“If you’re the Dragon King’s son, why were you parasitizing Liu Bai Long’s face?”
That was Qin Shu’s first challenge. He sliced the head off a ghost soldier with a backhanded swing, then lightly raised the blade wrapped in yin energy and pointed it toward Liu Bai Long, who was being protected behind the others.
She was still frantically tearing the threads out of her face. Half her cheek had already been clawed open into a bloody mess, and the strands had cut her fingers until they were covered in blood… yet as long as she felt even the slightest abnormal foreign sensation, she seemed incapable of stopping the manic cleansing.
Nobody could restrain her.
Qin Shu’s eyesight was far too good. When he accidentally caught sight of the yellow granules of the fat layer beneath her skin, his brows furrowed even more. “Look at her. Look what you’ve done to her.”
I’m a bad dragon. Heaven punished me and sent me down here to suffer in prison. Got a problem with that?
The answer was delivered with astonishing righteousness. Qin Shu exhaled. “…Then why are you helping us now?”
Are you done asking questions?! Fine, my dear little master, I can only stand on your side now. If you die, I’ll suffer too, so hurry up and find a way to make me stronger! Satisfied?!
Qin Shu tightened his grip on the blade and tried not to look disgusted. “In that case, what do I need to do to make you stronger?”
Their exchange took only a few breaths. The instant Qin Shu asked the question, the white dragon, still busy battering Liu Yang Yang, abruptly turned its head toward him and released a deep cry in midair.
Its brilliant molten-gold eyes were filled with impatience. Long whiskers streamed in the wind as its enormous mouth suddenly opened and spat out a blinding beam of white light that struck Qin Shu directly between the brows like lightning.
An unnaturally cool sensation, almost numbing, spread from his forehead. Even the beast horn there nearly became stiff and trembled from the cold, but Qin Shu recognized the feeling.
Two nights earlier, when Pei Zhao had been sitting on his lap teaching him how to control the horn, he had used essentially the same method of transmission. A massive amount of information had been wrapped in soul power and forcibly pushed into another person’s Purple Palace.
Pei Zhao had been much gentler. This obnoxious white dragon seemed determined to freeze Qin Shu to death on the spot.
No, something was wrong.
Qin Shu’s eyelid twitched. He twisted aside from an iron spear thrust by a ghost soldier, caught the ruined weapon, and yanked it backward while simultaneously driving his long blade through the soldier’s thin rattan armor, his forearm following the blade straight through its chest. The soldier dissolved with a scream, yet the cold yin energy clinging to Qin Shu’s wrist did not disappear with it; instead, it chilled him to the bone.
His movements had suddenly become inexplicably stiff. It was not exhaustion from repetitive combat, nor was it because he was being forced to digest an enormous amount of information while fighting at the same time. Cold was spreading from his brow through all four limbs, making his body shudder involuntarily and abruptly leaving him unable to resist the dense, bleak ghostly energy surrounding him.
That white dragon really had been trying to freeze him to death. It had not only shoved information into Qin Shu’s forehead, but also smuggled in a small piece of ten-thousand-year-old ice from the depths of the West Sea.
At the same time, however, it had supplied several methods for solving the problem—counter it with his own yang energy, touch a sufficiently powerful source of flame without being burned to death, circulate magic through his internal organs to generate extreme heat, immerse himself in a large quantity of blood from people who had died unjustly, or swallow a poison potent enough to kill a god of an ice mountain.
Qin Shu could not accomplish most of those things. There was no time to hesitate, however, and he immediately remembered one particular gift.
“Yuanbao!” Qin Shu rubbed his frozen face and shouted without hesitation.
The little centipede, currently enjoying the slaughter, immediately flew toward him. Mimicking the white dragon, it opened its mouthparts and spat out a red pill, then aimed its tail at the pill and gave it a sharp, elegant flick.
A faint golden glow covered the red pill as it tore through the sinister ghostly energy, traced a blood-colored arc through the air, and dropped precisely into Qin Shu’s mouth.
Qin Shu did not even chew. He swallowed immediately and let out a muffled grunt through tightly drawn brows.
Boom—!
Blazing gold-and-red flames erupted across his body, raising violent gusts of wind and nearly distorting the space around him.
The color differed from the phoenix’s fire, but the temperature was just as terrifying, making it difficult to breathe. Qin Shu’s aura surged upward in an instant, the shifting light reflecting against his horn until it appeared even darker and more vicious, while oppressive pressure spread uncontrollably from his body.
Large groups of nearby ghost soldiers vanished screaming into smoke. Even the two corpse herders beating the drums behind him were so shocked that they nearly lost the rhythm.
Qin Shu had swallowed the red pill Granny A-Shu had given him—and Yuanbao had further “processed” it with venom.
He was now a walking poison source powerful enough to burn down an entire forest by himself, artificially and temporarily elevated far beyond his normal strength.
This was not power Qin Shu should have possessed at his current level, and so he discovered that every step brought unbearable agony, pain so severe that he could neither make an expression nor produce a sound.
His heart and lungs seemed twisted together, his organs turned inside him, ants crawled through the marrow of his bones, and his temples throbbed under unbearable pressure. Even the ice inside his Purple Palace was rapidly melting, producing a shrill hiss, hiss like something screaming in pain.
Holy shit! Wait—what?! Holy shit, how did you do that?!
The white dragon shouted in disbelief inside his head. Qin Shu gritted his teeth, raised his arm, and hurled the long blade violently toward the coffin above.
Bang!
A deafening impact shook the air. The blade that embedded itself in the coffin shattered explosively, while the milky-white threads wrapped around it scattered like willow fluff, fleeing into the earth like panicked insects.
Qiang, qiang—!
Completely freed, the phoenix spread its wings and circled through the air with a joyful cry before shooting directly toward the Drum Tower in Phoenix Village, its destination unmistakable. Almost immediately afterward, another violent boom shook the earth. A deep crater collapsed beneath Qin Shu’s feet as he launched himself upward, crossing hundreds of meters in a single leap and appearing in midair with nearly ghostlike speed.
He caught Liu Yang Yang just before the man’s strength failed and he began to fall, then landed soundlessly atop the white dragon’s head with eerie grace, directly between its horns. Gold-and-red flames poured from Qin Shu’s fingertips, their terrifying heat making even fire seem viscous as liquid. One drop, then another, fell onto the snow-white scales, cracking them and releasing a strangely distinctive scorched fragrance.
“What do I have to do for Liu Yang Yang to return to normal? Tell me.” Qin Shu’s face was expressionless as he looked down into the white dragon’s trembling golden eyes, which had rolled upward to stare at him.
Well… uh… cut him in half at the waist and sew him back together. The parasite is inside his stomach, and the threads have spread too deeply. Only something that brutal will work.
The white dragon’s voice had suddenly become much more obedient and careful.
“What do I use to sew him?” Qin Shu laid Liu Yang Yang’s unconscious body flat across the broad back of the dragon’s head.
The same thread these locals normally use to stitch corpses is fine. Jin’e Mountain is a strange place. You could chop a person into minced meat and stitch them back together without much trouble. The real problem is cutting through him in the first place. This bastard’s body is terrifyingly hard.
Qin Shu said nothing. He continued staring expressionlessly at the dragon. At some point, the eyes illuminated by the flames had changed color, becoming an inhuman, eerie scarlet.
Uh… well, now that you’ve gotten stronger, the restraints on me have loosened too, so I should be able to try. Really, really, I’ll do my best—ow!
Before the white dragon could finish, its enormous body suddenly went rigid with pain. Qin Shu had already moved. Without a word, he crouched and violently tore one of the sharp dorsal spines from near the back of the dragon’s neck with his bare hand.
The snow-white spine was stained with cool blood mixed in black and gold, splattering across Qin Shu’s fingertips.
It was the blood of a true dragon. Enormous vitality surged from it, bringing a trace of soothing coolness to Qin Shu’s painfully burning body, and relief traveled from his trembling fingertips toward his heart.
But Qin Shu did not allow himself to become absorbed in the desperate relief from his pain. Ignoring the white dragon’s yelp, he placed the sharpest edge of the dorsal spine against Liu Yang Yang’s waist, measured the position briefly to locate the stomach, then began cutting.
What did it feel like to cut a good friend in half at the waist with your own hands, hold his lifeless “corpse” steady, burn the enormous cross-section of his severed body into blackened dead flesh, then reach into his opened stomach and pull out an enormous, violently writhing parasite that resembled both a mass of maggots and a cocoon wrapped in layer after layer?
Qin Shu had suddenly become the person most qualified in the entire world to answer that question.
He gripped the disgusting mass and used the dragon spine as a blade, slowly cutting it in half.
Inside the severed creature was another creature, also completely snow-white but much more intricate than the surrounding threads. It was a soft, limbless, elongated organism resembling both a snake and an immature jiao. Two barely visible protrusions rose from its head, while four pairs of undeveloped appendages projected from its abdomen…
Having seen a true dragon with his own eyes today, Qin Shu thought the creature looked more like a severely malformed dragon.
Conveniently, the white dragon now seemed unusually patient and quite willing to explain.
Dragons are almost extinct. Several generations caught a kind of madness, and eventually we could barely produce normal descendants at all. It’s one of the problems that appeared when the world started breaking apart. Ever since the Human Sovereign died, there have been drafty holes everywhere! Yin and yang fell out of balance, rules became chaotic, natural order collapsed, evil things flourished, gods started exploiting loopholes, and even the Heavenly Dao occasionally went insane along with everything else. Dragons, phoenixes, tigers, tortoises—we’ve all gotten more miserable generation by generation…
As the white dragon rambled, the densely packed ghost soldiers below finally began retreating.
The lesser commanders among the ghost soldiers, who had been fighting the corpse army, quickly stopped moving after Liu Yang Yang’s stomach was opened. Their body language became visibly bewildered, as though even they had no idea why they had appeared here or why they were fighting humans.
Looking down from above, Qin Shu quietly released a breath. “Keep talking. How exactly are all of you miserable?”
Look at the little phoenix. Her entire family is dead, and now she’s the only one left. Luckily, that old man Chen planned for years. He borrowed Phoenix Village’s incense worship and the Cave God’s remaining power, stole some of my dragon blood and the resentment of a certain mother dragon as the fuse, then used two dead human bodies and one living body as fresh sacrificial food… Without him, that little phoenix would never have been reborn from flame so easily. This is the “Blood Calamity”—the kind that can wipe out an entire species. Never heard of it, have you?
The white dragon grew increasingly animated as it carried Qin Shu through a lazy loop in midair, pointing its tail toward the Drum Tower.
That area was unusually quiet. The villagers who had remained behind did not dare approach the square around the Drum Tower. Instead, they watched from a distance while their elders brought out offering tables laden with pastries and lavish dishes prepared in advance, then lined up to burn incense for the phoenix that had descended from the sky.
A faint reddish hue permeated the air, while the entire space distorted in the high temperature.
If she’s eaten Phoenix Village’s incense worship for all these years, then she has to fulfill the believers’ long-cherished wish. See? Being a good god is such a pain. That little thing will have to replace the Cave God from now on, clear evil out of Phoenix Village, and suppress this tiny breach in the world. Noble. So noble~
Qin Shu raised his brows slightly. The white dragon was right. The instant the newborn phoenix broke free, it had charged directly into the depths beneath the Drum Tower, as though it had always known why it had been returned to the world and exactly what it needed to do.
Unlike humans, who hesitated and proceeded cautiously when facing the unknown, the phoenix revived by Chen Li Chi had chosen to walk straight into the tiger’s den.
Qin Shu tore away the remnants of the glove from his palm. The protective layer had been thin as a cicada wing and had not even been used for very long, yet it had been ruined today by the red pill Qin Shu himself swallowed.
It could block many filthy things. It could resist the little centipede’s flesh-corroding venom and had not broken even when Qin Shu tore at the threads, yet it could not endure the fire that was now tormenting Qin Shu himself. A single gust reduced it to charred black ash clinging to his fingertips.
What terrifying fire.
Perhaps once the little phoenix fully matured, its flames would possess even greater divine force than Granny A-Shu’s red pill, but right now…
What exactly was hidden inside the deep hole beneath the Drum Tower? Chen Li Chi had said that everything remaining should be left for gods to worry about, but could one immature phoenix really solve the problem alone?
“I think there are still a lot of things you haven’t told me.”
Qin Shu did not feel reassured in the slightest. While the red pill remained active, he crouched and lightly gripped one of the white dragon’s horns, letting the gold-and-red flames spill downward until the snow-white horn was scorched dark red.
“Explain. What is the Blood Calamity?”
The white dragon’s head stiffened slightly. It did not throw Qin Shu off despite the pain. After a brief silence, it obediently began explaining in detail.
In modern human terms, it was originally a severe genetic disorder hidden in our ancient bloodlines… Then, starting with one generation, a new mutation appeared and turned it into a dominant trait. Phoenixes are prouder than we dragons and have much fiercer tempers, so most of the affected ones killed themselves. Dragons were different. Dragons afflicted with the madness just kept mating indiscriminately all over the world, hah. Every new dragon born was more deformed and chaotic than the last, and none escaped it.
Elio’s Notes: The supplied raw contains □□ in the white dragon’s description of dragons afflicted by the Blood Calamity. The surrounding context clearly concerns indiscriminate mating and reproduction, which is reflected in the translation, but the exact missing Chinese characters have not been reconstructed.
“These insects are also… dragons with the dominant genetic disorder?” Qin Shu lowered his gaze slightly and used his fingers to clear the remaining threads from Liu Yang Yang’s stomach, crushing them one by one.
They’re all evil little offspring. Some might even be mine, so kill them however you like… Just don’t blame me, okay? The mother dragon who forced me to produce children is the real culprit. I’m not sick!
The white dragon angrily lashed its tail and continued complaining before Qin Shu could respond.
I was born before the Blood Calamity and only got sentenced to the mortal world afterward! I was imprisoned inside the flesh and skin of Phoenix Village’s Liu family, branded as some “chronic illness,” and passed down through their bloodline generation after generation. I’ve been serving my sentence all the way until now. Unfortunately, once the Cave God died, that disgusting mother dragon finally dared become this brazen.
Qin Shu raised a brow. “You were in prison. How did she force you to have children?”
How hard could that be? Pick some unlucky bastard, possess them, then spend a few nights of conjugal bliss with the unlucky bastard’s partner… Hmph. That’s how Little Liu’s husband was repeatedly possessed and slowly worn to death. He died ages ago, and I got dragged into the misery with him. Don’t you know dragons have no reproductive barrier? If she wants offspring, she can reproduce with practically anyone, yet she insisted on coming over day and night to torment me. That tells you how severe her madness is.
The resentment in the white dragon’s voice was intense, while realization dawned across Qin Shu’s face. A series of people flashed through his mind—the corpse spying through their window last night, Liu Bai Long’s husband, even Chen Shui’s boyfriend A-Dou… No wonder. No wonder Granny A-Shu had killed A-Dou and never given Chen Shui any explanation.
“So the dragon infected by the madness is the evil god hiding inside the Drum Tower?”
The instant Qin Shu asked the question, a stabbing pain suddenly struck his temples and intense pressure gathered between his brows. If he had not already been crouching, he might have lost his balance and fallen directly from the white dragon.
The sensation was unlike anything he had experienced before, a near-death chill more unbearable than the flames burning through him. It was as though some immensely powerful and terrifying existence had abruptly turned to look at him the moment he spoke, pinning a mountainlike gaze onto his face, his neck, his limbs, and every bone in his body.
She can hear you.
Qin Shu immediately remembered those words—something Pei Zhao had deliberately warned him about back in Jiangcheng when they discussed the Dragon Mother.
When speaking about deities, one had to be cautious, because whenever someone mentioned them… they could hear.
“Whew…” Qin Shu slowly drew a deep breath. His eyes remained fixed on the white dragon as he spoke hoarsely. “Take me down.”
Qin Shu was not good at reading the expression on a dragon’s face, but the white dragon had clearly felt the oppressive gaze as well.
It silently obeyed and, showing excellent situational awareness, carried Qin Shu back toward Pei Zhao.
For some reason, the overwhelming gaze abruptly vanished. Qin Shu’s breathing eased, and he jumped down from the white dragon.
The enormous dragon slowly descended as well, its tail swaying irritably and slapping the still-open fissure. Its enormous vertical pupils glowed gold as it met Pei Zhao’s eyes for one brief instant.
Only one instant.
The white dragon immediately looked away. It used its tail to scoop up two startled corpse herders and placed them in front of Liu Yang Yang’s body.
“Sorry. This dragon has a bad personality, but it doesn’t mean any harm.” Qin Shu handed Liu Yang Yang over to them and lowered his voice. “Please stitch Liu Yang Yang back together as soon as possible. I removed the evil thing inside him, so he can survive. What happened today wasn’t actually his fault. Once everything is dealt with, I’ll explain as much as I can.”
One elderly corpse herder, his face ashen, immediately picked up the two horrifying halves of Liu Yang Yang’s bisected body. His gaze settled on the black horn protruding from Qin Shu’s forehead, and his arms trembled almost imperceptibly.
Naturally, they could all see that Qin Shu was abnormal right now. Even the iron-hard bodies of corpse herders could not endure getting too close to him; their skin rapidly developed visible burns beneath the heat.
Yet the elderly corpse herder did not panic. After studying Qin Shu carefully, he answered solemnly, “Thank you, Brother Qin, for helping us today and protecting us from the ghost soldiers. Grand Shaman Chen said you were destined to receive the divine bird’s blessing, and I also believe you are no evil man. If you ever need help in the future… as long as it is within our ability, come to Phoenix Village at any time.”
“Okay.”
Qin Shu gave them no further instructions, because the people of Phoenix Village did not need him to command them.
Those injured in the battle were already tending to one another, bandaging and stitching wounds. Granny A-Shu had been taken back into the village for further treatment, while Liu Bai Long had been given a sedating medicinal soup and was now being carried by A-Dou as Chen Shui personally applied medicine to the bloody ruin of her right cheek.
A joint burial ceremony had somehow ended in a scene like this… Perhaps Chen Li Chi had anticipated some of it and made arrangements in advance. Nobody appeared truly panicked, and even Chen Shui had become extraordinarily quiet.
“Zhaozhao, I’m really hot.” Qin Shu hesitated before asking softly, “Can you touch me?”
“Yes.”
Pei Zhao, naturally, remained completely unharmed. He stood at the edge of the chaos, looking as though one touch might shatter him, yet not a single hair was out of place. His entire body remained spotless, as if he had never truly participated at all, like an unreal phantom.
He walked toward Qin Shu and lightly touched the bracelet around his wrist. The golden light surrounding him vanished. Pei Zhao raised his pale, icy palm and laid it against Qin Shu’s scorching fingertips, which were still trailing flames. A trace of coldness, directed at someone Qin Shu could not identify, quietly appeared inside those apparently calm golden eyes.
“Does it still hurt?” Pei Zhao touched him gently, his voice equally soft.
“…”
Qin Shu was silent for a moment, then his eyes widened in astonishment and the words came pouring out. “It suddenly doesn’t hurt at all! Wait, is the fire still on me? Whew… yes, yes, it is. Good. Zhaozhao, this white dragon knows the evil god inside the cave. I want to hurry to the Drum Tower while I still have this power and help the little phoenix. Do you think I can?”
“No.” Pei Zhao looked at him, his gaze leaving no room for argument. “You are absolutely no match for the mad dragon. She’s currently occupied by the phoenix and cannot come out to deal with you, but if you willingly enter her territory, you will die.”
“Zhaozhao, how do you know she’s a mad dragon?” Qin Shu did not insist. He simply tightened his hand around Pei Zhao’s.
“That little insect told me just now.” Pei Zhao’s expression remained unchanged as he gave the white dragon, which was trying very hard to minimize its presence, a brief glance. Then he turned toward the enormous fissure before them.
“A phoenix being reborn is good for the world, an extraordinarily auspicious event. If it were reborn only to die again, however, that could cause latent calamities to manifest and would be extraordinarily inauspicious for everyone. So there will always be someone who cannot stand by and watch without lending a hand.” Pei Zhao paused, then released Qin Shu’s hand. “If you’re still worried, you can go down through this opening and take a look. Have that little insect carry you.”
Strangely enough, the white dragon showed absolutely no objection to being called “that little insect,” despite the almost openly contemptuous phrasing. It did not shout inside Qin Shu’s head either. It remained quietly coiled beside them, not even flicking its tail, and somehow appeared nervous.
Qin Shu caught Pei Zhao’s hand again and asked with a frown, “What’s… down there?”
“The Ghost Gate. It hasn’t closed yet.” Pei Zhao lowered his eyes toward the white dragon. “Since you’re interested, this is a good opportunity to see what the underworld actually looks like. With it accompanying you, the underworld constables guarding the gate won’t stop you.”
“What about you? Aren’t you coming?” Qin Shu hesitated.
“No.” Pei Zhao shook his head, his expression difficult to read. “I hate that place.”