"U-Uh, my Lord... this is a confidential letter sent by Her Holiness the Supreme Pontiff specifically for you. Please have a look."
Platinum Bishop Salas stood outside the coliseum gates, scarcely daring to breathe. Given the Supreme Pontiff's incredibly reverent and intimate attitude toward Fu Ye, Salas wouldn't dare show even a minuscule shred of disrespect.
Fu Ye casually broke the wax seal, sliding the contents out. Inside, there was a single, elegant line of text written in sweeping calligraphy, accompanied by... a physical Supreme Pontiff Decree?!
The moment Salas caught sight of the legendary token glinting in the light, his knees buckled instantly, and he dropped flat onto the cobblestones.
"Salas of Spirit Hall pays his utmost respects to the Grand Elder!"
Three minutes later, Fu Ye pocketed the decree and strolled back to join the waiting Tianshui battle team. As for the message Bibi Dong had instructed Salas to deliver, it was quite simple:
"The next time you come looking for me, walk straight through the front gates. That old fossil Qian Daoliu won't dare to say a single word."
Fu Ye rubbed his temples with a wry smile. 'Good grief... why does reading this give me the vivid, unmistakable sensation of a husband sneaking out to have a scandalous affair?'
After treated Erlong, Ruyan, and the entire troupe of young girls to a lavish dinner at his Juxiang Pavilion, Fu Ye led the group back to the luxury hotel he had booked out an entire month in advance.
Since the qualifiers would run daily for the next month, forcing these young geniuses to battle constantly, keeping their energy and morale high was paramount. As for Xue Ke and the little cat girl Jiang Jing, they had zero combat duties; this month was essentially a fully paid luxury vacation for them. When a match was scheduled, they would sit directly adjacent to Fu Ye in the VIP box; when there were no matches, they would paint the capital red.
To prevent a massive crowd of stunning girls from causing a literal riot in the public streets, Fu Ye, Xiao Wu, Liu Erlong, and Han Ruyan decided to split the harem into four distinct, rotating recreation groups:
Group Fu Ye: Shui Bing'er, Xue Wu, Princess Xue Ke, Shui Yue'er.
Group Xiao Wu: Wu Ling, Zhu Zhuqing, Ning Rongrong.
Group Han Ruyan: Shen Liuyu, Yu Hairou, Meng Yiran.
Group Liu Erlong: Dugu Yan, Cat Girl Jiang Jing, Zhu Zhuyun.
Aside from Xiao Wu, who was a terrifying Level 98 Peak Hyper Douluo, the other three leaders were full-fledged Limit Douluo powerhouses. Combined with the legion of black-armored Limit Douluo puppets lurking in the background, it would be an absolute statistical impossibility for any of the girls to encounter danger.
After finalizing their sightseeing itineraries over the dinner table, the massive group casually strolled back toward their lodgings. They had booked out the entire top floor of the capital's premier hotel—exactly mirroring the lavish setup from their previous training expedition.
However, halfway to their destination, a deeply hilarious, pathetic spectacle unfolded right before their eyes.
Outside a grand hotel, under the flickering lanterns,The New Trio of Scoundrels lay heavily intoxicated by the roadside.The great Tang Divine King, attempting to frequent the red-light district,Was violently backhanded straight out onto the pavement.
SMACK!
Even from a block away, Fu Ye could clearly hear the crisp, resonant sound of a heavy palm making violent contact with a human face.
Curious, Fu Ye cast his gaze toward a brightly lit, neon-soaked alleyway just ahead. What he saw was truly a sight to behold: Ma Hongjun and 戴沐白 (Dai Mubai) were completely dead to the world, blissfully passed out drunk directly underneath a wooden tavern table.
Right next to them, three remarkably scrawny, disheveled figures were being violently hurled out of a luxurious brothel door by a group of towering, burly bouncers!
"Tui! If you don't have the coin, don't you dare step foot in our establishment to play!" a short, heavily powdered, and deeply sharp-tongued Madame screeched, crossing her arms as she glared down at the three dazed boys sprawling on the dirt. "What a bunch of absolute, pathetic wastes! Thirty gold spirit coins? You think thirty miserable coins can buy you a full night of absolute bliss with our premier courtesans? Do you take our establishment for a beggar's soup kitchen?!"
She stepped forward, her sneer deepening as she poked Oscar with the toe of her silk shoe.
"Hmph! Calling yourselves Spirit Masters with that level of stamina? Our girls barely finished their warm-up routines and you three were already completely spent! Even if you have spirit rings, you're nothing but the absolute garbage tier among Spirit Masters!"
Turning back to her five massive bouncers, she waved her hand dismissively. "They're all yours now. Leave one man to watch the front entrance, and make sure these penniless grifters never try to sneak back in to freeload off our workforce again!"
As the Madame proudly swept back into the establishment, the five burly thugs exchanged slow, highly predatory grins, their eyes flashing with a disturbing level of excitement.
"Boss, you guys go ahead and take the first turn in the back alley! I'll hold down the fort here at the gate. Just call me when you're done!"
"Old Fourth, you always know how to look out for the crew! But as the leader, I must lead by example. Let's drag all three of them deep into the shadows!"
As the thugs began hauling the semi-conscious trio deeper into the pitch-black alleyway, Wu Ling and Shui Bing'er stopped in their tracks, their faces twisting into masks of absolute revulsion.
"Wait... isn't that Tang San and Tang Chuan from the Soto City Great Spirit Arena? And the one next to them seems to be that food-system tool named Oscar," Shui Bing'er noted, shielding her eyes.
"It definitely is," Wu Ling spat, her voice dripping with pure disgust. "People like them completely deserve whatever karma comes their way. Truly repulsive."
In reality, Flend and the Shrek faculty were completely oblivious, currently drinking and laughing in a high-end private lounge on the second floor of a distant tavern.
The entire fiasco had begun when Oscar enticed Tang Chuan into sneaking out for some "adult entertainment." Tang Chuan, finding the idea excellent, dragged Tang San along. Tang San had initially refused out of his self-righteous pride, but he couldn't resist the persistent prodding of his "biological twin brother." They eventually dragged Ma Hongjun and Dai Mubai along for the ride.
Unfortunately, those two castrated playboys got so heavily intoxicated that they entirely forgot their lower halves no longer possessed the physiological functionality for such activities, passing out cold before they could even cross the threshold. Oscar, on the other hand, foolishly assumed that the prices in the wealthy Heaven Dou Imperial Capital would match the dirt-cheap rates of rural Soto City. The result... was a complete financial and physical disaster.
"Let's keep moving," Fu Ye instructed smoothly, guiding his girls past the alley without a second glance. "Respect personal destiny, girls. There is no need for us to interfere with their highly unhealthy, degenerate lifestyles."
Fu Ye was genuinely amused. He had barely lifted a finger against Tang San and Tang Chuan in recent months; any misery they faced was entirely self-inflicted. Who could have anticipated that the great future Divine King Tang San would end up getting assaulted over a unpaid brothel bill?
Then again, this reincarnated alternate version, Tang Chuan, was an absolute master of sabotage. First, he inadvertently ruined Tang San's optimal First Soul Skill. In retaliation, Tang San ruthlessly hunted down Tang Chuan's targeted spirit beast, forcefully binding him to a garbage, bare-minimum hundred-year ring.
With these two "living Buddhas" constantly undermining and restricting each other's growth, Fu Ye didn't even need to waste his own energy—they were perfectly on track to completely annihilate their own future prospects.
Meanwhile, in the Star Luo Empire…
As for their deadbeat father, Tang Hao, his lifestyle was operating on a completely different level of absurdity.
According to the soul-tracking imprint Fu Ye had subtly anchored to his body, the legendary Clear Sky Douluo was currently lounging inside a shady, high-end tavern located over a thousand kilometers away in the Star Luo Imperial Capital.
Tang Hao carelessly slammed a handful of glittering gold spirit coins onto the counter. Though his heavy cloak was tattered and covered in dust, his muscular arm was firmly wrapped around the waist of a heavily made-up, scantily clad night-club courtesan.
"Ah fabric Brother Ritian, you are so incredibly bad But you have so much raw, dominant masculinity~" the courtesan purred, rubbing her heavily painted face against his chest.
Hearing her sycophantic praise, Tang Hao threw his head back, downing a massive mug of fiery spirits in a single, aggressive gulp.
"Bwahaha! Naturally! I, Tang Ritian, am the most red-blooded, powerful man on this absolute continent!"
The Courtesan's Internal Monologue: 'Good grief, if it weren't for the massive stack of gold coins he's throwing around as hazardous hazard pay, I wouldn't let this foul-smelling, unwashed, beggar-looking freak sit within ten feet of me, let alone touch me!''