The next day, in the afternoon, inside the ninth-floor conference room of Dragon Phoenix Hall.
The meeting was once again presided over by Yun Ze and Gu Yuena, with three additional seats added.
Among Lin One through Lin Ten, only the first three—whose cultivation years exceeded two hundred thousand—were qualified to attend this meeting.
Seated on the left were, in order: Lin One, Lin Two, and Lin Three.On the right sat Di Tian, Bi Ji, Xiong Jun, the Ten Thousand Demon King, Zi Ji, and Yao Ling.
Logically speaking, with Yun Ze and Gu Yuena's return, the atmosphere should have been one of joy. Yet at this moment, it was instead heavy and oppressive.
"Tell us what happened," Yun Ze said, looking toward Bi Ji. At this time, Bi Ji's complexion was not good, with a hint of fatigue on her face.
"Mm." Bi Ji nodded and began recounting what had happened during this period.
"Shrek Academy has taken action against us. This time, instead of blocking us through medicinal herbs, they directly resorted to slander, trying to ruin our reputation."
"About a month ago, news spread that our Dragon Phoenix Hall's Breakthrough Pill caused a problem when someone tried to break through a bottleneck, resulting in the soul master being severely injured."
"This piece of news shot to the top of StarNet's trending searches at the fastest speed, causing an enormous uproar. In less than a day, it became known to the entire world."
Gu Yuena frowned and sneered coldly."If no one was pushing this behind the scenes, how could it have spread so quickly?"
"And besides, our pills have never had issues before, nor could they possibly have issues. This is clearly slander."
The main function of the Breakthrough Pill was to reduce the difficulty of a soul master's breakthrough. Even if the breakthrough failed after taking it, it would never result in severe self-inflicted injury.
Bi Ji nodded in agreement."There really was something fishy about this. At first, we genuinely thought there might be a problem with the pill itself."
"So we immediately contacted the person who had encountered trouble in cultivation, wanting to help treat him and provide appropriate compensation to minimize the impact."
"After making contact, Xiong Jun and I set off for Huacheng in the central region of the continent. That person lived in that city."
"Everything went smoothly on the way there, but once we arrived in Huacheng, problems arose—we couldn't contact him anymore."
"The soul-guide phone wouldn't connect, and the address he'd previously given us was fake."
"That bastard did it on purpose, treating us like fools and making Bi Ji and me run there for nothing."
"Just let me catch that guy someday—if I do, I'll tear him apart with my bare hands!" Xiong Jun said angrily, his fury unabated.
This was the first time Xiong Jun had suffered such humiliation—being played like this by a human Soul Ancestor was simply unbearable.
"Continue with what happened afterward," Yun Ze said calmly, ignoring Xiong Jun and signaling Bi Ji to go on.
"Once we couldn't get in touch with him, I realized we'd probably been tricked, and that the pill incident itself was suspicious."
"After using a soul-guide camera to record the occupants of that house, we headed back to Mingdu, planning to have someone issue a statement on StarNet to expose that man as a fraud."
"The journey back was far from smooth. We were attacked by five Title Douluo, two of whom were Super Douluo," Bi Ji said in a low voice.
At the memory of it, even someone as gentle as her couldn't help but show anger, unable to remain calm.
"How audacious!" Di Tian roared angrily. He hadn't expected Bi Ji to have suffered such an attack.
"Di Tian, you should be thanking me for this. If I hadn't fought five of them alone, Bi Ji wouldn't have made it back,"Xiong Jun stood up, puffed out his chest, and claimed credit with a smug expression.
Di Tian shot him a skeptical look, suspecting this guy might be exaggerating.
"It really was thanks to Xiong Jun. If it weren't for him, with my combat ability, I'd surely have died," Bi Ji said with a hint of self-mockery.
Despite having soul power at the extreme level, she didn't possess much combat strength—she wasn't even as strong as a Super Douluo.
"The three-character battle armor he forged also played a crucial role. Thanks to its terrifying defensive power, I wasn't seriously injured even after being attacked."
Bi Ji's battle armor was oriented toward defense and soul power amplification, with defense as the primary focus.
Under the enhancement of her extreme-level soul power, the defensive strength of that three-character battle armor was downright monstrous—unbreakable by anything short of the extreme level.
It was precisely this heaven-defying defense that allowed her to withstand a fatal strike from a level-97 Super Douluo.
Without that battle armor, that blow from a Super Douluo wearing three-character armor would have killed her without exception.
Hearing this, Di Tian finally believed Xiong Jun's words. He stood up, his expression solemn.
Seeing that look on Di Tian's face, Xiong Jun subconsciously shuffled a few steps sideways, afraid Di Tian might do something to him.
"Thank you for saving Bi Ji. I, Di Tian, will remember this favor," Di Tian said solemnly.
"It's… it's only right…" Faced with this attitude from Di Tian, Xiong Jun felt extremely uncomfortable and didn't even know what to say.
"Xiong Jun, you did very well," Gu Yuena praised, clearly satisfied with his performance.
"Hehe, I told you I could protect them," Xiong Jun said with a somewhat simple and honest grin.
"It's just that those bastards ran too fast. Otherwise, I would've made them experience the might of my Dark Gold Terror Claws."
He spoke with a hint of regret. With Bi Ji's healing support, he had been incomparably fierce.
Endless strength, no need to worry about injuries—able to fight to his heart's content. The feeling was indescribably exhilarating.
Facing the encirclement of two Super Douluo plus three formidable Title Douluo, he had not only avoided being at a disadvantage—he had actually held the upper hand.
After forcefully killing one of the Title Douluo, the remaining attackers no longer dared to fight and fled the scene.
"Were those attackers from Shrek Academy?" Yun Ze asked.
"Yes." Bi Ji nodded."Xiong Jun and I brought back the corpse of the slain Title Douluo to Mingdu and asked Xu Lin to help investigate his identity."
"Xu Lin's investigation revealed that this person had studied at Shrek Academy in his youth."
"After graduating, he stayed on as a teacher at Shrek Academy. After that, there was no further information—he was likely hidden away by Shrek."
"Although the information we found was limited, it was enough to show who sent him."
"After learning that Shrek Academy was behind the attack, we exposed their crimes on StarNet, but…"
"They bit back instead, didn't they—claiming that Dragon Phoenix Hall attacked Shrek Academy's experts?" Yun Ze guessed.
Bi Ji gave a bitter smile and nodded again."You guessed right, Young Master. They really did bite back."
"They even joined forces with the person who supposedly suffered a cultivation mishap, accusing our Dragon Phoenix Hall of violently threatening him, forcing him to deny the cultivation accident."
"They claimed that if he didn't change his statement, we would make his life worse than death and even drag his family down with him."
"In the video they released, that man was sobbing uncontrollably, acting extremely convincingly, as if he had truly been threatened with death."
"He then expressed his gratitude to Shrek Academy, saying that it was thanks to them that he managed to escape from the clutches of evil."
"As for Shrek Academy, their statement was that one of their experts happened upon the incident by chance. Unable to tolerate Dragon Phoenix Hall's tyrannical behavior, they stepped in to rescue him."
"Yet they never expected that Dragon Phoenix Hall would not only ignore the advice of Shrek Academy's expert to stop in time and repent, but would instead strike ruthlessly, leading to the expert's death."