Recaps

Su Xian explained how Shrek could break the trade associations’ blockade by raising funds through a central bank, banknotes, and bonds backed by its reputation. The chapter left Mu En and the others grasping that Shrek could use the scheme to bypass the merchants and gain control over the continent’s finances.

• Su Xian asked Qian Duoduo how the trade associations had controlled Shrek’s purchases and supply of rare metals.
• Qian Duoduo explained that the associations overcharged Shrek, colluded with academy insiders, and joined mine owners to cut off supplies and drain the academy’s treasury.
• Mu En argued that Shrek could not simply seize the associations’ assets by force without ruining its reputation.
• Su Xian proposed issuing Shrek Official Bonds and paper currency through a Sea God Pavilion Central Bank to attract deposits and raise funds.
• Su Xian said Shrek could use the money to buy directly from mine owners and break the trade associations’ monopoly.
• Mu En realized that widespread use of Shrek’s currency could let the academy control the continent’s economic lifeblood.

Su Xian persuaded Mu En and Qian Duoduo that Shrek could use banknotes and a central bank to finance its industrial expansion and overcome the trade association blockade. He then insulted Yan Shaozhe, Qian Duoduo, and Xian Lin'er, leaving Yan Shaozhe delighted that he was no longer the only target.

• Su Xian explained that Shrek-backed banknotes would make large transactions safer and more convenient than transporting physical Gold Soul Coins.
• Su Xian proposed that Shrek’s Sea God Pavilion Bank collect deposits and use the idle funds to buy out rare-metal mining rights, even from trade associations trying to blockade Shrek.
• Mu En realized the plan could give Shrek control over the continent’s economic lifeblood, and Qian Duoduo praised Su Xian enthusiastically.
• Su Xian mocked Yan Shaozhe as a romance-chasing idiot, called Qian Duoduo a shortsighted blacksmith, and insulted Xian Lin’er as an old menopausal berserker.
• Yan Shaozhe laughed outside the window, pleased that Qian Duoduo and Xian Lin’er had also become targets of Su Xian’s insults.

Su Xian explained how Shrek could launch a limited Sea God Pavilion Bank while avoiding corruption, counterfeit money, and bank runs. Convinced by his plan, Mu En ordered a pilot bank to open in Shrek City the next morning and took responsibility for the risks.

• Su Xian warned Mu En that opening the bank to ordinary people would expose Shrek to embezzlement, bank runs, and counterfeit currency.
• Su Xian proposed limiting accounts to powerful trade associations, noble families, and sects, with advance reporting and soul-power seals to secure withdrawals and banknotes.
• Mu En, Qian Duoduo, Zhang Lexuan, and Yan Shaozhe held a secret meeting and agreed to pilot the bank in Shrek City.
• Zhang Lexuan suggested using the bank to counter trade associations restricting rare-metal supplies and to acquire their mineral veins.
• Mu En ordered Qian Duoduo to prepare the first banknotes, directed Yan Shaozhe and Zhang Lexuan to secure Shrek City's treasuries, and declared the bank would open the next morning.

Su Xian advised Mu En and Shrek’s leaders to break the trade associations’ grip on rare metals by combining financial control, crackdowns, and a Shrek-led commercial alliance. The leaders secretly classified Su Xian and his knowledge as Shrek’s highest-level secret while preparing to keep him hidden until his eyesight recovered.

• Su Xian explained how Shrek could audit and punish the leading trade associations, then merge the remaining merchants into a Shrek-controlled alliance.
• Su Xian dismissed his advice as idle talk before Mu En and Zhang Lexuan helped him back to the cabin.
• Mu En, Yan Shaozhe, Qian Duoduo, and Zhang Lexuan discussed Su Xian’s proposals in the Sea God Pavilion’s secret chamber and considered inventing an official identity for him.
• Mu En declared Su Xian’s existence and every word he had spoken to be Shrek’s highest-level secret, and ordered the area around his cabin guarded.
• Zhang Lexuan reported that Su Xian’s eyesight should recover in about two months, and the leaders looked forward to his reaction when he learned the truth about Shrek.

Su Xian began teaching his ten students pinyin, struggling to guide them while blind. After class, Mu En and the other Shrek figures recognized that pinyin could help spread literacy and serve as a military cipher, and decided to test it in the Inner Court's classified records.

• Su Xian assessed his students' knowledge and found that none of the children had learned pinyin.
• Su Xian taught the students basic pinyin finals and initials, repeatedly helping them blend sounds despite his blindness and their unfamiliarity with the system.
• After the lesson, Su Xian hoped the mountain road would be cleared so he could seek treatment and that more teachers would arrive.
• Mu En, Yan Shaozhe, Zhang Lexuan, and Qian Duoduo discussed how pinyin could promote literacy and conceal military messages.
• Mu En decided that Shrek Academy would first compile pinyin into a book and test it in the Inner Court's classified records.

Su Xian explained the uses of science to Mu En and the others, claiming scientific farming could mass-produce rare herbs and using physics and mathematics to mock Xuan Zi for endangering Shrek's Inner Court geniuses. Xuan Zi collapsed again, leaving Niulai Village in chaos as everyone rushed to revive him.

• Qian Duoduo brought Su Xian to the pavilion, where Mu En, Yan Shaozhe, and Xuan Zi waited in disguise as villagers.
• Mu En asked Su Xian what science could do, and Su Xian claimed chemical fertilizers and greenhouse soilless cultivation could rapidly grow crops and rare herbs.
• Yan Shaozhe asked about physics and mathematics, and Su Xian used formulas to argue that Xuan Zi's drinking and chicken-leg eating created openings for enemies to kill Shrek's geniuses.
• Su Xian declared that Xuan Zi could raise the Inner Court geniuses' survival rate by eight hundred percent by giving up booze and chicken legs.
• Xuan Zi collapsed after hearing Su Xian's calculations, and the others rushed to resuscitate him amid chaos.

Su Xian explained that Shrek could not keep pace with the Sun Moon Empire’s industrialization because Soul Masters understood cultivation’s effects without investigating how it worked. He warned Mu En and Yan Shaozhe that Shrek’s traditions would leave it vulnerable to mass-produced soul weapons.

• Su Xian praised science and education, but Yan Shaozhe challenged him about his pay, prompting Su Xian to criticize Yan for idling in the village.
• Qian Duoduo asked whether Shrek Academy could pursue science and industrialization, and Su Xian answered that it could not without abandoning its entrenched beliefs.
• Su Xian argued that Soul Masters knew how to awaken martial souls and use soul rings but had never systematically studied the underlying mechanisms.
• Su Xian contrasted Shrek’s focus on individual strength with the Sun Moon Empire’s standardized, mass-produced technology and warned that industrial weapons could overwhelm Shrek.

After Mu En and the others secretly decided to reform Shrek’s curriculum, they returned to Su Xian and drew out more of his ideas about industrialization. Su Xian argued that Shrek would need to cross the ocean and plunder resources abroad, leaving Mu En and the others stunned by the prospect of overseas conquest.

• Mu En, Yan Shaozhe, and Qian Duoduo rushed back to the Sea God Pavilion and agreed to make mathematics, physics, and chemistry compulsory for Outer Court students.
• Mu En proposed learning the new subjects from Su Xian by posing as villagers and recording his explanations.
• Mu En and Qian Duoduo returned to Su Xian and asked what else could hinder industrialization on the Douluo Continent.
• Su Xian explained that scarce, distant minerals and the lack of rubber and petroleum would make industrial development difficult.
• Su Xian urged Shrek to build fleets, explore overseas, and colonize and plunder lands with the resources the continent lacked.
• Mu En, Yan Shaozhe, and Qian Duoduo were shaken by Su Xian’s call to conquer the ocean.

Su Xian argued that Shrek’s Soul Master hegemony prevented the social and educational changes needed for an Industrial Revolution, because empowering commoners with technology would threaten the ruling class. The chapter left Mu En shaken by the possibility that industrialization required Shrek’s rule to fall and could spell the end of Soul Masters’ privilege.

• Yan Shaozhe asked whether Shrek could launch an Industrial Revolution after developing science and finding rubber and petroleum, and Su Xian said it depended on the Sea God Pavilion abandoning its supremacy.
• Su Xian argued that commoners’ exclusion and the ruling class’s defense of its privileges prevented science education and the training of engineers.
• Yan Shaozhe proposed that a wise Pavilion Master might fund commoner education, but Su Xian said conservative forces would destroy such a leader and Shrek would face internal resistance.
• Su Xian explained that technology could let ordinary people kill powerful Soul Masters and shatter their monopoly on violence.
• Su Xian concluded that Shrek’s Soul Master hegemony had to be overthrown for an Industrial Revolution to take root.
• Mu En wondered whether an Industrial Revolution would ultimately mean the doom of Soul Masters.