The heavenly curtain's replay left the Shrek Academy crowd stunned; eyes in the training ground flicked between the screen and the Yu Xiaogang before them. Flender, Zhao Wuji, and the others watched with complicated expressions. Ning Rongrong's blunt observation cut through the silence: a child could not feign fainting before so many masters and expect to escape ridicule. The assembled powerhouses had seen too many Martial Soul awakenings to be fooled.
Yu Xiaogang's chest heaved. He understood now how deeply the sect's face had been lost, how his staged collapse only deepened the shame. The murmurs hardened into scorn; the official in charge of the ceremony wore disgust like armor. The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect had intended the Awakening to broadcast its prestige—now it lay exposed. Even those who had once flattered the family found their words hollow in the wake of the boy's humiliation.
In the aftermath, the elders argued. Many insisted the sect's resources should be spared for more promising youths; others saw Yu Xiaogang's failure as an embarrassment not worth salvaging. Yu Yuanzhen listened to the objections with a father's fury and a leader's restraint. He had imagined a future of doubled glory for his house; instead, the Martial Soul's impartial verdict had reduced that dream to ash.
When the debate reached its peak, Yu Yuanzhen made his choice. He would not abandon his son to the continent's scorn. If fate had denied Yu Xiaogang talent, then he would force the path by will and resources. He pledged his own cultivation reserves to the boy's training—an unpopular decision that silenced the elders by its sheer stubbornness. They could not, in good conscience, forbid a father from investing in his child.
Yu Xiaogang, shut behind his door and racked with shame, met his father's resolve with a raw, hysterical outburst. He screamed that he would not listen, that he wanted the world to leave him alone. Yu Yuanzhen's messenger left food at the door; the son refused it. The sect master's anger and helplessness warred beneath his stern exterior—he had arranged everything for his son's success, only to watch the plan unravel in a single, merciless moment.
Outside, the Douluo Continent continued to judge. Some whispered that the sect's resources would be wasted; others wondered whether the strange, externally manifested spirit hinted at hidden potential. Yu Yuanzhen's decision to cultivate Yu Xiaogang by force would become a turning point—an act of paternal defiance that might either redeem a ruined name or squander a family's legacy. The heavenly curtain watched on, impartial and inexorable, as father and son faced the long, uncertain road ahead.