The shop was still bustling at this hour, nearly every seat filled with students.
Once the drinks and desserts had all been served,
Tang Wulin took a cup from among them and said with a smile, "Congratulations to everyone for passing the assessment!"
"Congratulations, that really wasn't easy." Arthur shook his head, sighing. "That assessment wore me out."
"Hey, hey, hey." Xie Xie couldn't take it. "Aren't you laying it on a bit thick? You didn't even take the assessment, what wore you out?"
"Sitting there as a judge all day is exhausting too, you know." Arthur looked wistful. "Scoring is mental work as well. You lot just had to focus on the assessment itself, I had a lot more to consider."
"Is that so."
Thinking back on how Arthur had mindlessly handed out full marks the whole time, even Tang Wulin couldn't help but needle him.
"Didn't notice that at all."
"So what if I did." Arthur pointed around the table. "Wasn't like the rest of you did much either. It was all Na'er and Gu Yue carrying you through."
"The ninth trial was still pretty exhausting." Xu Xiaoyan muttered. "Rushing to get there and fighting soul beasts. And it had to be the Three-Eyed Golden Ni!"
"And after the fight, we still had to face the soul bone trial."
"That part was rough too."
"Speaking of which." Xie Xie suddenly turned to Arthur. "You've wormed your way into the upper ranks of Shrek, is there really a Three-Eyed Golden Ni inside Shrek?"
"Shrek doesn't have squat."
Arthur said carelessly, "What you all faced was fake, just a simulation."
"Ah, and here I was excited about it for ages." Xie Xie said regretfully. "The Three-Eyed Golden Ni is a genuine super soul beast. Not only does it bring good fortune, its skull is the number one soul bone in the entire soul beast world."
"Huh?"
At that, Arthur's eyes suddenly went wide.
That's right, where's my skull?!
I'm a hundred-thousand-year Three-Eyed Golden Ni, forget the skull, I haven't even been given a single bone!
The thought struck him, and he reached in and yanked Xiaxi out from inside his body.
Xiaxi had been happily riding Ruifeng the Skyshatter Eagle around inside his sea of consciousness, and was suddenly seized by the scruff of the neck and hauled out.
Arthur held Xiaxi up in front of his face, and the two of them stared each other down, eye to eye.
"Where's my number one soul bone in the beast world? Hand it over, now."
"Ao wu?" Xiaxi's little face went blank.
Wh, what was going on?
Its round little eyes were full of pure confusion.
Off to the side, Xu Xiaoyan, Xie Xie, and the others were already staring, dumbstruck.
They looked closely at the soul spirit Arthur had pulled out.
This soul spirit's body looked like it was made of translucent crystal, strange and otherworldly.
Overall it resembled a lion, but its four paws were like a dragon's, treading on a swirl of golden flame.
Beneath the fur, there seemed to be golden scales.
But what marked its identity most clearly was that third eye. Even closed, it gave off a sense of vitality.
They had seen this very creature not long ago, during the assessment.
Wasn't this exactly the Three-Eyed Golden Ni?!
"You, you, you"
Xie Xie raised a finger and pointed for a good while, stammering.
"Your soul spirit is actually an auspicious beast?!"
His eyes had gone red. "Fake, this has to be fake!"
"An illusion! Right, when did I get hit with an illusion?"
Tang Wulin also asked, curious, "Brother Arthur, is this the second soul spirit you absorbed? Where'd it come from, Shrek Academy?"
"How could it be."
Arthur, who was in the middle of interrogating Xiaxi, tilted his head and looked at Gu Yue. "Gu Yue gave it to me."
Tang Wulin: "?"
Xie Xie: "?"
Wang Jinxi, Zhang Yangzi: "?"
"Something like that."
Gu Yue set down her dessert, dabbed her lips lightly, and explained, "It's been passed down in my family."
"Pa, passed down in your family?!" Xie Xie shot straight up, his voice climbing an octave, drawing glances from the students at the neighboring tables. "Gu Yue, what kind of divine family is yours exactly? You even have auspicious beasts lying around?!"
Xu Xiaoyan looked just as shocked, poking a finger lightly at Xiaxi. It felt soft and warm to the touch. "Auspicious beasts are supposed to bring good fortune, legend has it people go a lifetime without ever seeing one, and you just gave it away?"
Gu Yue glanced coolly at Arthur, the corner of her mouth curling into a barely noticeable smile. "It was just sitting around unused. He happened to need one, so I gave it to him."
Something inside Xu Xiaoyan quaked. She'd been so focused on watching out for Na'er that she'd forgotten Gu Yue, her real rival, entirely.
An auspicious beast, just given away like that. Was that supposed to be a dowry gift?
What did she have to compete with that?
Ugh, ugh, ugh.
Calm down, Xu Xiaoyan, calm down, think hard, what heirlooms does the Xu family even have.
After a good deal of brainstorming,
Xu Xiaoyan slumped face-down on the table, all will to live drained from her.
Even emptying out the entire Xu family fortune couldn't compete with an auspicious beast.
In the middle of a battle for love, she'd run into an heiress out of nowhere, no way to win no matter how hard she fought.
"Sitting around unused?!" Xie Xie was about to lose it. "That's a Three-Eyed Golden Ni! And you're calling it unused?!"
"Sis, sis, sis, are there any more events where you give away auspicious beasts? I want one too!" Xie Xie's face flushed red with envy.
Arthur was busy pinching the back of Xiaxi's neck, shaking it around, and answered without even looking up, "Don't make such a fuss, it's just an auspicious beast. Once it hands over its skull to me, that's when it'll really be something."
"Skull?" Tang Wulin looked baffled. "You mean you're going to crack open its head and take the bone out?"
Xiaxi, shaken until it was seeing stars, flailed its little paws wildly.
It seemed to have caught what Tang Wulin said.
All four little paws began thrashing frantically.
"I think it's about to cry." Na'er reached out and scratched Xiaxi's belly.
"Cry? It can cry all it wants, it's still handing over that skull!" Arthur, in this moment, was utterly without mercy.
Watching this, Gu Yue's expression darkened further, and she reached out and grabbed the tuft of hair sticking up on Arthur's head. "Enough."
Arthur's whole body went rigid.
"It started out its existence as a soul spirit. It's already lucky to be alive at all, where would it get a soul bone from?"
"Oh, oh really?" Arthur laughed it off awkwardly. "No harm done then, haha."
He let go of the hand holding Xiaxi. In an instant, Xiaxi burrowed straight into the space between his brows and fled back into his sea of consciousness.
It hid under Ruifeng's wing, pouring out its grievances.
Ruifeng comforted it. "There, there. When you're a beast living under someone else's roof, you've got no choice but to keep your head down."
Seeing this, Gu Yue let go as well.
Just as the group was in the middle of their horsing around,
a domineering, arrogant voice suddenly rose up inside the shop. "Give me your soul communicator number."
It drew every eye in the place.
Everyone looked over, and there, seated, was a young man not wearing a school uniform.
He wore a sharply tailored white formal outfit, with short golden hair and handsome features, radiating an overbearing, condescending air.
His strange golden eyes had pupils that seemed to shimmer, as though wreathed in a faint aura of light.
"He looks a bit like Brother Arthur." Xie Xie muttered.
"Not the same." Arthur said, shaking his head with dead seriousness.
"Oh?" Xie Xie immediately turned curious. "What did you notice?"
"Mm." Arthur nodded. "He's not as handsome as me."
Na'er chimed in in agreement. "I noticed that at a glance too. Similar, sure, but nowhere near as handsome as you."
Xu Xiaoyan nodded deeply. "That's right."
Gu Yue also murmured quietly, "Well, that part isn't wrong."
Xie Xie smacked his lips, looking put out. He suddenly felt like he'd eaten his fill.
He shouldn't have brought it up at all.
His gaze drifted back over there.
Standing in front of the golden-haired young man's table was one of the shop's waitresses.
She wore the uniform: a black long dress paired with a white vest.
It set off her snow-pale skin beautifully, and beneath her chestnut-red short hair, a pair of large dark eyes carried a delicate, pitiable air.