Qin Shu tied the golden thread around his waist, then secured the other end with two dead knots, each wrapped tightly around one of Ao Run’s enormous, rock-hard dragon horns.
He was going to personally drag this supersized dragon out of the void. Unless Ao Run regained consciousness halfway through and could actively lighten the load for him.
It was the most difficult hauling job in history, though in truth it was not quite as impossible as it sounded. They had already prepared a backup plan for exactly this situation. Whether the banished gods were alive or dead, they had to save as much of them as they possibly could.
Even from a purely practical standpoint, the remains of a fallen god were treasures from head to toe. They could be used in many different ways to suppress world fractures. So even if all they could rescue was a single finger, they still had to bring it back.
Besides, Qin Shu himself was actually still sitting perfectly well at the very center of the Spirit-Guiding Summoning Formation, legs crossed.
He was the hub maintaining the connection. All he had to do was keep his mind clear, maintain the correct direction, avoid passing out halfway through, and refrain from doing anything bizarre while out of control.
The ones truly providing the force were the three dragon pearls circling at full power, Yuxu controlling them… and Pei Zhao.
Pei Zhao was inside the void right now. Not merely in consciousness, but with his true body physically present.
Qin Shu could not see him at all, yet he could sense him with perfect clarity: Pei Zhao was right beside him, his gaze resting upon Qin Shu, his power intertwined with the golden thread and winding around every part of Qin Shu’s body.
Too clear, too real, too far beyond anything that should have been possible, yet at the same time an unquestionable, unshakable fact.
“Zhaozhao, I’m ready,” Qin Shu said almost instinctively, looking toward the damaged opening ahead, where the golden threads had gathered into a flowing stream of gold like liquid silk.
Then, in the next instant, Pei Zhao’s voice whispered beside his ear, “Good. Relax.”
Qin Shu’s breath caught. Suddenly, his entire body seemed filled with an almost unreasonable amount of strength. He did not hesitate any longer. Just as they had practiced during training, he deliberately relaxed his body first, then tightened his focus again, adjusted his rhythm, and murmured softly, “Three, two, one…”
He began walking toward the exit, one step at a time, at a steady, even pace. Behind him, he dragged mountains of white bone and an enormous dragon head whose eyes streamed blood. Without that deliberate relaxation before his first step, Qin Shu’s breathing would have seized up the instant he tried to move.
The unimaginable weight coiled around his waist and tore at him. Every step forward brought pain like a layer of skin being peeled from his body alive, except these bruises were being carved directly into his soul.
Qin Shu suspected he was probably going to cough up blood again. Dragging the true body of a dying dragon was far more difficult than dragging the conscious King Xiancong during their practical drills. Fortunately, he had already experienced this kind of pain beforehand. At least his mind would not be instantly overwhelmed by the violent thoughts it provoked.
A little pain doesn’t matter. As long as I don’t die.
As long as he stayed alive, he could drag Ao Run out. His steps never stopped.
On the other side of the world fracture, Yuxu did not dare relax either. She drove the power of all three dragon pearls at full force, pouring dragon qi brimming with vitality through the opening and wrapping it continuously around Qin Shu. It had to guide his direction while rapidly repairing every injury he suffered, without stopping for even a moment.
Yuxu watched every change in Qin Shu’s expression and complexion before quietly instructing, “Ao Wang, feed him the spirit food in his hand. One piece first. The moment you notice his lips turning blue, give him another. If that isn’t enough, ask me for more.”
“Can’t I just feed him spirit stones directly? This is too slow.” The white dragon moved swiftly. Its tail curled around a piece of spirit food shaped like a little cake and shoved it rather ungently into Qin Shu’s mouth.
“He isn’t lacking spiritual energy. What he needs is something to keep him alert. Taking pure spirit stones would overstimulate him and might forcibly sever his connection with the formation spirit,” Yuxu said. Fine beads of sweat had gathered across her forehead and her face was slightly pale, but her voice remained calm and measured. “We cannot rush this operation. Stability comes first. Ao Wang, do not act on your own.”
Ao Wang fell silent for a moment. One eye remained fixed on Qin Shu’s expression while the other drifted toward Yuxu’s face. After a while, it muttered, “Then can I take it upon myself to demand that you eat a spirit stone too?”
“…Mm.”
Yuxu ate a small spirit stone from her own reserves, top-grade even among top-grade stones.
The stone had been polished into the shape of a cool, hard jade bead. She put it into her mouth and bit straight through it. Crunch. Crunch. The crisp sound echoed quietly through the previously deathly silent spherical chamber.
“You make it sound delicious. I want one too,” the white dragon said in a muffled voice, curling another spirit stone into its mouth and crunching even louder than Yuxu.
Inside this secret space unknown to the rest of the world, the value of the spirit stones being consumed in this feast had already far exceeded what an ordinary cultivator might scrape together after a century of hard work.
Fortunately, their extravagance eventually produced results. The white dragon was the first to notice something wrong. It swallowed the large chunk of spirit stone filling its mouth almost whole, then locked both golden eyes sharply onto Qin Shu’s face: his eyes, his increasingly unstable sitting posture, his trembling fingers…
Yuxu did not need to teach it twice. Without hesitation, Ao Wang pushed another piece of spirit food into Qin Shu’s mouth. Then it shrank its overly long body and wound itself around Qin Shu’s waist, coil after coil. Its dragon head lowered against the ground like an anchor, firmly securing him in place.
At almost the exact instant the white dragon moved, the spherical chamber shuddered violently without warning. Pei Zhao’s voice immediately followed.
“Yuxu, Ao Run’s true body is too large. He can’t come out like this. He’ll flatten Anping Town. I’m going to shrink him. Assist me.”
“Understood!”
Yuxu immediately formed hand seals and began chanting. Cold sweat poured from her like water, soaking her hair and lashes completely. The expenditure was simply too enormous. The spirit stone she had eaten earlier had replenished barely a drop in the ocean, but she absolutely could not stop here.
The white dragon’s golden pupils trembled. Instinctively, it tightened its body another fraction around Qin Shu. Of everyone present, it was the most nervous, yet wisely, it remained completely silent.
His true body is too large. Someone else needs to help shrink him. The sheer amount of information contained in that sentence sent wave after wave of cold through the white dragon’s heart.
Any living dragon that still possessed consciousness, even the smallest dragon, could use at least the most basic transformation techniques. There should never have been any need for someone else to help.
But Ao Wang had no other choice. It could only wait quietly, feeding Qin Shu another bite every now and then to prevent the only remaining link between itself and its father from collapsing right before its eyes.
This was what happened when one was too weak. It could not even truly help; all it could do was the work of some junior errand boy.
Of course, no one knew what the white dragon was thinking. Qin Shu was not having an easier time either. He had already reached the area near the world fracture, and a powerful suction force was pouring through its opening. It was the summoning effect built into the Spirit-Guiding Summoning Formation, pulling at him madly and urging him to drag Ao Run out immediately.
But Qin Shu had to stop. Until Pei Zhao told him he could move forward, he could not take another half-step. Endurance was far more difficult than grueling physical labor. The chaotic energies of the void continued to assault his mind, and now something else had been added to them: a burning, overwhelming desire that could not be ignored. He wanted out. He needed to get out. To leave this place.
“Haa…”
Qin Shu could faintly hear Yuxu chanting, the fluctuations of spiritual energy gathering as the formation operated at extreme speed, and the dragon bones being forcibly compressed until they nearly snapped. Creak. Creak.
Those were dragon bones, some of the hardest, most unyielding bones in the entire world, yet they were being forcibly shrunk again and again. The damage involved was impossible to estimate.
Qin Shu allowed his thoughts to drift. He began feeling sorry for the pieces of white bone scattered throughout the void, purely to distract himself.
Then he genuinely thought of something worth considering.
The bones of a Dragon King had to be harder and more stable than those of a mixed-blood dragon child. They also contained far more vitality and dragon qi… which meant they would be far more suitable for transplantation into a human whose condition was nearly beyond all treatment.
Qin Shu began seriously turning the idea over in his mind. His gaze remained fixed on the mountain range of white bone shrouded in dim light. That was Pei Zhao’s power. It nearly blended into the darkness of the void itself, yet somehow felt colder. Soft, uncanny darkness poured outward like flowing water, cradling the seemingly endless colossus in its palm and, little by little, closing its fingers.
Qin Shu had no idea how long he watched. Suddenly, blinding white light flashed before his eyes. The spherical chamber shook so violently that his stomach twisted with nausea and heaven and earth seemed to spin. At the same time, the suction force pouring through the world fracture suddenly became vast and unrestrained.
It worked!
BOOM!
The enormous dragon body, now shrunk countless times over, crashed heavily to the ground. Yuxu let out a muffled grunt at the same moment, grabbed a handful of spirit stones, and stuffed them into her mouth, eating even more savagely than the white dragon had.
She needed to stabilize the spherical space immediately. Everything else was handed over to Pei Zhao.
The slender young man reappeared within the still-trembling chamber, sitting atop the somewhat misshapen heap of stark white bones. Pei Zhao’s face seemed slightly paler as well, though not noticeably so. His cold fingertips slid along the dragon’s spine. He sighed, then looked toward Qin Shu, still seated at the center of the formation, and the white dragon still wrapped around him.
The white dragon stared blankly at the unbelievable sight before it. For a moment, it could not even comprehend what that horrifying heap of white bones actually was. Then Pei Zhao’s gaze swept across it. The dragon jolted and hurriedly unwound itself from Qin Shu, putting some distance between them.
Pei Zhao did not look at it again. He jumped down from the mountain of bone and stopped in front of Qin Shu. “Qin Shu. Wake up.”
Qin Shu’s consciousness had already begun to blur. At that quiet call, his eyes snapped open as though he had awakened from a dream.
He saw Pei Zhao standing before him completely unharmed. Instinctively, Qin Shu drew a deep breath, and his thoughts immediately slid back into perfect stability.
“Zhaozhao, can we leave some of the broken bones for Granny A-Shu?” Now fully awake, Qin Shu did not even bother dealing with the wreck he was in. The question came out immediately. “Then we won’t have to take Qiuniu’s remains.”
Pei Zhao smiled. “We had the same thought. I brought back the fragments that broke off inside the void. Ao Run’s regenerative ability is very strong, so he has no use for them. Once they’re purified and treated, we can put the waste to use.”
“Regenerative ability?”
The white dragon, which had remained silent until now, suddenly interrupted. A nearly imperceptible tremor ran through its voice. “My father… My father is still alive? Even like this?”
“Of course.” Qin Shu exhaled and finally relaxed completely, letting the exhaustion sweep over him. He sagged naturally into Pei Zhao’s arms, too lazy to lift even a finger, though he still forced enough energy into his voice to tease, “Ao Wang, do you want to cry? You really want to cry, don’t you? Go on. Cry for me. Let me see.”
“Qin Shu, you really are…”
The white dragon flared up in anger, yet somehow it could not actually bring itself to be angry at Qin Shu. Instead, it turned furiously toward its father and gently lifted Ao Run’s head with its trembling body, sheltering it beneath its snow-white scales.
“What… what should I do?” it asked immediately afterward, its voice soft and exceedingly careful.
It could see its father’s eyes. Those ancient dragon eyes were still bleeding, gray and clouded, with no trace of conscious awareness. His vitality was faint. But as long as blood could still flow, as long as his reverse scale remained intact, his father could not die. There had to be a way to save him.
But Ao Wang had never saved anyone before. It had no experience.
Yuxu slowly rose to her feet and swept all the strands of hair soaked in sweat away from her face. Her complexion looked terrible as well, deathly pale from extreme exhaustion, yet her eyes were brighter than Qin Shu had ever seen them.
“Almost there. Ao Run, get some sleep.” Her gaze never left that gruesomely injured dragon head, and her voice was gentle.
Only after those words did the Spirit-Guiding Summoning Formation finally shut down completely. The spiritual energy it had gathered had not yet dispersed. Yuxu lightly guided it with one finger, drawing it into the dragon pearls still circling overhead.
Ao Run’s pearl had already dimmed several times over compared with when they began. Most of the energy stored within it had been spent saving Ao Run himself.
The dragon pearl, now filled again with spiritual energy, descended into Yuxu’s hand. Then the white dragon heard her quietly instruct, “Ao Wang. Help me open your father’s mouth.”
“All right.”
The white dragon immediately perked up. Then realization dawned. Of course. The first step in saving him was to return the crucial source of vitality and dragon qi to its proper place.
It stretched out its powerful tail and laboriously pried open Ao Run’s tightly clenched jaws.
Yuxu’s hand followed immediately. She placed the dragon pearl inside Ao Run’s mouth, then thrust her arm deep within as well. With practiced movements, she lifted the enormous dragon’s heavy tongue and positioned the pearl precisely beneath it, securely enclosed against the lower jaw.
She withdrew her hand. The white dragon immediately helped close Ao Run’s mouth again and held it tightly shut.
The dragon pearl returned to its proper place. An instant later, golden light erupted. It blazed from Ao Run’s bloodshot golden eyes, pierced through the mutilated flesh at the back of his neck, and wound around his dragon horns, where white and gold light flowed together and rose upward.
Only then did the overpowering smell of blood suddenly explode into the chamber. But it was death qi, nothing more than stagnant blood being expelled from his body. It smelled infinitely better than decay.
“…He’ll live.”
Only then did Yuxu finally release a long breath. Her knees could no longer support her weight. She pitched forward and collapsed heavily onto the white dragon’s anxiously extended tail. Her pale face pressed against Ao Run’s snout and became stained with blood, yet she looked more peaceful than Qin Shu had ever seen her.
The white dragon was at a loss. Still, it could hardly leave her lying there. Very carefully, it caught the collar of Yuxu’s clothes between its teeth and lifted her onto the back of its neck. Coalball fluttered over to help as well, transforming back into a plump, fluffy ball of fur and squeezing heavily against Yuxu’s cheek, rubbing away every trace of blood.
“She really worked hard,” Qin Shu said. With Pei Zhao’s help, he struggled to stand, then muttered quietly and wrapped both arms around Pei Zhao’s waist. “I worked really hard too. You worked really hard. I’m exhausted.”
Pei Zhao lowered his gaze. Qin Shu’s bloodstained clothes were rubbing against his white scarf, but he showed almost no reaction. Instead, he leaned down and lightly kissed the corner of Qin Shu’s lips, quietly taking away the last traces of blood from his face. “Don’t go back to Uncle tonight. He’ll worry. Go straight back to Jing University. We’ll put Ao Run in the cave for now.”
“Okay. Would feeding the Dragon King Great General’s eggs help?”
“No.”
“Then give them to Senior Yuxu.”
“That works.” Pei Zhao supported the unsteady Qin Shu as the two of them climbed onto the white dragon’s back. He stored Ao Run’s enormous body inside the storage space, then quietly asked the question Qin Shu most wanted to hear. “What do you want for a late-night snack?”
Only after returning to their world could the laws governing storage spaces function again. Fortunately, Zuo Zhe’s luminous pearl had an enormous internal capacity, making it remarkably convenient for transporting such “oversized cargo.”
Qin Shu wanted grilled lamb skewers, double spicy, and an ice-cold Coke he could chug in one go until it felt like his throat was burning to death.
Jing University lay beneath the night sky. Recent efforts to control light pollution had been going well. Thin clouds drifted through the darkness overhead, while starlight escaped the moon’s prison and quietly glittered.
The five Wealth God brothers welcomed their return enthusiastically. None of them appeared remotely surprised that the plan had succeeded. Instead, they immediately began talking over one another as they discussed Ao Run’s follow-up treatment.
It had to work quickly, work well, have adequate safeguards, and most importantly ensure that Ao Run’s consciousness returned intact. The world fracture in Anping Town currently had no god guarding it, and that vast crystalline ocean, clear as glass, had temporarily lost its master as well. If this continued much longer, they would probably have water ghosts causing trouble. That was the true danger they had to deal with now.
Yuxu woke from her brief unconsciousness. The first thing the brothers did was help her sit up and make her drink an enormous bowl of tangyuan in sweet rice wine, with tiny flakes of gold floating across the surface.
As for where this simultaneously extravagant and rustic dish had appeared from, Qin Shu could not figure it out at all. He had just opened his mouth to ask when the eldest Wealth God brother brought Qin Shu’s portion over too and forced him to gulp down the entire bowl of dessert.
Scalding warmth flowed through his chest and lungs, then spread through every limb. Only then did Qin Shu realize that his entire body had gone ice-cold. It took him a long moment to recover from the sudden heat. “Mm… That’s good. My whole body feels warm now.”
“Hahaha! Third Brother’s wife makes the best one. Want another bowl?”
“One is enough. Thank you…”
Before Qin Shu could finish speaking, the enthusiastic eldest brother cut him off. “Don’t be polite with me, Little Brother Qin! You lot don’t need to worry too much either. As long as the dragon pearl is here, this isn’t a serious problem. We’ve even got several golden elixirs Laojun gave us, the kind that can revive the dead and put flesh back on bare bones. This old Dragon King can use them perfectly. Damn… He really got torn apart. What was he thinking, sending his dragon pearl out ahead of time like that?”
Yuxu paused with the spoon halfway to her mouth, her expression thoughtful. “If he had entered the void with his dragon pearl, would he have avoided ending up like this? No matter what… he probably wouldn’t have been left without a single patch of intact flesh.”
“Of course! Throw an ordinary dragon in there without its pearl and it would’ve been dead so thoroughly there wouldn’t even be ash left. Ao Run’s lucky he still had a divine position. That gave him at least a little power to keep himself alive.” King Xiancong clicked his tongue and directed several of his younger brothers to search the storeroom for the golden elixirs. Then he crouched beside Ao Run and examined the mangled flesh behind the dragon’s head.
He did not touch it, merely pointing toward the torn-open section of neck where even the supposedly indestructible dragon scales had been shredded. “Little Yu, look here. This was done by a storm. Winds blow through the void every now and then, and when they do, they’re like super-hurricanes. My brothers and I once saw one from a distance.”
Yuxu’s gaze sharpened. She did not even have time to feel sorry for Ao Run before immediately asking, “Brother Xiancong, explain it in more detail. If our luck is bad, we may genuinely encounter one later.”
“Mm. The thing looks like an enormous vortex of chaos. Once it catches you, it tears every bit of flesh off your body like a meat grinder. Doesn’t matter how tough your bones are. You won’t withstand it. Good thing Ao Run’s a dragon. His flesh is gone, but his bones are still here, and his head didn’t get sucked in. Otherwise…”
“The suction is strong?”
“Very. An ordinary cultivator wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“What if only someone’s spiritual consciousness enters the void…” Yuxu looked toward Qin Shu. “If Fellow Daoist Qin entered the way he did this time, following the formation spirit, could his soul also be sucked in and shredded?”
“Hey, that actually is a safety risk,” King Xiancong said thoughtfully. “You’re all right as long as your true bodies don’t go down there. When you’re searching, just pay close attention. The moment you see even the shadow of one of those storms, get out immediately. In theory, you shouldn’t get sucked in that easily.”
After all, only Qin Shu’s spiritual consciousness was entering. Naturally, he could retreat far more quickly. As long as he severed his connection with the formation instantly, then no matter what hurricane or vortex was raging inside the void, it would no longer be able to harm Qin Shu himself.
Yuxu relaxed slightly, but Qin Shu was looking at Pei Zhao’s expression.
Pei Zhao was looking down at him. His expression was strange.
The two stared silently at one another for a moment. Finally, Qin Shu could not contain his curiosity and lowered his voice. “The part of my soul that’s missing… it couldn’t… it couldn’t have been sucked away by something like that, could it?”