Chapter 166: Chapter 164: Imagination Is the Scariest_1
"Nine Heavens Corps?"
Fang Ren was taken aback; he seemed to have heard Mu Huanqing mention it before.
"It's the army under Sister Hui Qing herself, filled entirely with female warriors," Bai Qi suddenly said with a look of admiration. "And it's also the army that all female practitioners around the world aspire to join."
"The female warriors there must be very strong," remarked Fang Ren.
"Very strong indeed. Even a minor team leader there has the strength of the mid Yingyue Realm, and the minimum strength of an ordinary soldier is at the Peak of Blue Sky Realm," Bai Qi said.
"An ordinary soldier... at least the Peak of Blue Sky Realm? How... how many of them are there?" Fang Ren was momentarily stunned.
"If I remember correctly, there should be more than thirty thousand people," Bai Qi casually replied.
"Thirty... thirty thousand?"
Fang Ren was left speechless, this army was easily many times stronger than the entire Nightfall Organization.
"How about that, isn't it shocking?" Bai Qi looked at him and said, "If you really want to marry Sister Hui Qing, even if you're not at her realm, you at least need to have a decent force of your own, right?"
"This... I don't have that," Fang Ren laughed awkwardly.
Just kidding, the kids are already here, whatever you say won't matter, the wedding must go on.
"Alright, alright," Bai Qi waved her hand dismissively. "I know you're just saying you want to marry her as a joke, after all, most of the accomplished young men who see Sister Hui Qing fall in love with her at first sight. It's normal for you to feel that way."
"Of course,"
Fang Ren nodded immediately, feeling somehow even more pleased than being praised himself when his wife was complimented on her beauty.
"If you make it to the finals this time, you'll be able to see her again," Bai Qi said with a clear laugh. "At that time, I can take you to talk to her, but let's get this clear first, you can't harbor any thoughts about her."
"You taking me to see her..."
Fang Ren's face held an awkward smile. Did he really need her to take him there? The two had already arranged to meet in private, what was this girl playing at?
"Yes, I'll take you. If she has the time, I can even take you to have a meal with her, how about that, doesn't it sound exciting?" Bai Qi said with a smile.
The smile on Fang Ren's face froze, managing to say, "Let's not..."
"What's wrong?"
"According to what you've said, I'm not a match for her anyway. To say I want to marry her..." Fang Ren stopped halfway through his sentence, adding in his mind: But I must marry her.
Bai Qi, seeing him stop, revealed a smug smile, "Exactly, you're just playing around when you talk about marrying her, surely covering up your li..."
In the middle of her sentence, Bai Qi suddenly stopped.
Fang Ren liking her was something she couldn't just blurt out openly; wouldn't that make Fang Ren feel awkward?
Recalling the past, Bai Qi suddenly realized a significant issue.
That was when she first came to this city to annul their arranged marriage, starting off by saying she liked someone else and couldn't be with him.
Fang Ren was a man after all. To be suddenly jilted like that must have been a blow to his pride, so... was him saying he liked someone else just a cover?
To marry Sister Hui Qing? As a normal person, he would never have such a thought given the vast differences in status and strength.
A pretext, surely a pretext to save face!
A new realization dawned on Bai Qi, as she recognized the importance of what she had overlooked.
If it was just a pretext, then that meant...
The more she thought about it, the more Bai Qi felt she had overlooked too much.
Could it be that Fang Ren fell for her upon their very first meeting, love at first sight? And then, because of her sudden declaration of having someone she liked, wanting to annul the marriage, he claimed to like Mu Huanqing only to save face?
Bai Qi's mind was thrown into disarray; she realized how foolish she had been to take his outrageous claim of marrying Sister Hui Qing seriously!
If it weren't for the interactions afterward, where she noticed Fang Ren's fondness for her, she might never have understood the truth.
Taking into account all these matters, and aligning them with Fang Ren's current statements, Bai Qi found her understanding to be spot on!
If Fang Ren had been serious about marrying Mu Huanqing, how could he possibly refuse an opportunity to have a meal with her now?
Indeed, it was all a ruse! A cover-up for his affection for her!
However, Fang Ren only felt awkward having her at the dinner table; he simply wanted to spend some alone time with Mu Huanqing, nothing more.
It must be said that imagining a young girl's mind is a terrifying thing indeed.
"Hide what?" Fang Ren asked when he saw her stop mid-sentence.
"Nothing," Bai Qi immediately shook her head with a smile, "But, marrying her is something you can joke about with me but don't ever blab about it outside. Otherwise, the Corps will arrest you, and you'll be in big trouble."
"I know," Fang Ren nodded, his face crinkled in embarrassment.
What a joke, was it a crime to want to marry the mother of my child?
With the end of this topic, the atmosphere between the two became slightly awkward.
Bai Qi was looking down at her phone all the time as if preoccupied with thoughts, and Fang Ren asked out of concern. She told him it was nothing.
Without giving it much thought, he simply sat in the car, closed his eyes, and began to cultivate.
During the process, he felt the breakthrough of his realm again. This time, he did not try to raise his realm immediately but quickly stopped.
There was no protection inside this bus; apart from him, the driver was just an ordinary person, and Bai Qi could not use True Qi for now. If he were to break through his realm at this moment, the bus would surely be burst apart by the powerful True Qi.
He paused his realm breakthrough, but there was still a distance left to their destination.
Without opening his eyes, Fang Ren chose to continue cultivating his soul force. These days, his mastery over soul force was becoming increasingly smooth. Although he couldn't yet release it outside of his body, he could use it to enhance many aspects of his abilities during combat.
Hum—
As the soul force circulated, his inner eye also opened, and everything within a fifty-meter radius became clearly visible to him.
Vehicles passed by, and he could see the white breath emanating from the people within. Some people's white breath fluctuated too much, clearly in an excited emotional state, while others had very slow-moving white breath, indicating a particularly low mood.
However, among the passing vehicles, one caught his attention. Inside one car, two white figures were both sitting in the driver's seat, one on top of the other, engaged in some dubious activity.
"Is this...how open they are on a public road?"
Fang Ren twitched at the corner of his eyes, thinking about the risk if an emergency arose and the driver was too preoccupied to respond, leading to an accident.
He quickly looked away and shrank the scope of his inner eye significantly. Sitting beside him was an expert of the Xuanyang Realm. Rather than gawking at such varied spectacles, it was better to narrow his focus and explore the soul force.
As the scope of the inner eye diminished, Fang Ren could feel the soul aura of Bai Qi with great clarity.
Powerful, incredibly powerful.
If the white glow within Fang Ren was dazzling, then the one within her could certainly be described as blinding.
Even with his inner eye active, he still couldn't see Bai Qi's soul in a human form; it was just a bunch of white light, spherical, like a mini sun.
If their souls were to collide, Fang Ren was sure his would likely be reduced to ash instantly. However, fortunately, aside from him, no one on Earth knew of the existence of soul force, nor did anyone use it.
After observing the soul within Bai Qi for a while, Fang Ren was about to start practicing his soul force.
But just as he was about to withdraw his attention from Bai Qi, a faint gleam within her light sphere caught his eye.
The faint light seemed to be in the region of Bai Qi's lower abdomen, where the Spiritual Root would reside.
Fang Ren glanced at his own Spiritual Root inside him and noticed it was perfectly fused with him, emitting a consistent light.
The light from Bai Qi's Spiritual Root was different. It seemed the faint glow was the root he had transplanted from himself.
He felt a strong sense of familiarity with the faint light within Bai Qi's body, which affected his entire mood, even making Bai Qi in front of him appear as someone he was willing to be close to.
He thought that the feelings he had for Bai Qi, and her feelings for him, originated from a sense of innate connection.
Bai Qi, who was sitting beside him, was looking at her phone with a slight frown, unaware that Fang Ren was peering into her soul.
"Why does this guy have to be into me...and it's love at first sight..."
Bai Qi muttered to herself as she looked at a photo of the Tiandao Sword Sect disciples arriving at the location of the final round of the Dan Medicine competition. Suddenly, she lost interest in Brother Song, who was in the pictures.
"Ah! This is so annoying!"
Bai Qi suddenly turned off her phone and slumped onto the seat, a troubled look on her face.
"What kind of feelings does he have right now, helping me... He must be very sad. He likes me, yet he cheated to help me meet the person I like..."