Shrek Academy, Teacher Dormitory.
A brilliant shaft of sunlight slanted through the glass into the gloomy room, enveloping the pale, wrinkled old woman seated before the dressing table.
"..."
Lifeless and listless, Zhou Yi extended a trembling hand and gently traced the deep furrows on the face reflected in the mirror.
"Aah!!!!!"
Suddenly, as though she had gone mad, she swept up everything on the table: the paste used to make human-skin masks, the gel used to fill out her face, the loose powder used to conceal her complexion.
-all those cosmetics, she hurled at the mirror.
Crack!
The mirror shattered.
Countless glittering shards scattered in the sunlight, some flying outward, others splintering with spreading cracks.
Large or small, every broken piece reflected Zhou Yi's figure.
-that aged face, its skin sagging, mottled with spots, dull and lusterless.
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it!!!!"
Smashing the mirror had not allowed Zhou Yi to escape her current appearance. Instead, it made her see it all the more clearly.
That old face, multiplied into countless fragments, seemed both to remind her and to taunt her.
She, Zhou Yi, once a glorious teacher at Shrek Academy, had now become an old woman who could not bear to show her face!
How long had it been since that humiliating defeat?
One month, or two? Or even longer?
Zhou Yi could no longer remember how long she had spent holed up in her room.
After she woke up in the Sea God Pavilion, although she could no longer teach students as a teacher or homeroom teacher, she had still been allowed to remain at the academy as a clerical employee out of consideration for Fan Yu.
Although she looked down on such lowly work, from her present perspective, it had undoubtedly