Chapter 41:

after a while, Lin Tian finally registered what the girl was saying and calmed himself.

"First of all miss, what is your name?"

"M- my name is Zhu Zhuqing."

'as I thought she is Zhu Zhuqing, currently she should be around ten years old.'

"Nice to meet you miss Zhu my name is Lin Tian. now then miss Zhu I will ask you this, why do you start talking to me about taking responsibility?"

"Th- that's because my mother told me the only man allowed to see me naked is my husband, a- and you have seen me naked just now." while saying this she stutters a bit while having a red face.

"Huff, well then my answer for this is NO, I will not take any kind of responsibility. First of all, the reason I need to see you naked because of the necessity to treat your wounds, Second I already have my own girlfriend, and third miss Zhu you need to understand what 'Take responsibility is and about male-female relationships."

Lin Tian then start to explain why her mother told her about not being seen naked by men in order to teach her to protect her body from other males and for men to take responsibility it usually means that the man has done sexual intercourse with the said woman without the relationship of a lover or her consent.

Zhuqing listening to his explanation about male and female sexual intercourse starts blushing hard until her neck and ear also becoming red from embarrassment.

"So, do you now understand why I said no to taking responsibility for you?"

"Yes."

seeing her being obedient and having such an innocent reaction Lin Tian just shake his head in the realization that the current Zhuqing is not yet the cold lady like in the original story, it seems the reason for her cold demeanor in the original story is not a natural one but because she lives in her clan while constantly having assassins from her sister aiming for her life.

well living in a cold-blooded family that didn't care for your life and death, while some even send assassins to kill you will definitely change someone innocent to become cold in order to survive.

but Lin Tian decides to not help her to change this part of her life, even though a bit cruel Lin Tian has to do this. the only reason Zhu Zhuqing was able to become one of Shrek's seven devils is because of her hard-working and power hunger mentality which is caused by her childhood trauma and the need to survive.

in Lin Tian's opinion, Zhuqing's talent can be considered as very good among geniuses but not monstrous like other Shrek members, her Martial Spirit is one of the things that limit her strength.

Tang San has full innate spirit level and Twin Martial spirit, Oscar and Xiao Wu have full innate spirit, Mu Bai and Ma Hongjun Martial spirit are top levels Beast martial spirit almost the same level as blue lightning tyrant dragon, and Ning Rongrong seven tiled glazed pagoda awakened with innate level 9 which is known as the strongest support martial spirit.

(Note: I'm not sure what is the awakened innate level for Mu Bai, Ma hongjun, and Zhuqing. but based on their growth I consider them awakened with 8-9 innate spirit levels. for those who are curious you can find Ning Rongrong's description on the wiki being awakened at level 9.)

"While I do have some questions that I wanted to ask you, it seems you're going to need some time alone to think for now. We're currently in a hotel near Star Dou forest so you can rest easy, Good night."

after Lin Tian leaves the room immediately, being alone in the room Zhuqing finally has some time to inspect her own situation, and finally, she starts crying feeling despair, anger, sadness, and many other negative emotions.

She already knew the person who sends the assassins must be her older sister Zhu Zhuyun, currently, Zhuqing's living condition in her clan is not very good since when Mu Bai run away leaving her alone in Star Dou Empire she is already considered as a dead person by her clan without any hope winning the dead and live tradition.

Even though her living situation in her clan is not good, no one directly disturbs or hurts her in any way inside the clan making her still having some naive hope that everything will be alright in the end.

But now, after surviving this assassination and being very close to death Zhuqing finally starts to face the reality that in order to survive she has to become stronger and kill her older sister, or else there's simply no hope for her to continue living in this world.

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on the other side Lin Tian directly return to his own room and locks the door, checking around with his spiritual sense that no one is going to disturb him Lin Tian finally pulls out the fox's dead body from his storage.

the fox body is still in good condition without any rotting smell at all, spirit beast body has a lot of spirit power inside it making the meat able to stay fresh for days or even weeks. the higher the spirit beast cultivation age the longer the body will able to preserve itself.

Lin Tian starts to dissect the fox's body checking whether there's any Spirit bone or not. he starts checking from Head, Body, Arms (front leg), and finally legs.

and when he reaches the left leg of the fox suddenly he found a shining white bone which is completely different from other normal bones. without hesitation, Lin Tian pulls out the bone and scans with his spiritual sense, "Left leg Spirit Bones! I can feel Spiritual flowing inside it as if the bone itself was alive."

Without hesitation, Lin Tian directly starts to absorb the bone. this Spirit Bone will definitely have the effect of speed increasing and being a Spirit bone that came out from his absorbed spirit ring will also increase its compatibility greatly.

The process is similar to absorbing the spirit ring but now he absorbs it using his body instead of Martial Spirit.

While absorbing the bone Lin Tian's sense will be closed and unable to sense anything outside of his body, what he didn't know is when he starts absorbing the bone some black energy came out of his body and caused a black pattern to start forming on the white bone.

if Lin Tian was awake he will notice this pattern is the same as the pattern on the gourd inside his mind, and so the night passes quietly with him absorbing his new spirit bones.

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Author note: gonna put the new status update on the extra chapter (41.5)