"For our shared daughter's... brilliant future."
Two equally exquisite teacups, bearing entirely different thoughts, lightly clinked together once more in the quiet bedchamber, producing a crisp, fleeting chime.
Elsewhere, at Blue Tyrant Academy.
Morning light filtered through gaps in the leaves, casting dappled shadows across the training grounds of Blue Tyrant Academy—or rather, what had once been Blue Tyrant Academy.
At the edge of the training grounds, a brand-new plaque gleamed brightly beneath the morning sun.
"Shrek Academy."
The five gilded characters had replaced the original words, "Blue Tyrant Academy." Their strokes were bold and forceful, carrying an unmistakably assertive air.
Three years ago, when Flender and Yu Xiaogang had brought the Shrek group to this land, no one had expected the changes to come so swiftly, so completely.
At first, it had merely been a partnership—a matter of borrowing a hen to hatch eggs.
Liu Erlong had generously provided the finest resources, the best mimicry cultivation environment, and even opened the small courtyard within the quiet forest behind the academy for Shrek's core members to live in.
She watched as Flender and Yu Xiaogang gradually took over the academy's management. She watched as Shrek's teachers filled teaching positions throughout the school. She watched as those seven extraordinarily gifted little monsters rapidly grew upon Blue Tyrant's soil.
Everything had seemed so natural that almost no one felt anything was wrong.
Only a few of Blue Tyrant Academy's original, more senior teachers had privately voiced concerns. Yet beneath Liu Erlong's gentle but firm stance, those voices soon faded away.
In Liu Erlong's heart, the scales had never truly been balanced.
On one side stood Blue Tyrant Academy, which she had built with painstaking effort. On the other stood Brother Xiaogang, whom she had waited for and longed for half her life,