Chapter 35: A Shrek Graduate Becomes a Spirit Hall Elder? Bibi Dong: Why Don't I Know About This?
Ning Rongrong looked at the diary, her eyes filled with the rare feeling of having found a kindred spirit.
"This Lin Yuan is quite knowledgeable!"
Her favorability toward Lin Yuan skyrocketed in an instant.
And if Lin Yuan knew that Ning Rongrong's goodwill toward him was rising this fast, then his objective would have been completely achieved.
Rather than criticizing this little demoness in his diary, it was far better to go along with her temperament.
She was clearly the type who responded to softness, not force.
Besides, everything he had written in the diary was true—she was a princess to begin with.
And with the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect being so close to the Heaven Dou Empire, Ning Rongrong obviously knew very well what the teaching strength at the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy was like.
After being scolded by a mere Soul Saint like Flender, someone who had never suffered a loss before would naturally feel unconvinced.
[As for Ning Rongrong daring to scold Flender as "a mere Soul Saint."]
[I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all.]
[Her horizons are right there—in her eyes, a Soul Saint truly isn't some big shot.]
[If there's anything wrong with her, it's only that she's too naive and doesn't take her own safety seriously enough.]
[She thought she had snuck out without anyone knowing.]
[But did she ever stop to think—what kind of person is Ning Fengzhi? How doting are Sword Douluo and Bone Douluo toward her?]
[If she hadn't been discovered long ago, if there hadn't been experts secretly protecting her the entire time,]
[how could a little girl carrying that much money possibly travel all the way to Suotuo City without incident?]
[How could she dare to point at a Soul Saint's nose and scold him, while he didn't dare truly do anything to her?]
[Flender, that old fox, is sharp as hell.]
[He dared to accept Ning Rongrong because Ning Fengzhi had already contacted him in secret.]
[Otherwise, even if you gave him ten times the courage, he wouldn't dare physically punish the little princess of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect!]
[In the original work, Ning Fengzhi even wrote Flender a letter, saying that Ning Rongrong's personality was too lively and that she didn't understand how dangerous the outside world could be, asking him to help temper her a little.]
[After all, she dared to leave the sect without saying a word—what if she really ran into danger?]
[Fortunately, Ning Rongrong's personality was good. She knew how to reflect and understood the bigger picture, and later she did change her temper.]
[Otherwise, if she had stubbornly insisted on returning to the sect to complain, then with the level of doting Ning Fengzhi and the two Titled Douluo had for her, Flender probably wouldn't have escaped a beating.]
Reading this far, Ning Rongrong was completely stunned.
"So… Father knew all along?"
"So what I thought was 'running away from home' was actually always within Father's sight?"
She suddenly felt that her future self was so childish, so naïve.
But when she saw Lin Yuan say that her father had even asked Flender to help temper her personality, she couldn't help puffing up her cheeks in dissatisfaction.
Was she really that disobedient?
Back in the sect, she was indeed lively and fearless—but wasn't that just to make Father and the two grandpas happy?
Seriously!
In her heart, Ning Rongrong decided to keep a mental tab on her three family members—she had to make them compensate her properly later!
"Hmph! Since Lin Yuan has already said this much,"
"then there's no way this young lady is ever going to Shrek Academy!"
"Whoever wants to go can go!"
But then…
Ning Rongrong looked at the two words "Lin Yuan" written in the diary, and a sly smile curved at the corner of her lips.
"This Lin Yuan… since he understands me so well,"
"shouldn't I give him a chance to praise me to my face?"
"Nuoding City doesn't seem that far away anyway."
At this moment, the same thought that Dugu Yan had earlier quietly rose in Ning Rongrong's heart.
That Shrek Academy was absolutely not an option for her.
Which meant that, realistically, the only remaining choice was the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy.
[Now that I've talked about Shrek's admission traps, it's time to talk about its so-called "glorious history."]
[One thing that Flender loves to boast about the most is this: Although Shrek Academy is poor, it produces talent! One of our graduates has already become an elder of Spirit Hall!"]
[An elder of Spirit Hall! What kind of lofty status is that? At the very least, you'd need to be a Titled Douluo, right?]
[If that were true, then Shrek Academy would indeed be incredibly impressive.]
[But the question is… is it actually true?]
Bibi Dong: ???
When did their Elder Hall gain a Titled Douluo who graduated from Shrek Academy?
How come she, the Pope herself, didn't know about it?
This Flender really was lying without even blinking!
"Trying to leech off Spirit Hall's reputation?"
"Does he really think I, the Pope, am just a decoration?"
Heaven Dou Empire, Crown Prince's Residence.
Qian Renxue was equally speechless.
As the young lady of Spirit Hall, she was familiar with every single elder in the Elder Hall.
"I've never heard of anyone who graduated from Shrek."
"It seems this academy isn't just scamming money—it's scamming reputation as well."
Qian Renxue shook her head.
If previously she had merely looked down on Shrek Academy, now she felt nothing but pure contempt.
An academy built entirely on lies—what kind of students could it possibly produce?
[Aside from bragging, Shrek's graduation rate is another massive point of ridicule.]
[Flender himself once said that in the twenty years since Shrek was founded, they had enrolled a total of sixty-two students.]
[But in the end, only fourteen managed to graduate!]
[What kind of number is that?!]
[Nearly an eighty percent elimination rate!]
[And there's a chilling detail here if you think carefully.]
[Where did the forty-eight students who didn't graduate go?]
[Were they persuaded to drop out? Or… did they die?]
[You have to remember—when Tang San and the others enrolled, aside from a few teachers, the entire academy only had Dai Mubai, Oscar, and Ma Hongjun as older students.]
[There were no students from other year groups at all!]
[Logically speaking, if they recruited sixty-two students over twenty years, that's about three students per year on average, right?]
[So where were the students from the previous batches?]
[Twelve years old at enrollment—counting backward, those who enrolled eight years earlier should have just reached the graduation age of twenty. But where were they?]
[Over eight years, there should have been at least twenty students who hadn't graduated yet!]
[If they had merely dropped out, that would be one thing.]
[But considering Shrek's utterly outrageous teaching methods—throwing students into the Soul Fighting Arena to risk their lives, even forcing them into cross-level battles—]
[I have reason to suspect that most of those vanished students have already become soul beast feces… or died on the arena platforms of the Soul Fighting Arena!]
Hiss–!
Seeing this, many of the female characters who were secretly peeking felt a chill crawl up their spines.
Ning Rongrong's face went pale with fright.
"Dead?"
"All those who didn't graduate… they died?"
In legitimate high-level Soul Master academy, even if students failed to graduate, at most they would receive a certificate of completion or transfer elsewhere.
There was absolutely no way something like "the person is nowhere to be found, neither alive nor dead!" would happen!
"This isn't an academy at all…"
—
End of Chapter