Chapter 206: The Tournament Approaches, the Hongchen Siblings and Xiao Hongchen

Time slipped away quietly.

In the past half-month, the number of tourists accepted by Star Luo City surged. All hotels and guesthouses were packed due to the massive influx of people; many, having nowhere to stay, were forced to sleep on the streets or seek temporary lodging in towns and villages near Star Luo City.

One must know that Star Luo City is one of the few mega-cities in the world today, with a permanent population of eight million. Including the transient population, it reaches a staggering twenty million. Yet recently, this figure has likely more than doubled...

The reason for such a massive change is singular: the once-every-five-years grand event, the All-Continent Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Fighting Tournament, is about to be held in Star Luo City.

There are four great empires on the continent today, and the Soul Fighting Tournament is held every five years, rotating through the capitals of the four empires in order. For Star Luo City to host it, one must wait twenty years—half a lifetime for an ordinary person. Regardless of the reason, this holds immense appeal for the people of the Star Luo Empire and even those from other nations.

In recent days, participating teams from all over the continent have arrived in Star Luo City one after another to register. The Star Emperor Hotel is almost fully booked, which shows just how many people there are.

The extraordinary, bustling scene made the little girl Meng Ning very happy. When others didn't want to go out, she would drag along Dugu Yan, who always had a very low presence, to go out with her. For some reason, Dugu Yan never really refused Meng Ning, and the relationship between the two can now be considered very close.

Shu Yan temporarily gave up on condensing his second soul core. He still lacked some refinement, and his physical injuries had only just recovered. Even if he tried again now, he would likely end up covered in wounds, so he decided to relax for a while and wait to put in the effort later.

In recent days, Shu Yan had been accompanying Xu Jiujiu. Ling Luochen and Su Tong also managed to advance to the Soul Sage realm at the very last moment.

Although the cultivation speed of Extreme Attribute Soul Masters is somewhat slower before they break through to the Soul Sage realm, they have the advantage of having no bottlenecks; as long as they accumulate enough, breaking through is a very simple matter for them.

As for the seventh soul rings for the two of them, Shu Yan had already made preparations; he currently had no time to take them to hunt for a hundred-thousand-year soul beast, so he simply sought help from Xue Ling, requesting two God-Bestowed Soul Rings from her to gift to the two women.

After resolving the soul ring requirements for the two, all matters could be said to have come to a temporary pause.

Before this, Shu Yan had divided a portion of all his immortal herbs to gift to Qian Gu Yueyin and Tian Ling, and also asked the Medicine Immortal Douluo to refine several medicinal pills condensed from the essence and efficacy of the immortal herbs to give to Luo Qinghan and the others...

Zhang Lexuan and Han Ruoruo had also recently finished their cultivation and come to the Princess's Mansion as guests. A year is not long, but for them, it had changed quite a lot. Now that the Soul Master Grand Competition was starting again, looking at those young geniuses, each one full of spirit, the two of them were also quite emotional, as if they saw their former selves in them.

As graduates of the Shrek Academy inner court, truth be told, they really wanted to see this year's Shrek Seven Devils and the reserve team; after all, as far as they knew, this year's reserve team was extremely interesting.

Compared to these two close friends, Ling Luochen clearly had no interest in this.

She had no sense of belonging to Shrek Academy, and her purpose for joining Shrek Academy was only to become stronger. The identity of the Shrek Seven Devils was now just a passing cloud to her, not to mention that there was a Ma Xiaotao in this team who was at odds with her in every way. Ice and fire are incompatible, just like Elder Ling and the Heaven Sun Douluo of Dou Ling; anyway, she was too lazy to go watch anything.

At the same time, on the other side, the Shrek Seven Devils led by the Gluttonous Douluo Xuan Zi and the seven reserve team members had already begun to rush toward the Western Legion of the Star Luo Empire, preparing to wipe out a bandit group hidden in the Ming Dou Mountain Range called the "Hand of Death"...

Perspective switch.

On the other side, among the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy team that had come to compete.

A young boy and girl with six or seven points of facial similarity, along with the team members, curiously looked at the city and streets outside. The Sun Moon Empire is different from the original three Douluo countries; because of the rapid development of soul tools, the cities of the Sun Moon Empire already had the feel of modern metropolises. Compared to that, Star Luo City, with its exquisite and elegant architectural style, reminiscent of a water town in the Jiangnan region, appeared quite ancient. Since most of the participating team members were young people around twenty years old, and it was basically their first time coming to Star Luo City, they naturally could not hide their curiosity.

On the bustling streets, the flow of people was surging. The journey by carriage to the Star Emperor Hotel was not far, but because the flow of people and vehicles was too crowded, the speed of progress was truly embarrassing.

Sitting by the window and looking at the outside, Xiao Hongchen rubbed his smooth chin. Whether it was the excitement of coming to a new country or the upcoming Soul Master Grand Competition, all of this made him feel exceptionally interesting, and he even felt that no one could become his opponent.

However, he, who thought highly of himself, indeed had the confidence for it. As a rare genius of the Sun Moon Empire who dual-cultivated as a Soul Master and Soul Engineer, and also the grandson of the Hall Master of Ming De Hall, he had reached the Soul King level at fifteen and was hailed as the number one genius in the history of the Sun Moon Empire.

And his younger sister, Meng Hongchen, although slightly inferior to him, was also a rare genius. The Vermilion Clear Ice Toad is known as the king in the cracks, and the terrifying toxins on her body make countless powerful soul beasts tremble with fear; even the Snow Empress and Ice Empress could not help but feel some emotion when mentioning it.

The fifteen-year-old Meng Hongchen had grown up to be extremely alluring. Under the warm sunshine, her straight, silver-white hair shimmered faintly, as if flashing with little starlight. Unlike Xiao Hongchen's delicate and handsome appearance, Meng Hongchen's features were more exquisite and three-dimensional. Her beauty had a unique exotic flair, but overall, she was also a beauty not inferior to Ling Luochen or Su Tong.

"Star Luo City... a bit interesting."

Xiao Hongchen stretched lazily, his posture casual, with a smile always on his face, and his feet were even placed directly on the small table in the center of the carriage, as if there were no other people in the carriage. The others, including the two elderly team leaders, frowned one after another, but in the end, they didn't say anything.

Meng Hongchen, on the side, supported her head and watched the surging crowd outside, with a smile on her face as well. She looked at Xiao Hongchen beside her, and then said in an irrefutable tone: "Brother, since we are new here, I allow you to exercise your rights as an older brother. Take me shopping tonight, and you will bear all the expenses."

Xiao Hongchen sat up with a start, the expression on his face dazed for a moment, and then it actually became somewhat distorted.

"Sister, if you want to buy something, just say it, and I'll have someone buy it. As for shopping... that's really not necessary..."

Back in Ming Du, Xiao Hongchen had been used as cheap labor by Meng Hongchen more than once. Although he was used to being proud, what could he do about his own sister? In the end, he could only do as she said.

And it is well known that accompanying a woman shopping is a task no less difficult than researching a Level 10 fixed-shell soul cannonball, especially the life-or-death questions they ask when buying clothes or jewelry, which are impossible to answer, because no matter how you answer, it turns out you are wrong. What's even more terrifying is that when shopping, a woman's stamina is almost endless; they are truly like perpetual motion machines, while men, on the other hand...

Xiao Hongchen felt that he would never forget that darkest day. After accompanying his sister shopping in Ming Du for a day, he returned to the academy dizzy and exhausted, while his sister was full of energy, and he was like someone drained of all vitality by life, finally collapsing into the greenery beside the academy path and sleeping soundly until the next morning...

It was fortunate that there were few people on that path, otherwise his reputation...

Hiss—Xiao Hongchen got goosebumps just thinking about it now.

After all this, Xiao Hongchen clearly had seen enough, and had deeply realized the terror and difficulty of accompanying a woman shopping.

What!? Sister, you want your brother to kneel for you? That won't do! Absolutely not! Brother has dignity too!

What!? You say let me choose between accompanying you shopping and kneeling? Then I, your brother, can make a choice. Look, are you satisfied with the way I kneel?

If that doesn't work, brother will kowtow to you again...? (Submissive) (End of chapter)