Heading to Shrek Academy!

Suoer City!

After eating their fill, Yang Que and the other two walked down the street, laughing and talking about how each of them had spent the past five years!

Tang San and Xiao Wu had led fairly simple lives. Aside from training under Grandmaster, Tang San had worked part-time at the Blacksmith Shop to earn some extra money! Xiao Wu had led her gang of underlings into fights every day, becoming the undisputed boss of Nuoding City Academy! She had even won every annual contest against the other academies, bringing in plenty of resources!

"I wonder how the academy contest went this year!" Tang San sounded a little worried.

"Hmph! Without us, that bunch of crooked melons and cracked gourds must have lost!" Xiao Wu clearly thought little of the other students.

Neither of them knew that Yang Que had taken on twenty Soul Masters alone and won the academy a generous sum of money!

Yang Que merely smiled.

"Oh, right, Brother Que. Xiao Wu and I went back to the village every year during the holidays. It's changed a lot. Thanks to your methods, the villagers' lives have been getting better and better!" Tang San said.

"That's great! Is something wrong?" Yang Que asked, puzzled.

"Well... Grandpa misses you. But he told me not to say anything. He said you already carried too heavy a burden and shouldn't waste your time on him." Tang San sounded sad. He didn't quite understand what Grandpa Jack meant. Growing up, he had never sensed that Brother Que carried any such burden!

"Grandpa, huh? Sigh! Old people do like to fuss. I'll go see him before long!" Yang Que said, trying to hide his feelings.

"Good! Then the three of us can go together!"

"Speaking of which, Brother Que, you still haven't told us what life was like in the Star Dou Great Forest these past five years!" Tang San asked curiously.

"Me?" Yang Que drifted into memory and found himself thinking of his days with Zhu Zhuqing. A smile unwittingly touched his lips!

"Huh? Brother Que, why are you smiling like such a creep?" Xiao Wu happened to see it and pressed him at once!

"Uh... ahem!" Yang Que coughed to cover his embarrassment.

"There's not much to tell. I lived with Ferocious Beasts. When I wasn't training, I was picking fights with Soul Beasts. It was dull as anything..." Yang Que said.

"Liar! You were smiling so happily just now! There's no way that's all!" Xiao Wu refused to let it go.

"That's enough, Xiao Wu. Are you itching for a beating, prying into my business?" Yang Que raised a fist as though he meant to hit her!

Xiao Wu hurried behind Tang San and stuck out her tongue!

Tang San shook his head. Only Brother Que could keep this girl in line!

The three joked and tussled along the way, and before they knew it, they had reached a shop.

Yang Que and Tang San stopped at the same time and looked inside. They exchanged a smile, then stepped in together!

"If you see something you want, bring it over and pay," said a middle-aged man reclining in a chair with his eyes closed.

"What a strange shopkeeper. He doesn't even greet his customers!" Xiao Wu said curiously.

Yang Que and Tang San smiled, paying it no mind.

Yang Que recognized him. This was Flender, the headmaster from the original story, a level-78 agility-type Soul Saint with the Cat Owl Martial Soul!

He also knew that Flender loved money like his own life and was stingy to the extreme! In this shop, showing interest in anything meant risking the same fate as Tang San in the original story: being fleeced for a fortune!

Yang Que walked up to a cabinet. Out on the street, he had sensed a faint pulse that resonated with his Soul-Slaying Sword!

But when he approached, the resonance vanished.

What was going on? The feeling had disappeared! Yang Que was puzzled.

Oh well. If I lose it, that's fate; if I find it, that's fortune! Yang Que turned to leave!

Just then, the faint resonance returned. He spun around and looked up at the top of the cabinet. A red crystal sat there, giving off a faint red glow!

!!!!!

What is this? Yang Que took it down and examined it closely. In his hand, the crystal flashed red a few more times, then went still!

Interesting! I'll buy it and study it later!

By then, Tang San had also found what he wanted. The two went to the counter together!

Yang Que asked first, "Hey, boss, this crystal looks nice. How much? I'll take it!"

Flender looked at the crystal in Yang Que's hand, then at Yang Que. "Five hundred Gold Coins!"

"Heh! Forget it! Five hundred Gold Coins for a lousy rock? I only wanted it because the color looked nice. If it costs that much, never mind!" Yang Que tossed the crystal in his hand, his face full of disdain, and made to put it back!

"Hey, young man! That's the original price. But I feel we have a connection, so how about two hundred Gold Coins?" Flender was still testing him. If Yang Que bought it without hesitation, he would probably raise the price on the spot!

"Two hundred Gold Coins? Are you robbing me? Fifty, tops! Otherwise, wait for the next person you have a connection with!" Yang Que remained utterly indifferent!

"Well... sigh, fine, fine. That stone's been sitting here a long time. Since you have such a connection with it, I'll sell it cheap. One hundred Gold Coins!" Flender was still testing him, stingy to the last!

"I said fifty Gold Coins. Otherwise, I don't want it. It's just a decoration. I'm not paying that much!" Yang Que made to put it back!

"Hey! Fine, fine, fifty it is! How could I refuse when you and I have such a connection?" Flender waved a hand, pretending it pained him!

Yang Que grumbled inwardly. You sly old fox. I saw through you ages ago!

Pretending it hurt to part with the money, Yang Que handed Flender fifty Gold Coins!

Tang San had no such experience and got fleeced. Although Flender offered to give him the item for free after spotting the 24 Moonlit Bridges at his waist, Tang San still paid five hundred Gold Coins!

Before leaving, Yang Que also spent five hundred Gold Coins on a Ring Soul Tool from Flender. Naturally, that took another round of acting and haggling!

Without a Soul Tool, things appearing and disappearing out of thin air would arouse suspicion. To protect himself, he had to buy one as a disguise!

"Ugh, what rotten luck! Third Brother, look at Brother Que. He bought two things for only five hundred and fifty Gold Coins. You spent five hundred on just one thing, and it's only a rock!" Xiao Wu complained.

There it is. They aren't even married yet, and she's already got him under her thumb! Now she's managing his money too! Yang Que mourned for Tang San.

"If it's worth it, even a thousand Gold Coins wouldn't be a loss!" Tang San said, unconcerned.

Yang Que knew that what Tang San held was a Dragon Whisker Needle, made specifically to pierce defenses! In the original story, Tang San had used this Hidden Weapon to break through Immovable Bright King Zhao Wuji's defense! It was a treasure. If Yang Que knew how to use Hidden Weapons, he would have come to buy it first!

Tang San and Yang Que spent the day accompanying Xiao Wu around Suoer City, indulging her curiosity!

Then the three returned to their hotel!

Yang Que eagerly took out the red crystal and examined it!

"What exactly is this? Why does it resonate with my Martial Soul?"

No matter how long Yang Que studied it, he couldn't make sense of it!

Do I need to smash it open? Yang Que wondered.

He acted on the thought at once, pulling a hammer from his bag and swinging it down onto the crystal!

Bang! The crystal didn't break. The hammer did?!

What the hell? Even a hammer won't work? What is this thing?

Yang Que gripped it in his hand and unleashed his Soul Power!

Boom! It still didn't break!

What is this thing? How can it be so hard?

I can't open the wooden box Father left me, and now I can't break this stone either! What's going on?

Yang Que looked thoroughly frustrated!

Forget it! I'll try again when I'm stronger!

Yang Que dropped onto the bed and fell asleep!

The next day, the three set off for Shrek Academy!

"Ow! My feet are about to blister! Why is it so far? Even the road is awful!" Xiao Wu complained.

It made sense. Shrek Academy was so poor it could barely build its own campus. How could it afford to build a road?

"Why is Shrek Academy so out of the way? Why did they make us come here?" Xiao Wu went on without stopping!

Tang San looked helpless. "Come on, I'll carry you. Grandmaster must have had his reasons for sending us to Shrek Academy. If it's far, it's far. Think of it as exercise! But I don't understand why it's so remote either."

"Maybe it's poor. Building it in the countryside would spare it all those crushing taxes and levies!" Yang Que said.

"No way. Doesn't that mean the academy's a wreck? And Grandmaster still sent us there?" Xiao Wu said, clearly unhappy about it!

"We're going because he told us to! Why all the complaints?" Yang Que said, glaring at her!

"Fine, I'm going! We're going right now, aren't we? Why are you being so mean?" Xiao Wu looked aggrieved!

Of the three, Tang San couldn't bear to scold Xiao Wu. Yang Que was like an older brother to her, so he had to be the bad guy. After all, Tang San and Xiao Wu would be an old married couple someday!

"Xiao Wu, we've grown used to comfort at the academy. What if Grandmaster sent us here as a trial? The road may be rough, but Shrek Academy might turn out to be excellent!" Tang San said.

"All right!" Xiao Wu seemed to accept that. Lying on Tang San's back, she mumbled a few more words that no one could make out, then fell asleep!

The journey had worn her out. She was only a Soul Master in her twenties, after all. Yang Que and Tang San had both trained in internal cultivation, and Yang Que had also practiced an advanced Body-Tempering Technique. Even with several thousand pounds weighing him down, he had little trouble walking this road!

Yang Que and Tang San exchanged smiles and shook their heads!

Shrek Academy!

The three arrived at its entrance! The gate was made of wood, and the crooked characters above it looked ready to fall off at any moment. Yang Que and the others were at a loss for words!

Yang Que already knew from the original story that Shrek Academy was poor—dirt poor! But he hadn't expected it to be this poor...

Xiao Wu was the first to reach her limit. After such a long walk along a shabby road, even the academy itself looked run-down. "This! This is the Shrek Academy Grandmaster was talking about? I can't take it! Third Brother, Brother Que, let's go back!"

"Uh... we're already here. Let's take a look inside!" Tang San was a little embarrassed. He had just said the academy might be good, but now... it was hard to know what to say!

Yang Que shook his head. "Come on! Let's see what makes Shrek Academy different!"

The three walked into the academy together...