Back Row by the Window, the King's Homeland

The outer court dormitory was a long, narrow building. Fortunately, it got decent light, and the corridors were fairly clean.

The three parted at the stairwell, agreeing to meet up for dinner after settling into their rooms.

Jiang Yu pushed open the door to Dorm 119 and saw the room he would be living in for roughly the next year.

Why only a year?

The reason was simple. Once he broke through to Soul Ancestor, Jiang Yu planned to skip ahead and test into the Inner Court. There were hardly any opponents worth facing in the outer court, the living conditions were worrying, and there was little for him to learn. Staying here would be a waste of time.

Was he really supposed to fight four or five hundred people for the toilets for six years?

What a joke...

Jiang Yu had arrived among the last batch of students. Someone had already made a bed in the room.

At the sound of the door opening, someone slammed a metal locker shut. Jiang Yu finally got a good look at his roommate.

Judging by height alone, his roommate was at least 1.7 meters tall, putting him among the tallest of the eleven- and twelve-year-old freshmen. The thing was, his waistline looked close to 1.7 meters too...

Standing there, he looked like a small mountain of flesh.

When the mountain-like boy saw that Jiang Yu stood half a head taller than him, a smile appeared on his face. He stepped forward and greeted him.

"Hey, bro. I'm Xie Huanyue, New Student Class Two."

"Hi. I'm Jiang Yu, New Student Class Nine."

Jiang Yu understood at once.

Xie Huanyue was one of the few Soul Elders among the freshmen in the original story. His martial soul was the Rubber Elephant, and his defense was astonishing. He would later become an elite disciple of the Inner Court.

There was no doubt about his potential. Ning Tian had been tasked with recruiting talented people to the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect. If the opportunity arose, Jiang Yu wouldn't mind helping her win Xie Huanyue over.

After they chatted for a while, Xie Huanyue enthusiastically helped Jiang Yu make his bed.

He had already cleaned the entire room before Jiang Yu arrived.

About half an hour later, they had everything in order and were already fairly comfortable with each other.

After all, sometimes it took boys only a moment to become friends.

When dinnertime came, Jiang Yu patted Xie Huanyue on the shoulder and offered to treat him.

Xie Huanyue hesitated before saying, "Uh, I might eat quite a lot..."

"I'm from the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect," Jiang Yu said bluntly.

"Huh?" Xie Huanyue's eyes widened. Once it sank in, he readily accepted. "Then I won't hold back, Brother Yu."

"We're buddies."

Jiang Yu smiled.

The two left the dormitory building. Jiang Yu glanced toward the entrance and found that Mu En had long since disappeared from his reclining chair.

After calling out to Ning Tian and Wu Feng through the Crimson Spirit Jade Pendant, Jiang Yu and Xie Huanyue waited a while. Soon, three figures with distinctly different presences approached together.

Alongside the familiar Ning Tian and Wu Feng was a girl with long, pale-green hair and dark-green eyes.

The girl had a gentle air about her, and even her gaze was soft. There was something so delicate about her that it stirred an instinctive urge to protect her.

"Jiang Yu!"

Ning Tian waved with a smile. The green-haired girl followed her gaze, and her eyes lit up the moment they landed on the tall, handsome Jiang Yu.

Once the two groups met, they introduced themselves.

Only then did Jiang Yu learn that the green-haired girl was Wu Feng's roommate, Nanmen Yun'er—the Jade Bluebird soul master who had teamed up with Ning Tian and Wu Feng during the freshman assessment in the original story.

But the way she was looking at him...

Jiang Yu's heart skipped a beat.

Oh no. Was the supreme law of the romance continent kicking in?

They entered the freshmen's dining hall. Jiang Yu and the others had expected the empty hall and barely reacted, but Wu Feng, who had never seen anything like it, exploded.

"Do you think the people running Shrek Academy have something wrong with their heads? Making three or four hundred people on one floor share a single public restroom is bad enough. The dining hall doesn't even have tables or chairs! And they claim it's to push students to cultivate? That's just making everyone suffer for no reason!"

Jiang Yu headed straight for the most expensive serving window. "You're not wrong, but remember one thing. The outer court exists only because Shrek established it to meet the demands of the three empires. The real Shrek Academy is the Inner Court."

As Jiang Yu finished speaking, Ning Tian took tables and chairs out of her storage Soul Tool.

Xie Huanyue and Nanmen Yun'er stared, dumbfounded.

Who brought tables and chairs to school?

Jiang Yu spent over a thousand Gold Soul Coins and somehow got the cafeteria auntie to put together a feast that looked and smelled delicious. Xie Huanyue and Nanmen Yun'er looked at the table laden with food, then at the freshmen streaming through the dining hall as mealtime approached. They exchanged a glance, but in the end, temptation won. They sat down and picked up their bowls and chopsticks.

As for Jiang Yu, Ning Tian, and Wu Feng, they lived by the principle that if they weren't embarrassed, everyone else could be.

The three had discussed it privately beforehand. Xie Huanyue and Nanmen Yun'er were both potential recruits, so they needed to get to know them before sounding out their interest.

They couldn't just ask if the two wanted a stable, well-paid job with little work for the rest of their lives, could they?

That would be far too forward.

By the time the five had eaten their fill, they had drawn more stares than they could count. On the bright side, they had grown much closer to Xie Huanyue and Nanmen Yun'er.

During the meal, Jiang Yu also noticed Huo Yuhao coming in to buy food.

But as a protagonist of a Tang story, Huo Yuhao had it rough early on. All he could afford was a plain rice-and-greens set meal costing a few copper soul coins.

When he saw Jiang Yu and the others, he hesitated. He couldn't even bring himself to say hello.

The night passed quickly.

Early the next morning, Xie Huanyue headed to New Student Class Two alone.

Roommates being assigned to different classes was rare among this year's freshmen, yet it had happened to Jiang Yu.

He had to admit, it was practically protagonist treatment.

By the time Jiang Yu reached the New Student Class Nine classroom, nearly every seat was taken.

His arrival drew excited cries from quite a few girls, along with hostile looks from plenty of boys.

He ignored them all. After looking around, he spotted Wu Feng waving from a seat in the back row by the window, her hair color restored to normal.

Ning Tian and Nanmen Yun'er sat beside her.

Jiang Yu squeezed past Wu Feng and took the window seat, feeling refreshed at once.

The back row by the window: the king's homeland.

He had never expected to return, a lifetime later, to this seat that had been fought over since time immemorial.

Before long, a young, beautiful teacher walked in. The classroom, which had still been a little noisy, fell silent at once.

Jiang Yu's gaze passed over Mu Jin's face. He had some recollection of her.

It wasn't because Mu Jin herself had left a strong impression. It was simply that Zhou Yi, who had swindled a Secret Art Soul soul bone out of her in the original story, was so thoroughly revolting.

On Jiang Yu's list of the most detestable people in The Ultimate Douluo, Zhou Yi was definitely near the top.

And Zhou Yi had graduated from Shrek Academy's outer court before staying on to teach. Her Shrek pedigree was as pure as could be. She and the equally outrageous Shrek Academy were a match made in heaven...

A perfect match!