"That's enough, senior," Huo Yuhao sighed calmly.
The old woman grunted coldly as she took a step forward, and she was just about to attack when Xu Jiujiu reached up to hold her back.
"Don't be like this, Grandma Yi Man. Yuhao is our guest."
The old woman squinted as she said, "This fellow is a little abnormal, his spiritual power is far stronger than it should be. It's at a level that a Soul King shouldn't possess. Let me take him down, Jiujiu, and then you can interrogate him."
Xu Jiujiu said hurriedly, "Grandma Yi Man, he really is our guest, we can't treat our guests like that! I'm sorry, Yuhao. Grandma Yi Man has been protecting me since I was a child, and she must have felt something dangerous from your storage-type soul tool, and that's the reason why she…"
Huo Yuhao smiled faintly and said, "It's alright. Since you have no interest in seeing what we have to offer, then we will take our leave so that we can prevent any misunderstandings. Let's go, Dong… ahem, Wang Dong."
Huo Yuhao nearly forgot that Wang Dong'er was currently dressed in a guy's clothes, and calling her "Dong'er" now would sound extremely weird.
Wang Dong'er glanced coldly at Xu Jiujiu before she began to push Huo Yuhao away in his wheelchair.
Xu Jiujiu's expression changed, and a hesitant and unsure look flashed across her face. The old woman in the red dress gave Xu Jiujiu an inquisitive look.
Xu Jiujiu didn't hesitate for too long. She walked forward briskly and said, "I'm sorry, Yuhao. I was being too suspicious and oversensitive. I am deeply apologetic about what just happened, and I hope that the two of you can stay."
Xu Jiujiu had felt an acutely dangerous aura when Wang Dong'er flashed the Starlight Sapphire ring, and the aura did come from that ring. That meant that even the Starlight Sapphire's quality couldn't mask the dangerous aura contained within, and the aura immediately flowed out the moment Wang Dong'er infused some soul power inside. That was the reason why both she and the old lady in red had immediately reacted like they had.
Thoughts ran through her head, and Xu Jiujiu figured that Huo Yuhao had no reason to harm her. It was just as he had said: everyone was standing on the same line, they shared the same enemy, and the enemy of her enemy was her friend. What Huo Yuhao wanted to show her was possibly dangerous, but it was unlikely that it was targeted towards her. Furthermore, Huo Yuhao had just given them such important intel, she couldn't just turn him away just like that. The entire Shrek Academy was behind Huo Yuhao, after all!
Huo Yuhao gestured to Wang Dong'er to tell her to stop, and turned his head around to look back at Xu Jiujiu. "I just want to remind you, princess, that all kinds of collaboration and teamwork has to be built on both parties trusting each other. If you don't trust me, then there's no need for any further cooperation, don't you think?"
Xu Jiujiu stared at this youth who could only move one hand, and she felt as if she were staring at a sly and cunning negotiator. Why is he so difficult to deal with? His words were neither hot nor cold, and neither was he too gentle or too pushy. Huo Yuhao's controlled and moderated rhythm made her feel as if she were being drawn in. It's no wonder that Shrek Academy has placed so much emphasis on him! Indeed, it's not just because of his fighting abilities...
Xu Jiujiu's thoughts stopped there, and she immediately readjusted herself. A sincere smile appeared on her face as she said, "I'm sorry, Yuhao. I'll apologize to you one more time... we were wrong about what happened just now. Please come back, and we can discuss our cooperation in further detail. What do you think? You're right to say that cooperation means we have to trust each other. I can tell from the important information that you've just relayed to me that you trust us. Don't worry, we will reciprocate no matter how we decide to cooperate in the future."
How beautiful was that speech? Huo Yuhao heaved a sigh of admiration inside as he gestured towards Wang Dong'er, and only then did Wang Dong'er turn his wheelchair back around.
Huo Yuhao said, "Show it to her. Don't worry, princess. We are also here, and you have this Titled Douluo to protect you. If something that can threaten your life shows up, won't we be burying ourselves, too? I may be in a bad state, but I'm not ready to leave this world yet." A teasing smile appeared on his face as he said that.
Xu Jiujiu blushed as she made a gesture to Wang Dong'er. She stole a few more glances at her at the same time.
Wang Dong'er was still Wang Dong five years ago. Even though she had been extremely stunning back then, she was still a child. Five years later, she had grown into an extremely "handsome" youth with a long and slender figure. Flowing pinkish-blue hair draped behind her back, and she was so "handsome" that she didn't have any imperfections at all. Princess Jiujiu was still full of awe even though she had seen uncountable good-looking men before throughout her entire life. Wang Dong has a face that is so attractive that even girls will be envious of him, and Huo Yuhao just gave him a strange look. Can they be…?
The look in Princess Jiujiu's eyes became a little strange, and she cursed inside. What a waste! If such a handsome boy swings that way…
Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong'er didn't know that the princess was silently criticizing them. Wang Dong'er took two steps forward, and she reached out with her left hand toward a relatively spacious spot inside the room.
This was only a second-tier room, but it was a lot better than the rooms Huo Yuhao and others were staying in. The spacious living room was several hundred square meters in surface area, and there were bedrooms inside that weren't much smaller. This room was better in terms of both decorations and amenities than their room, and the place that Huo Yuhao and the others were living in weren't even on the same scale.
Brilliant blue light flickered, and a large item appeared before Xu Jiujiu. Even though she sounded very trusting, she still took a few steps back subconsciously so that she could keep her distance from it, while the red-dressed Titled Douluo stood in front of her, prepared to react against anything.
They quickly saw what the item was. It was a strangely-shaped metal item, and Xu Jiujiu could feel that this was a soul tool. Even though the Star Luo Empire's soul tool research paled in comparison to the Sun Moon Empire, the Star Luo Empire had been placing a lot of effort on soul tool research over the years after they realized the gap between them. The only difference was that they lacked top-tier soul engineers, and their research standards were also greatly inferior, so there was no way they could catch up to the Sun Moon Empire. Even so, Xu Jiujiu had seen quite a few soul tools, yet she had never seen nor heard about the thing before her.
The entire soul tool took up about ten square meters of space. There was a square metal base beneath it, and this base was the thing that took up ten square meters. There was a belt beneath the metal base, and it seemed as if this soul tool could be pushed around. One could tell that it was quite heavy just by looking at it.
There was a thick cylinder on top of the metal base, located in the center. This cylinder connected the base to another rectangular metal piece above it, and this rectangular metal component was about two and a half meters long, about one and a half meters wide, and quite flat, with eighteen black holes on one side. It seemed like an enormous metal box, and gave people an extremely peculiar feeling. The metal box's dark body was nowhere close to being visually appealing.
"This is…?" Xu Jiujiu glanced at Huo Yuhao with inquisitive eyes.
Huo Yuhao answered, "This is a weapon that the Tang Sect produces. We have named it the Zhuge Divine Crossbow Cannon."
"Zhuge Divine Crossbow Cannon? Is it a soul tool?" Princess Jiujiu was clearly unfamiliar with this name.
Huo Yuhao nodded and said, "More accurately put, it's a stationary soul tool. It can only be considered a Class 4 soul tool, but the effects that it can achieve on the battlefield cannot be matched by normal Class 4 soul tools, the reason being that it's a stationary soul tool. You should know something about stationary soul tools, don't you?"
Princess Jiu Jiu nodded and said, "The force of stationary soul tools mainly comes from their shells. The cannon itself can only determine the firing distance and accuracy. Does your soul tool fire eighteen shells at the same time?"
Huo Yuhao said, "There are different settings. You can fire everything at once, or you can them fire one by one. Our Zhuge Divine Crossbow Cannon has several salient features, please allow me to introduce them to you. Firstly, even though it's just a Class 4 stationary soul tool, it can reach a distance comparable to a Class 6 soul tool, because it contains some of the Tang Sect's secret techniques. You can carry out your own field tests after this."
Princess Jiujiu's eyes sparkled. A Class 4 soul tool that had the same propulsion force as a Class 6 soul tool! This was quite an impressive invention. It also meant that this soul tool only required a Class 4 soul engineer to operate it, and Class 4 soul engineers were on a completely different levels than Class 6 soul engineers. It was comparable to the gap between a Soul Ancestor and a Soul Emperor. A thousand Soul Ancestors were probably still weaker than a hundred Soul Emperors, and this point alone had already attracted the princess.
Huo Yuhao continued, "Our Zhuge Divine Crossbow Cannon can carry forty-eight shells, and they're all under the base. It can automatically chamber shells during the firing process, and you will only need to reload the weapon after all forty-eight shells have been fired. Reloading is simple. Wang Dong, please demonstrate for the princess."
"Alright." Wang Dong'er pressed on the cannon's side with her right hand, and a capo-like holder sprang out. She shook the holder rapidly, and a magazine gradually slid out from beneath the holder's base. The magazine opened up from behind, and everyone could see the forty-eight soul cannon shells chambered inside.
Every cannon shell was about a meter long, and every shell was about twenty centimeters in diameter. The entire magazine was withdrawn from the holder, using the four wheels beneath the magazine, so one didn't need to use too much force to push the magazine around. She quickly pushed the magazine back to its original position, before she closed it and returned the holder to where she took it from and concluded the reloading process. The entire effort took about two minutes.