Pei Zhao was an extremely reliable person. Every student in the experimental class at Jiangcheng No. 2 High School agreed on that point.
However, most people were intimidated by his excessively distant personality and kept their distance. Unless something required it, they rarely dared approach him casually.
When Old Fu had originally used relentless persuasion and an entire arsenal of after-school office conversations to force Pei Zhao into becoming the class study representative, grades had not been his only reason. More importantly, he had recognized exactly how reliable Pei Zhao was.
Reality proved that Old Fu’s many years of experience as a homeroom teacher had been completely correct. Pei Zhao truly was exceptionally reliable, and he kept personal feelings separate from practical matters.
He never lost anything and somehow always found a way to clean up even the most unexpected disasters.
From large batches of exam papers disappearing before standardized tests, to the dragon race’s hereditary Blood Calamity, all the way to the malicious curse Xiao Zhu had placed upon Qin Shu, every one of these fell within Pei Zhao’s area of expertise when it came to cleaning up disasters.
Qin Shu repeated Xiao Zhu’s curse word for word. Pei Zhao listened with almost no visible change in expression, except for a faint, inexplicable discomfort entering his eyes.
“I can guess Xiao Zhu’s intention. In this life, you have never experienced pain so extreme that it became unbearable. I will not allow something like that to happen to you in the future either, but…”
Qin Shu suddenly understood. “But things that already happened in my first two lives can’t be reversed or prevented, right?”
“Mm.”
Pei Zhao remained silent for a moment, visibly struggled with something, and only then continued. “Qin Shu, if you truly care about me very much, if I am extremely important to you, perhaps… you will not merely be forced to relive your own experiences. Everything I experienced may be impossible to hide as well.”
“We’re doomed. Then there’s absolutely no chance you can hide any of it.” Qin Shu lowered his voice. “You really don’t want me to know that badly?”
“I’m a little embarrassed,” Pei Zhao replied softly.
Nothing in his expression looked even remotely embarrassed, and the faint blush that had appeared on his face earlier was already gone… Yet he spoke with complete seriousness, almost as though he had deliberately stiffened his expression.
“No matter how miserable or humiliating my circumstances became during this life, I was almost never ugly. You might end up seeing every version of me at my ugliest… and not merely once. That is rather excessive.”
Qin Shu froze for a moment, but hearing Pei Zhao think this way no longer surprised him very much. He merely found it novel, and the more he thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed.
Dragons were naturally beauty-loving creatures, and their race had its own sparkling golden aesthetic standards. Not only did everything they ate, wore, lived in, and used have to be exquisite and luxurious, they could not casually allow their own appearance to suffer either.
They were Heaven and Earth’s favored children, their reputation reaching down to the Nine Netherworlds and upward into the highest heavens from ancient times to the present. Of course they cared greatly about appearances. The white dragon Ao Wang had been imprisoned and punished for so many years, yet instead of becoming depressed or introspective, his arrogance practically overflowed through the screen. Pei Zhao was even less likely to be an exception.
Even when wearing the simplest school uniform, Pei Zhao’s hair was never messy.
But circumstances did not wait for anyone. Since the matter could not be avoided, they needed to prepare in advance.
Qin Shu could not help pinching his cheek. “Zhaozhao, why don’t you tell me ahead of time? Then we’ll both be mentally prepared and won’t end up in a terrible state when it happens.”
But Pei Zhao shook his head. “I am concerned that if you prepare too thoroughly, you will endure the pain pointlessly once, yet because you already knew everything beforehand, the curse will not consider itself fulfilled. If it remains unfulfilled, it cannot disappear. Later it may manifest through some other unpredictable event, affecting your future fortune and forcing you to suffer all over again.”
That sounded rather bad. Qin Shu thought for a moment. “…So letting the curse completely come true is the only way to resist this particular curse?”
“There are methods for dissolving ordinary curses, but Xiao Zhu’s curse is difficult even for gods and immortals to undo. She used the combined power of the Cave God’s remains and the dragon veins, and she herself was a dragon.”
Pei Zhao thought for a moment. “Even so, it is not a serious problem. The curse itself is not frightening. Even if it manifests completely, that is fine. Treat it as a heavenly tribulation. Qin Shu, there is only one thing I cannot do for you personally. You must accomplish it yourself: do not allow an inner demon to invade.”
“All right. How do I defend against that? Do I need to raise my soul-cultivation level as quickly as possible and strengthen my soul?”
“Strengthening the soul is indeed the basic principle behind resisting inner demons, but even a Great Luo Golden Immortal can become trapped by one. Raising one’s cultivation level is simple. Cultivating the heart is not.” Pei Zhao explained softly, “I robbed quite a few things from Xu Zi Ru, including soul artifacts that can protect a cultivator during practice, but those can only serve as assistance.”
Robbing Jiangcheng’s most prestigious Daoist did not warrant detailed discussion in Pei Zhao’s eyes. He mentioned it casually and immediately returned to Xiao Zhu and the dragon veins.
Because only by understanding the enemy and the power the enemy possessed in complete detail could they respond effectively.
As Pei Zhao had mentioned earlier, Xiao Zhu had continually used the power of dragon veins to suppress the erosion caused by the Blood Calamity.
Feeding on dragon veins had always worked extremely well. Xiao Zhu had gone mad, but she had gone mad very discreetly. Aside from the white dragon Ao Wang, who had suffered terribly because of her, nobody in the world knew that a mad dragon was hiding deep underground and quietly carrying out a self-preservation plan that disregarded human lives.
But the age had changed.
“Mountains are the dragon’s spine, rivers its blood, and qi its soul. Every dynasty carries its fortune through a different dragon vein. The decline of the dragon veins of fallen dynasties and the birth of new ones inevitably follow the course of history.”
Pei Zhao sat upright, expression serious. He had started teaching Qin Shu again and explained everything in great detail. “Therefore, the newest and most useful dragon vein appeared less than a century ago. Xiao Zhu successfully located it and began using it.”
“A new dragon vein appeared only a little over seventy years ago, and while her true body was still hidden inside Phoenix Village, she still managed to find it before the entire rest of the world… That’s incredible.” Qin Shu could not help marveling.
If the Blood Calamity hidden inside her genes had not destroyed her, Xiao Zhu’s potential and future would undoubtedly have been limitless. Divine offices were fixed, but leadership among dragons worked differently. Whichever dragon was strongest in a region had the qualifications to dominate it.
“She was indeed extraordinarily gifted, and therefore extraordinarily dangerous, with immense destructive potential. Following the timeline, the Cave God’s death and the resurgence of spiritual energy both likely involved her.”
The resurgence of spiritual energy and the Cave God’s fall had both occurred a little over thirty years ago.
That was also the period when Phoenix Village began experiencing large-scale incidents of apparent death, causing countless villagers whose natural lifespans had not yet ended to be sealed inside coffins and sent into the caves to endure unimaginable torture, until even their suffering became nourishment for Xiao Zhu.
Once the dragon veins were connected to this entire chain of clues, the situation became obvious.
Qin Shu suddenly understood. “So she found the new dragon vein a little over thirty years ago… But why does it feel like she became even more insane afterward?”
The mutated giant dragon Qin Shu had seen through the Karmic Mirror Platform showed absolutely no signs of having been nourished by a dragon vein. There had only been a horrifying mass of countless densely packed eyeballs and flesh, a creature mutilated to the absolute extreme by the Blood Calamity.
“That is correct. There is something wrong with the dragon vein.”
“…How could that happen?!”
“The new dragon vein is actually extremely powerful, one of the strongest dragon veins across all recorded dynasties. I briefly investigated it while we were in Phoenix Village. Such a powerful dragon vein could provide Xiao Zhu with unprecedented vitality and strength.”
The proliferating eyeballs growing from her body, the constantly reproducing mutated organisms, and the enormous number of threads had all been created through the power supplied by that new dragon vein.
Reproduction within the dragon race was difficult. It absolutely should not have been so easy. Producing mixed-blood offspring with ordinary animals was relatively simple, but carrying a pure-blooded dragon child required the mother to expend a terrifying amount of vitality.
No other resource could possibly provide that level of energy, not even a massive spiritual-herb plantation covering tens of thousands of acres, an old dynastic dragon vein, or a spirit-stone vein capable of sustaining an entire sect.
Only the new dragon vein could support such an absurd “miracle.”
“This dragon vein has been polluted. The greater its vitality, the more lethal the poison becomes. Xiao Zhu desperately searched for a path to survival and instead walked directly onto a road of no return.” Pei Zhao sounded genuinely regretful. “Before anyone found a method to resolve the contamination, nobody could have saved her anyway. If only she had waited a little longer.”
If she had waited, carefully examined the possible problems with the newborn dragon vein, or resisted the urge to drain its vitality so violently, she might have nourished herself cautiously for several decades and strengthened her foundation. Then perhaps, when Pei Zhao and Qin Shu eventually reached Phoenix Village, they could have tried to help solve the contamination.
Several decades were equivalent to the blink of an eye for a long-lived race. Even the Blood Calamity’s erosion of dragons generally progressed on a scale measured in centuries.
But judging backward from the present situation, once Xiao Zhu discovered the dragon vein, she had apparently refused to wait even a single day. At this point, all Qin Shu and Pei Zhao could do was deal with the aftermath.
And the aftermath absolutely had to be dealt with. If they ignored it, the entire world might eventually suffer.
“This is so strange. Where exactly is the newborn dragon vein? Why would it become polluted for no reason… Could those foreign devils be responsible?”
The Lord of Flies and the Morning Star. Qin Shu absolutely did not dare put those two names out of his mind. Although nothing catastrophic had happened inside Jiangcheng yet, the endless collection of smaller incidents had still been increasingly disgusting.
“I cannot give you a definite answer regarding the source of the contamination. The culprit is certainly not a single faction. It is the combined consequence of several forces and environmental factors.”
As Pei Zhao spoke, he stood and swept one hand over the gold-and-jade tea table beside them.
The bronze oil lamp resting on the table burned quietly, releasing an elegant pine fragrance while easily sustaining the magnificent old image of the shen-dragon palace. As Pei Zhao moved his hand, the spark inside the lamp dimmed slightly, flickered once, and then streams of light appeared.
A huge map of Huaguo materialized above the tea table. It was entirely hand-drawn and densely marked with caves, valleys, mountain ranges, and rivers. Every route and pattern was included, without the slightest error in scale.
Whenever Pei Zhao touched it, the corresponding paths lit up in real time, forming faint trails of light that distinguished the different targets.
“I marked every location where I suspect a ‘breach’ exists in red. An age of chaos is approaching. Those breaches and damaged areas can be regarded as manifestations of Heaven and Earth undergoing tribulation. The dragon-vein contamination may be related to them, but we cannot begin our investigation directly from those breaches. They are too dangerous. Even I cannot guarantee my own safety there, so leave them alone for now.” Pei Zhao’s expression was serious as he gave the warning in advance.
“All right, I understand… Did you draw this map yourself?” Qin Shu recognized Pei Zhao’s handwriting immediately.
“Mm.”
“Did you draw it while I was inside the ghost domain?” Qin Shu stared at the fresh ink and was genuinely stunned. “This is incredible, Zhaozhao. It looks so professional… Have you ever considered doing a doctorate later? I feel like you could crank out papers in Nature nonstop. Seriously.”
“If I conduct scientific research, I will interfere with the normal pace of human social development and then heavenly lightning will chase me around trying to strike me.” Pei Zhao paused and answered darkly, “I was vain and competitive when I was young and already got struck once. It hurt. I only reorganized the information this time because I had nothing else to do and happened to have time. This map is for our internal use only. It cannot be circulated.”
“Pfft.”
“Do not laugh.”
“All right, all right, I’m not laughing.” Qin Shu drew a deep breath and fixed his expression. “Keep going. I’m listening.”
“I have already determined the dragon vein’s exact location. The main dragon spine was born in the Central Plains, with its central point near a county outside Yu City. Its branch veins split alongside rivers and are nourished by water as they extend in opposite directions. Coincidentally, the two branches cross Huaguo in a yin-yang pattern. The new dragon vein was born with both perfect timing and perfect geography, which is why it possesses such extraordinary power.”
As Pei Zhao explained softly, the corresponding routes on the map lit up. Qin Shu studied them closely and saw that the vein truly began in the Central Plains before dividing into two branches that crossed the country in a yin-yang pattern and spread toward opposite ends, resembling two carefree wandering dragons mirroring one another.
Not only that, the ends of the two branches gradually curved into smooth, rounded ladle shapes, each embracing a famous canyon or mountain scenic area marked on the map, resembling the black-and-white eyes inside a Taiji diagram.
It was an astonishingly perfect natural phenomenon, almost too perfect to be real, a textbook display of yin and yang blending within the world. Unfortunately…
Qin Shu frowned slightly. “I understand the shape. Where is the source of the contamination? Yu City?”
“No. I went there personally the day before yesterday. The source of the dragon vein is actually the least contaminated section and was affected last. I also examined the mountain ridges carrying the branch veins. The problem does not originate in the mountains.”
“…Then it’s the river.” A distinctly bad premonition suddenly rose inside Qin Shu.
Because Pei Zhao had marked everything extremely clearly. One branch of the dragon vein followed the waters of the Yangtze River downstream, passing through major cities before finally ending at Living Water Ridge in eastern Jiangcheng.
Yes. That Living Water Ridge near St. Maria Cathedral. A small hill with absolutely no climbing difficulty whatsoever, so unimpressive that even Jiangcheng’s most amateur hiking enthusiasts could not be bothered with it. Only nearby residents occasionally walked up after dinner to stretch their legs and get some fresh air.
The scenery from the top of Living Water Ridge was ordinary, and the old district nearby was equally unremarkable. Once temperatures rose slightly, not even snow accumulated there, so it had never been considered any sort of tourist attraction.
Its only current claim to fame was that it marked the end of the Cross-City River. The broad river gradually narrowed near Living Water Ridge, splitting into streams, pools, and countless tiny waterways that slipped through cracks in the terrain before flowing into underground rivers and disappearing.
Such an insignificant little place was not merely the endpoint of the Cross-City River. It was also the endpoint of a major branch of the dragon vein!
“That absolutely cannot be a coincidence,” Qin Shu said seriously. “The waters in Jiangcheng also nourish the branch vein, which means they count as part of the dragon vein too, right?”
“Yes. But even I failed to notice it before. I lacked experience. I sensed something unusual about the river, but never imagined this place marked the dragon vein’s endpoint.”
Pei Zhao explained briefly that locating a dragon vein was an enormous and extremely difficult undertaking, especially one this young. Like a newborn chick, the vein instinctively tried to protect itself from danger so it would not attract the entire world’s greed, scheming, slaughter, and competition.
It was born concealing itself, with its aura completely hidden. The Jiangcheng section of the dragon vein demonstrated this perfectly.
By cleverly hiding beside the Dragon Palace, it could use the Dragon Mother’s presence to conceal its own aura and evade ordinary divination regarding heavenly secrets.
If ordinary cultivators wanted to locate a complete dragon vein, they needed to invite an exceptionally capable master, someone at approximately Chen Li Chi’s level, then combine various compasses and magical instruments with systematic positioning calculations before they could determine even the general route. And in most circumstances, locating one complete branch vein alone could take several years.
Pei Zhao was more capable, partly because of his racial talents, and had already identified the dragon vein’s full structure. But most of the credit actually belonged to Xiao Zhu.
If Pei Zhao had not personally gone to Phoenix Village and used Xiao Zhu as a guiding thread for his search, there was no possibility he could have compressed the work into only a few days.
More importantly, Xiao Zhu had left behind one extraordinarily important clue. Jiangcheng’s river water had long since become polluted by the same hidden mutation affecting the newborn dragon vein, a contamination extremely difficult to detect.
“The Dragon Mother must be one of the beings affected by the pollution. Previously, I believed other special factors contributed more heavily to her mental deterioration. Looking at it now… the problem ultimately lies with the dragon vein. All the other influences accelerating her decline are minor compared with this.”
As Pei Zhao spoke, he picked up his brush and added another new mark to the map.
Jiangcheng Dragon Palace. It was located at the deepest and lowest point of the river, the darkest place in the vast waterway. Yet in reality, it was also the most prosperous, dazzling, and extravagant place anywhere along the Cross-City River.
It contained countless treasures, jade piled like seas, and brilliant halls glittering with gold. Among yao cultivators, it had inspired innumerable exaggerated fantasies and legends.
And very soon, Qin Shu and the others would personally go down there to admire it carefully and steal a few treasures along the way.
“Zhaozhao, are dragons, and yao cultivators like the Dragon Mother who marry into the dragon race, more easily affected by dragon veins? Whether the effect is good or bad, is it stronger for you?” Qin Shu suddenly asked, having sharply noticed something wrong.
“Yes. Dragon veins are the foundation of an era, and also the foundation of the dragon race. Ultimately, the reason dragons have held an extraordinary position from ancient times to the present and possessed strength capable of looking down upon other races is precisely because dragon veins exist.” Pei Zhao nodded without denying it.
“Then Zhaozhao… how about this? When we attend the Dragon Mother’s birthday banquet, don’t personally go into the treasury robbery. Stay near the outermost area and act as our backup instead. I’m worried that if you remain inside too long, the contaminated river water will affect you too.”
Qin Shu did not tell him not to enter at all, because this involved dragon veins and Pei Zhao would never agree to avoid personally investigating the situation. Qin Shu merely wanted him to spend as little time as possible near the core of the contamination.
Pei Zhao did not seem surprised by the suggestion. But after silently considering it for a moment, he instead asked thoughtfully, “Qin Shu, have you considered that the degree to which you and I would be affected may actually be quite similar?”
“Why?”
“You are my Dao companion.”
Heat rushed into Qin Shu’s face. “Ah. Right… But we haven’t formally married yet. Does it already count?”
“Does it not?” Pei Zhao stared at him.
“It counts. It absolutely, definitely counts.”