This was not a rational judgment. It was the survival instinct of a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast frantically sounding the alarm.
Xiao Wu's hand trembled.
Instinctively, she reached out and grabbed Tang San's hand beside her.
Tang San paused slightly. He turned his head and glanced at Xiao Wu.
Xiao Wu's face had gone a little pale. Her gaze was fixed firmly in Yang Xing's direction, and her grip on Tang San's hand was tight.
Her steps slowed, and her stiff body retreated half a step. She used Tang San's body to shield half of herself.
Tang San frowned.
And Dai Mubai.
Supported by Tang San, Dai Mubai watched this unfold, and his heart skipped a beat.
It was over.
His White Tiger Martial Soul had granted him an exceptionally sharp sense of danger. From the moment Yang Xing appeared, every hair on his body had stood on end. The pressure from the depths of his soul was countless times stronger than what he felt facing Li Yusong, a teacher.
This man was Ning Rongrong's master.
And just now.
He had unleashed the White Tiger's full power against Ning Rongrong. He had threatened her. Hunted her down.
Now, Ning Rongrong's master had appeared.
He had caught Li Yusong's full-force staff strike with one hand.
Li Yusong. A level sixty-three Soul Emperor.
Dai Mubai's face darkened.
Headmaster Flender was not at the academy. Zhao Wuji had somehow injured himself last night, suffered a severe loss of strength, and was currently recuperating.
Not a single person who could protect him was here.
Yang Xing naturally noticed their gazes and subtle changes in expression.
But he did not care in the slightest.
He merely tilted his head slightly, swept his gaze over the crowd, and met the eyes of the rabbit-braided girl hiding behind Tang San.
The corners of Yang Xing's lips curled upward.
He revealed an unreadable smile.
Xiao Wu's pupils contracted sharply. Her grip on Tang San's hand tightened further.
Yang Xing withdrew his gaze.
He looked at Li Yusong. His listless eyes narrowed slightly, and his hoarse voice carried a hint of weariness.
"Old sir."
He spoke very slowly.
"That staff strike of yours wasn't light."
He tilted his head, and the collar of his sleeping robe slipped down a little farther, revealing even more messy lipstick marks.
"I don't think my good disciple did anything outrageous enough to warrant such a ruthless blow from you."
His tone sounded like casual conversation. Like an older neighbor coming downstairs in slippers to ask why you were setting off firecrackers in the middle of the night.
An ordinary question.
"Why don't you explain it to me?"
Yet when those words reached Li Yusong's ears, they felt like an embroidery needle piercing the back of his skull.
From Yang Xing's slightly narrowed, lifeless eyes, he sensed something.
It was not killing intent.
It was indifference.
The kind of indifference that said, "Explain or don't explain, the result will be the same either way."
Li Yusong's Adam's apple bobbed twice.
Cold sweat trickled down from his temples.
But he did not beg for mercy.
He could feel the gazes of the students behind him. Tang San's, Dai Mubai's, Xiao Wu's, and Zhu Zhuqing's. All of them were watching him.
He was a teacher of Shrek Academy. Bowing his head and admitting defeat before his students felt worse than death.
Besides.
Li Yusong gritted his teeth.
This man certainly looked young. Far too young. Even if he had some technique to preserve his youth, the chances of him being a Soul Douluo were low, weren't they? It was much more likely that he was a Soul Saint. If he was only a Soul Saint, then perhaps Zhao Wuji and he could join forces and still put up a fight.
Wishful thinking surged through his mind for two seconds.
Li Yusong straightened his back.
"This student!" His voice rose slightly as he tried to maintain the dignity of an academy teacher. "She shirked training during the day and refused to obey the academy's arrangements. At night, she clashed with the headmaster and displayed a terrible attitude. Just now, she even got into a private fight with fellow students!"
He listed the charges one by one, the Dragon-Patterned Staff glinting darkly beneath the moonlight.
"I even heard that she tried to pay someone to beat up a fellow student!"
Behind Yang Xing, Ning Rongrong was so angry she nearly jumped up. "He wanted to hit me. Was I not supposed to fight back? I'm an auxiliary-system Soul Master. If I didn't find help, was I supposed to charge in by myself?"
Li Yusong ignored her. He faced Yang Xing directly. Though he did not dare meet those eyes, he forced his voice to remain firm.
"As an academy teacher, I have the duty to discipline students. I struck Dai Mubai once as well. When it came to her, she should have received a strike too."
He paused, and his tone suddenly sharpened.
"But this student is stubbornly unrepentant! Knowing she had made mistakes, she refused to accept punishment honestly. Instead, she relied on those crooked little tricks of hers to dodge and evade!"
His gaze passed Yang Xing and landed on Ning Rongrong behind him.
"As her master, having taught such a student who has no respect for her elders and possesses such a troublesome temperament, shouldn't you feel ashamed?"
Li Yusong's voice grew harder and more confident with every word. It was as though righteousness had filled him, placing him upon the moral high ground.
"My discipline was entirely justified. If you understand reason, you should not interfere. Let me finish teaching her a lesson, so she can become useful in the future. Blind indulgence will only lead to greater disaster."
When he finished speaking.
The training ground fell silent for two seconds.
After hearing him out, Yang Xing did not immediately refute him.
He nodded thoughtfully.
"Mm."
His voice was very soft.
"If my good disciple truly is as you say."
Yang Xing tilted his head, his tone casual.
"Then she does seem a little naughty..."
Li Yusong's heart relaxed, but then he frowned.
Naughty?
What did he mean, naughty?
He was about to continue arguing and press his advantage when his lips had barely moved.
Yang Xing's voice sounded again.
"But I have another question."
Li Yusong closed his mouth.
Yang Xing raised the hand that had caught the Dragon-Patterned Staff and flexed his fingers twice.
"You disciplined that student who fought with my good disciple." He tilted his head, his tone like he was chatting with a friend. "Was the strike you gave him as heavy as the one you gave my good disciple?"
Li Yusong's expression changed slightly.
Yang Xing's voice remained unhurried.
"Judging by how that strike felt when I caught it just now." He looked at his palm. "If that staff had landed on my good disciple, it wouldn't have been light, would it?"
As he said this, Yang Xing's lifeless eyes shifted.
His gaze swept toward Dai Mubai, who was being supported by Tang San.
Dai Mubai's entire body stiffened. Instinctively, he avoided Yang Xing's gaze and turned his head aside.
Yang Xing withdrew his gaze.
"That student doesn't seem to be injured nearly as badly."
He looked at Li Yusong again, a trace of puzzlement entering his tone.
Li Yusong clenched his teeth.
He could not admit that he had struck Ning Rongrong more heavily.
But that was the truth.
"I am an academy teacher!" His voice rose another half note. "Judging the severity of a student's mistakes and deciding the degree of punishment is a teacher's duty! Her mistakes were far more serious than Dai Mubai's, so it is only right that her punishment be heavier!"
He drew a deep breath, and his voice became even harder.
"Besides, although my strike may have seemed heavy, I would naturally have held back before it truly landed. I have been a teacher for decades. I know how to exercise such restraint!"
He slammed his Dragon-Patterned Staff against the ground.
"Since you are her master, and since you allowed her to enroll at Shrek Academy, you should not interfere with our academy's teaching!"
His speech quickened, and his voice carried a desperate, all-or-nothing resolve.
"You are not part of this academy. I am now formally informing you: leave the grounds of Shrek Academy. Otherwise, do not blame me for gathering the academy's other teachers and driving you out by force!"
By the time he finished speaking, Li Yusong's back was soaked in cold sweat.
But his spine did not bend.
Yang Xing looked at him.
He was silent for two seconds.
Then he smiled.
It was not the lazy, listless smile from before. It was a gentle smile that sent a chill through Li Yusong's heart.
"So that's how it is."
Yang Xing's voice was very soft.
As those three words left his mouth, his figure had already vanished from where he stood.
Without any warning.
Without any fluctuation of Soul Power.
Without the sound of wind.
He simply disappeared.
The next instant.
Yang Xing appeared in front of Li Yusong.
Ten centimeters away.
Face to face.
Close enough for Li Yusong to see the curve of his eyelashes and smell the lingering scent of cosmetics on him.
Li Yusong's pupils suddenly widened.
Yang Xing was half a head taller than him. The young man, standing one meter eighty-five tall, lowered his head slightly and looked down at the white-haired old man before him.
Those eyes, which had always been lazily half-open, still showed no change.
They still looked as though he had not woken up.
But Li Yusong saw indifference within them.
As though he were looking at an ant.
"Teacher Li, right?" Yang Xing's voice was low and matter-of-fact, without the slightest emotion. "What you said does sound rather reasonable."
Li Yusong's mind raced wildly. His body sent out the strongest possible warning signals, and the Dragon-Patterned Staff in his hand had already begun to rise.
"But that doesn't stop me from..."
Before he could finish speaking.
Every hair on Li Yusong's body stood on end.
The next instant, he roared. Six Soul Rings lit up beneath his feet at once. One white, one yellow, three purple, and one black—the full foundation of a level sixty-three Soul Emperor erupted in that moment, and a protective barrier of Soul Power formed around his body.
Then.
A leg instantly rose from his side and swept fiercely toward his waist.
At the same time, the words he had not finished fell.
"...hitting you."
Pfft—
The Soul Power barrier formed by Li Yusong's six Soul Rings shattered the instant it touched Yang Xing's leg.
It was not pierced through.
It shattered.
Like thin ice being doused with molten iron, it broke apart before cracks could even appear. The six Soul Rings flashed once, then went dark.
The entire process took less than the blink of an eye.
Bang!!
Li Yusong was struck by that kick and sent flying sideways like a scarecrow hit by a carriage.
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