The Lionheart Meeting and an Uninvited Guest [Bonus Update]

With the matter of Zhou Yi settled, Class Zero finally found its footing.

Mu Jin and Wang Yan took over as homeroom teachers, one lead and one assistant—a perfect match.

Wang Yan was so learned he was practically a walking encyclopedia of Soul Masters.

Mu Jin, meanwhile, knew how to teach each student according to their strengths. She never bound everyone with one rigid set of rules. Instead, she tailored a training plan to each student's Martial Soul, temperament, and weaknesses.

With two genuine teachers at the helm, the tension that had once kept Class Zero on a knife's edge faded away. Even Dai Huabin's group reined in their hostility.

Huo Yuhao was pleased. At least he no longer had to face Zhou Yi's punchable face every day. He could hone his cultivation in peace and handle the Lionheart Club's affairs.

Three weeks later, in the Lionheart Club's private meeting room on the third floor of the Shrek Outer Court activity center.

Ning Tian had paid to renovate the entire floor. There was no gaudy extravagance, but everything was practical and orderly.

The long black stone conference table gleamed like a mirror. Chairs stood neatly along both sides, and the Lionheart Club's charter and organizational chart hung on the wall.

Every key member of the Lionheart Club had gathered around the table.

President Huo Yuhao sat at its head. Dressed in a clean white school uniform, he wore a gentle expression and tapped the tabletop lightly with his fingertips. There was none of a boy's restlessness about him, only a composure far beyond his years.

Beside him sat Gu Yue, vice president and secretary-general. Ning Tian sat to his left. As head of logistics, she single-handedly managed the Lionheart Club's operations and allocation of supplies. Wu Feng sat beside her in red, arms folded and brows set in their usual defiant arch. For once, she did not interrupt, listening quietly to the discussion.

Across from them, Disciplinary Department head Cao Jinxuan sat up straight, glancing now and then at Wu Meng, the head of the Publicity Department, diagonally opposite him. His deputy, Xie Huanyue, sat beside him.

Farther down sat Zhou Sichen, head of the Intelligence Department, his fingertips resting on the table. Deputy head Long Xiangyue sat beside him, looking as though he could barely stay in his seat, though he did not interrupt the meeting.

Sisters Lan Luoluo and Lan Susu, who headed event planning, sat shoulder to shoulder. Publicity Department deputy Nanmen Yun'er, dressed in fitted clothes, was helping Wu Meng sort through the publicity drafts.

Wu Meng sat at the far end. She was the only commoner girl on the core team.

Her features were delicate and her expression gentle. She could not match Gu Yue's breathtaking beauty or Ning Tian's radiance, but she had a quiet, resilient air of her own.

She had earned her place as head of the Publicity Department through ability, never looks.

The Lionheart Club had recruited nearly a thousand students in just three weeks, most of them commoner Soul Masters, thanks entirely to the Promotional Plan Wu Meng had devised.

Huo Yuhao had also heard that Dai Huabin had copied him and founded a club called the White Tiger Alliance. It recruited only noble-born students, who banded together to exclude commoners—the very opposite of what the Lionheart Club stood for.

Unlike Dai Huabin's White Tiger Alliance, which admitted only nobles and stoked class divisions, the Lionheart Club had established an ironclad rule from the start: "Commoners and nobles are equal."

Huo Yuhao judged prospective members only by their conduct, talent, and character, never their birth.

He had not founded the Lionheart Club to compete for supremacy, much less to form a faction within the academy.

Ning Tian had, however, offered him advice in private: the core leadership had to consist mainly of nobles with strength and resources. It was not about discrimination. At Shrek, a new club without the backing of noble clans or sects could barely find its feet; the academy's higher-ups or established powers could easily strangle it in the cradle.

Huo Yuhao had taken her advice, but he had never abandoned the commoner students.

He was a commoner who had come out of the Star Dou Great Forest himself. He had stood in the rain, and so he always wanted to hold an umbrella over someone else.

On Blue Star, he might have believed in the law of the jungle. But here on the Douluo Continent, where the strong devoured the weak without mercy, he would not stand by while talented commoner students without resources were eliminated by Shrek and followed in his mother's footsteps—not when he could lend them a hand.

"Everyone." Huo Yuhao set down his teacup, his clear voice carrying across the meeting room. "The Lionheart Club has passed its founding stage and entered a period of steady growth. I've called you here today for one main reason: to address the training and living difficulties faced by our ordinary members. Speak freely if you have any ideas."

The meeting room fell silent.

Everyone knew what Huo Yuhao meant.

Shrek Academy had no shortage of geniuses, but even geniuses fell into different ranks.

Noble-born students had more Gold Soul Coins than they could spend and could buy all the precious cultivation materials they wanted. Commoner students were different. Most had won exceptional admission through sheer talent, and their families had already emptied their coffers just to pay tuition. They had nothing left for cultivation resources.

"Why don't we pay members a monthly cultivation stipend?" Ning Tian spoke first, as casually as if the sum were trivial. "Ten Gold Soul Coins a month for ordinary members and fifty for core members. The Logistics Department can purchase and distribute the resources centrally. I can afford that much."

The power of money was always the most direct way to solve a problem.

As one of the continent's foremost support sects, the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect had business interests across the land. To Ning Tian, that sum was a drop in the ocean.

"I agree with Minister Ning's proposal!" Wu Meng immediately raised her hand, her delicate face earnest. "Many commoner students spend most of every day taking low-level academy assignments to earn tuition and soul coins. They barely have time to cultivate in peace. A steady stipend would let them devote all their energy to training."

"Agreed," Cao Jinxuan said at once. He glanced instinctively at Wu Meng, then hurriedly straightened his expression when she looked his way. "The Disciplinary Department can oversee the entire distribution process, making sure every Gold Soul Coin reaches a member and none is embezzled."

The others struggled to hold back their laughter at his behavior, but no one called him out.

Long Xiangyue nodded along. "I agree too! Minister Ning has money. This is nothing to her!"

Huo Yuhao looked around at them and shook his head with a smile. Setting his teacup on the table, he went straight to the heart of it. "That's draining the pond to catch the fish."

Everyone fell silent and turned toward him at the head of the table.

"Ning Tian can help them for a while, but can she help them for life? The Lionheart Club can protect them while they're at the academy, but can it protect them after graduation, when they're making their way across the continent?"

As he spoke, he suddenly slapped his forehead and laughed at himself. "How did I forget that? Relying on others' help is no long-term solution. A person must stand on their own feet. We shouldn't just give them fish; we should teach them how to fish. The Lionheart Club needs businesses of its own."

Everyone's eyes lit up.

Most of them were only teenagers. They had been thinking about how to solve the immediate problem, not planning so far ahead.

Only Ning Tian showed a glint of approval. She had long wanted to raise the question of businesses, but had waited to see how far Huo Yuhao's vision extended. He had not disappointed her.

The Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect had stood for ten thousand years not because of its unique Martial Soul, but because of its commercial foundations across the continent.

"Then, President, how do we build businesses of our own?" Lan Luoluo raised her hand, curiosity shining in her lively eyes. "We're all students. We don't have business experience or connections."

Most businesses in Shrek City were controlled by old sects and the academy. Breaking in would be difficult for a new club.

"We can learn the connections and experience as we go." Ning Tian looked at Huo Yuhao. "The Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect could grant us operating rights to some of its businesses in Shrek City. Shops and distribution channels, too, could—"

"No."

Huo Yuhao shook his head, cutting her off. He met her gaze seriously. "Ning Tian, you're the heir to the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect, not its master. I'm grateful that you're thinking of the Lionheart Club and these commoner students, but I can't—and don't want to—put you in a difficult position."

"The sect's resources belong to the sect, not to you personally. Once or twice, no one would say anything. Keep doing it, and people will talk. The Lionheart Club has to find its own path. We can't rely on the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect forever. Otherwise, how are we different from Dai Huabin's White Tiger Alliance, which knows only how to lean on his family?"

Huo Yuhao understood perfectly well that favors were the hardest debts in the world to repay.

Small kindnesses were one thing. Sect businesses were another; his personal friendship with Ning Tian could not cover that.

He did not want the Lionheart Club to make things difficult for Ning Tian within the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect, much less turn the club into an appendage of the sect.

Ning Tian paused at the earnest look in his eyes. Then she smiled, her expression easing, and nodded without pressing the matter.

"We can offer stipends, but only to students whose families are in particular hardship, as an incentive—not to every member," Huo Yuhao continued, his thoughts clearly ordered. "As for businesses..."

Bang!

Before he could finish, someone kicked open the meeting room's heavy wooden door!