Chapter 61: The Illiterate

"Hey! What are those expressions on your faces? What on earth happened while I was gone?"

Huo Yuhao's immediate feeling upon returning was that the two scoundrels in front of him were hiding some major secret from him.

After all, when they saw him, their first reaction was neither excitement nor relief; instead, their expressions suddenly turned nervous and panicked.

Their eyes darted about, full of hesitation, and they were poking at each other wildly, aiming specifically for each other's ribs.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks!

"What? Did I come back at a bad time?"

Huo Yuhao raised an eyebrow. "Do you need me to step out again and give you plenty of time to make up excuses?"

"Hiss—"

Hearing his interrogation, Wang Dong's eyes held a trace of terror as she reached out with a pinch.

The latter straightened up abruptly amidst a grimace of pain, her expression more sincere than ever before: "No need! Absolutely not! Not at all!"

"Just think about it, what kind of relationship do the three of us have? How could there possibly be secrets kept between just two of us?"

Huo Yuhao: ……

Wang Dong: ……

The moment those words fell, two of the three people guiltily looked away, their gazes wandering about.

"Cough—"

Xiao Xiao forced a smile and spread her hands, the expression on her face slowly freezing: "Why are you two... not saying anything?"

What is the meaning of this?

Did the two of you have something kept from me all along?

"Uhm... Since we haven't seen each other for so long, let's gather in the woods first... I'll roast a few fish for you to try..."

Huo Yuhao muttered stumblingly, taking the lead to move away.

"Ah... Yes... I've indeed been craving it these past few days, missing that delicious taste quite a bit... Haha..."

Wang Dong forced a stiff laugh, following closely behind him, not even daring to turn back and glance at Xiao Xiao.

She was terrified that Xiao Xiao might instantly summon a Soul Suppressing Cauldron and slam it right onto her face.

"You two—"

It wasn't until the two of them had walked a long distance away in trepidation that Xiao Xiao, standing dazed in place, slowly came back to her senses. The warm current in her veins surged once more, except this time it rushed straight to her head:

"Stop right there!!"

...

"Calm down~ Just take a deep breath~"

Wang Dong diligently pounded shoulders, keeping a flattering smile: "Isn't it completely normal for a person to have some secrets that can't be broadly publicized? We were just forced by circumstances and had to do it~"

"Ha!"

Xiao Xiao couldn't help rolling her eyes.

Out of a three-person team, she was the only one who had completely bared all her secrets.

The thought that she had been running around naked this whole time while these two bastards kept their secrets tightly wrapped up made her anger flare unceasingly.

"What kind of people are you!"

Xiao Xiao looked devastated: "Was I an outsider from the very beginning? Just something between... the two of you?"

"Something between what?"

Huo Yuhao flipped the roasted fish while curiously leaning his ear closer, completely baffled by her remark: "Wang Dong and me? What about the two of us?"

"No, nothing!"

Wang Dong changed her movements instantly, fiercely locking Xiao Xiao's throat to prevent her from making another sound: "She's just joking around wildly~ Don't pay attention to it. Who knows where she picked up such bad habits."

Is that so?

Huo Yuhao glanced at Xiao Xiao, who looked on the verge of suffocation, and couldn't shake the feeling that her previous words held a deeper meaning.

——Just like that teacher.

At the mere thought of this, Huo Yuhao's face suddenly darkened.

First, by only saying half his words to hook his interest, leaving it hanging with no continuation no matter how much he asked, at most brushing him off with a line like 'you must seek the truth yourself'.

"Yuhao? What's wrong?"

Wang Dong leaned her head closer, observing his expression with some concern.

"I'm just wondering what this world is really like."

Huo Yuhao scattered seasoning absentmindedly: "My background isn't anything special, and my understanding of the Douluo Continent is limited to knowing that the Star Dou Great Forest has soul beasts and that you can obtain soul rings there."

"Shrek Academy is the continent's number one, far surpassing everywhere else. Only here can one grow into the world's absolute top powerhouse and receive the best growth."

Anything beyond that was merely learning about Heaven Dou City from that teacher, hearing the name of the Spirit Hall faction, and gaining a slight understanding of the events from ten thousand years ago.

"That's simple~"

Xiao Xiao broke free from the throat-lock and picked up his thread: "The Douluo Continent is split into three realms, while the Sun Moon Empire rises across the seas. The Northern Extremity King is the Ice and Snow Demon, and the Star Dou beast kings contend for supremacy. Shrek is the sacred land of soul masters, where the winds of soul guidance blow even stronger..."

Reciting a string of nursery-rhyme-like doggerel smoothly, Xiao Xiao looked at the two of them with a strange gaze: "Those wandering soul masters love muttering these kinds of things. You guys didn't know? Have neither of you ever left home since you were kids?"

"Wait... Did your families not even teach you these basics?"

...

Regarding such common-sense matters, while they might not be known to ordinary mortals, basically any soul master faction of any standing would consciously teach them to prevent their descendants from becoming illiterates the moment they stepped outside.

Some top-tier factions even crammed certain deep secrets into their basic education.

"..."

Under Xiao Xiao's eccentric gaze, both of their expressions turned somewhat unnatural.

One had lived deep within a duke's mansion, laboring and suffering bullying every day. Forget about any proper soul master education; even learning to read and write was the result of his mother squeezing out time every day to teach him bit by bit.

The other had lived in the Clear Sky Sect, where the two fathers taught zero proper knowledge and simply turned her loose the moment she reached the right age. Her cultivation usually consisted of knowing nothing and relying entirely on gut feeling.

Current affairs of the continent, the distribution of major powers, significant conflicts...

Even such easily accessible public information was completely unknown to them.

"The two of you really need to take some remedial classes..."

Xiao Xiao's gaze suddenly carried a hint of pity. Having attended an elementary soul master academy for a few years, she had undergone the preschool education of the Douluo Continent and could more or less be considered a cultured person.

Fumbling into illiterates so abruptly now felt truly unbelievable to her.

"There's no help for it."

Huo Yuhao shook his head somewhat despondently: "How could I have such good conditions..."

Without teachers, resources, or favorable conditions, he had grinded for five whole years just to barely break through to level ten.

His meager soul master knowledge and cultivation techniques were either taught by his mother, figured out through his own groping, or obtained by swallowing his pride to ask for help from the more kind-tempered servants.

It could be considered a semi-miracle that Huo Yuhao had managed to cultivate all the way to today.

"Are these things really that important anyway?"

Wang Dong scratched her cheek awkwardly: "Whether we know them or not, it doesn't hinder soul power cultivation, right? Can't we just learn them later when we want to? It doesn't affect anything~"

Back in the Clear Sky Sect, her daily task was to condition her body to facilitate attaching higher-level soul rings in the future.

According to her two fathers, all that messy knowledge could be put aside for now; having big enough fists was the ultimate truth.

"That may be so... but..."

Huo Yuhao lowered his gaze, the riddling words of that old man still echoing in his mind.

There were some things he still needed to learn, otherwise, curiosity would inevitably gnaw at him, forcing him to ponder the hidden meanings behind those words.