Ma Xiaotao Went Mad!

Before dawn the next day, word had already spread through the Outer Court and the teachers' quarters.

By noon, people had begun lingering outside the academy gates.

At first, they were unfamiliar faces in groups of two or three, pacing back and forth near the stone steps outside the academy gate. They clutched yellowed papers in their hands, their anxious eyes fixed on the tightly shut iron gates.

By afternoon, their numbers had clearly grown. Groups of three to five gathered in the open space before the gates, speaking in low voices.

Most of what they held were records certifying that they had been expelled by Zhou Yi years ago.

During her years in office, Zhou Yi had dismissed quite a few students for all kinds of reasons. A considerable number had been struck from the rolls under extremely vague pretexts such as "insufficient aptitude," "failure to understand the rules," or "disrupting class."

Most of those youths' families had been commoners, or collateral branches of small sects. After being expelled, they had not dared make a fuss and could only swallow their anger and accept it.

But now that they had heard Zhou Yi's cultivation had been crippled and that she had been expelled from the academy, all the resentment and fury that had built up over the years surged forth like floodwaters bursting through a dam.

They found Yan Shaozhe's assistant at the academy gates and handed over stacks of old expulsion documents, their voices trembling with emotions suppressed for far too long. "My child was expelled by Zhou Yi back then. She said he wasn't worthy of staying at Shrek. Now that the teacher has been dealt with, can that child's place... be restored?"

Yan Shaozhe's assistant's hands trembled slightly as he accepted the stack of documents.

He turned to look at the second-floor window of the administration building. Yan Shaozhe stood there, gazing through the glass at the crowd gathered outside. After a long silence, he nodded to his assistant downstairs.

The nobles Zhou Yi had offended back then moved even faster.

Once the news reached the family estates in several major cities, people set out that very night.

They were not coming to cause trouble. After all, Shrek Academy was now far too powerful; who would dare come here to make trouble?

They came to deliver visiting cards, present name cards, and ask others to pass along messages. Behind every word lay the same meaning.

Zhou Yi had now lost her cultivation, her martial soul, and her backing. She was nothing but a cripple. They were willing to "resolve" this trouble for the academy.

Someone had already learned where Zhou Yi was staying after being driven out of the academy. A short dagger, polished to a gleam, gave off a cold glint beneath the moonlight.

Meanwhile, Tang Wulin remained completely unaware of everything happening in the Outer Court.

Still, he could roughly guess Zhou Yi's fate. She would definitely die; he just did not know how long her husband Fan Yu could protect her.

He threw himself wholeheartedly into cultivation. From dusk until deep into the night, then from midnight until dawn, he remained planted on the bed in that small house on Sea God Island. His Soul Power circulated through cycle after cycle, and he even forgot to eat.

Below the Outer Court dormitory building, twilight spilled over from the western eaves, dyeing the entire open space a warm orange.

Gu Yuena sat on the stone steps at the dormitory entrance, her hands propping up her chin. Her silver-white hair fell from her shoulders and swayed gently in the evening breeze.

She had been waiting here for more than half the afternoon, her gaze fixed in the direction of Sea God Island. The darkening sky reflected in her violet eyes, and the sparkling anticipation within them was gradually swallowed by the dusk, turning into quiet disappointment.

She lowered her head and rubbed the moss along the edge of the steps with the tip of her shoe, muttering softly, "Why isn't Brother back yet...?"

Outer Court students occasionally passing by cast curious looks her way, but she ignored them. She simply sat there like a little silver-white flower planted upon the stone steps.

When Mu En slowly strolled over from the Outer Court administration building, he spotted the small figure on the steps from afar.

As he approached, he looked down at Gu Yuena's little face, filled with waiting, and smiled helplessly. Bending down, he spoke gently. "You're Na'er, right? Don't keep waiting here. He should have stayed on Sea God Island to cultivate. He probably won't come down for the next day or two. Even if you sit here until the end of time, he won't see you."

Gu Yuena raised her head and met Mu En's aged eyes, which held a smile. After hesitating for a moment, she gently nodded.

She stood up, patted the dust from her skirt, and gave Mu En a slight bow. In a soft voice, she answered, "Thank you, Grandpa," then turned toward the stairway.

After taking two steps, she looked back once more toward Sea God Island before withdrawing her gaze and climbing the stairs.

Meanwhile, classes in the Outer Court had completely settled into their proper rhythm from the following day onward.

Wang Yan's teaching style was entirely different from Zhou Yi's.

When he stood at the podium, he had none of that overbearing pressure from looking down on others, nor the habit of deliberately lowering his voice to create a tense atmosphere.

His voice was gentle, like that of a true teacher and scholar. When he explained the classification of soul beasts and the foundations of martial soul theory, his reasoning was clear and his examples detailed. From time to time, he even shared amusing anecdotes from his field expeditions, making the students below struggle not to laugh.

During the first class each morning, he set aside roughly an hour to teach theory, covering everything from the relationship between soul ring age limits and physical condition, to the habits of different soul beasts and the best times to hunt them, to common bottlenecks in martial soul cultivation and methods of breaking through them.

After finishing the lecture, he led the entire class to the Soul Fighting Arena or the Beast Fighting Arena for the remaining time. He mainly arranged for them to observe sparring matches between upperclassmen, occasionally organizing group battles as well. Most were limited to one-on-one or three-on-three matches, and the intensity was not high. The focus was on familiarizing them with the rhythm of actual combat and teamwork.

On their first day at the Soul Fighting Arena, Wang Yan arranged a simple two-on-two combat exercise.

He randomly selected several pairs to go up and had both sides engage in pure hand-to-hand combat and basic martial soul form battles without using soul skills.

After several groups had rotated through, he called Huo Yuhao's name.

Huo Yuhao was still somewhat restrained as he stepped onto the arena. He knew very well that his Spirit Eyes martial soul was not suited for head-on confrontation.

Wang Yan stood at the edge of the arena, his gaze locked tightly on Huo Yuhao.

He said nothing, but the recording pen in his hand swiftly wrote several lines across the paper.

This child's Spirit Eyes were useful for far more than scouting and farsight. They belonged to the control system, not the auxiliary system.

He silently added this note to his assessment of Huo Yuhao.

As for Tang Wulin, he was not particularly concerned with matters in the Outer Court at this point. Other than having to take the final examination, the academy simply let him do as he pleased.

However, he did not cultivate for very long this time. Three days later, he yawned and ran toward the Outer Court.

He had not gone far when he spotted Huo Yuhao taking a walk beside Sea God Lake. Just as he was about to head over, he felt a wave of heat surge from behind him.

Damn!

Ma Xiaotao had gone mad!