20+ Advance chapters on Patreon
On the other side, Yu Xiaogang was in a bad way.
While Ning Tian and Qian Renxue were clashing, Flender and the others had already brought Yu Xiaogang to the Blue Tyrant Academy.
The moment Liu Erlong heard Flender had arrived with Yu Xiaogang, she bolted out of her little cabin in the woods.
Seeing Yu Xiaogang in such a pitiful state, her lovesick heart didn't flinch. Instead, she rushed to check on him.
She found his soul power completely gone, his body weak.
Whip marks and burn scars covered him from head to toe, some spots already starting to rot. It was clear someone had lashed him hard with a whip.
How the burns got there, though, was anyone's guess.
"Who did this? Who turned Xiaogang into this?" Liu Erlong's eyes burned red as she shouted in anger.
The Shrek group looked at each other, staying quiet. Truth be told, even Tang San suspected his father, Tang Hao, was behind it.
Finally, Flender spoke up. "Erlong, now's not the time to point fingers. We need to treat Xiaogang's wounds first. Let's find a healing Spirit Master."
"You're right," Liu Erlong said, brushing away tears. She quickly called the academy's physician.
Soon, the physician arrived and started bandaging Yu Xiaogang.
Since the whip marks reached private areas, everyone else was asked to step outside and wait.
Xiao Wu, being a girl, left first. Dai Mubai, Ma Hongjun, and Oscar followed, none of them keen to see Yu Xiaogang like that.
Only Yu Tianheng, his nephew; Flender, his old friend; and Tang San, his disciple, stayed behind.
Tang San hadn't wanted to stay, but as Yu Xiaogang's student, he felt he had to, for both to show respect and to clear his father's name.
Liu Erlong wanted to stay too, but Flender, thinking of how it might look to the students, convinced her to wait outside.
Then, the moment they pulled off Yu Xiaogang's pants, everyone: the physician, Flender, Yu Tianheng, and Tang San froze in shock.
Yu Xiaogang had been castrated.
Flender and Tang San, who had seen and helped with Dai Mubai's castration, were hit hardest.
They saw Yu Xiaogang's groin was now bare, just like Dai Mubai's.
The difference? Dai Mubai's was smooth with a tiny opening for urination, while Yu Xiaogang's was much larger, bigger than most women's.
In Flender's impression, only the veteran women from the brothels having anything close to that.
{P.S.: In the original story, when Ma Hongjun first talked about going to a brothel, Flender was the one who took him there, so he'd know.}
Even the back opening was stretched wide, like it had been forced open.
The castration method was the same one Tang San had used on Dai Mubai.
Flender couldn't dodge the truth anymore, he couldn't keep telling himself Tang San wasn't involved.
Seeing his brother ruined like this broke Flender. He yelled out, "How could this happen? How did it come to this?"
His eyes went red, his breathing heavy. He turned to Tang San, losing control, laughing and crying all at once. "Haha… haha… Tang San, Young Master Tang, what did Xiaogang ever do to you? He's already been hated by everyone. You took his soul power, okay. But why shame him like this? Why make him suffer?"
Yu Tianheng was just as mad, his face dark with rage. "Tang San, was it really you?"
Facing their anger, especially from Flender, a real Spirit Saint, Tang San felt a jolt of fear.
He shook his head hard. "I told you, it wasn't me or my dad. Someone's setting us up."
By now, Tang San was sure his father hadn't done it.
For one, his dad still needed Yu Xiaogang to go to the Spirit Hall and find out how to cultivate dual martial souls.
He wouldn't touch Yu Xiaogang until that was done.
And even if he did, a Title Douluo like Hao Tian wouldn't waste time doing something this twisted.
Someone was framing them. Who, though?
Ning Tian popped into Tang San's head.
'Is it him? No, probably not. As annoying as that guy was, he wouldn't bother messing with Yu Xiaogang. The Spirit Hall, then? Yes, it had to be them.'
They were the ones who hurt his mom. They must not want Yu Xiaogang to meet the Pope, to stop him from mastering his dual martial souls.
'The Spirit Hall, damn them for pinning this on me and my dad. They'd just dug their own grave.'
Right as Tang San settled on the Spirit Hall being the culprit, Liu Erlong, worried something had happened to Yu Xiaogang, burst in. "Brother Fu, what's going on? Is it Xiaogang—"
She stopped dead, staring at the awful scene in front of her, too stunned to move.
It was gone. Yu Xiaogang's manhood was completely gone. And with it, her dreams broke apart. She and Yu Xiaogang could never be together now.
He'd turned into a eunuch or worse, a woman?
When Liu Erlong burst through the door, Dai Mubai, Ma Hongjun, and Oscar trailed behind her.
Xiao Wu, though, didn't care about Yu Xiaogang's fate. She sat outside alone, meditating to raise her soul power. She knew she was in danger and had to get stronger fast to stay by Ning Tian's side.
Tang San let out a quiet breath of relief. He'd been worried Xiao Wu might see something awkward, though there wasn't much left to see anyway.
Dai Mubai, on the other hand, couldn't hide his grin. Finally, he wasn't the only one in this mess.
Then Jiang Zhu showed up late. One glance at the awful scene, and she ran off screaming.
Her cry jolted Liu Erlong back to her senses. She shouted, "Who did this? Who? Flender, tell me right now! I'll kill them!"
She grabbed Flender's collar, shaking him.
Flender didn't answer. He just stared at Tang San.
Liu Erlong followed his eyes, dropped Flender, and turned on Tang San. "It was you, wasn't it? You said you'd kill Xiaogang before. You did this!"
Tang San felt trapped. "I told you, it wasn't me. It's probably Spirit Hall setting me and my dad up."
"Rubbish!" Liu Erlong snapped.
If it were someone else, she might have paused to think. But Spirit Hall? No chance. She hated that woman from Spirit Hall, but she knew she'd never hurt Xiaogang.
Tang San, though, he'd always talked about killing Xiaogang. He was the real suspect.
Furious, she lunged at him.
But then Yu Xiaogang's weak voice broke through. "Stop. Little San's right. It wasn't him."
Everyone turned. Somehow, Yu Xiaogang had pulled on his dirty, smelly pants. This wasn't his first time waking up like this. He was used to dressing himself after passing out.
But this time, he hadn't expected the worst. The Shrek team seeing him was bad enough, but Liu Erlong too? He wanted to yell in frustration.
"Xiaogang…" Liu Erlong rushed to him.
He ignored her and looked at Flender instead. "Flender, who told you to bring her here?"
"I…" Flender stumbled over his words.
Tears ran down Liu Erlong's face. "Xiaogang, don't you want to see me?"
Pain crossed Yu Xiaogang's face. After a long moment, he said, "Erlong, you know it's impossible. It never was, and now it's even less."
"I don't care," she said, her voice firm.
'But I do,' he thought, keeping it inside. He turned to Tang San. "Little San's right. Spirit Hall did this to me."
At this point, it didn't matter who'd hurt him. Spirit Hall or Tang San, he couldn't fight back either way. Better to keep things good with Tang San. It was his last chance to make a name for himself. He didn't like Spirit Hall anyway.
"Xiaogang, really? Spirit Hall?" Flender asked, unsure. Like Liu Erlong, he didn't buy it. That woman wouldn't touch Xiaogang.
But if Xiaogang was protecting Tang San, that made more sense.
Yu Xiaogang nodded hard, then asked what mattered most to him. "Flender, is it true Emperor Xue Ye kicked me out of Heaven Dou Imperial Academy and banned me from leading any team in the Spirit Master Tournament?"
Flender sighed, saying nothing. That was enough to answer.
Liu Erlong tried to cheer him up. "Xiaogang, if Heaven Dou Imperial Academy doesn't want you, they're fools. Come to Blue Tyrant Academy. I'll give it to you and Flender."
Yu Xiaogang shook his head. Did he care about being a teacher there? No. He cared about the Spirit Master Tournament. If he couldn't lead Shrek as their teacher, even a win wouldn't prove anything. He didn't want an academy. He wanted fame.
After a long silence, he breathed out and said to Flender, "Tell me everything. From the start of the tournament. Don't skip a word."
"Uh…" Flender hesitated.
"Tell me. If you still see me as a friend," Yu Xiaogang said, his tone sharp.
Flender gave in and told it all.
He began with the opening ceremony. Ning Tian, at just fourteen, hit level 48 under Zhu Qing's guidance, the Heaven Dou Empire's top Spirit Master instructor. He became the youngest Spirit Ancestor with a ten-thousand-year fourth ring, dominating the arena. Zhu Qing earned the title "Master Zhu Qing," the best theorist in the Spirit Master world, and caught everyone's attention.
Then, after Tang San beat Blue Tyrant Academy, he got sick and couldn't stop running to the bathroom. Flender didn't hold back, even repeating the rude things Tang San and the others had said about Cang hui Academy, right in front of Liu Erlong.
Tang San, Dai Mubai, Ma Hongjun, Oscar, and Yu Tianheng went pale, wanting to hide.
But Yu Xiaogang, hearing it all, felt like the world was crashing down. He wasn't mad about Shrek's words. It was Ning Tian and Zhu Qing.
Both he and Ning Tian started with half a level of innate soul power. Yet he was a failure, now worse than that.
Ning Tian, though, was a shining star: a thousand-year second ring, a ten-thousand-year fourth ring, level 48 at fourteen, crushing every academy in the competition.
Zhu Qing, a theorist like him, turned Ning Tian from a weakling into a genius, even becoming the chief instructor for the Heaven Dou Empire's Spirit Master Corps.
And him? He'd trained Tang Sa, a twin martial soul genius with full innate soul power and gave him a martial soul with problems.
The strong contrast caused Yu Xiaogang to collapse again.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━━━━━━
patreon.com/DUKE3500 for advance chapters for all the novels i translate for 2$