Douluo Continent: My name is Lu Mingfei, and my martial soul is Lu Mingze.

"Hyotei! Yukitetsu! Help!" Lu Mingfei screamed frantically in his mind.

In the sea of ​​spirit, Hyotei lazily rolled over.

"What's wrong now?"

"Look outside!"

Hyotei glanced at the situation outside through Lu Mingfei's consciousness, then scoffed.

"Wow, you're quite the ladies' man."

"Beautiful my foot! She's almost burned me to ashes too!"

Xue Di didn't say much.

She stood up, her icy blue eyes looking through Lu Mingfei's gaze at Ma Xiaotao, who was on the verge of losing control, her brows furrowing slightly.

"Her evil fire has already seeped into her marrow; simply suppressing it won't work. We need to cool it down from the root." Xue Di's tone was indifferent, but her actions were swift.

She raised her right hand, a ball of extremely cold, icy blue light condensing at her fingertips, and then flicked it gently.

The ball of light flew out from the sea of ​​consciousness, transforming into an invisible, extremely cold wave that directly entered Ma Xiaotao's body.

The next second, the flames on Ma Xiaotao's body went out instantly, frozen to death.

The raging evil fire couldn't even withstand a single breath before the Snow Emperor's extreme cold power, and was frozen at its source.

Ma Xiaotao's body stiffened for a moment, then went limp, her head lolled to the side, and she completely lost consciousness.

Xue Di withdrew her hand and sat down again on the ice floe, her expression as calm as if nothing had happened.

"Alright, we're just trying to stabilize her for now. We'll address the root cause later."

Lu Mingfei let out a long breath, floating on the water as if all his strength had been drained, face up, panting heavily.

Tonight's ordeal was even more exhausting than fighting those five Soul Kings.

And to be honest, even though he was a coward, he still accidentally saw some things he shouldn't have seen because part of Ma Xiaotao's clothes were burned off.

My apologies, my apologies.

Lu Mingfei silently recited the Heart-Cleansing Mantra three times in his mind, then dragged Ma Xiaotao to the shore. When he finally got her ashore, he was exhausted, and the wound on his left shoulder started bleeding again.

He sat on the shore catching his breath, thinking about how to get Ma Xiaotao back, when he looked up and froze.

Old Song was standing less than three steps in front of him.

Under the moonlight, Old Song was wearing a dark gray robe, his hands behind his back, his expression neither angry nor pleasant.

She glanced at Ma Xiaotao, who was lying unconscious on the ground, her clothes disheveled, and then at Lu Mingfei, who was soaking wet and whose shoulder was still bleeding. Then she sighed very slowly.

Lu Mingfei chuckled twice.

"Mr. Song, well... this is what happened..."

"No need to explain," Old Song interrupted him.

"I can tell what's going on."

She took out an outer robe from her storage soul tool, bent down and covered Ma Xiaotao with it, wrapping her up completely.

Then, with her left hand holding Ma Xiaotao and her right hand holding Lu Mingfei, she flashed away.

Lu Mingfei felt a blur before his eyes, and the next second he was standing on an open space by the lake.

His body hadn't recovered from the impact of falling into the water when Old Song pulled him like that, and he felt a churning in his stomach, almost vomiting on the spot.

He bent over, hands on his knees, panting heavily, then looked up and saw a familiar figure.

Jiang Nannan stood under a tree not far ahead.

She was wearing a light-colored coat, and her hair was a little messy, indicating that she had arrived in a hurry.

Jiang Nannan's face was very dark.

When she looked at Ma Xiaotao on the ground, her usually aloof eyes were filled with undisguised hostility, and her clenched hands tightened even more, her knuckles turning white.

Then she turned her head and saw Lu Mingfei. In a fraction of a second, her expression switched from "I'm going to kill someone" to "Are you alright?" She smiled and walked over quickly.

Are you alright?

"It's alright..." Lu Mingfei chuckled dryly and straightened up.

"I just drank some lake water."

Jiang Nannan's gaze swept over him, and when she saw the blood seeping from his left shoulder, she frowned, but said nothing. She simply pulled a clean handkerchief from her sleeve and handed it to him.

Lu Mingfei took the handkerchief and pressed it against the wound; the handkerchief was quickly soaked with blood.

Old Song glanced at the two of them, but didn't say anything more. She simply told Lu Mingfei and Jiang Nannan to follow her.

The group soon arrived at Professor Song's residence at the academy.

Once inside, Old Master Song placed Ma Xiaotao on the soft couch, checked her condition, and after confirming that her evil fire had been suppressed, turned around to look at the young man sitting in the chair whose wounds were being re-bandaged by Jiang Nannan.

A somewhat awkward silence fell over the room.

Old Song sat in the main seat, picked up his teacup and took a sip, his expression revealing neither joy nor anger.

Not long after, a series of hurried footsteps came from outside the door.

The door was pushed open, and Yan Shaozhe strode in. His expression could be described with several words at the same time—anxious, embarrassed, guilty, and helpless, all mixed together, making for a very interesting scene.

He first bowed to Elder Song, then his gaze fell on Ma Xiaotao, who was unconscious on the soft couch, and his lips twitched.

Old Song didn't invite him to sit down, but just glanced at him sideways and slowly put down his teacup.

"Shao Zhe."

"Yes." Yan Shaozhe bent down slightly.

"You, as the dean, have given this old woman a pleasant surprise today." Old Song's tone was calm, but every word seemed to carry a barb.

"Your prized student carried the wounded soldier away from the infirmary, nearly dragging him into the lake to drown. What a magnificent sight that was."

Yan Shaozhe's forehead was already sweating.

"Mr. Song, this matter is—"

"What is it?" Old Song didn't give him a chance to explain.

"Last time your disciple went berserk and attacked first, not only did you not punish him, but you also went and scolded the student who was defending himself; this time your disciple almost caused a death, aren't you, as the teacher, going to do anything about it?"

Yan Shaozhe's face turned pale and then flushed.

Just then, a weak voice came from the soft couch.

"Mr. Song...Teacher Yan..."

Ma Xiaotao woke up.

She struggled to sit up and found herself draped in an unfamiliar robe. She paused for a moment, then looked down at her own condition, then looked up at the people in the room. Her expression shifted from confusion to bewilderment, from bewilderment to recollection, from recollection to embarrassment, and finally settled on a wonderfully nuanced look of guilt.

She vaguely remembered what she had done.

"I..." Ma Xiaotao opened her mouth, her voice hoarse.

"I've put Lu Mingfei in his place..."

"You carried him away from the infirmary, flew across most of the city, then crashed into the lake, and burned his clothes," Old Song finished her sentence for her, his tone calm.

The color drained from Ma Xiaotao's face in an instant, then suddenly returned, turning red all the way down to her ears.

She had never been so embarrassed in her life.

She secretly glanced at Lu Mingfei sitting next to her and found that Lu Mingfei was looking at her with an extremely complicated look—a look that contained lingering fear, helplessness, and a trace of subtle, barely perceptible regret that he himself was reluctant to admit.

Ma Xiaotao's face turned even redder.

Old Master Song glanced at Yan Shaozhe again, his eyes clearly saying, "See? This is the good disciple you've taught."