The Troll man's clothes and appearance made it clear that he was merely a low-ranking servant in the clan, responsible for raising spirit beasts.
Even so, the Bloodline Power radiating from him burned like a furnace, leaving Yu Xiaogang gasping for breath.
The Troll man carried a large wooden bucket and strode into the shed.
He glanced at the black pig eating from the stone trough, then turned around and fixed his eyes on Yu Xiaogang, who was covered in mud.
The Troll man furrowed his brow.
He took a long stride forward and crossed the distance to Yu Xiaogang in just a few steps.
Before this giant, Yu Xiaogang was like a baby who had only just learned to walk.
Before he could react,
the Troll man reached out with a large, callused hand, grabbed Yu Xiaogang by the back of his collar as if he were a chick, and lifted him off the ground.
"Let go of me! Who are you?!"
Yu Xiaogang struggled frantically in midair, flailing his arms and legs.
"I'm a teacher at Shrek Academy! I'm a master of Martial Soul Theory!"
He shouted himself hoarse, trying to intimidate the man with the titles that had always bluffed people wherever he went on Douluo Continent.
The Troll man looked at the little person in his hand as if he were an idiot.
He couldn't understand a word Yu Xiaogang was yelling.
"Where'd this skinny monkey come from? He hasn't got a trace of spiritual energy, and his Bloodline Power is weaker than a sick chicken's."
The Troll man's voice rang like a great bell, making Yu Xiaogang's eardrums ache.
"Probably one of the slaves those cultivators up top sent down to clean the beast pens."
The Troll man muttered to himself.
He casually tossed the huge wooden bucket in his hand onto the ground.
It hit with a thud.
The bucket was full of chopped meat and bones that reeked of blood. Bloody water splashed out, soaking Yu Xiaogang.
"Hey, skinny monkey."
The Troll man poked Yu Xiaogang in the chest with a thick finger, nearly cracking his ribs.
"I don't care what you used to do."
"Now that you're in my Troll clan's Spirit Beast Pen, you're going to work."
The Troll man pointed at the black pig still eating, then at the black droppings covering the ground.
"This Black Wind Pig is our young chieftain's favorite food."
"Clean up all the dung in this shed before dark."
"If you dare slack off, or you don't finish, I'll chop you up and toss you into the stone trough with these bones to feed the pigs."
Without bothering to check whether Yu Xiaogang understood, the Troll man tossed him aside like a rag, dropping him beside a pile of half-dried pig dung.
Then the man walked out of the livestock shed with heavy steps, without looking back.
The images on the Sky Screen were broadcast, crystal clear, to every corner of Douluo Continent.
At Shrek Academy's training field in Fasinuo Province,
silence reigned.
It was a silence so suffocating it was hard to bear.
Everyone stared wide-eyed at the man on the screen, covered in pig dung and looking utterly wretched.
Was that really Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang, the man they usually revered, with his mouth full of profound theories?
Tang San's eyes were bloodshot.
He gripped the edge of the stone table beside him so tightly that his fingernails had curled back. Blood ran through the cracks in the stone, but he felt no pain.
"Teacher..."
Tang San's voice trembled. It was as if a lump of cotton were stuck in his throat.
He had always regarded Yu Xiaogang as a father.
He knew his teacher valued his self-respect more than his life.
Back at the academy, if anyone dared question even a little of his teacher's theories, his teacher would turn livid and argue back at length.
But now, in that Troll man's hand, his teacher was no more than a thing without dignity, dangling carelessly before being tossed beside a stinking pile of dung.
What of the Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul?
What of his supposedly unrivaled theories?
Faced with an overwhelming difference in size and strength, those titles had become a colossal joke.
Flender stood nearby, his eyes red as well.
He took off his glasses, wiped the corners of his eyes with his sleeve, and let out a long sigh.
"Xiaogang's been proud all his life. How could he possibly bear this?"
Flender's voice choked.
"He has to shovel pig dung, and if he doesn't finish, they'll chop him up and feed him to the pigs..."
"Do the people in that world have not even the slightest idea that other people are people?"
It wasn't just Shrek Academy.
Inside Pope Palace in Spirit City, Bibi Dong had also sunk into her throne, her face pale.
Though she hated Yu Xiaogang for his weakness and for abandoning her, deep in some corner of her heart she had always preserved the image of that young man in white, elegant and learned.
But today, the Sky Screen had mercilessly torn away that lofty image.
It had laid bare Yu Xiaogang's weakest, most helpless, most humiliating side for everyone on the continent to see.
Bibi Dong closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, but she couldn't suppress the turmoil and sorrow in her heart.
In that higher-dimensional world, the weak didn't even deserve to speak of dignity.
Inside the Troll clan's Spirit Beast Pen,
Yu Xiaogang lay in the stinking mud, panting heavily.
His face, hair, and clothes were all smeared with blackish-brown filth.
A cool breeze swept past, and he shivered.
The fear of being crushed to death at any moment, as the Troll man held him up in the air, still haunted him.
He slowly raised his head and looked at the enormous Black Wind Pig not far away.
The pig had finished eating the chopped meat in the stone trough and was now lying lazily on the ground, snoring loudly enough to shake the rafters.
Dung that reeked of rot was piled beneath and around it.
At last, Yu Xiaogang couldn't hold back his tears.
Mixed with the muddy water on his face, they left two clear streaks down his cheeks.
He was a direct descendant of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, a Grandmaster of Shrek Academy, and the man who had taught the genius disciple Tang San.
He had thought that even if he couldn't reach the peak of cultivation in his lifetime, he could at least make his name live on through his theories.
Now he had to pick up a tool and shovel a pig's shit.
Yu Xiaogang gritted his teeth and used all his strength to haul himself up from the mud.
No matter how humiliating it was, he had to stay alive.
As long as he could endure this year, as long as he could return to Douluo Continent, he swore he'd never study another damn theory again.
He looked around and found a huge, heavy iron shovel in the corner of the shed.
Its wooden handle was thicker than his thigh, and its blade was half the size of a door.
It was clearly the tool the Troll man used for work.
Yu Xiaogang walked over, gripped the handle with both hands, and tried with all his might to lift it.
"Ugh!"
His face turned red, and the veins in his forehead bulged.
But the huge shovel only shifted slightly against the ground. He couldn't lift it at all.
It was too heavy.
For a theory-focused Soul Master who was only at level twenty-nine and had neglected physical training for years, the shovel was like a small mountain.
Yu Xiaogang let go in despair and plopped down on the ground.
He looked at the dung covering the floor, then at the sun slowly sinking toward the horizon outside.
The Troll man's words echoed in his ears like a death curse.
"Don't finish before dark, and I'll chop you up and feed you to the pigs..."
Yu Xiaogang shuddered.
He didn't dare sit there any longer. He got down on the ground and started pushing the heavy shovel with both hands, inch by inch.
Even if he could only push it, he still had to get the filth out of the shed.
He shuffled forward little by little, sweat streaming down his cheeks.
Just as he pushed the shovel toward the sleeping Black Wind Pig,
the edge seemed to bump into something hard buried in the dung.
There was a faint clack.
Yu Xiaogang stopped and wiped the sweat from his face with one hand, then peered down into the pile.
In the sunset glow filtering through the shed,
he saw an object half-buried in the dung.
It was a human skull, one that had been dead for who knew how long. Tooth marks covered its surface, and the bone had turned somewhat black.
Beside the skull lay a few scraps of tattered cloth.
Yu Xiaogang recognized the material and pattern. They were clearly clothes worn by a person.
At the sight of them, Yu Xiaogang's breath stopped.
His eyes widened. The blood vessels in them looked ready to burst.
A chill shot up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, freezing the blood in his body.
At last, he understood why there were no other slaves in the Troll clan's livestock shed.
And at last, he understood what the chopped meat in the huge Black Wind Pig's stone trough really was.
Just then, the Black Wind Pig, which had been dozing, suddenly stopped snoring.
Its enormous eyes, glowing with an eerie red light, slowly opened in the dim shed.
Its gaze landed squarely on Yu Xiaogang, who was close enough to touch.
The enormous Black Wind Pig slowly opened its eyes.
In the dim livestock shed, its red-glowing eyes were like two burning Ghost Fires.
Yu Xiaogang's scalp prickled. A chill rose from his spine and coursed through his entire body.
He even forgot to breathe. All he could do was watch as the mouth full of fangs edged closer and closer to his head.
Rank-smelling saliva dripped from the Black Wind Pig's mouth, splattering into the mud before Yu Xiaogang with a nauseating plop.
It's over.
Those were the only words left in Yu Xiaogang's mind.
He closed his eyes and went limp, bracing himself for the pain of his bones being chewed to pieces.
But just as the gaping maw came within half a foot of Yu Xiaogang's head,
Luo Sanpao, huddled in the mud and already scared enough to wet his pants, suddenly convulsed from sheer terror.
The little creature's instincts were roused to their fullest.
"Pffft!"
A deafening, rumbling fart suddenly exploded through the enclosed livestock shed.
Along with the blast, a dense, visible cloud of yellowish-brown gas gushed from Luo Sanpao's rear and sprayed squarely into the Black Wind Pig's enormous nostrils.
In an instant, an indescribable stench spread through the air.
Yu Xiaogang had thought the furious Ferocious Beast would be enraged by Luo Sanpao's actions and devour them even faster.
But then, an astonishing sight unfolded.
The Black Wind Pig sucked in a lungful of the yellow gas, and its massive body shuddered violently.
Then its belly, which had been swollen as if stuffed with a small hill, let out a rumbling like a river in flood.
"Aw!"
The Black Wind Pig raised its head and let out a long, thunderous belch from deep in its throat.
As it burped, two streams of white vapor jetted from its nostrils.
The red eyes that had been wild and bloodthirsty slowly softened.
It shook its enormous head and gave a contented snort, then lay back down on the ground. Without sparing Yu Xiaogang another glance, it closed its eyes in comfort.
It turned out that the Black Wind Pig had eaten some fodder containing impure spiritual energy over the past two days. The food had caused severe bloating, leaving it restless and aggressive.
By sheer coincidence, Luo Sanpao's thunderous fart, which carried a fluctuation of Soul Power, had cleared the trapped gas from its stomach and bowels.
Just then,
heavy footsteps sounded outside the shed.
The Troll man who had left came back, roughly pulled open the gate, and strode inside.
He had expected to find a floor scattered with broken bones. Instead, he found the Black Wind Pig sleeping soundly, its belly no longer swollen.
The small, mud-covered man was sitting slumped in the corner beside a strange-looking little purple beast.
The Troll man paused, then turned his gaze to Luo Sanpao.
Though he was brawny, he wasn't stupid. It only took a little thought to figure out roughly what had happened.
"Hahaha! Now that's interesting!" **
He took a few steps toward Yu Xiaogang and sized him up like a handy tool.
"Looks like you little thing know a few rough-and-ready tricks for treating illnesses."
The burly troll rubbed his chin, then pulled a rusty black iron chain, as thick as a thumb, from his waist. A massive iron collar was attached to one end.
"Clang."
Without a shred of courtesy, the man slipped the iron collar around Yu Xiaogang's neck. There was a click, and the lock snapped shut.
The cold iron pressed against his skin. Its heavy weight dragged Yu Xiaogang's neck sharply downward, nearly making him collapse onto the ground.
"Since you can cure the young clan leader's mount of bloating, I'll spare your dog's life."
The burly troll tugged the chain in his hand, making Yu Xiaogang stumble.
"From today on, you're a slave in this pigpen."
"Every day, you'll ease the Black Wind Pig's gas, shovel its shit, and pick the parasites off its back."
"If you let it lose even an ounce, I'll break your legs!"
The man casually tied the other end of the chain to a thick wooden post nearby, then turned and left with a hearty laugh.
Beyond the Sky Screen, on Douluo Continent.
Everyone's gaze was fixed on the man with a dog chain around his neck, tethered to a wooden post like a dog.
The training field at Shrek Academy was so quiet it was unnerving.
At that moment, Tang San's eyes were so bloodshot they looked ready to drip blood.
That was his teacher!
The elder he respected most, apart from his father, across both his lives.
On Douluo Continent, wherever Yu Xiaogang went, no matter how weak he was, as long as he brought up his title of "Grandmaster of Theory," who wouldn't show him some respect?