Soul looked at Jia's obviously widened eyes and couldn't help but curve his lips upwards. "Are you feeling very surprised?" he deliberately asked Jia for his opinion.
Hearing Soul's somewhat provocative question, Jia's widened eyes immediately "shrunk" back to their normal size. His face then stiffened. "Why should I be surprised? It just floated to your hand. If you can do it, so can I. Just watch." Saying this, completely unwilling to admit defeat, he also extended his hand.
Immediately, Soul remained silent and instead watched the spectacle unfold.
A few seconds later...
Jia looked at the Ancient Origin consciousness on Soul's palm with utter embarrassment and got angry. "Come over here. I won't do anything to you. You..." Before he could finish speaking, the Ancient Origin consciousness suddenly let out a whistling sound like the wind.
Hearing this inauthentic whistling sound, Jia stopped mid-sentence.
Just then, Soul laughed. "It doesn't want to listen to you speak."
Hearing this, Jia looked at Soul with displeasure. "You look so terrifying, how could it possibly like to stay in your palm? You... you must have controlled it with magic. It must be like this." He said, clearly unconvinced.
At this moment, Soul could tell and hear from Jia's words and expression his lack of conviction. Beyond that, Soul saw his competitive spirit even more clearly. Of course, Soul paid no mind to these superficial and psychological phenomena. He didn't feel any sense of crisis. On the contrary, what Soul cared about more was... the degree of his trust in himself.
Clearly, there was no longer any trust between them. Looking at him, a look of loss gradually appeared on Soul's face. "Do you really think I would do something like that?" he said softly.
Jia let out a cold laugh.
Upon hearing this, Soul felt even more displeased. "What do you mean by that cold laugh?"
"Soul's competitive spirit is always the strongest. If you're unwilling to hand her over to me now, it means you're playing dirty," Jia stated firmly.
Soul also let out a cold laugh.
In response, Jia chuckled coldly again. "It seems I've hit the nail on the head."
"Since that's the case," Soul said, too lazy to explain, and directly tossed the Ancient Origin consciousness into the air. Then, with his hands behind his back, he said, "Go ahead. However, if it returns to me, you must apologize and give me seven-tenths of the credit for the mission."
"By putting your hands behind your back, you mean you won't go back on your word, you..."
"When Soul puts his hands behind his back, it signifies that he won't use any magic. If you don't believe me, you can ask others," Soul interrupted coldly.
Hearing Soul's words, Jia felt awkward. "Who said I'm going to ask others? I've been Soul before, I understand the rules." After speaking, he glared at Soul, leaped up, and flew towards the Ancient Origin consciousness drifting with the wind.
Soul looked up at Jia's confident figure, shook his head, and thought of Mu Anxiao.
However, things were not going smoothly for Mu Anxiao either. She hadn't expected such a simple matter to be so difficult. She also hadn't expected that bribing a mere black mist monster would not only require persuasive speech but also mental effort. So much time had passed, and the black mist hadn't given her any response. Looking at the black mist, she was genuinely anxious. But she dared not directly ask about its feelings, fearing that a wrong word might offend it, which would complicate matters.
Thinking this, she sighed. Then... just as she didn't know what to do, the black mist spoke, "If Master knew I let you in, Master would definitely kill me, right?" After this exchange with Mu Anxiao, it felt that... Mu Anxiao was the person who understood Ouyang Ye the best, and thus it voiced this question.