Cao Jinxuan, as the contemporary successor of the Body Sect, naturally knew the result of the bidding for the final treasure at the auction. His mockery was undoubtedly rubbing salt in Xiao Hongchen's wounds. How could he not be angry?
"Cao Jinxuan, you're going too far! I've endured you for a long time!" Xiao Hongchen was on the verge of rushing over but was held back by Ma Rulong.
At this time, Wang Dong unhesitatingly stood out and said sarcastically, "Uncle, who are you?"
"Un... uncle?" Xiao Hongchen looked at Wang Dong dumbfounded, pointed at his own nose, and said, "Are you calling me? Uncle?"
Wang Dong had a look of pure innocence on her face and said, "Of course! Uncle."
Xiao Hongchen was not yet fifteen. Although he often had a proud look on his face, he couldn't be considered too old. The short mustache on his lip was precisely a symbol of puberty. But at this time, under the pointing of Wang Dong's raised hand, it had become an obvious sign of an uncle.
In the rearmost part of the Sun Moon team, Huo Yuhao, seeing this vivid scene before him, couldn't help but sigh for Xiao Hongchen. In terms of verbal teasing, the Buddha's daughter had never lost.
"Am I... am I that old?" Xiao Hongchen looked at the wide-eyed, child-like Wang Dong with a speechless expression.
Wang Dong nodded very seriously and said, "It's alright. Not too old either. You must be a teacher at the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy, right? Uncle."
"Don't call me uncle," Xiao Hongchen felt he was about to go crazy. His personality was usually very flamboyant, so much so that at this moment, besides his sister Meng Hongchen, no one in the team was helping him. On the contrary, they were all laughing along.
At the side, Meng Hongchen said with a coquettish annoyance, "Little fellow, look clearly. My brother is only fourteen this year, not even fifteen yet! He's not some uncle."
Wang Dong turned to Meng Hongchen, her expression instantly changing. It was a peculiar look of three parts admiration, six parts attachment, and one part longing. "Sister! You are so beautiful!"
Meng Hongchen was stunned by his praise. One must know that when Wang Dong had just enrolled, she had attracted the attention of almost all the girls in the entire grade, including her own class. Her beautiful, pink-blue large eyes, her pink-blue short hair simply scattered on her forehead, her fair skin, her tender face that looked like it would break from a single puff of air—she had an extreme lethality towards girls of any age group.
Although Meng Hongchen was older than Wang Dong and Cao Jinxuan, in reality, she was only a little over a year older. Looking at this youth whose height was about the same as hers and whose appearance was so beautiful, especially being praised by him, her pretty face immediately turned red, and she murmured, "You are also very handsome."
Wang Dong smiled brilliantly and said, "So this uncle is your brother! Is he your biological brother? How come you two don't look alike at all? You were born from the same parents, but the difference is really big."
"Bastard, are you looking for a beating?" Xiao Hongchen really couldn't take it anymore. This kid not only said he was old but was also indirectly saying he was ugly. The uncle could endure it, but the aunt could not!
"Enough," it was Ju Zi who spoke. This one sentence immediately made Xiao Hongchen's entire person deflate.
"Brother, don't be so fierce!" Meng Hongchen, looking at Wang Dong's panicked expression, couldn't help but pull her brother.
"Meng, are you serious?" Xiao Hongchen looked at his sister dumbfounded. But Wang Dong sent him a provocative look and then followed the main group, quickly leaving the hotel. As she walked, she didn't forget to wave at Meng Hongchen.
Xu Sanshi's gaze looked at Wang Dong and Meng Hongchen with an unknown meaning, a strange arc involuntarily lifting at the corner of his mouth.
"Wang Dong, you're really something!" He Caitou said with a look of surprise. "I didn't expect you to be so good at picking up girls."
Xu Sanshi was right beside him. After glancing at Jiang Nannan not far away, he said in a low voice, "I think Wang Dong is very amazing! It seems I should learn from him."
Bei Bei looked at him with disdain and said, "Learn my ass. His girl-picking skills are built on the basis of his appearance. Do you have such a thing as appearance? If you were half as handsome as me, you wouldn't have ended up like this."
"You're full of shit!" Xu Sanshi said angrily. "I can't pick them up, that's because... ouch, who kicked me?" When he turned his head and saw Jiang Nannan's face full of coquettish anger, he immediately became honest, gently slapped his own face, and said with a fawning look, "I won't say it, don't worry. I won't tell anyone..."
Jiang Nannan, however, ignored him, quickened her pace, and walked past him to the front.
Seeing his goddess who was as cold as ever, Xu Sanshi let out a silent sigh in his heart. To always maintain such a relationship, he was truly a bit tired...
It's unknown if it was because the Star Luo Empire had let in some more spectators today, but at this time, the number of spectators in Star Luo Plaza was exceptionally large. It was simply people pressed against people, people squeezed against people. With the sea of heads, as far as the eye could see, it was a sheet of black.
The competition rest area, however, had clearly become much colder. The vast majority of participating teams had already been eliminated. The remaining sixteen teams were all representatives of the most powerful academies on the continent today. Today, four matches would be held, and tomorrow another four. Then there would be the individual matches against the same opponents, also for two days.
After a total of four days of competition, the round of sixteen would be over. After each round of the knockout tournament, there would be a one-day rest period, and then the subsequent matches would be held.
In today's four matches, both Shrek Academy and the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy would be appearing.
The Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy's match was in the afternoon. They could have rested in the morning. To come along at this time was undoubtedly to pay attention to what kind of combat power Shrek Academy would erupt with in this match against the five Soul King-composed Dou Ling Royal Advanced Soul Master Academy.
Huo Yuhao had no interest at all in this kind of low-level one-on-one fight. But under Ju Zi's strong request, he still reluctantly came along.
However, he could also take this opportunity to see if Ling Luochen, whose martial soul had completely evolved into Ultimate Ice, would abide by her promise and hide the ability Huo Yuhao had bestowed upon her in the tournament.
After all, a Soul King with an ultimate attribute was enough to make the scales of victory in all matches tilt towards the Shrek Academy she was in. Unless Huo Yuhao made a move, otherwise it would be unfair to the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy.
Entering the rest area and taking a seat, Wang Dong did not forget to give a smile to the Xiao Hongchen siblings. In Xiao Hongchen's eyes, this was clearly a provocation. But in Meng Hongchen's eyes, Wang Dong's smile, full of sunshine, truly made her little heart go "thump, thump," accelerating its beat.
Xu Sanshi pulled Wang Dong's arm and said, "Stop playing. Be careful you don't overdo it."
Wang Dong snorted and said, "What? Have you changed your affection? Have you taken a fancy to that girl?"
Hearing her words, Xu Sanshi's head was immediately full of black lines. He said, "Can you not have your mind full of dirty thoughts?"
Huo Yuhao, who had also seen this scene, once again sighed for Xiao Hongchen in his heart. Meng Hongchen at this age was indeed a bit of a fangirl. If she were to know that Wang Dong was actually a girl, she would probably collapse at the first moment, right?
At a non-essential moment, Huo Yuhao's group of six naturally disdained to participate in the battle. And Old Ma, through the previous spiritual power instant-kill show belonging to Huo Yuhao, could also roughly deduce that this young man possessed an outrageous spiritual power that did not match his soul power level.
From his performance so far, below the Soul Emperor level, there was no one who could withstand a single glance from him.
Even though Huo Yuhao had only appeared once, he had left an extremely deep impression on the audience. Even for Soul Emperor-level students, such an exaggerated crushing had never appeared in a one-on-one match format.
How to guard against Huo Yuhao's outrageous spiritual power attack had now become the primary task that all fifteen teams had to research countermeasures for.
At this time, Wang Yan stood before the crowd with a solemn expression and began his tactical arrangements for the participating team. "Today's match will proceed according to the tactics we have formulated..."
And among the participating official team members, Ling Luochen's beautiful eyes were staring into the distance in a daze, as if she hadn't heard anything at all.
Seeing the faint look of disdain in Ling Luochen's eyes, Wang Yan, in order to save his own dignity, said in a deep voice, "Don't you forget the consequences of being careless when facing the Death God's Emissary! For many years, our Shrek Academy has always won the championship in the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Dueling Tournament, but we have also become the target of public criticism. It can be said that we are the research subject of every participating academy. With the development of soul tools, all kinds of tactics are now becoming richer. We must not use the simple thinking of the past to measure the strength of our opponents. If anyone does not carry out my tactics, then they don't have to appear in the subsequent matches!"
To this, Ling Luochen just secretly pouted. She only remembered that today when she had gone with the participating team to wake Wang Yan up, that auctioneer Qing Ya had come out of the room with him.
She vaguely remembered the words Huo Yuhao had said during the process of evolving her martial soul—
"Senior Sister, think about it calmly. You core disciples from the outer court, how much have you learned after graduating and entering the inner court? Weren't you all moved to a complete mess by the heroic deeds of the Shrek predecessors who protected the peace, and then resolutely joined the so-called Shrek Supervision Group? Then, in order to continuously enhance the influence of Shrek Academy, you traveled all over the continent for years, to carry out those missions with a nine-in-ten chance of death. On the contrary, you didn't temper your own soul skills in the academy, didn't increase your own knowledge. You gave everything for the academy, yet the academy couldn't even get you the soul bone you wanted most."
"You think the things you are doing are for the common people of the continent? Very great? Very glorious? Then why not have those old folks from the Sea God Pavilion pass on their skills and pour them into you, directly helping you become Titled Douluo before going to save the common people? On what basis do you have to go and rescue the common people just because they move their upper and lower lips? Why don't they go themselves?"
"Before burning yourself for the Shrek spirit, for dedicating yourself, you must first think that you are first a person. You have parents, friends, and your own lover. Then you are a member of the academy. For you to disregard your family and sect and choose to be a saint willing to dedicate yourself, isn't this putting the cart before the horse?"
"Shrek is just an academy, a place to teach and nurture people. It should absolutely not be a pyramid scheme organization that brainwashes students to selflessly dedicate themselves to the academy. Those idiots who pride themselves as the continent's guardians, meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and interfering with the profits of various organizations when they have nothing better to do, sooner or later they will suffer a fatal counter-attack. This is an undeniable fact that can be foreseen."
"Senior Sister, to live a life, one must learn to live for the people they care about, and even more so, to live for themselves..."
Grandmaster Huo, I have attained enlightenment.
Just as Ling Luochen was continuously recalling what Huo Yuhao had said, the referee's voice had already sounded.
"Round of sixteen, first match. Shrek Advanced Soul Master Academy versus Dou Ling Royal Advanced Soul Master Academy. Team members of both sides, enter the waiting area to prepare for the match."
On the competition stage, the moment the referee's voice fell, the cheers of the entire audience rose wave after wave. The atmosphere was instantly pushed to a climax, so much so that the army responsible for maintaining order was doing its utmost to raise their vigilance and prevent all kinds of sudden situations.
The Star Luo Empire's Emperor, Xu Jiawei, as if nothing had happened last night, had come to the top of the imperial city wall early on. For all of Shrek Academy's matches, he was bound to be present.
Under Wang Yan's lead, Dai Yueheng, Gongyang Mo, Ling Luochen, Xixi, Yao Haoxuan, Chen Zifeng, and the level-five soul tool master, seven people, followed him into the waiting area.
In the last tournament, Dai Yueheng had appeared as the captain of the preparatory team, but most of the others had not participated in the last tournament. Therefore, the Soul Emperor Dai Yueheng naturally received the most attention.
Wang Yan looked at his team members, and after feigning contemplation, said to them in a deep voice, "That we can walk to this step now is all thanks to your bravery. This is what all of you have fought for with your sweat and effort! You just have to remember not to let any single mistake tarnish the Shrek glory we have defended. Shrek will be victorious!"
"Shrek will be victorious!" The six, besides Ling Luochen, all shouted at the same time. At this moment, they were already fully concentrated, a thick battle intent instantly rising.
For the first time, Ling Luochen felt that this "Shrek will be victorious," which was shouted before every match, was a little piercing to the ear at this time.
Huo Yuhao's group of six, who had been paying attention to the Shrek participating team, couldn't help but get a pile of goosebumps. Huo Yuhao was so embarrassed he was about to dig a three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment out of the ground with his feet.
He was even a little thankful that he had completely broken away from Shrek Academy. Otherwise, with his strength, he would surely have participated as a preparatory team member. And thinking about having to shout so passionately before every match, Huo Yuaho's whole person felt unwell.
Fortunately, he had already obtained what he wanted most from the academy, and that was this group of partners whom he could entrust his back to.
"Yuhao, who do you think will win this match?" Cui Yejie's attention was pulled back from Shrek's opponent. She couldn't help but ask.
Huo Yuhao thought for a short while, his gaze finally resting on Wang Dong among the preparatory team members. "If that Wang Dong doesn't play, it's hard to say. If Wang Dong plays, they will surely win."
Xie Huanyue was immediately interested. "Isn't that just a three-ring little kid? Could he still turn the tide of battle?"
Huo Yuhao just smiled silently and did not explain too much to them.
Unless he himself went on stage, otherwise, among the younger generation, who could play against the God-King's divine sense on Tang Wutong?