Was There Any Saving Shrek at All?

The Holy Spirit Cult's undercover agent of the year?

In the time it took to eat a chicken leg, he had gotten more of his own geniuses killed than Evil Soul Masters had killed in ten years?!

Hearing Su Xian's devastating, god-tier quip, Yan Shaozhe, hiding outside the window, clamped his hands over his mouth. Even with his face turning purple-red from holding it in, he dared not make the slightest sound.

Because right at his feet, the mighty Level 98 Taotie Douluo, Xuan Zi, was already foaming at the mouth, completely unconscious.

Qian Duoduo tiptoed out of the cabin, grabbed Xuan Zi by his pig-like legs, and hoisted him up like a sack. Without a sound, he slipped out of the rear mountain's barrier to get him emergency treatment.

Only Yan Shaozhe remained, crouching at the foot of the wall, shivering in the cold wind.

"Ahem... Teacher Su, that was a good joke. Don't tell it again." Inside the cabin, Mu En coughed twice, forcibly suppressed the violent twitching at the corners of his mouth, and changed the subject.

He understood now. If this blind man was allowed to talk freely about Shrek, sooner or later, he would give every elder of the Sea God Pavilion a heart attack, one after another.

"What? Oh, I get it. Uncle Mu En, don't tell me you're a brainless fan of that Shrek Academy?" Su Xian suddenly understood, thinking that fantasy novels like these had a broad audience in less-developed markets. Perhaps this village chief had read plenty of pirated print editions and saw Shrek through rose-tinted glasses.

"No, no..." Mu En hurriedly denied it. "Well, didn't you say you wanted to take a walk, Teacher Su? The sun's nice today. I'll help you outside for a stroll."

"Great! Thank you, Uncle Mu En!" Su Xian stretched luxuriously, then felt his way out of bed.

Mu En stepped forward and carefully supported his arm through his sleeve.

This was a detail Zhang Lexuan had repeatedly stressed in the "Group Performer Rules": even though these supreme powerhouses standing at the continent's pinnacle had lived for one or two hundred years, their immense soul power and precious natural treasures had nourished their skin until it was as delicate as a baby's.

If they touched him directly and Su Xian felt that these were not rough old hands accustomed to years of farmwork, their cover would be blown in an instant!

They pushed open the wooden door, and a breeze carrying the early morning chill brushed their faces.

With gauze covering his eyes, Su Xian could not see the scenery clearly, but he could distinctly feel the warmth of sunlight on his face.

"Haa-" Su Xian took a deep breath, his face full of bliss. "The air deep in Daliang Mountain really is something! These negative oxygen ions-absolutely incredible!"

Of course he thought it was good.

This was Shrek Academy's rear mountain, at the foot of the Golden Tree beside the Sea God Pavilion!

The richest life energy in the entire Douluo Continent gathered here. An ordinary person taking a single breath here could live another three years even with a terminal illness!

"Uncle Mu En, where are we now?" Su Xian asked casually as he stepped over the uneven yellow mud.

"Oh, this is Auntie Zhang's house. Up ahead is Old Li's pigsty." Mu En lied through his teeth without blushing or missing a heartbeat.

In reality, they were walking beside a covered walkway on the Sea God Pavilion's outskirts, with the Inner Court's Martial Arts Arena ahead.

But Su Xian was blind anyway. As long as no buildings blocked their path, Mu En could call the entire Shrek Inner Court whatever he liked.

As the two strolled along, heavy footsteps suddenly sounded ahead.

It was Yan Shaozhe.

The Martial Soul Department's dean, who had just been stripped of his authority and personally witnessed Xuan Zi coughing up blood from anger, simply could not swallow his resentment.

He jammed a tattered straw hat onto his head, lowered his voice, and approached with a muffled greeting.

"Uncle Mu En, Teacher Su." Yan Shaozhe blocked the path, speaking in a stiff rural accent. "I'm the old bachelor from the east end of the village, Old Yan."

"Old Yan, hello, hello." Su Xian smiled and nodded in greeting.

"Teacher Su, I heard your lesson outside the window just now. Heard you criticizing that Shrek Academy. I'm a rough fellow, but I don't think you're right!"

As though clutching his last lifeline, Yan Shaozhe tried to use his deeply rooted pride to fiercely refute this blind man and vindicate Shrek's ten thousand years of glory:

"Shrek Academy is number one on the continent! Ten thousand years of glory! Its foundations are frighteningly deep!"

Growing more excited as he spoke, Yan Shaozhe puffed out his chest. "They've trained countless Titled Douluos and Super Douluos! Who on the continent doesn't admire them? Who would dare not show them some respect? Isn't that impressive enough?!"

"Huh? That's it?"

Hearing this textbook display of a "brainless fan," Su Xian could not help chuckling. Tilting his head, he asked, "Old Yan, since you think Shrek is so impressive, tell me, just how impressive is it? How much territory does it have?"

Yan Shaozhe smugly trotted out the figures. "Shrek City spans a hundred li! It's the true core of the entire continent!"

"Pfft!"

Su Xian burst out laughing and launched a merciless attack. "A hundred li, and it dares call itself the continent's core? You really haven't seen much of the world!"

"Let me tell you, the Sun Moon Empire's Mingdu is at least ten times the size of Shrek City! And beneath Mingdu, they've hollowed out the ground and filled it with impregnable linked soul guidance arrays and rare metal veins! That's a true industrial metropolis of steel, a fortress of war!" Su Xian scoffed. "Compared to Mingdu, Shrek City is, at best, a slightly prosperous town's rural outskirts! An oversized urban village! And you're still calling it number one on the continent?"

Yan Shaozhe choked, his breathing catching as his eyes widened. "S-so what if it's smaller? Shrek has plenty of high-level fighters! With all those Titled Douluos, one soul skill apiece would be enough to overturn Mingdu!"

"That's exactly my second point-a rotten system!"

Su Xian stripped away Shrek's hypocritical fig leaf completely, every sentence striking at the heart. "What allows Shrek to produce so many Titled Douluos? Its superior teaching? Bullshit!"

"It relies on nothing but a monopoly on resources and students! Using the prestige accumulated over ten thousand years, they scoop up that tiny handful of the continent's most exceptional geniuses and bring them all to Sea God Island! Then they force-feed those few people enormous quantities of precious natural treasures and soul bones offered by the three great empires!"

"And then? What do these so-called Titled Douluos do after graduating?"

Su Xian's face was full of mockery. "Most of them stay in the Sea God Pavilion, drinking tea and living out their retirement! Have they contributed even the slightest thing to the common people at the bottom of this continent? Have they advanced society's productive capacity even once? No!"

"Now look at the Sun Moon Empire. They're developing soul tool technology for everyone! All kinds of industrial assembly lines run day and night. With a low-grade soul tool in hand, an ordinary Soul Master with only a few rings, or even an ordinary person, can unleash terrifying killing power on the battlefield!"

"Shrek plans to take those few hundred brainwashed Inner Court geniuses and fight a war of attrition against the Sun Moon Empire's future mechanized army of over a million Soul Engineers, organized into full formations? Meet a torrent of steel with flesh and blood?"

Su Xian curled his lips. "Old Yan, put your hand on your heart and tell me! If we don't criticize Shrek, what else should we do?"

Beside the covered walkway, there was only the sound of the breeze blowing leaves from the trees.

Yan Shaozhe's mouth hung open, but he could not make a sound.

He discovered that he actually could not refute it!

Yes, apart from coming out to fight at critical moments, what exactly did the Sea God Pavilion's elders usually do to advance this world's civilization?

Nothing at all!

They were merely the parasite clinging to the Douluo Continent's veins and sucking the most blood!

Standing nearby, Mu En listened with his heart pounding and his back turning cold.

Shrek now had countless bloodsucking worms within it, such as the old merchant associations and established families, while facing immense pressure from the Sun Moon Empire outside.

At the slightest move toward soul tool reform, those merchant associations would cut off its funding.

Mu En took a deep breath. Thinking that Su Xian must have an effective solution if he understood the problems so thoroughly, he hurriedly sought his advice with humility. "Teacher Su, you're absolutely right! Then what do you think... if Shrek is beset by troubles at home and abroad, industrialization burns through too much money, and traditional merchant associations have it by the throat and refuse to provide funding..."

"What if they simply abandon industrialization and distribute all the gold coins and resources they've stockpiled to the common people and ordinary disciples, winning people's hearts that way? Could that make Shrek strong again and get it through the crisis?"

Mu En looked at Su Xian with eyes full of anticipation.

He thought he had grasped the great principles of governance: "storing wealth among the people" and "the benevolent are invincible."

As long as the common people supported Shrek and everyone stood united, why fear they could not overcome the great catastrophe?

"Hand out money to the common people? Buy their loyalty?"

Hearing this naive idea, Su Xian sneered. "Uncle Mu En, you're overthinking it."

Mu En and Yan Shaozhe held their breath at the same time, thinking this extraordinary expert was about to reveal some earth-shattering prescription for salvation.

Instead, Su Xian merely shrugged casually.

"The result would be-several thousand years later, at the very moment the Sun Moon Empire's Fixed-Installed God-Slaying Soul Cannon Shell blasts Shrek City into the sky..."

In the calmest tone, Su Xian delivered the most hair-raising conclusion:

"Before those common people are instantly vaporized by temperatures of several thousand degrees, at least they'll be able to offer one heartfelt compliment: those Shrek people were pretty generous with their money back then. At least they died with a bit of a conscience."

"Beyond that, it means absolutely nothing! Those who are going to die will still die."

Boom!

As Su Xian's darkly humorous verdict fell,

Mu En and Yan Shaozhe stood frozen in place.

So it was death either way?!

Pursue industrialization, and there was no money, while the internal merchant associations would revolt-a dead end!

Abandon industrialization and hand out money to win people's hearts, and they still wouldn't withstand it in the end. They would merely be blasted into the sky with a nicer reputation-still a dead end!

Was there... any fucking saving Shrek at all?!