Night lay deep over the hills behind Shrek Academy.
"You over there! Rein in your Soul Power! I told you to build a drafty mud-brick house, so why the hell did you use Rock and Earth Solidification to make it smoother than the Star Luo Imperial Palace? Tear it down and rebuild it! Remember to slap a couple of handfuls of yellow mud on the walls!"
"Wood attributes! Hurry up and grow two crooked-necked trees! The uglier, the better!"
The high-ranking Soul Masters, who could normally set the continent trembling with a stamp of their feet, were now working as bricklayers, their faces covered in dust and their heads drenched in sweat.
Under Mu En's ironclad orders, a shabby "Niulai Village," bearing the unspoiled rustic character of Daliang Mountain, was rising from the ground in the darkness.
Inside the Sea God Pavilion, an emergency closed-door meeting concerning "Niulai Village construction" was proceeding heatedly.
"Pavilion Master, the village facilities will be finished shortly. The Tractor Engine-Roar Simulator that Vice Dean Qian rushed to make overnight has also been tested. It can absolutely pass for the real thing."
Zhang Lexuan reported with the Niulai Village Background Actor Rules she had rushed to write overnight in her hands, but her brows drew together slightly. "But our biggest problem now is-people!"
"Teacher Su said that in remote mountain regions, all the able-bodied workers leave to work elsewhere, and only the elderly and left-behind children remain in the villages. Tomorrow morning, he's going to teach a large class for the children. We need at least some children between eight and eighteen, as well as slightly older young people to play the villagers who stayed behind. Where are we supposed to find them?"
Although Yan Shaozhe had just been stripped of his authority, he still occupied the lowest seat for a major matter involving the entire academy.
Hearing this, he immediately interjected, hoping to make his presence felt. "That's easy! Go to the slums outside Shrek City, spend a few Gold Soul Coins, and hire a few dozen little beggars. Wouldn't that settle it?"
"Has your Evil Fire Phoenix roasted your brain?!" Xian Lin'er shot Yan Shaozhe a fierce look, as though looking at an idiot. "What Teacher Su has in his head are top-level secrets like industrial assembly lines and the Great Voyages Strategy, things that could overturn the continent's development for the next ten thousand years! You want a bunch of commoner children from outside to listen? When they go blabbing all over the streets afterward, will you be responsible for killing them to silence them?!"
"Well..." Yan Shaozhe was left speechless by her retort.
With a grim face, Mu En delivered the final verdict. "Lin'er is right! This concerns Shrek's very survival. We absolutely cannot use outsiders! These left-behind children and villagers must be people we trust completely, who can keep their mouths sealed tight!"
His words had barely fallen.
The elders who had been nursing headaches over "building a fake village" suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
Wait!
Become students of that "godlike man" who knew the course of the next ten thousand years and possessed industrial technology?!
Even if that blind man merely let a few scraps about the future slip through his fingers during a lesson, or a few Soul Tool blueprints, that would be enough to benefit a Soul Master for life!
How was this playing some background actor?
This was clearly becoming the founding disciples of Shrek's first "industrialization pioneer class"!
This was a windfall of riches pouring down from the heavens!
Elder Zhuang was the first to react. His old face flushed bright red as he slapped the table and sprang to his feet. "Pavilion Master! I have a great-granddaughter who happens to be twelve this year! She's dark as can be and usually loves rolling around in mud puddles. She wouldn't even need makeup! She's absolutely perfect for playing a mountain village child! Tomorrow, I'll personally tie her up and bring her here to be a left-behind child!"
"Old Zhuang, have you no shame?!"
Qian Duoduo was a shrewd one too, and immediately bellowed in his cracked-gong voice, "Pavilion Master! Our Soul Tool Department's director of studies has a little fatty in his family with an especially quick mind. He'd be perfect for learning that industrial manufacturing business! He must get one of the left-behind child spots!"
"Pavilion Master, my distant cousin's nephew is also a genius..."
"Bullshit! Your cousin's nephew has already graduated from Shrek! What kind of child does that make him? My eldest grandson is the right choice..."
In an instant, the entire Sea God Pavilion boiled over.
The elders who normally stood high above everyone else now resembled old men and women scrambling for discounted eggs at a market. They argued over a spot as a left-behind child until their faces turned red and spit flew everywhere, stopping just short of unleashing their Martial Souls and fighting.
Sitting in the lowest seat, Yan Shaozhe watched these old fellows frantically "pitting their grandchildren against one another," and desolation welled up inside him.
He had spent his life enjoying romantic affairs, tangled up with Xian Lin'er and Cai Mei'er, yet even now, he did not have a single son or daughter!
With this heaven-sent opportunity right before his eyes, he did not even have a descendant he could offer up as a background actor!
"Enough! Stop arguing, everyone!" Just as the elders were about to come to blows over the spots, Zhang Lexuan suddenly spoke in a quiet voice.
Her cool, clear voice quelled the uproar.
"Elders, you're scraping together three children from two families and five from three. If these children go out showing off afterward and leak the secrets, who will take responsibility?"
Zhang Lexuan swept her gaze over everyone and confidently unleashed her finishing move. "How about this? The new school year hasn't begun, and the incoming students haven't arrived yet. Don't our Outer Court and Inner Court happen to have a ready-made batch of absolute elites?"
"As their senior sister, I propose we take this entire core group of promising students as a package! Bei Bei, Xu Sanshi, Tang Ya, Jiang Nannan, He Caitou-they're young enough that, dressed in ragged clothes, they'd be perfect as left-behind children and village primary school students!"
"If we also need some older unemployed youths and villagers..."
Zhang Lexuan paused, a sly smile curling her lips. "Ma Xiaotao, Dai Yueheng, Ling Luochеn, Chen Zifeng, Gongyang Mo, Yao Haoxuan, Xixi! Bring all those Inner Court first-string members over! Xiaotao can play the feisty migrant worker girl at the village entrance, and Dai Yueheng can play Dazhu, the village farmhand!"
"They're all Shrek's true core talents, and they'll be under my unified supervision as their senior sister. I guarantee they won't leak so much as half a word!"
Zhang Lexuan delivered her conclusion. "So, in my capacity as the Inner Court's senior sister, I'm taking all the background actor spots this time!"
What the fuck?!
Elder Zhuang's eyes widened.
Qian Duoduo's jaw dropped.
Even Mu En, sitting at the head of the table, could not help the twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Well played, Zhang Lexuan!
You normally seem so gentle and refined. How could you be so ruthless today?!
You've fucking scooped up every Shrek Seven Monsters candidate from both the Outer Court and the Inner Court in one go!
These people are already your own junior brothers and sisters. You're using secrecy as a pretext to swallow this heaven-sent windfall whole for your Inner Court faction!
You won't even leave the various families a sip of soup?!
"Zhang Lexuan!! You little girl, you're trying to keep the whole feast to yourself, aren't you?!" Elder Zhuang was so angry that his beard bristled. The seventy- or eighty-year-old man rolled up his sleeves on the spot.
"Leave people a little room so you can face them again someday! If you take every spot, is our Soul Tool Department supposed to live on the northwest wind?!" Qian Duoduo was also hopping with agitation.
These elders, whose combined ages ran to several hundred years and whose combined Soul Power could steamroll an empire, now glared fiercely at Zhang Lexuan. From their stance, the meeting would never end unless they beat this senior sister who was "keeping the whole feast to herself" into a pig-faced mess!
Meanwhile, Yan Shaozhe, sitting in the corner, saw that Zhang Lexuan had even arranged for his personal disciple, Ma Xiaotao, to become the "feisty migrant worker girl at the village entrance," and felt all the more like crying, though no tears came.
This Sea God Pavilion was truly impossible to stay in anymore!
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