As the ornate black-and-gold carriage rolled through Spirit City, Qian Renxue watched the streets through the polished crystal window.
Today, the city looked… different.
Lively chatter floated in from the crowds, and the streets were dotted with excited children dragging their parents behind them. Red silk banners fluttered from doorways. Even the Spirit Hall flags seemed to wave more cheerfully in the breeze.
Qian Renxue frowned slightly.
'Why does the city feel so festive?'
Unable to place the cause of this cheer, she turned toward her maid.
"Wu Meng," she asked calmly, "is there some festival being celebrated today?"
Wu Meng, who had been silently pondering something while sitting stiffly across from her, blinked and straightened in surprise.
"Oh! Miss, today is the annual Martial Soul Awakening Day. Spirit Hall opens its halls for civilians to have their martial souls awakened."
Qian Renxue's eyes flickered with realization.
Of course.
Most ordinary children didn't have the luxury of a personal ceremony or an elder activating their martial soul. They had to wait for this single day in the year, when deacons of Spirit Hall would awaken the martial souls of all six-year-olds in the city,and even travel to remote villages.
It was a massive effort which was coordinated, structured, consistent.
A soft smile played on her lips.
She remembered her own awakening at six. That time, Qian Daoliu himself had personally awakened her martial soul.
'That must be the best feeling for a six year old child'
Of course… few were as lucky.
.....
The carriage rolled on.
From a distance, young children in ill-fitting clothes were forming lines outside one of Spirit Hall's branch buildings. Some were hopping with excitement. Others looked nervous, gripping their mother's skirts.
'If Spirit Hall truly wanted to dominate the continent, they could've done so a thousand years ago. But they didn't.'
Qian Renxue's gaze narrowed slightly.
'Before Bibi Dong's rise, Spirit Hall had kept order. After her fall in the original work… came chaos that reigned even after 10,000 years later in Douluo Dalu 2. Evil soul masters everywhere. The world needed Spirit Hall far more than it admitted.'
She dismissed the thought for now, folding her hands as the carriage turned toward the Elder's Hall.
...
Once inside Spirit Hall, Qian Renxue immediately ordered food.
Her appetite had grown substantially after the soul ring absorption. Meat, fruit, soup , fish everything vanished from her tray with quiet elegance, watched over by two silent maids.
Satisfied, she returned to her room.
There, surrounded by silence and candlelight, she sat down cross-legged on her jade meditation platform.
Her fingers gently reached toward a gold soul ring now hovering at her side the million-year ring.
"I still haven't tested one soul skill," she murmured to herself.
Emotion Sensor.
A subtle ripple flowed across Qian Renxue's spiritual perception as the soul skill activated.
Immediately, waves of emotion lit up her mind like softly flickering lanterns.
Most of the elders emanated calm, stoic serenity, an atmosphere carved from years of cultivation and discipline. A few flickered with mild curiosity or pride, no doubt thinking about their disciples or grandchildren.
One had a sharp spike of anger, probably an elder ready to beat some poor junior for messing up cultivation.
But then… a jarring anomaly emerged.
A pulse of lust.
Qian Renxue's expression twisted slightly.
'Here? In the Elder's Hall?'
She immediately focused her sense on the source. To her surprise, it wasn't from one of the elders or even a disciple.
The emotion came from the front gate.
Silently, she stood and walked toward the balcony. Her movement was so soundless that even Wu Meng didn't stir in the adjacent room.
Qian Renxue reached the balcony and looked down.
What she saw made her freeze in disbelief.
At the massive white-marble gate of the Elder's Hall stood a ragged boy, barely six yeras old. Must have recently awakend his martial soul. His hair was tangled and unkempt, his clothes little more than tattered scraps. He looked more like a starving street urchin than someone who should've come anywhere near Spirit Hall's inner sanctum.
Yet there he was, arguing with the guards.
She narrowed her eyes just as one of the guards barked at him, "Scram! You think just anyone can enter the Elder's Hall?!"
But the boy shouted back something so outrageous it made Qian Renxue's pupils shrink—
"I'm Bibi Dong's relative! I have the right to enter!"
Qian Renxue's expression darkened.
'How dare someone use Bibi Dong's name here?'
Without hesitation, she activated another ability from her Telepathist sequence, Surface Thought Reading.
Her spiritual perception locked onto the boy like a hawk.
The world dimmed, and a single train of thought echoed clearly in her mind:
'System, Qian Renxue lives in this place? The Elder's Hall?'
Qian Renxue's face paled slightly.
Her heartbeat slowed… then spiked.
'System? Does a thing like that really exist in reality'
She knew of that term. It was the most common trope after reincarnation in online novels. Using a system even losers can become powerful Gods
This wasn't an ordinary beggar. This wasn't a con artist trying to gain access to Spirit Hall..
This was probably a reincarnator, who might have come with ill-intent. When she recalled the motion of lust she had felt after using her soul skill and that reincarnator was even asking the system about herself, Qian Renxue felt a chill down her neck.
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Author notes: I am thinking of posting 2 chapters daily, for 5 days a week.So here is the second chapter. I'm not going to post on weekends.