Turning Down Shrek

The invitation arrived three days later.

That afternoon, Nan Feng was practicing Tower Suppression on the grassy slope behind the academy.

Xiao Wu stood five paces away, her legs bent and her body leaning forward, eyes fixed on the ring of azure light around Nan Feng's feet.

After he absorbed the Soul Ring, Tower Suppression's range had expanded from three paces to five. Its suppressive force was twenty percent heavier than before.

Every time Xiao Wu charged into the edge of the halo, she had to use thirty percent more strength to pull her feet free.

"Again!"

Xiao Wu pushed off the ground and charged in, sweeping out with her right leg.

Nan Feng turned sideways to evade it.

Tower Suppression raised a band of invisible pressure between them. By the time Xiao Wu's sweeping kick reached his waist, it had slowed by thirty percent.

He raised a hand to block it, then pushed forward with the motion.

Xiao Wu staggered back two steps, her heels hanging beyond the halo. She steadied herself and took a couple of breaths, the defiant light still shining in her eyes.

"Just you wait, Tower Simpleton. Sooner or later, I'll break through that halo of yours."

Xiao Wu stood with her hands on her hips, panting.

"I'll be waiting."

Nan Feng withdrew Tower Suppression. The halo vanished, and the grass lay flat again.

He rolled his left shoulder. The scab had fallen off the wound, leaving only a pale patch of new flesh that was hard to make out without looking closely.

Xiao Wu walked over, took a look, and nodded.

As the two of them headed down the dirt path, Xiao Wu suddenly slowed her steps.

"Tower Simpleton, have you heard? Dean Flender sent someone to deliver invitations."

Nan Feng turned his head toward her. "What invitations?"

"From Shrek Academy." Xiao Wu lowered her voice, though she couldn't contain the excitement in it. "Dean Flender signed the invitations himself. They're recruiting monster geniuses from across the continent. Three people at Nuoding Academy got one this year: me, Tang San, and you."

Nan Feng's pace didn't change.

Shrek Academy. Flender. Monsters. The three words collided in his mind.

In the original story, Shrek recruited genuine monster geniuses. Xiao Wu, Tang San, Dai Mubai, Oscar, Ning Rongrong, Zhu Zhuqing, and Ma Hongjun-the seven of them made up the Shrek Seven Devils. Now there was one more: him.

Flender sending him an invitation meant that his Soul Ring Configuration and the speed of his Soul Power growth had already caught Flender's attention. Flender was an agility-attack Soul Saint, and his eye was far sharper than an ordinary teacher's.

"I'm not going," Nan Feng said.

Xiao Wu stopped dead. She turned to look at him, her eyes wide and round.

"What did you say?"

"I'm not going to Shrek."

"Why?!" Xiao Wu's voice rose, and the excitement on her face was covered by a layer of stubborn confusion. "Shrek is the best Monster Academy! Dean Flender is a Soul Saint, and Grandmaster teaches there too. They even have training courses designed especially for monsters! Do you know how many people fight tooth and nail to get in and still can't?"

Nan Feng looked at her. His tone was quiet and steady.

"Xiao Wu, let me ask you something. If Grandmaster weren't at Shrek, would you still think it was that good?"

Xiao Wu opened her mouth, then swallowed the words on the tip of her tongue. She clearly hadn't considered the question.

"Well... it would still be amazing."

"It would."

Nan Feng continued down the mountain. Xiao Wu caught up and walked beside him, her scorpion braid drooping a little.

"But something impressive isn't necessarily right for everyone. Shrek suits Tang San. With Grandmaster's guidance, his Blue Silver Grass and Twin Martial Souls can grow as quickly as possible. It suits you too. The Soft Bone Rabbit's close-combat abilities are a good match for Shrek's monster training system. But me-"

He paused for a step and glanced sideways at Xiao Wu.

"If I went to Shrek and had my path laid out and my direction mapped for me every day, could I still find a path of my own?"

Xiao Wu was clutching the invitation. She had held it in her hand the whole time, gripping it so tightly that the paper had wrinkled.

She fell silent.

The two walked out of the pine woods. The dirt path on the back mountain grew quiet in the gathering dusk. Someone was calling for a group to assemble in the academy courtyard in the distance, the voice drifting faintly over to them.

"What if you end up on a path where there's no one to keep you company?" Xiao Wu suddenly asked.

Nan Feng glanced at her. Xiao Wu was looking at the dirt road ahead, not at him, and her fingers tightened around the invitation.

Nan Feng was silent for two seconds.

"Then I'll go without company."

Xiao Wu whipped her head around and glared at him, then kicked him in the shin. It wasn't a hard kick, but it landed squarely.

"You really are..."

She left the rest unsaid and turned, striding toward the dormitory. She walked quickly, her pink figure flickering in the dusk, the invitation in her hand crushed into a tight ball.

Nan Feng stood where he was and watched her for a while, then headed back as well.

When he reached the dormitory, Tang San was sitting on the threshold. A copy of the Soul Beast Illustrated Guide lay open before him, its pages curled from use, but his gaze wasn't on them.

Hearing footsteps, he looked up. He was holding a letter too, its envelope identical to the one Xiao Wu had.

"Flender sent someone to deliver it." Tang San waved the letter. "An invitation from Shrek. You got one too, right?"

Nan Feng nodded.

"Are you going?"

"No."

Tang San didn't respond right away. He closed the book with a finger between the pages and fell silent for a few breaths.

"Grandmaster told me about the mutation of my Blue Silver Grass last night, and the direction I should take in cultivating my Twin Martial Souls. He said Shrek could give me the best training environment."

He glanced at Nan Feng.

"You know about my Twin Martial Souls?"

Nan Feng neither denied it nor responded. Tang San's question was a probe; he had offered Nan Feng an opening, wanting to see whether he would take it.

Nan Feng weighed it for a beat. If he took it, he would be admitting that he knew too much; if he didn't, he would be avoiding the question. He chose not to take it.

"You walk your own path," Nan Feng said. "I'll walk mine."

Tang San looked at him for two breaths, then opened the book and returned his gaze to the page of the Soul Beast Illustrated Guide.

"Mm."

That was all he said, but there was something different in his tone. Tang San had heard too much from Yu Xiaogang about "rules," "theories," and "paths of growth." Nan Feng's answer to him was always "walk your own path."

The two sat outside the dormitory for a while, each leafing through what he held. Dusk spread from the far end of the courtyard, stretching their shadows long across the earthen wall behind them, one on the left and one on the right, clearly separate.

Xiao Wu didn't appear at dinner. Nan Feng scanned the dining hall but didn't see her pink figure.

While Tang San went to get his meal, Nan Feng took an extra serving of steamed buns and tucked them into his pocket.

After returning to the dormitory, he went around to the girls' quarters and knocked on the door.

There was no sound from inside.

"Xiao Wu," he called from the doorway.

The door opened a crack from the inside. Xiao Wu's scorpion braid appeared through the gap, followed by half her face. Her eyes were faintly red around the rims.

When she saw it was Nan Feng, she opened the door a little wider. Nan Feng held out the buns.

Xiao Wu looked at the two buns in silence for a while, then reached out and took them.

"You really are something," she said, taking a bite of a bun, her voice a little muffled. "You're stubborn as hell, but you still know to bring someone buns."

"You didn't eat dinner, did you?"

"I'm not eating anymore." Xiao Wu took another bite and closed the door until only a crack remained. "We're still going to the back mountain tomorrow morning."

"We are."

The door closed.

Nan Feng stood outside the girls' dormitory. Wind streamed through a crack in a corridor window, carrying the chill of an early spring night.

He slipped his hands into his pockets and headed toward his own dormitory. As he passed Tang San's window, he saw that Tang San was still leafing through the Soul Beast Illustrated Guide. The oil lamp's flame danced over his face, lighting his profile one moment and leaving it in shadow the next.

Nan Feng lay back down on his bed and closed his eyes.

He had tucked Shrek's invitation under his pillow, together with the copper coin Old Chen had pressed into his hand.

He didn't need that invitation. Flender was a Soul Saint, Grandmaster was a theorist, and Shrek had the best monster training system, but his path wasn't there.

His path lay in the tower, in every moment his Soul Power rose a level and the tower door opened another inch. It also lay in the moment the seal deep within Xiao Wu's Martial Soul was loosened.

He rested his right hand on his chest. Deep in his palm, the dim underlying light of the Soul Ring pressed against his ribs, pulsing with a solid weight.

His Soul Power was at level fourteen, six levels short of twenty. At level twenty, the first tower door would open fully and the Power of Mountain Suppression would be released outward. Then he could begin to touch Xiao Wu's seal.

Only then would his path truly unfold.

By the time the moon rose outside the window, Nan Feng was already asleep. His breathing was even and steady, overlapping briefly with the rhythm of Tang San's Mysterious Heaven Skill breathing next door before falling out of step again.