Xiao Wu picked up the soul bone, carrying the bull's head along with her, and walked up to Zhou Qing. She held out the soul bone and said, "Here, this is yours."
Tang San quietly breathed a sigh of relief—
At least, Xiao Wu could be spared for now. The only threat left was this Romantina.
Romantina's eyes indeed locked onto the soul bone, but instead of greed, her face flushed red as she spoke to everyone, "Soul bones are extremely valuable treasures in the world of soul masters. They possess a mysterious allure, driving soul masters to fight over them and absorb them into their bodies… Ah! To have a foreign object enter your body… I wonder what that feels like?"
Tang San: "…"
Let's just observe the situation for now. This Romantina… really has some screws loose!
"I've heard that battles over soul bones are extremely bloody, violent… and erotic…"
Zhou Qing: "???"
What does this have to do with anything erotic?
Romantina then hugged her own shoulders and began twisting her body strangely, yelling out, "Go ahead! Ravage me all you want! To keep me from stealing that soul bone, whip me! Humiliate me! Make me your slave and use me for the rest of my life!"
Tang San's eyelids twitched violently.
Xiao Wu stared in shock.
Zhou Qing opened his mouth, at a complete loss for words—he had thought Romantina was already twisted enough before, but now her perversion had truly evolved.
As expected of someone genuinely insane.
What exactly is your brain-type Martial Soul being used for?
After quite a while, Romantina finally snapped out of her self-indulgent fantasies. She showed no hint of embarrassment about her behavior and solemnly explained, "Soul bones are incredibly rare. You should absorb it quickly. I won't tell anyone. Even if I'm tied to a stake, stripped naked, and relentlessly defiled, I'd never reveal the secret. That's the dignity I hold as an adventurer and knight."
At that moment!
Romantina raised her chin at a proud 45-degree angle, her knightly resolve shining like sunlight—radiant and noble.
But considering she had just mentioned being "tied to a stake," "stripped naked," and "relentlessly defiled," Tang San, Xiao Wu, and Zhou Qing couldn't help but feel… maybe she wanted that to happen.
[What kind of upbringing did this woman have? Or are all nobles this deranged? But… Romantina's still a virgin…]
Zhou Qing took a deep breath to steady himself, then stored the Moochun Bull's head soul bone in his pack.
"You're not going to absorb it?" Romantina asked, returning to a somewhat normal state.
"Even though it's a head-type soul bone and quite rare, it's only about five hundred years old," Zhou Qing said. "Soul bones are precious, but I'm more interested in understanding why soul beasts produce them at all—and why their structure resembles that of a human. I mean, how does a bull's body produce a soul bone that looks so much like a human skull? I plan to study it. If I can't figure anything out, I'll just sell it."
"Sell it? You might be the first soul master ever to willingly sell a soul bone. I've never heard of that before…" Romantina said, stunned. Then she stepped forward excitedly. "Then, can I buy it? I'll pay 100,000 gold soul coins!"
"100,000 gold soul coins?!" Xiao Wu exclaimed. "With that kind of money, I'd never have to work part-time again! I could eat in the cafeteria's second floor every day!"
In reality, the monthly stipend from Spirit Hall was only one gold soul coin, but as long as she didn't order dishes made with soul beast meat, it was more than enough for Xiao Wu to afford second-floor meals for a whole month.
"Alright. If I really can't learn anything from it in the future, I'll sell it to you," Zhou Qing agreed.
After all, even though he wouldn't absorb this hundred-year head-type soul bone, it was still a waste to throw it away. If nothing came of his research, using it to build goodwill with Romantina in the future would be a worthwhile trade.
Two hours later, the Moochun Bull's meat was finally cooked.
Romantina sprinkled it with wild speargrass seeds to enhance the flavor, instantly making Zhou Qing and Tang San's mouths water.
Even Xiao Wu swallowed hard, though she resisted the temptation and quietly ate her rations.
"You may not have done much during the Moochun Bull hunt—you kind of froze up like a statue—but you were part of the team. You're not going to eat?" Zhou Qing tore off a piece of beef shank and offered it to her. "Moochun Bull meat is tender, chewy, but not rubbery. For soul masters, high-quality soul beast meat helps promote physical growth and enhances the body's strength."
"Hmph!"
Xiao Wu glanced at the juicy, aromatic beef shank, still adorned with the wild herb seeds. She turned her head away and swallowed again. "I don't eat beef!"
After all, she was a transformed hundred-thousand-year soul beast. In the past, she had eaten the occasional soul beast egg—fine, maybe for the novelty—but now she was being asked, as a rabbit, to eat meat? Isn't that going too far?
However—
Having taken human form, even if she wasn't fully mature, her body and senses were identical to a human's. Her preference for vegetables and carrots came more from her habits as a beast than anything physiological.
And Zhou Qing was doing more than offering her food—he was presenting a choice:
If Tang San couldn't protect her as a "little sister," and if she wanted to survive in human society, she would have to truly see herself as human.
Only then would Zhou Qing see her as one of them in the future.
Otherwise—
Xiao Wu would always be just a backup food source.
After all, in this era of the first Douluo series, soul beasts hadn't yet become "protected animals."
Of course, the fact that soul master advancement depended on hunting soul beasts was, in itself, problematic—but that wasn't something Zhou Qing could solve right now, so he wasn't going to dwell on it.
"You really won't eat it?" Zhou Qing placed the beef shank onto a stone slab he had washed earlier in the nearby spring. He sneered, "As expected, pampered princesses raised on fine grains can't handle real food."
"I'm not pampered!" Xiao Wu fumed, snatching the beef shank, gritting her teeth, and taking a bite.
"Mm?"
Instantly, the tender, flavorful beef melted across her tongue, exploding across her taste buds. Her mouth started watering uncontrollably.
[So this is what meat tastes like! It's amazing!]
Xiao Wu's eyes welled with tears. Suddenly, she understood why the Titan Giant Ape and Sky Azure Bull Python used to eat other soul beasts before reaching one hundred thousand years of cultivation.
And come to think of it… the Sky Azure Bull Python had a bull's head too…
For a brief moment, Xiao Wu shuddered she felt like she'd gone too far, actually thinking of Da Ming while eating beef but her mouth never stopped. She kept chewing away at the beef shank.
"What's that delicious smell?"
From the forest near the spring, rustling sounds emerged as a group of five stepped into view. Leading them was a short-limbed, round-bodied man with dung-yellow hair and two curled golden mustaches on his upper lip…