Walking down the dormitory corridor, Xiao Zi pondered in silence.
Wang Dong had appeared at the dormitory entrance at this hour most likely to look for Huo Yuhao.
At the end of the first school year in the original story, Huo Yuhao had followed the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's guidance and used various means to obtain the Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion, who sacrificed herself to become his second martial soul, while also granting his Spirit Eyes a thousand-year second soul ring.
Classes would officially begin tomorrow. According to Zhou Yi, anyone who arrived late would be expelled. Wang Dong had anxiously searched everywhere, but instead of finding her roommate, she had found Xiao Zi.
Originally, Xiao Zi had wanted to keep this God King's daughter at a respectful distance, but when he noticed a stir from the Golden Horned Beast, he changed his initial plan.
In Swallowed Star, Luo Feng had relied on the Golden Horned Beast's devouring ability to plunder treasures and continually grow stronger. Early on, he devoured combinations of metals such as Void Stones; later, he could even convert world beast power. This had given Xiao Zi inspiration.
Since he had come to the Douluo World, fortune was a crucial factor. To contend for supremacy over the world, he would need to attract the plane's will and thereby receive a strand of fortune power.
Unfortunately, Tang San monitored the lower plane through all manner of means, setting his sights on anything related to fortune. Examples included Huo Yuhao, the child of fortune, and the Auspicious Beast, the Three-Eyed Golden Lion, who carried the fortune of soul beasts. Their endings in the original story were each more miserable than the last: the former was trained into a dog, while the latter had her bones cracked and marrow sucked dry, reduced to a part of someone else, unworthy even of existing as an individual.
Rather than rack his brains to attract the plane's will and obtain a pitiful scrap of fortune, directly plundering it would be far more convenient-and less likely to draw the attention of Tang San up in the heavens.
At the thought of shielding Huo Yuhao in front of him while he furtively developed his strength behind him, Xiao Zi let out a sinister chuckle. No one was more ingenious than he was!
As for how Wang Dong might react, he did not care. Someone with an incomplete soul who did not even dare reveal her true sex posed less of a threat than Tang San watching surveillance footage through a camera.
"Are you all right?" Qian Renxue's concerned voice sounded in his Sea of Consciousness.
Composing himself, Xiao Zi regained his original calm, as though that little interlude had never happened. "I'm fine. Let's go see my new roommate!"
Dormitory room 208.
He called him a new roommate, but it was actually his old acquaintance, Dai Huabin.
The servant was worried about his master's safety. Bored out of his mind, he alternated between pacing around the room and fiddling with the little objects on the desk.
Hearing the door open, he hurried forward. "Master, you're back! They didn't give you any trouble, did they?"
Even when they were alone in private, Xiao Zi disliked that form of address. He corrected him, "Huabin, whether we're in public or in private, just call me by my name."
"All right, Xiao Zi." Always complying with his master's wishes, Dai Huabin immediately changed his form of address.
Turning his attention back to the room, Xiao Zi surveyed his surroundings.
First-year students lived in the white teaching building, while second- and third-year students lived in the yellow building. The grounds looked expansive, but the interiors were actually cramped. That was not even the most outrageous part: each floor of every building had only two bathrooms, yet housed eight hundred people. In other words...
He would have to fight four hundred people for a toilet!
In his previous life, he had been the mighty Destruction God King; in this life, he had fallen to such straits. His instinctive revulsion made him want to withdraw from school, but reason shackled his body and kept him from leaving.
The only saving grace was that his God King cultivation method from his previous life still allowed Xiao Zi to abstain from food as he had in the Divine Realm, refining impure qi with the primal energy of heaven and earth and sparing himself the trouble of fighting over toilets. Bathing was also easy to resolve. Even Huo Yuhao could rinse off on the balcony in the animated adaptation; he could do the same.
With the privacy issue resolved and the dormitory cleaned thoroughly by Dai Huabin, Xiao Zi decided to go out for some fresh air.
When he reached the entrance to the first-year dormitory building, a reclining chair set across the way blocked his path.
Although Xiao Zi was concealed by laws and had reduced his movements to the bare minimum, the person on the reclining chair still detected him and turned his gaze in his direction.
Dragon God Douluo Mu En, a Level 99 Limit Douluo, descendant of Tang San's teacher Yu Xiaogang...
The key information flashed before his eyes, and Qian Renxue cried out in his Sea of Consciousness, "He can detect you!"
Under the Limit Douluo's scrutiny, Xiao Zi remained unusually calm. He had come here precisely to test whether an expert could detect him, and the result was just as he had expected.
Xiao Zi held no goodwill whatsoever toward anyone or anything connected to Tang San. He was merely going through the motions.
He walked forward as though nothing were amiss, nodded, and was about to take a detour back.
Mu En, reclining in the chair, raised his head slightly. A curious gleam flashed through his dim yellow eyes. Xiao Zi keenly sensed that this was not merely the novelty of discovering something new, but also held a trace of deep scrutiny.
Could it be... he's been watching me all along?
A Limit Douluo's spiritual power was astonishing, and Shrek was Tang San's stronghold in the mortal world. Mu En might well have overheard his conversation with Du Weilun. Xiao Zi realized he absolutely could not lie.
Sure enough, Mu En spoke the next moment. "Young student, could you help me up?"
Xiao Zi said nothing and merely nodded. Following his instructions, he helped him up, suppressing his second martial soul as much as possible while amplifying the Golden Horned Beast's aura.
Mu En raised an eyebrow, making his aged wrinkles, deep enough to trap flies, even more pronounced. He could not help smiling.
He had long worried about Shrek's future, concerned that the academy had no one to carry on its legacy. Ma Xiaotao suffered from the flaw of evil fire, while the other Inner Court disciples could not stand on their own. As it happened, he had heard that the White Tiger Dai Family had sent a transfer student, supposedly to serve as Dai Huabin's study companion.
Strictly speaking, transfers were not permitted at Shrek, but hoping to draw the White Tiger Duke closer, Mu En had personally approved it.
Over his years reclining at the dormitory entrance, he had seen students of every kind and knew that Dai Huabin was an out-and-out spoiled young lord who often drove away his study companions. He had assumed Li Lezi would be no exception, only to discover that he seemed to have misjudged him.
Watching Dai Huabin clean and bustle in and out, Mu En had noticed something amiss.
Seeing that Xiao Zi remained silent, he spoke again. "Looking after someone like Dai Huabin must be hard work, mustn't it?"
Xiao Zi's heart tightened. He did not ask what was wrong with Dai Huabin; doing so would reverse their positions, making him seem like the master and Dai Huabin the attendant.
He did his utmost to appear deferential. "Serving the White Tiger Duke's son is my duty. Whether it's hard work doesn't enter into it."
Naturally, those words could not dispel Mu En's suspicions, but he could find no fault with them either. He merely concluded that Li Lezi truly was a genius who also knew how to conduct himself and had a mind of his own, which was why the White Tiger Duke's Mansion had placed him beside its spoiled young master to guide and admonish him.
If he could bring such talent under his wing, Li Lezi would surely become a powerful pillar of support, ensuring the academy's security for a hundred years. As for what the White Tiger Duke's Mansion might think, Mu En unconsciously overlooked it.
He thought that, given the ten thousand years of friendship between their two sides, even if Zhou Yi had expelled the second son, Dai Huabin, wasn't the eldest son, Dai Yueheng, still in the Inner Court?
Recruiting Li Lezi would merely count as keeping the talent within the fold. The Duke's Mansion surely would not mind!