You Have Been Laughing at Me Without Stopping

You have been laughing at me this whole time without stopping.

Xiao Hongchen was never one to hold his tongue. Bei Bei frowned; he was already feeling irritable, and running into this kind of trouble made it difficult to maintain his usual refined expression.

The other members of the Shrek reserve team also showed signs of wanting to lash out. After all, "those who dare not cause trouble are mediocre," and they had no qualms about brawling right in the hotel corridor.

Fortunately, Wang Yan walked over to defuse the tense atmosphere.

"Alright, it was their own choice to go wherever they went. Since they have already left Shrek, we cannot hold them to Shrek's standards. Let's settle this on the competition stage."

After speaking, Wang Yan gave Huo Yuhao a deep look before turning to urge the reserve team to enter their meeting room.

Xiao Hongchen still wanted to say something, but his arm was tugged by the person beside him. He turned back in annoyance, only to see Huo Yuhao shaking his head at him.

"What?" Xiao Hongchen shook off his hand. "He talked down to you, and you won't let me talk back?"

"Let's teach them a lesson on the competition stage," Huo Yuhao said. "That teacher and I have some history, so I'll let it slide this time for his sake."

"Oh, I haven't settled the score with the three of you yet," Xiao Hongchen said, as if just reminded. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, his heterochromatic eyes staring until the three of them felt a chill down their spines. "You three were from Shrek?"

The others in the team looked over as well; everyone was very interested in this topic.

"About that."

Finally, when he reached the part about how Wang Dong was expelled, the entire meeting room erupted in laughter. Even Chi Qiu and Huo Yuhao himself couldn't hold it back.

"Uh oh, Wang Dong is calling us by our full names; she didn't used to do that," Huo Yuhao immediately feigned panic.

During the few days waiting for the round-robin tournament, Huo Yuhao spent his time either reading the books on Soul Tools he had brought or cultivating in his room. By the day the round-robin started, his soul power had broken through to level twenty-nine.

As he spoke, he deliberately infused his spiritual power into his words to make his storytelling more infectious. When he reached the part where Wang Dong was nearly burned to the point of damaging her martial soul, and how he and Chi Qiu nearly lost their lives under Ma Xiaotao's flames only to be threatened into silence, the faces of the Hongchen siblings were filled with indignation.

Huo Yuhao touched his ear, feeling a bit guilty. "We were expelled by Shrek. Let's go inside to talk."

As for why Huo Yuhao and the others came so far away, it all started when Wang Dong pointed at the noses of the Shrek upper management and cursed them all out...

"Hahaha... I'm not laughing at you, you were right to curse them." Although Xiao Hongchen said this, he was still laughing heartily.

Lin Xi smiled at Huo Yuhao and said, "Junior, we have won every single match in the round-robin tournament in previous years."

"However, we haven't encountered them in the round-robin yet. According to the draw, there are nine teams in our group, and the round-robin consists of eight matches. We only need six wins to have a high probability of advancing, and seven wins guarantees it. But you should know what the Academy expects of you."

When Huo Yuhao reached the part about the final battle of the freshman assessment, Xiao Hongchen listened with great interest, as if he had transported himself to the scene of the match.

"What are you laughing at! What are you laughing at!" Wang Dong looked very anxious. "I shouldn't have let Yuhao tell the story; I should have told it myself. How is it that it sounds so funny when he tells it? I was clearly very angry at the time!"

The meeting room was filled with a joyful atmosphere, forming a sharp contrast with the slightly oppressive mood of the neighboring Shrek team and other competing academies.

"Huh?" Huo Yuhao was a bit confused. "Does everyone not know about the generational inheritance of the White Tiger and Zhu families?"

"Seniors, no need to be so worked up..." Huo Yuhao waved his hands quickly, though he was actually a little happy inside; after all, everyone likes to hear that they are being recognized.

"A clean sweep." Ma Rulong toyed with a coin-sized Soul Tool at his fingertips. "No problem."

Teacher Yu finalized a few more details about the round-robin for the main team members, and everyone returned to their rooms to rest.

"Are spirit-attribute soul beasts that scarce?" Ma Rulong also wore a look of mockery. "Then that really is Heaven blessing us. We actually have some well-known spirit-type soul beasts here. I think it's just Heaven's will for Yuhao to come to Sun Moon."

The others all shook their heads.

Teacher Yu, however, was lost in thought. "This Evil Phoenix Ma Xiaotao seems to be on their main roster as well. Sending such an unstable person to participate in the tournament... it seems we need to be more vigilant regarding safety."

Huo Yuhao spent some more time explaining this; the Sun Moon Empire's research into martial souls was truly quite poor in this regard.

When they enrolled, they only knew that Huo Yuhao and his group came from the Heaven Dou Empire, never imagining they were students from Shrek. After all, there was no historical precedent for Shrek students voluntarily defecting to the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineer Academy, so they hadn't even considered it.

And when Huo Yuhao reached the part about not being selected as core disciples, even the composed main team members couldn't sit still.

"Junior Yuhao is so talented; they must be blind." Lin Xi slapped his chair and stood up, filled with righteous indignation.

"You were right to leave," Meng Hongchen said loudly. "This is simply too much. No wonder Yuhao said earlier that he hates injustice the most."

Everyone walked into the meeting room and took their seats. Lin Xi thoughtfully closed the door, and only then did Huo Yuhao begin to recount his experiences. He simplified the part before he entered Shrek and concealed the secrets of Chi Qiu and Wang Dong's backgrounds, focusing on the various arrogant treatments they received after entering Shrek Academy.

"I believe in you seniors as well," Huo Yuhao nodded. "Then, I will focus on preparing for the quarterfinals."

"Be careful you don't laugh yourself into an early grave," Wang Dong said, choked with anger. "Huo Yuhao, Chi Qiu, you two are laughing too! I was the one who did the cursing for your sakes!"

"She's angry, what should we do?" Chi Qiu had clearly been corrupted by the human world and joined Huo Yuhao in his dramatic performance. However, her usually cold face, paired with this feigned nervous remark, made it sound even more comedic.

"Alright, alright, let's consider this matter settled." Finally, Teacher Yu forcibly steered the topic back. "Yuhao has provided us with a lot of useful intelligence, including the situation with Ma Xiaotao and the Martial Soul Fusion Skill of Dai Huabin and Zhu Lu."

"Dai Huabin and Zhu Lu activated their Martial Soul Fusion Skill, Hell White Tiger..." When Huo Yuhao said this, Meng Hongchen let out a small gasp: "They have a Martial Soul Fusion Skill too?"

The team members had also visited a few times to tell Huo Yuhao about the results of the first round. What shocked him was that there had actually been student deaths during the first round of the elimination tournament.

"Do we have enough trigger-based defensive Soul Tools left?" On the way to the round-robin venue, Huo Yuhao asked Elder Ma.

"We have enough for now," Elder Ma said. "And don't worry, there will be a Soul Tool auction after today's round-robin ends. We can purchase more then, and we have plenty of funds."