingni's confused, silent look was a clear sign of being threatened, of not daring to call for help.
Her anger, briefly doused by embarrassment, surged back tenfold.
"Scoundrel! You... you lecher! Who are you calling 'little sister'?!" she shrieked, her voice cracking. "You clearly look younger than me, yet you're doing something so disgusting, like forcibly abducting a decent woman!"
She took a battle stance, her fiery aura flaring up again.
"I am a 41st-level, attack-system, Battle Spirit Ancestor! Today, I'm going to teach you a good lesson!"
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