After walking all the way to the end of the corridor, Huo Yuhao stopped in front of Dormitory 110. He took out the key engraved with a number, lined it up with the keyhole, and gently turned it.
"Click."
The lock opened with a faint, slightly sluggish sound.
He pushed the door open, and a wave of stale, murky air thick with the smell of dust hit him. He instinctively wanted to hold his breath.
Huo Yuhao stepped aside without hurrying in.
He waited a few seconds to let the air inside and out circulate a little. Then he took a deep breath, held it, and dashed into the room, heading straight for the tightly shut window.
The window had an old-fashioned wooden latch, all covered in dust.
Huo Yuhao quickly pulled the latch free and shoved both panels outward with all his strength—
"Creeeak—"
A fresh breeze carrying the scent of grass and trees swept in, stirring up the dust that had settled inside. In the sunlight, it formed shafts of light.
Only then did Huo Yuhao let out the breath he'd been holding. Standing by the window, he took several deep breaths of fresh air.
While the room aired out, he looked over the place that would be his home for the foreseeable future.
The dormitory was tiny, barely ten square meters by his estimate. Its layout was plain to see, and the place was almost absurdly bare.
Two narrow wooden beds stood side by side against the wall, taking up most of the room. They were completely bare, nothing but wooden boards with an even layer of dust on top.
Against the wall near the middle of the room stood an old wooden desk, its surface just as dusty.
Two gray-green metal wardrobes stood in the opposite corner, their surfaces already rusting.
A simple glass-shaded pendant lamp hung from the exact center of the ceiling.
A few inconspicuous metal knobs protruded from the wall near the door.
That was everything.
Huo Yuhao looked at the lamp and the metal knobs on the wall. In his previous life, back in the Sun Moon Empire, he had learned a great deal about Soul Tools from Kong Deming. His own Soul Tool rank had reached level ten, just like Kong Deming's.
He recognized the lamp as the simplest kind of Soul Tool. To light it, one had to channel Soul Power into the metal knobs in the wall.
It was probably the only thing in this bare dormitory that had anything to do with Soul Masters or "high technology."
"It's exactly like the environment in the 'original work' as Wang Teng remembered it..."
Huo Yuhao's brows drew together almost imperceptibly, and a strange, absurd feeling rose in his heart.
In his previous life, he had entered Shrek Academy with the intention of destroying it. He had never had any reason to inspect the freshman dormitories, so he had naturally never learned what they were really like.
Wang Teng's memories offered plenty of details about the "original work," but their source was questionable, and the "original work's" storyline was utterly different from what Huo Yuhao had experienced in his previous life. They could serve as a reference, but could never be trusted completely.
By his understanding and logical reasoning, Shrek Academy was widely recognized as the continent's foremost academy for Soul Masters. It had deep foundations and immense wealth, and countless high-ranking officials, nobles, and scions of great clans and sects flocked to its gates.
Even if the academy didn't provide freshmen with lavish, comfortable lodging, surely it should at least ensure the place was clean, spacious, and properly equipped?
This wasn't just a matter of appearances. It also affected students' cultivation and the academy's overall reputation.
Yet the dormitory before him, with dust that had settled for at least a year or two, shabby old furniture, and barely enough room to move, fell far short of what he had imagined as the treatment awaiting new students at "the continent's top academy."
"Could it be that most of Shrek Academy's enormous budget is lining the pockets of its own senior staff, squandered and swallowed up by them?
"Otherwise, why would the dormitory for new students—some of whom might one day become pillars of the academy—be so... shabby?"
A slightly mocking thought flashed through Huo Yuhao's mind.
He remembered the clean, bright dormitories at the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Master Academy, with their complete facilities and even basic Soul Tool cultivation aids. The difference between the two was like heaven and earth.
He had never imagined that Shrek Academy's freshman dormitories would truly be just as the absurd "original work" in Wang Teng's memories described: so... casual about the details.
He shook his head, setting those pointless guesses aside for the moment.
Huo Yuhao rolled up his sleeves and prepared to start cleaning.
Since he was here, he would make the best of it. A poor environment wouldn't affect him much; he had endured far worse conditions in his previous life.
But just as he was about to head for the corner to look for cleaning tools, he abruptly froze!
Huo Yuhao jerked his head up, his gaze seeming to pierce the low ceiling and fix on some distant point in the empty sky.
For the first time, his calm expression gave way to a faint flicker of surprise and solemnity.
"What's going on?" Alarm bells rang in Huo Yuhao's mind. An odd sensation—as if some invisible restraint had fallen away—clearly registered in his awareness. "Why has that faint but constant feeling of being watched... suddenly disappeared?"
From the moment he had awakened after being reborn and regained consciousness in this eleven-year-old body, he had sensed something: a subtle, tenuous, yet unmistakable presence, like the finest thread of spider silk, lingering at the edge of his soul's perception.
It didn't seem to come from any particular person or direction. It was more like a detached "gaze" scattered across the world, belonging to some higher existence.
It held no malice and exerted almost no tangible influence. It merely watched, as a god might look down upon the masses, recording the course of fate.
Only thanks to the extraordinary sensitivity of his Divine Origin Realm spiritual power from his previous life could Huo Yuhao just barely detect that almost imperceptible "gaze."
He had already reached a conclusion: there was a very good chance it was Sea God Tang San, or some fragment of his divine will left in the mortal world, performing routine "surveillance" and "record-keeping" on "destiny's chosen one," Huo Yuhao. The purpose was to make sure that this crucial "piece" was born and grew according to the established "script," without any unforeseen "accidents."
Although the feeling of being watched had made Huo Yuhao deeply uncomfortable, like a thorn in his back, its existence had also confirmed that his rebirth had indeed drawn the attention of certain "beings." It reminded him to remain cautious and avoid straying too far from the "original course"—at least until he was strong enough to protect himself.
But just now, in the brief moment when he entered Dormitory 110, opened the door, let the dust spill out, and opened the window to air the room, that faint, persistent feeling of being watched—the one that had lasted for days—had vanished without warning, completely!
It was as though the third eye that had always hovered above him had suddenly closed.
The world was still the same, but some invisible "link" or "focus" seemed to have quietly shifted away.
Instead of making Huo Yuhao feel relieved, this sudden sense of "freedom" made the alarm bells in his heart ring all the louder!
Why had it disappeared? Had Tang San's attention been temporarily drawn away by something more important?
Or had one of his actions just now—or perhaps the very act of entering Shrek Academy—triggered some kind of "mechanism," temporarily lifting this basic, wide-ranging surveillance?
Or was it... something worse?
Did the disappearance of that gaze mean he had been labeled a "variable straying from the script," and that a higher-level, more direct "clean-up" protocol was about to begin?
Countless possibilities raced through Huo Yuhao's mind, each pointing to a different danger and response.
He stood perfectly still, silently pushing Spirit Detection to its limits as he sensed every shift of energy around him, every flicker of light, even the paths of the tiniest motes of dust in the air.
At the same time, he drew his presence in even more carefully, keeping the hint of "unity between heaven and man" brought by the Dao Heaven Technique as contained as possible. He also held his spiritual power at the level expected of a newly advanced Soul Master: somewhat "exceptional," but not "outrageous."
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