"The Evil Fire Phoenix, a top-tier beast martial soul. If not for the cockscomb phoenix sunflower, your evil fire would have burned you into a cripple long ago. Tell me, does Grandmaster deserve the credit for that?"
"Search your conscience. Was that Yu Xiaogang's achievement?!"
Every word Hu Liena spoke was a pearl, striking straight at the truth.
"..."
Ma Hongjun's face alternated between livid and pale. He opened his mouth, but not a single word came out.
Apart from Xiao Wu and Zhu Zhuqing, nearly every member of the Shrek Seven Devils had been singled out.
Every one of them was a favored child of heaven.
Every one possessed talent and a background far beyond those of ordinary people.
Had their success truly come from Yu Xiaogang's teaching?
At that moment, a huge question mark hung over the answer in everyone's mind.
Up on the High Platform, Prince Xue Xing's brows knitted tightly together.
His expression turned utterly grave.
Not long before, he had received a confidential report from the military.
The empire had entrusted the training of some of its military Soul Masters to Imperial Preceptor Yu Xiaogang.
Yet after several months, the results had been abysmal.
The military Soul Masters had been clamoring with complaints, saying the Imperial Preceptor's training methods were completely impractical. Some had even suffered soul power backlash during training, damaging their foundations.
At the time, Prince Xue Xing had assumed his subordinates were exaggerating, or that those unruly soldiers simply refused to obey.
But now...
Every word Hu Liena had said was probably true.
This so-called "Grandmaster" could produce a Tang San, but when it came to anyone else, he was utterly helpless!
What kind of teacher could only teach geniuses?
Entrusting the empire's future to a man like that was the height of absurdity!
A glimmer of resolve flashed through Prince Xue Xing's eyes.
Ignoring everyone's reactions, Hu Liena slowly shifted her gaze to Flender.
"Dean Flender."
Her voice carried a strange, penetrating power.
"You just said you've known Yu Xiaogang for decades, and that no one knows his character better than you."
"Then let me ask you this."
"Before he met Tang San, how was this dear brother of yours doing?"
Flender's body abruptly stiffened.
That question cut deeper than anything Hu Liena had said while interrogating Yu Xiaogang.
He opened his mouth, glanced at the ashen-faced Yu Xiaogang beside him, then looked at the countless eyes in the Square. For a moment, he was caught in a dilemma.
Lie?
Though Flender had loved money all his life, he prided himself on being forthright. He could not bring himself to lie in public.
Tell the truth?
Wouldn't that mean tearing away Xiaogang's last scrap of dignity with his own hands?
"What's wrong, Dean Flender? Is it that difficult to answer?"
Hu Liena pressed him at every step.
Flender drew a deep breath, his face filled with conflict. At last, he lowered his head in defeat and forced out a few words.
"...Badly."
"As badly as you can imagine."
As though a switch had been flipped, he simply smashed the already cracked pot and spilled the whole truth like beans pouring from a bamboo tube.
"He had no money back then!"
"His family had thrown him out. He didn't have a coin to his name, and even putting food on the table was a problem."
"Yet he had a foul, stubborn temper and thought himself above everyone else. He refused to bow his head to anyone."
"If Liu Erlong, Wuji, and I... if we hadn't regularly helped him out, he probably would've starved to death in some forgotten corner long ago!"
Flender's voice was filled with helplessness and heartache.
Every word he spoke was like a resounding slap landing hard across Yu Xiaogang's face.
"Whoa—!"
The Square erupted!
If there had only been doubts before, then this personal confirmation from Flender, a member of the Golden Iron Triangle, was the final straw that broke the camel's back!
So before meeting Tang San, this Grandmaster, who had been praised to the skies, had actually been a destitute wreck, a useless man who could only survive on his friends' charity?
The contrast was staggering!
Countless looks of contempt, mockery, and pity converged on Yu Xiaogang, piercing him until not an inch of him remained unscathed.
Yu Xiaogang swayed, nearly collapsing to the ground.
His eyes were bloodshot as he glared fixedly at Hu Liena, as though he wanted to swallow her alive and strip off her skin.
"Enough!"
He exhausted the last of his strength in a hysterical roar.
"Even if I was destitute before, even if my theories have flaws, so what!"
"What does any of that have to do with what happened between Bibi Dong and me back then?!"
He was still refusing to admit defeat, still trying to sever his past from his present.
What awaited him, however, was Hu Liena's final killing blow.
As Hu Liena watched his frenzied state, the mockery slowly faded from her face, replaced by a bone-deep chill.
"Do you still not understand?"
Her voice was quiet, yet it reached every ear with perfect clarity.
"Yu Xiaogang, you never had any theories of your own!"
"Everything you take such pride in came from an Ancient Text!"
"An Ancient Text you obtained by betraying City Lord Ning Lin, all to curry favor with Spirit Hall!"
Boom!
The mention of Ning Lin's name instantly stirred a thousand waves through the crowd.
Yu Xiaogang's pupils abruptly shrank to pinpoints!
Hu Liena gave him no chance to catch his breath and continued.
"That Ancient Text recorded cultivation legacies concerning innate full soul power and twin martial souls!"
"My teacher, the current Pope, was only able to perfectly fuse her twin martial souls and avoid the enormous risk of her body exploding because she comprehended its contents. That was how she attained everything she has today!"
She turned her gaze toward Bibi Dong, her eyes filled with admiration and a child's affection for her mother.
Then she abruptly turned back to Yu Xiaogang, her eyes holding nothing but disdain.
"And you?"
"You never understood the essence of that Ancient Text!
You're nothing but a clumsy plagiarist! You stole scraps of superficial knowledge from here and there and cobbled together your so-called 'Core Competitiveness,' riddled with holes!"
"You took something obtained by betraying a friend, deceived my teacher's heart, and even hoped to use it to fish for fame!"
Hu Liena's voice rose higher and higher, every word falling like the iron hammer of judgment.
"Yu Xiaogang, you're a fraud through and through!"
"If you hadn't stumbled into sheer dumb luck and met Tang San, a freak born with twin martial souls and innate full soul power, who happened to fit the theories in that Ancient Text!"
"You would still be that man driven out by his family, wandering the streets, spouting empty words and spewing bullshit..."
She paused briefly.
"Trash."
As Hu Liena's final word fell, an eerie, deathly silence descended over the Judgment Platform and even the whole of Heaven Dou Square.
Plagiarizing an Ancient Text.
Stealing secrets.
Deceiving the Saintess.
Betraying Spirit Hall.
Any single one of these deeds would have been enough to drag a Soul Master's reputation through the mud and condemn him beyond redemption.
And now, every one of those charges pointed at the "theoretical grandmaster" countless people had revered as their guiding standard—Yu Xiaogang.
Before you continue