The three of them followed the shaded path along the edge of Shrek Square. After turning several corners, a huge white building came into view.
The dormitory's front doors stood open. In a shady spot beside them sat a wicker chair that looked as though it had been there for countless years.
An old man who looked frighteningly ancient was reclining in it.
He wore a gray cloth robe and was so emaciated that a gust of wind seemed enough to knock him over.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps between the leaves, dappling his body.
The old man's face was withered, its wrinkles crisscrossing so deeply that they could trap more than a dozen flies at once.
His eyelids drooped over dull, cloudy eyes. His breathing was long and slow, yet so frail it seemed liable to stop at any moment. He looked every bit like a man in the twilight of his life.
Yet the instant Du Weilun, who was leading the way, recognized the old man, his steady stride abruptly halted.
His pupils contracted. He hurriedly bent to pay his respects.
Just as Du Weilun was about to bow, the old man in the wicker chair didn't raise his head. He merely shook it slowly.
The gesture was slight, but it stopped Du Weilun in his tracks.
Du Weilun froze. He swallowed, forcibly suppressing his reverence, and changed his bow into a rigid, upright stance.
Others might not know, but Du Weilun knew full well that this seemingly decrepit old man was the true pillar of Shrek Academy: the Sea God Pavilion Master, Mu En, a Level 99 Limit Douluo.
Du Weilun circulated his Soul Power, turning the details about Xiao Yan and Xiao Xiao into a covert thread of sound and transmitting them directly into Mu En's ear.
After the message ended, Du Weilun stood quietly to one side, waiting for the Pavilion Master's response.
He had thought the Pavilion Master would show at least some surprise upon hearing "eleven years old, Level 46."
But Mu En's expression didn't change at all.
His dull, cloudy eyes slowly lifted and settled precisely on Xiao Yan.
Unlike Yan Shaozhe, who had grown feverish at the sight of high-level Soul Power, Mu En had reached a realm where he no longer judged people by surface figures. He looked at their "Dao," their "momentum."
In Mu En's eyes, the boy standing before him didn't seem like a child of only eleven.
Xiao Yan stood quietly, releasing neither the slightest trace of his Martial Soul nor any Soul Power on purpose.
Yet his breathing and heartbeat were perfectly in tune with the breeze around him, the sunlight falling upon him, and even the heavy earth beneath his feet.
An invisible "momentum" surrounded the boy.
It was a sense of harmony beyond the mundane, untouched by the myriad laws.
Mu En had lived for more than two hundred years. He had seen countless prodigies of astonishing talent, as well as peerless powerhouses who stood at the pinnacle of the continent.
But he had never seen anyone, at the age of eleven, display such unfathomable harmony with heaven and earth without even realizing it.
A strange light glimmered deep in the old man's eyes.
It was the hope that emerged only after a century of vicissitudes, when one finally saw the possibility of something breaking the established order.
"Xiao Yan, may I call you that?"
Mu En spoke.
His voice was hoarse and aged, like two dry pieces of bark rubbing together, but there was a warmth in his tone, the kindness of an elder toward a junior.
Xiao Yan met the old man's gaze. His deep black eyes held none of the timidity or nervousness of an ordinary student.
He could clearly sense the power of light within the old man. It was a pure essence, tempered and settled through the passage of time.
He nodded and answered with courteous restraint, "Please, call me whatever you like."
Mu En's withered lips tugged upward, forming an unsightly smile.
With trembling hands, he reached into his robe and rummaged for a moment before taking out a dark wooden plaque made from some unknown material.
Intricate wave patterns were carved across its surface, lending it an ancient, weighty air.
The old man lifted his hand and offered the plaque to Xiao Yan. His voice remained hoarse and slow.
"I can't teach you about your Martial Soul, that zither. The path you walk is different from ours. But if you run into any other problems you can't solve at the academy, or have questions weighing on your mind, take this to the Sea God Pavilion and come find me."
Du Weilun, standing nearby, was struck as if by lightning.
He stared fixedly at the dark wooden plaque, his eyes nearly bulging from their sockets.
It was a token of the Sea God Pavilion!
What left Du Weilun even more incredulous was Mu En's statement: "I can't teach you."
A Level 99 Limit Douluo was openly admitting that he couldn't teach an eleven-year-old child!
Xiao Yan looked at the plaque held out before him.
He naturally understood its value and the identity of the old man.
He didn't refuse, nor did he show any ecstatic shock at the honor. He simply accepted the plaque with both hands and nodded calmly.
"Thank you. Sorry for the trouble."
Mu En waved a hand and closed his eyes again. His eyelids drooped, and he sank back into the half-dreaming state of a man on his last legs, as though the peerless powerhouse who had casually given away a Sea God Pavilion token moments ago had never been him.
Xiao Yan put the plaque into his Storage Soul Tool and didn't linger.
He turned to Du Weilun, gave a slight nod in farewell, then strode straight into the white dormitory building.
Seeing this, Xiao Xiao hurried after him in quick little steps, like a little tail that couldn't be shaken off.
That left Du Weilun standing alone beneath the sunlight, utterly stunned and reeling in the breeze.
The dormitory interior was dim. Along both sides of the long corridor stood a series of tightly shut wooden doors.
The air was filled with a stale smell, as though it hadn't been aired out in ages.
Following the number on his key, Xiao Yan stopped midway down the corridor.
He inserted the key into the lock and was just about to push the door open when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Xiao Xiao sneaking closer.
The little girl clasped her hands behind her back and fidgeted. Her bright green eyes brimmed with hope as she inched toward Xiao Yan's door, one little step at a time, looking ready to squeeze right in and set up camp.
Xiao Yan stopped what he was doing, turned around, and looked at her in silence.
"Your room is upstairs." His voice was steady, leaving no room for negotiation.
"Big brother..." Xiao Xiao drew out the words, her voice so soft and sweet it could melt anyone's heart.
She stepped forward and tugged at the hem of Xiao Yan's moon-white robe, gently shaking it.
"It's so tiring to clean my room all by myself, and I bet there are bugs in there. How about... I help you clean up, and then I sleep on the floor here tonight?"
Xiao Yan's gaze remained as still as an ancient well. He wasn't moved.
He knew this girl too well. If he let her cross the threshold even once, sleeping on the floor would soon become sleeping at the foot of the bed, and after that she'd have every excuse to claim half of it.
"Go upstairs." Xiao Yan slipped his robe free, his tone calm.
Looking at her brother's utterly impassive face, Xiao Xiao knew that trick hadn't worked.
She pouted, her cheeks puffing up like two little buns. Then, with obvious reluctance, she stomped once and turned toward her own room, muttering under her breath that her brother was a heartless block of wood.
Only after Xiao Xiao had gone upstairs did Xiao Yan push open his door.
"Creeeak—"
As the door opened, a choking smell of dust rushed out to meet him.
It was a small single room with nothing but a hard wooden bed, a desk, and a simple wardrobe.
It had stood empty throughout the long holiday. Sunlight slanted through the gap in the window that hadn't been shut properly, making the fine dust motes dancing through the air clearly visible.
A thick layer of dust covered the desk, bed, and windowsill. Several tangled cobwebs even stretched across the walls in the corners.
An ordinary young master from a wealthy family would probably have paid someone to clean the place long ago.
But Xiao Yan stood calmly in the doorway, showing no displeasure.
He didn't look for a broom or a cloth. He simply walked inside and turned to close the door.
Xiao Yan stood in the center of the room and drew a deep breath.
The Taiji Innate Qi within him began circulating along a specific network of meridians.
He slowly raised his right hand and held it suspended in the air before him.
He gently brought his long index finger and thumb together. There was nothing between them, yet his expression was as focused as if he were facing a priceless ancient zither.
This was a new technique he had recently comprehended through the fusion of the Art of the Fuxi Emperor and the Way of the Zither: Void Zither Playing.
He used heaven and earth as the body of the zither and invisible primal energy as its strings.
His current cultivation still limited him, so this technique couldn't yet be used for high-intensity combat. But it had unexpected applications when it came to precisely manipulating the surrounding matter.
His gaze grew distant and clear.
Soul Power compressed between his thumb and index finger to its utmost. Then his fingertips abruptly parted, plucking at the air.
"Zing—"
A clear, melodious sound, just like a real zither string being plucked, suddenly rang through the sealed room.
There was no actual zither, nor any gleam of a Spirit Ring.
But with that clear note, an invisible sound wave, imperceptible to the naked eye, spread outward from Xiao Yan's fingertips and rippled toward the walls, floor, and ceiling.
The piece was called Wind Chant: Dust-Cleansing Melody.
Where the sound wave passed, the dust that had lain undisturbed on the desk and bed seemed to lose the pull of gravity. A precisely controlled vibration lifted every speck from the surfaces at once.
Even the stubborn cobwebs in the corners snapped apart under the vibrations.
The dust motes floating through the air stopped moving at random, all suspended in place under the sound wave's control.
Xiao Yan didn't stop.
His hands moved rapidly through the empty space before him.
His fingers flew, leaving a blur of dazzling afterimages.
"Zing! Zing! Zing!"
A steady rhythm of zither notes rang out without pause.
With each pluck, the sound wave's frequency shifted with exquisite precision.
The air throughout the room seemed to become water, ready to be kneaded at his whim.
The dust suspended in midair, the cobweb fragments, and the unidentified specks began to gather and swirl in orderly patterns under the sound waves' guidance.
They formed an ever-growing gray vortex in the center of the room, compressing and condensing until they became a dense ball of dust the size of a bowling ball.
Xiao Yan lowered his left hand and pointed his right index finger through the air at the half-open window.
The final, high-pitched note rang out.
"Hum!"
An invisible gust of force hurled the tightly shut window open, slamming it against the wall with a "bang."
Following the path of the sound wave, the dense gray ball shot through the window like a cannonball and landed far away in the woods outside.
The window swung shut again, carried by the fading force of the wind.
The entire process had taken no more than a dozen breaths.
The dormitory, once filthy and disheveled, was now completely transformed.
The desk gleamed, the wooden bed was spotless, and even the room's stale smell had been shaken away by the zither notes, replaced by the fresh scent of the world after rain.
Having finished, Xiao Yan lowered his hands and calmed the Soul Power that was still faintly stirring within him.
Void Zither Playing took a heavy toll on his body, mind, and spirit. Even a simple Dust Cleansing Melody had drained some of the Soul Power in his meridians.
But practicing absolute control over his power was itself an excellent form of cultivation.
He walked over to the window and took the clean sheets and bedding he'd brought with him out of his Storage Ring.
With unhurried precision, he made the bed, smoothing it until it lay perfectly flat without a single crease.
The bedding carried a faint soothing fragrance, one that came from the same source as his own scent.
Once everything was in place, Xiao Yan took off his moon-white outer robe and hung it on the clothes rack, leaving himself in only a close-fitting white undershirt.
He sat in the middle of the bed, crossed his legs, and assumed the standard Five Hearts Facing Heaven posture.
His hands rested naturally on his knees, his back straight.
His breathing gradually grew long and deep. Each inhalation was like a whale swallowing the sea; each exhalation was as fine as a silken thread.
Deep within his sea of consciousness, the enormous Fuxi Bagua Formation Map began turning slowly, scattering starlight across the heavens.
His heart was still as water, every distracting thought gone.
Xiao Yan closed his eyes and immersed himself completely in the circulation of the Art of the Fuxi Emperor, shutting out all the noise of the outside world.
The dormitory, freshly cleaned, sank into a long, quiet stillness.