Han Ruoruo tilted her head,
looking in surprise at Zhang Lexuan's shy and bashful expression.
In her memory,
when had her good sister ever shown such a look?
"Lexuan," she said with feigned regret,
"Oh no—you've fallen in love."
After a pause, her smile deepened, her tone turning into sincere blessing.
"But your taste is truly excellent. Congratulations to my dear sister for finally leaving singlehood."
Zhang Lexuan's fingers tightened abruptly. A flicker of panic crossed her cool and elegant face.
"Don't say it like that…"
Her voice gradually softened, almost blending into the breeze.
"We still don't know… who Junior Brother Yuhao will choose…"
At this moment,
the nervousness in her heart was a hundred, a thousand times stronger than when she had once absorbed a Spirit Ring beyond her level.
Hearing this,
Han Ruoruo could not help glancing toward Ma Xiaotao on the other side.
Ma Xiaotao's face was like peach blossoms in March. Within her brilliant crimson eyes shimmered admiration and reverence.
From the perspective of martial soul attributes alone,
Huo Yuhao—who possessed ultimate ice and snow—was her natural counter and complement.
"Sigh…"
Han Ruoruo exchanged a look with Wu Ming, shaking her head helplessly.
The academy's two most outstanding girls had become rivals in love.
But on second thought,
since the one they favored was Huo Yuhao, everything felt only natural.
If they were honest with themselves—
if they believed they had even the slightest chance,
would they not also be secretly moved by that youth?
...
Huo Yuhao's self-introduction had ended.
Sea God Lake fell silent for a breath—
then erupted into prolonged applause.
His figure rose lightly into the air and landed calmly upon the pleasure boat.
"Teacher."
He cupped his hands and saluted Mu En.
The old man stood hidden in the shadows beneath the cabin eaves, unnoticed by the students below.
Mu En smiled and nodded, his cloudy eyes filled with warmth.
"Yuhao, write down the number of the girl you favor."
Yan Shaozhe handed him the brush.
Under countless gazes, Huo Yuhao took it.
However—
the brush hovered above the paper for a long while, unable to descend.
He hesitated.
One was cool and serene as the moon; the other fierce and blazing as fire.
Zhang Lexuan and Ma Xiaotao were both rare pearls in this world. To win either one would already be immense fortune—and now…
Below the boat,
Wang Dong stared blankly at the paused figure.
Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced her chest, so intense she could scarcely breathe.
She had thought she was not truly in love with Huo Yuhao.
The entanglement between them now—
was merely unwillingness born of his indifference.
A stubborn desire to see him lose himself over her in retaliation.
But at this very moment—
seeing him hesitate and struggle over other girls—
she found she could not control herself at all.
Tears slid down without warning.
"What's… happening to me…" Wang Dong raised a hand to touch the cold tear tracks.
A ridiculous yet strikingly clear thought suddenly surfaced in her heart.
"Have I… known Huo Yuhao long before this…"
...
"Why hesitate? That sheet of paper is big enough for two names."
The voice of Skydream Iceworm drawled lazily within his sea of consciousness.
"Brother Skydream, don't speak nonsense."
"Hmph… eight of dots!" It casually tossed out a jade tile.
"What's the problem? Brother Zhexian you admire—doesn't he have two peerless beauties by his side?"
"Since you take him as your goal, why not follow his example?"
After a pause,
it muttered in a lower voice,
"Besides, with those two... I don't know if they can even hold the line."
That final sentence—
Huo Yuhao did not hear clearly.
Bi Ji, Bear Lord, and the Titan Snow Demon King, however, heard it with absolute clarity.
The three ferocious beasts lowered their eyes and focused on their noses, their noses on their hearts— even their hands, mid-motion as if drawing tiles, stiffened in place.
Upon closer look,
the corners of their brows twitched faintly with fear. Not a single one dared respond.
"I admire his elegance and freedom," Huo Yuhao replied softly within his heart.
Then—
he lifted his hand
and wrote down a name on the slip of paper.
Each stroke of the brush tugged at countless gazes.
Elder Mu, Yan Shaozhe, and the academy's powerhouses all watched him in silence.
"I'm finished."
After speaking, Huo Yuhao drifted back down onto his water lily.
Yan Shaozhe collected the slip of paper.
The answer written upon it
would only be revealed in the next stage.
"Next—"
Before he could finish,
Mu En beside him suddenly raised his head. His aged eyes flashed like lightning, shooting toward the dark depths of the sky—his figure vanishing soundlessly.
Almost at the same instant,
Huo Yuhao upon the lotus sensed something as well.
He first glanced toward where Elder Mu had stood—
then his eyes flared with brilliant golden light, gazing straight into the depths of the heavens.
"This aura…"
The lotus beneath his feet swayed lightly, ripples spreading in widening circles—
and in the blink of an eye, Huo Yuhao's figure disappeared.
The sudden change caused all the students to erupt in shock and confusion.
"Why did Huo Yuhao leave?"
"What's going on? Did he forfeit?"
Before the murmurs subsided,
a vast surge of murky-yellow energy shot skyward from the pleasure boat.
Elder Xuan's heavy, bell-like voice boomed across the entire Shrek Academy like rolling thunder:
"A powerful enemy approaches! Entire academy, on high alert! All Titled Douluo follow me!"
In a single sentence, the urgency of the situation was laid bare.
Across the academy,
pillar after pillar of majestic Spirit Power rose into the sky in response.
Teachers quickly organized the evacuation of students. Figures crisscrossed along the lakeshore amid rising chaos and noise.
This display was even more terrifying than when Jing Hongchen had attacked.
A trace of worry flashed through Zhang Lexuan's beautiful eyes. Her figure became a streak of clear light as she followed the academy's powerhouses into the sky.
At the same time,
Ma Xiaotao summoned her flying soul tool. Flames erupted behind her in blazing bursts as she shot upward, ignoring her teacher's shouted warning.
"Wang Dong, your cultivation is still shallow—come back at once!" Seeing that Wang Dong was also about to soar upward, Xiao Xiao and Jiang Nannan hurried to stop her.
Behind Wang Dong unfolded a pair of radiant light wings—the flight ability granted by her martial soul, the Bright Goddess Butterfly.
She beat her wings and stubbornly vanished into the night sky.
...
Above Shrek Academy, a black-robed elder stood suspended in silence, his aura deep and immovable as abyss and mountain.
He gazed wordlessly at the hunched figure hundreds of meters away. Upon that stern, impassive face flickered a trace of emotion difficult to restrain.
"Mu En…"
Mu En's expression was no longer composed.
Thousands of words had settled and rusted over decades of separation. In the end, he spoke only a single line:
"Xiaoyao, you still have your elegance."
Just that one sentence—
and the dark, unfathomable Spirit Power surrounding Long Xiaoyao suddenly churned.
His power stirred the layered clouds at the horizon like a raging tide, surging across the boundless sky.
Looking at the elderly man before him—so close to the end of life—he could not reconcile him with the valiant figure from memory who had once been both friend and foe.
The long white brows hanging beside his cheeks trembled gently.
"Mu En…"
Long Xiaoyao's voice was incomparably low and heavy.
"In this life, I, Long Xiaoyao, owe you far too much."
"I had no face to meet an old friend again, yet bound by circumstance, I accepted a task."
He paused, then continued:
"I came under the pretext of this mission only because—if I did not see you once more, I feared that in this lifetime we would truly be separated by life and death."
Whoosh!
The sea of clouds was suddenly torn apart by a brilliant beam of eye-light, forcibly cleaving open a path.
Huo Yuhao appeared high in the sky.
He looked toward the black-robed elder standing opposite Mu En, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Level 99. Dragon Emperor Douluo—Long Xiaoyao."