Public Execution of His Romantic History: Yu Xiaogang's True Purpose in Approaching Bibi Dong Exposed!

The Light Screen's main display split down the middle, and two windows lit up at the same time.

On the left, a golden scroll slowly unfurled. A Six-Winged Angel emblem was branded on its cover, with a line of ancient fine print beneath it: "Spirit Hall Top-Secret Archives: Annotated Edition by Successive Popes."

On the right was an utterly ordinary blue-covered book. Every soul master recognized the words on its cover—"The Ten Core Theories of Martial Soul Competitiveness," signed by Yu Xiaogang.

The text in both windows began scrolling simultaneously.

Page seven of volume three in the archive on the left read: "To identify a soul beast's age, comprehensively assess three factors: the depth of its soul ring's color, its body-to-skeleton proportions, and the range of its domain coverage. This method was personally verified by the Seventh Pope, with an error margin of no more than a hundred years..."

Chapter two, section three of the blue book on the right read: "To identify a soul beast's age, comprehensively assess three factors: the depth of its soul ring's color, its body-to-skeleton proportions, and the range of its domain coverage. This method has been field-tested by the author for thirty years, with an error margin of no more than a hundred years..."

The only difference was that "personally verified by the Seventh Pope" had become "field-tested by the author for thirty years."

The comments fell silent for three seconds.

Then they exploded.

[He didn't even change the punctuation?]

[Thirty years of field-testing? You're level twenty-nine—what the hell did you test?]

[Spirit Hall Soul Douluo: This is our Hall's core secret. How did he get it?]

The Light Screen did not stop.

The scene shifted to Pope Hall in Spirit Hall twenty years ago. Moonlight streamed through glazed windows and spilled across the corridor. The young Yu Xiaogang wore a robe trimmed in purple and gold, while the Saintess Token at his waist glinted coldly beneath the moonlight.

At the top floor of the Library Pavilion, three Soul Power seals automatically dissipated as the token approached.

Yu Xiaogang pushed the door open and entered.

He moved between the bookshelves, his fingers brushing over rows of ancient book spines, before finally stopping in the section marked "Personally Approved by the Pope · Forbidden from External Circulation." He pulled out one scroll, then another.

The oil lamp on the table burned from full to empty. He hunched over the desk, dipped his brush in ink, and copied every word line by line.

"Soul Beast Age Identification Method," "Soul Ring Absorption Limit Table," "General Principles of Martial Soul Mimicry"...

In a single night, seventeen volumes of core archives were copied in full.

[The Saintess Token? Was that Bibi Dong's?]

[So Bibi Dong knew?]

Spirit Hall, Pope Hall.

Bibi Dong sat upon her throne, expressionless. The crack in the scepter in her hand deepened by another fraction.

Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan stepped half a pace forward and lowered his voice. "Your Holiness, should we suppress the information?"

"Suppress it? The entire continent is watching. Tell me, how exactly am I supposed to suppress it?"

Ghost Douluo Gui Mei hesitated briefly before typing toward the Light Screen.

[Spirit Hall Titled Douluo Gui Mei: The Library Pavilion entry and exit ledger of Pope Hall is now being made public. Yu Xiaogang used a Saintess special authorization token to borrow core confidential archives forty-seven times over three consecutive years. The original ledger has been preserved intact and is open for inspection by all.]

Immediately afterward, Chrysanthemum Douluo's comment followed.

[Spirit Hall Titled Douluo Yue Guan: Addition—the Saintess Token was issued thirty-one years ago, by the predecessor of the then-Saintess Qian Renxue. The token carried the highest level of authorization in Pope Hall and granted access to every floor of the Library Pavilion.]

The comments went completely insane.

[Forty-seven times? Did he treat Spirit Hall like a library?]

[Bibi Dong was the Saintess back then. Did she give him the token?]

[Nording City commoner: So all of Grandmaster's theories came from Spirit Hall?]

The Light Screen trembled, and a massive data panel appeared.

[Textual overlap comparison results—]

["Martial Soul Competitiveness," chapter one, vs. "Spirit Hall Top-Secret Archives," volume three: 94.1% overlap.]

[Chapter two vs. volume seven: 91.3% overlap.]

[Chapter three vs. volume twelve: 89.7% overlap.]

[...]

[Overall overlap: 92.7%.]

[Note: On page three of the original archive's volume seven, "soul ring carrying upper limit" was mistakenly copied by hand as "soul ring carrying upper line." The correct wording should be "upper limit." Yu Xiaogang's work preserved the error in full.]

He had even copied the typo.

At Shrek Academy, Tang San stood frozen in place, the color draining from his face. Zhao Wuji walked over, patted him on the shoulder, and said nothing.

The Light Screen shifted once more.

A line of ancient writing appeared, taken from a yellowed classic titled "An Examination of Martial Soul Origins."

"Soul Ring Bottleneck Theory—A soul master must absorb a soul ring of the corresponding age every ten levels to break through. If one forcibly absorbs a soul ring beyond one's level, the chance of meridian backlash reaches seventy percent. This theory was proposed six hundred years ago by Crimson Cardinal Shen Yuan and verified by three generations of Popes."

On the right side of the display, Yu Xiaogang's paper was listed prominently.

There was only one name in the author column: Yu Xiaogang.

Shen Yuan's name had been completely erased.

[A theory from six hundred years ago? He even plagiarized the dead?]

[I don't know who Crimson Cardinal Shen Yuan was, but I know Yu Xiaogang is a thief.]

At the top of the Sky Screen, Qian Daoliu's comment slowly appeared. There were not many words, and his tone was calm, yet it sent a chill down everyone's spine.

[Spirit Hall High Priest Qian Daoliu: Some of Spirit Hall's theories were not made public, not because we wished to hoard them. Three sets of data in the Soul Ring Absorption Limit Table correspond to extreme operating methods. If ordinary soul masters cultivate according to them, the probability of ruptured meridians and death from Soul Power backlash exceeds eighty percent. This man promoted them as universally applicable theories. Who knows how many have already died because of it.]

The comments stopped for two seconds.

[He killed people?]

[My junior brother... Three years ago, he followed Grandmaster's theory to break through to Soul Elder and failed. His meridians were completely destroyed...]

[Star Luo Empire soul master: I knew someone who practiced according to that extreme absorption method. He died.]

At Heaven Dou Royal Academy, an elderly professor with white hair typed with trembling hands.

[Heaven Dou Royal Academy Chief Mentor Meng Changqing: Yu Xiaogang's "Research on Mutations During Beast Martial Soul Awakening," published fifteen years ago, used core arguments completely identical to those in my paper from twenty-three years ago. I wrote to question him at the time, and his reply was, "Great minds think alike." Today, the truth has come to light. I hereby attach the original manuscript of my paper and our correspondence.]

Immediately afterward, scholars from Star Luo Royal Academy, the Heaven Dou Soul Master Association, and even several small academies in the southwest spoke up one after another, posting lists of plagiarized papers.

One entry, two entries, ten entries, thirty entries.

Nording City.

Yu Xiaogang huddled in the corner of his room. Sweat rolled down his forehead, dripped from his chin, and soaked his collar. He stared at the Light Screen, his fingers trembling as he typed, deleted, rewrote, and deleted again.

In the end, he sent only one sentence—

[Yu Xiaogang: The distinction between theoretical integration and original research differs. I have never claimed that all content was independently discovered. Academic inheritance has always meant standing on the shoulders of those who came before...]

The comments instantly drowned him out.

[Bullshit! You only put your own name as the author!]

[Inheritance? Is inheritance erasing someone else's name and replacing it with your own?]

[Nording City soul master: I spent five years studying your theories, and now you're telling me this is "integration"?]

The Light Screen blazed with golden light.

The voice of Heaven's Will rang across the continent...

"Following Heaven's Will's review—Yu Xiaogang, the evidence of academic plagiarism is conclusive. His contribution to original theory is zero. Effective immediately, all display authorization for the title 'Grandmaster' on the Heavenly Dao Network is revoked."

"Title forcibly changed—"

Above Yu Xiaogang's head, the golden words "Grandmaster" that had been floating there shattered and condensed anew.

[Plagiarist · Yu Xiaogang]

Blue Tyrant Academy.

Liu Erlong stared at the line of black text. Soul Power surged around her body, blasting her chair three zhang away. She gritted her teeth, her nails digging into her palms, unable to say a single word.

The image suddenly softened, warm yellow light enveloping the entire window.

In the back garden of Pope Hall in Spirit Hall more than twenty years ago, the roses were in full bloom.

The young Yu Xiaogang stood amid the flowers, with a young woman leaning against him. She wore the white robes of a Saintess, her features as beautiful as a painting, and a rare gentle smile at the corner of her lips.

It was Bibi Dong in her youth.

Their fingers were interlocked, their foreheads pressed together.

"About to reveal: a decades-long history of romantic deception."

Inside Spirit Hall's Pope Hall, the scepter in Bibi Dong's hand finally snapped in two.