Xu Sanshi's expression was awful.
Losing the Storage Soul Tool to Huo Yuhao was a secondary concern.
The real problem was that he had completely lost face.
Huo Yuhao hooked his foot slightly. He looked at Xu Sanshi's ashen face, then at the Five-Ring Soul King, whose expression wasn't much better, and spoke.
"Referee, Xu Sanshi and I made a bet. Now he's refusing to honor it. It seems the teaching quality at Shrek Academy isn't very good either. You can't even uphold the most basic honesty. In that case, I might as well drop out. I'm done here."
As he spoke, Huo Yuhao started toward the edge of the arena.
At the same time, he silently counted his steps. He knew that some of the academy's senior staff had surely seen his fight.
There might even be an informant here working for that Hydrogen God King.
If he left, he would disrupt Tang San's plans.
Tang San, that God King, had sworn up and down that he wouldn't interfere with the changes unfolding on Douluo Continent.
But that was just his high-minded excuse. He had plenty of little schemes of his own.
However, just as Huo Yuhao was walking toward the edge of the arena, before he could step down, a voice suddenly called out.
"Wait, Huo Yuhao!"
Huo Yuhao turned around and saw that it was Zhou Yi.
By then, Zhou Yi had already walked onto the arena. She first gave Liu Erlong a suspicious look.
But she soon turned her gaze away.
She looked at Xu Sanshi and asked, "Did you really bet with Huo Yuhao?"
Xu Sanshi gritted his teeth.
Then Zhou Yi looked at Beibei, who was standing not far away, and said, "Beibei, you tell me."
Beibei looked mortified.
But Jiang Nannan spoke up. "Teacher Zhou, they really did make a bet."
Tang Ya nodded as well. "Teacher Zhou, that's right."
Seeing this, Beibei had no choice but to nod. "Yes."
Zhou Yi looked back at Xu Sanshi and said, "Xu Sanshi, you have to honor your bet."
Xu Sanshi gritted his teeth, but in the end, he could only nod reluctantly.
He then looked at Huo Yuhao, removed the Storage Soul Tool from his wrist, and handed it to him.
After that, Xu Sanshi shot Huo Yuhao an angry look and stormed off.
Zhou Yi turned to Huo Yuhao and said, "Come on. Let's talk outside!"
Huo Yuhao nodded and followed Zhou Yi away.
Liu Erlong and Bai Feng naturally came along too.
As for Jiang Nannan and Xiao Wu, the two girls smiled sweetly and walked on either side of Huo Yuhao.
On the way out,
Jiang Nannan looked at Huo Yuhao with excitement and said quietly, "Yuhao, we made 150,000 gold coins this time."
"About 1,300 people came to place bets."
"That's an average of around 115 coins per person."
"So we made 150,000 in total. Including our original stake, we now have 181,000 Gold Soul Coins."
As Jiang Nannan spoke, excitement shone in her beautiful eyes.
She was especially sensitive to money, and she gave him a very precise breakdown.
Seeing how excited Jiang Nannan was, Huo Yuhao thought for a moment and said, "You can hold on to the money."
Jiang Nannan reflexively shook her head. "Th-this won't do..."
Huo Yuhao smiled. "Think of it as startup money for our shop. From now on, you can be our little manager and buy whatever we need."
"Also, I'm renovating the shop, and I bought a courtyard. Now that we have money, we can expand and buy a few more courtyards. We should try to get a bigger space."
Jiang Nannan considered this, then nodded.
Hearing Huo Yuhao say this, Zhou Yi asked, "Yuhao, what do you need all that land for? Are you opening a pill shop?"
As she spoke, she recalled the pills Huo Yuhao had shown her earlier.
Huo Yuhao hesitated briefly, then said, "Teacher Zhou, I want to ask you something people usually wouldn't dare ask."
"Would it be possible to build another academy in Shrek City?"
Zhou Yi stopped walking. She looked at Huo Yuhao, surprise in her eyes.
"Huo Yuhao, what do you mean? You're not thinking of building an academy in Shrek City, are you?"
Huo Yuhao smiled and pointed at Liu Erlong. "I'll provide the money to build it, and this big sister will teach and serve as its dean. She also has some unique ideas about teaching."
Zhou Yi turned to Liu Erlong and, after a moment's thought, asked, "May I ask your name?"
"My name is Liu Erlong," she replied.
Zhou Yi was surprised again. It wasn't just their Martial Souls that were similar; even their names were so alike.
Especially her appearance—she looked almost exactly like the statue at Shrek Academy.
Huo Yuhao smiled. "Teacher Zhou, you don't think Sister Liu is someone from ten thousand years ago, do you?"
Zhou Yi came to her senses and smiled as she shook her head. "Of course not."
She then looked at Liu Erlong and said, "If your teaching is up to standard, and considering your cultivation, you could teach at our academy. Why insist on starting your own?"
Liu Erlong replied, "It's a personal preference. I like the idea."
Zhou Yi furrowed her brows slightly. After a moment, she said, "In principle, Shrek Academy is progressive, civilized, and friendly. We've helped the whole continent advance, so we won't interfere."
Huo Yuhao thought it over, then asked, "Teacher Zhou, you said 'in principle.' That means there are some unspoken rules too, doesn't it?"
Hearing the words "unspoken rules," Zhou Yi smiled. It was the first time she'd heard that expression, but she understood what it meant. After thinking for a moment, she said,
"In theory, it's possible, but there'll be plenty of trouble once you've built it."
"First, there's the issue of students. The students with the best talent here all enroll at Shrek Academy, so it'll be hard for your new academy to recruit promising ones. I don't think it's necessary."
"There's another requirement: Shrek City is under our jurisdiction."
"If you want to build an academy, you'll have to register it. It'll be quite troublesome, but it's not impossible."
After saying this, Zhou Yi thought it over and said that if they really wanted to start an academy, Liu Erlong could come by the next day. She could give her some basic guidance and send her to the academy's administrative office to register it.
Whether the registration would succeed and the academy could actually get off the ground was another matter.
Huo Yuhao immediately thanked her.
After explaining things, Zhou Yi took her leave without hesitation.
She wasn't one to meddle in other people's affairs.
As for why she had helped Huo Yuhao,
first, she'd heard from the academy that Huo Yuhao was going to compete against the sixth-year students.
That had surprised her, so she'd come to take a look.
Of course, there was another reason.
After watching Huo Yuhao fight, she'd noticed something unusual.
Huo Yuhao hadn't used Soul Skills. He'd used techniques more like the unique arts of the Tang Sect.
In particular, the Absorbing Palm he'd used was somewhat similar to the Tang Sect's Crane Capturing Dragon.
But what surprised Zhou Yi even more was this:
Near the end of the match, she'd received a message from Mu En, telling her to look after Huo Yuhao.
Zhou Yi had already planned to look after him, but Mu En's message still puzzled her.
What was so special about Huo Yuhao that Mu En had gone out of his way to look after him twice?
Zhou Yi was perplexed, but soon shook her head.
At that moment, Zhou Yi arrived beside the teaching building, where an old man was lying in a rocking chair.
That old man was Mu En.
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