Douluo Dalu: Immortal Dragon Clan

In a small border village of the Star Luo Empire, although the population is sparse, the villagers are extremely simple and hospitable.

At this moment, in a dilapidated hut, Hei sat reading a book—perhaps for now, reading was the only way he could pass the time during these boring days.

He looked up at Bai Yu, who was standing in front of the bed and staring intently at Ye Guyi on the bed, and asked, "How long do you plan to keep an eye on her? You've been watching her since yesterday."

"I'm thinking, should I turn her into a puppet, or use psychological manipulation on her?" Bai Yu's beautiful eyes remained fixed on the sleeping Ye Guyi as she answered calmly.

"Why don't you just wake her up and ask her opinion?" Hei slowly closed the book, his voice tinged with impatience. "Anyway, there's no point in letting her continue pretending to be asleep; time is precious."

"Alright then." Bai Yu showed a hint of helplessness on his face, then bent down and whispered in Ye Guyi's ear, "Miss Ye Guyi, don't pretend to be asleep now that you're awake, or I'll really have to use the 'method' I just mentioned."

Ye Guyi, who had been pretending to be asleep in bed, suddenly opened her eyes. She turned her head with difficulty and met Bai Yu's beautiful yet deep and unfathomable eyes, falling into a long silence.

After a moment, she finally spoke in a hoarse voice: "How did you find out?"

"That's a rather naive question." Bai Yu pulled up a chair and sat down, a smile playing on his lips. "From the very beginning, we knew you were already awake."

"I just wanted to see how long you'd pretend to be asleep. I was going to wait a little longer, but my brother seems to be running out of patience." As she spoke, Bai Yu glanced back at Hei, who was still reading.

Her brother has now truly lost interest in Ye Guyi in bed, feeling that she has no value whatsoever, and is even too lazy to maintain his pretense of friendliness.

Ye Guyi remained silent, feeling that her pretense of being asleep was particularly ridiculous in front of these two people.

After a long while, she gritted her teeth and asked, "What exactly do you want?"

"You should have heard what I just said very clearly, right?" Bai Yu didn't beat around the bush and directly brought up the previous topic. "I'll give you two choices: either submit to me, or become my puppet."

To be honest, I'd rather see 'fallen angels' than 'holy angels'.

"You two have a good chat." Hei closed his book, got up and walked out of the room, leaving the two of them alone.

Bai Yu patiently waited for Ye Guyi's answer—she sincerely hoped that the woman in front of her could make the "right" choice, since forcibly controlling her was simple, but it lacked a bit of "fun".

Outside the house, Hei watched the villagers working in their simple way, his expression calm.

Just then, a farmer came over and asked cautiously, "Soul Master, is the Soul Master lying on the bed inside alright?"

"It's all over now," Hei replied softly with a gentle smile.

"That's good." The old farmer breathed a sigh of relief, a kind smile appearing on his face. "Evil Soul Masters are truly despicable. I really hope there will be fewer evil Soul Masters on the continent."

"By the way, isn't there some kind of group from Shrek Academy that specifically helps eliminate evil spirit masters?" The old farmer was the owner of the wooden house, surnamed Su, and Hei always called him "Uncle Su." Hei brought over two stools, and Uncle Su wanted to help himself, but Hei stopped him—after placing the stools, Hei gestured for Uncle Su to sit down.

Uncle Su sat down helplessly, and then answered Hei's question: "What Shrek Academy? I've never seen it before."

Our border is harassed daily by evil spirit masters, yet the government never sends anyone to rescue us; we can only struggle to survive on our own.

"If it weren't for the timely arrival of the two lords yesterday, this village would probably have been destroyed by the evil spirit master long ago."

Hei listened quietly to Uncle Su's words without interrupting, patiently acting as a listener.

Uncle Su sighed and continued, "I really wish the Spirit Hall from ten thousand years ago were still around. I once read a diary left by my ancestor. My ancestor used to be a deacon of the Spirit Hall. The diary said that back then, the Spirit Hall would help commoners awaken their spirits for free. Whenever an evil spirit master appeared, there would be spirit masters from the Spirit Hall to fight against them."

"Unlike now, the country doesn't care whether we live or die. We've heard of Shrek Academy, but we've never seen them come to our rescue!"

Upon hearing "Spirit Hall" and "diary," Hei immediately became interested and asked, "Uncle Su, may I see your diary?"

Without the slightest hesitation, Uncle Su immediately got up and walked towards a small hut next to the wooden house—the hut seemed to be specifically used for storage.

Soon, he came out with an old and tattered diary. He gently blew off the dust and carefully handed it to Hei: "Soul Master, this diary has been sitting for a long time and is quite dusty. Please don't mind."

“I don’t mind.” Hei took the diary, his tone still gentle. “Actually, apart from martial spirits and soul power, we are no different from ordinary people.”

He opened the diary, and a line on the first page instantly perked him up—"Su Yuntao's Diary".

interesting!

Hei continued flipping through the diary. The first half was filled with Su Yuntao's praise of the Spirit Hall, praising how beneficial and righteous the Spirit Hall was to the people. However, the content took a sharp turn in the second half—Su Yuntao called himself a "sinner of the Spirit Hall" in the diary because when Tang San awakened his Blue Silver Grass spirit, he clearly measured that the other party had innate full spirit power, but he did not report it to the higher-ups of the Spirit Hall. Instead, he ignored the matter based on his own subjective judgment.

The following content is filled with repentance. Su Yuntao repeatedly says that he is the "sinner of the destruction of the Spirit Hall". If he had not underestimated Tang San's Blue Silver Grass, the Spirit Hall would not have ended up like that.

After reading this, Hei silently closed the diary and returned it to Uncle Su, unable to resist asking, "Uncle Su, do you hate Shrek Academy? Do you hate that Sea God Tang San?"

In fact, among all the periods in the Douluo Continent, the darkest was the era in which the Peerless Tang Sect lived.

In this era, without the Spirit Hall, commoners who wanted to awaken their spirits either had to join the army or be born into a powerful family or be a servant of a powerful family. Ordinary commoners had to pay a large sum of money to awaken their spirits, which almost completely blocked the path for poor commoners to become spirit masters.

Darkness thought to herself: If Su Yuntao knew that his descendants would not even have the chance to awaken their martial souls, would he want to strangle the version of himself that looked down on Tang San back then?
Ultimately, this can be considered "reaping what one sows"—but on second thought, perhaps there is another possibility: back then, could it be that some ingrate deliberately pushed Tang San to a certain master as a "gift"?
"How hateful!" Uncle Su took the diary, his face full of helplessness and indignation. "If the Spirit Hall hadn't disappeared, we might have been able to awaken our spirits and wouldn't be so powerless and bullied like this now."

...(End of chapter)