Lu Ren smiled without answering, then changed the subject:
"Hall Master, the people at Shrek already know I exist."
"Given how they operate, someone will come looking for me before long."
"Now that you know this, how do you intend to respond?"
Jing Hongchen's expression darkened slightly.
"No one could infiltrate this place without a trace. This is the Sun Moon Empire, not somewhere they can run wild."
"Is that so?" Lu Ren wore a faint, ambiguous smile. "Even if Xuan Zi came in person?"
Jing Hongchen's pupils contracted slightly.
Xuan Zi, a Level 98 Super Douluo, was one of Shrek Academy's sea-steadying pillars.
For a powerhouse of that caliber, infiltrating the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy truly would not be difficult.
"It seems all of this was part of your calculations." Jing Hongchen stared at him. "First you stirred up trouble at Shrek, then you evaded pursuit and came here, using your strength to force us to protect you. Am I right?"
"Otherwise, there's no explaining this chain of events. It's far too coincidental."
Lu Ren neither denied nor admitted it.
He simply watched Jing Hongchen with a smile, waiting for him to continue.
Jing Hongchen asked, "What do you want to do?"
"Of course I have faith in your strength, Hall Master." Lu Ren's tone was light, as though discussing something trivial. "But when facing someone as powerful as Xuan Zi, it never hurts to make a few more preparations."
He paused, his gaze settling on Jing Hongchen's face.
"Could you give me a few Soul Tools? Something that would let me contact you under any circumstances, for example?"
Jing Hongchen fell silent.
He stared at Lu Ren for a long time, as though reassessing the young man's worth.
After a while, he took a fist-sized sphere from inside his robes. It was silver-white all over, its surface covered in finely etched Soul Guidance Arrays.
"If anything happens, place your hand on it and inject Soul Power." He handed the sphere to Lu Ren. "I'll come."
He paused, then added, "This thing can track your location, but rest assured, it won't activate unless you inject Soul Power. I have neither the need nor the interest to monitor you. Otherwise, I wouldn't have needed to tell you about it."
Lu Ren accepted the sphere and hefted it in his hand. Without inspecting it, he tucked it straight into his robes.
"Thank you, Hall Master." He nodded. "If there's nothing else, I'll head back and rest."
"Go on." Jing Hongchen waved a hand. "Get some proper rest. I'm still counting on you to help us teach Shrek a harsh lesson at the tournament. I agree to the deal you proposed. Afterward, I'll find you a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone."
"Thank you for your trust, Hall Master."
With that, Lu Ren turned and walked toward the dormitories.
Jing Hongchen remained where he stood, watching Lu Ren's figure disappear at the end of the corridor. He suddenly recalled how Lu Ren had accepted the Soul Tool without so much as looking at it.
That boy really does trust me.
He withdrew his gaze, the faintest curve rising at the corner of his mouth.
Trust.
At his age, to possess such composure, devise such calculations, and still accept what he was given without the slightest hesitation...
He was either naively foolish or shrewd to the extreme.
Lu Ren was clearly not the former.
Jing Hongchen stood with his hands behind his back, looking out the window at the gradually darkening sky.
Shrek, Xuan Zi...
He narrowed his eyes.
It seemed there would be plenty of maneuvering to do next.
Most importantly, however, he was beginning to question Lu Ren's true identity.
A mere Soul Ancestor, yet he had made a trip through Shrek and then traveled all this way to join them as though nothing had happened...
"Could he really be a spy from Shrek Academy?"
Jing Hongchen murmured to himself.
"But it doesn't matter. Even if he is a spy, whether Shrek feels the sting or not, I have ten thousand ways to make him willingly stay in the Sun Moon Empire!"
Dusk dyed Shrek Academy's buildings a dark gold, and the clamor outside the Freshman Dormitory Building had faded with the departure of daylight.
An old man in gray sat on a bench, the wrinkles on his face as deep as marks carved by knives and axes. His eyelids drooped over cloudy yellow eyes, and his whole being carried the twilight air of someone nearing the grave.
No passerby would have spared him a second glance.
No one would have imagined that this old man, his life a candle flickering in the wind, was one of the most powerful beings on the Douluo Continent.
The Level 99 Limit Douluo, Dragon God Douluo Mu En.
He slowly rose to his feet, preparing to leave.
A figure appeared before him.
The newcomer was greasy all over, his hair tangled into an unkempt mess. His once-white robe had long since turned grayish brown, its cuffs and hem torn in several places. His appearance was truly dreadful.
This was none other than Xuan Zi, nicknamed the "Supreme Elder of the Holy Spirit Cult," but actually one of Shrek Academy's sea-steadying pillars, a Level 98 Super Douluo.
"Elder Mu." Xuan Zi's voice was low. "You actually knew from the beginning that the boy had entered Shrek, didn't you?"
Mu En smiled. "So many children live in the outer court every day. Offhand, I really couldn't tell you which one you mean."
"Elder Mu!" Xuan Zi grew anxious. "A month ago, that fellow ruined the arrangement we secretly made with the Clear Sky Sect. We had Wang Dong'er disguise herself as a boy to experience life at the academy, and he exposed her in front of everyone. Naturally, we knew the truth, but the students didn't."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Mu En remained cheerful. "She's a girl, and a sect princess at that. Why should she have to put up with sharing quarters with a boy?"
"That's not the point!"
Xuan Zi raised his voice.
"The point is that he revealed his Soul Rings in full view of everyone. His first and Second Soul Rings were thousand-year rings, and his third and fourth had even reached the ten-thousand-year level."
"He's the greatest genius we've ever seen. Even Ancestor Tang San from ten thousand years ago couldn't compare!"
The more he spoke, the more agitated he became, a searing light bursting from his cloudy eyes.
"But Elder Mu, why didn't you take the initiative to recruit him? Why did you let him leave?"
"If you had stepped in and kept him here that day, why would we have needed to spend an entire month looking for him?"
On the day the new students enrolled, his attention and that of several other top powerhouses had not been on the outer court at all.
By the time the news reached their ears, quite some time had passed.
That interval had been enough for Lu Ren to get far away.
Shrek had even dispatched the Inspection Corps to track him across the world, yet there had been no news whatsoever.
A month had passed, and they had not even caught a glimpse of his shadow.
Could a Four-Ring Soul Ancestor really be so skilled at concealing his tracks?
"It seems Shrek Academy has enjoyed peaceful days for far too long." Mu En smiled, his tone even. "So long that someone infiltrated the outer court, and none of you reacted in time."
Xuan Zi heard the meaning beneath his words and immediately lowered his head, somewhat ashamed.
That day, he had been elsewhere drinking and eating chicken drumsticks, so drunk that heaven and earth had spun around him. He had not noticed this incident at all.
Elder Mu was giving them a warning.
Mu En slowly walked away with his hands behind his back, leaving only his words drifting on the evening breeze:
"He has a very poor impression of us. If he doesn't want to join, then let him be."
"Forcing him to join will only make the boy hate Shrek even more. The losses would outweigh the gains."
"If you want him through our doors, you must resolve that problem first."
Xuan Zi's heart tightened, and he hurriedly bowed in acknowledgment.
"Yes, Elder Mu."
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