Yet he had already shouldered far too many of life’s burdens.
Jiang Xuesheng’s “past” had always been an eternal mystery, and Shu Fu had come up with all sorts of wild, fanciful theories about it.
But never once had she imagined…
“Sir, he’s really had it rough.”
Shu Fu lifted her sleeve and dabbed at a nonexistent crocodile tear.
Hua Jieyou: “…”
Really? You look like you’re having the time of your life.
Perhaps the lives of ancient divine beasts were simply too entertaining. Before she knew it, Hua Jieyou had forgotten her original purpose and begun watching the story with rapt attention.
Lord Yinglong had once been worshiped by mortals as the “Dragon God.” He might have seemed lofty and untouchable, but he certainly did not live like an ordinary person. Clearly, being a god was no easy job. Despite his exalted status and the incense offered by worshippers, the fuel for that incense was probably his own dragon fat and dragon grease.
And it wasn’t only the demon clans who gave him no peace. The mortal populace joined in as well.
At the time, neither Yao City nor Wei City had anything known as “flower children.” Instead, Dragon God temples of all sizes could be found everywhere. They were wildly popular, their thresholds nearly worn flat by the feet of worshippers—no less bustling than the Flower Child temples of the present day.
Each Dragon God temple had a small demon stationed there to record the mortals’ bizarre and varied wishes, then pass them on to the Dragon Lord.
For wishes that were harmless, or that genuinely involved some pressing need, Lord Yinglong was generous and never stingy about granting them.
If someone fell gravely ill and had nowhere to obtain medicine, he would use his spiritual power to nourish a medicinal garden, pluck a plant every few days, and send it to them.
If someone’s family was so poor they had nothing but four bare walls, and they needed money to study and pursue an education, he would personally tell tragic fairy tales to the little merfolk, coaxing two tears from them. Each tear could be split into six petals, changing the lives of six mortals while also helping the little mermaids accumulate merit.
If a woman suffered from an unattractive appearance and was constantly mocked, he would give her specially made seaweed mud from the Eastern Sea, which had beautifying and skin-nourishing properties…
Shu Fu: Are you there? Are you the Happy Prince of the cultivation world?
Of course, there were also wishes Lord Yinglong could not grant.
For example, there was once a mortal man who was fickle in love. After rising to prominence with the help of his wife’s family, he abandoned both wife and child, took all the family’s wealth, and ran off to seek a new lover. His former wife and his new flame quarreled endlessly, and both went to the Dragon God temple in succession to pray that the Dragon God would make the man devoted to only one of them.
Lord Yinglong pondered for a moment, then dispatched a demon cultivator skilled in medicine. The demon casually removed one testicle from the man and gave one to each woman, telling them, “This man has no heart, so no one can get hold of it. Why not settle for the next best thing and get hold of his balls?”
Another family had already had three daughters. Their third daughter had been born less than two days earlier when the husband forcibly dragged his pale and weakened wife out to make a wish, praying that her next pregnancy would produce a son.
At the Dragon God temple, he solemnly declared, “If my wish comes true, I will offer my daughter to the Dragon God.”
The next day, the husband discovered that his belly had grown enormous. Apparently, someone had forced him to drink a kind of spiritual spring water similar to the water of Daughter River, which could induce a “false pregnancy.”
The husband wailed and cursed, then stumbled toward the Dragon God temple with his swollen belly to demand an explanation. Lord Yinglong merely smiled and sent him a message through his divine sense:
“You said you wanted to ‘be pregnant with a son,’ didn’t you? Since it was your wish, naturally you should be the one to carry it.”
Later, the husband and wife went their separate ways. The wife took her daughters and moved to an island in the Eastern Sea. The husband endured ten months of pregnancy-related torment. The child was never born, but he was left with severe psychological trauma and subsequently developed infertility, impotence, and erectile dysfunction.
Shu Fu: My apologies. I had no idea you were such a pioneering feminist of the cultivation world.
Three thousand years later, the Eastern Sea’s Xuanyu Palace would be founded by the Eastern Sea Moon Jiao, herself a descendant of the dragon clan. Shu Fu now felt that she understood where that tradition had come from.
…
In short, Jiang Xuesheng’s daily life as the Dragon Emperor was both dull and trivial—without any great upheavals, yet exhausting enough to work a dog to the bone.
Anyone who heard about it would shed tears. Anyone who witnessed it would be heartbroken.
As a fresh-faced little white dragon, he had experienced the trials of human life far too early in his youth: emotional entanglements, mother-in-law conflicts, academic troubles, the drudgery of office life, the struggles of raising children…
For him, the only time he could enjoy a moment’s respite was once a month, when he went to the residence of Yuezhuo Clan Patriarch Zhong Dingtian to spar and exchange pointers with the Young Clan Leader of the Five Phoenixes, studying and recharging his batteries.
The training grounds Zhong Dingtian had prepared were extremely high-end. They consisted of a spacious and grand courtyard equipped with all sorts of formations. These formations expanded the limited space several times over, simulating environments of ice and snow, mountains of blades and seas of fire, flashing lightning and roaring thunder, volleys of arrows, and countless other scenes. They were convenient, realistic, and available for training at any time.
“Forget this! I quit!”
She had only just managed to take a cursory look around when a loud shout rang out. A dusty, disheveled Yuezhuo youth burst out of one of the formations, limping and stumbling toward the exit. As he ran, he bellowed at the top of his lungs:
“What kind of lousy formation is this? It’s all smoke and fire—no bird could possibly live here! My father pressures me, and you pressure me too! All I did was not want to cultivate. What did I do wrong?”
The reason it was immediately obvious that he was a Yuezhuo was that he not only wore purple clothes, but also had—no, grew—a head of slightly wavy, pinkish-purple hair. Under the sunlight, it glittered and shimmered like a newly bloomed peony.
If Zhong Dingtian’s appearance could be described as heavy metal, then this one was more like a Purple-haired Mary Sue.
Yet when the purple-haired Mary Sue opened his mouth, he sounded like an uninvited delinquent:
“I am the Young Lord of an entire clan! Why should I have to endure this kind of suffering? Just you wait. The moment I inherit the position of clan patriarch, the first thing I’ll do is proclaim myself king! I will never bow my head to an evil dragon like you! Hmph!”
“Bugui, get back here.”
The young Lord Yinglong appeared behind him soon afterward. He was tall, straight, and dashing, with all the easy charm of a handsome young man. Yet a heavy dusk seemed to cling to his entire body, making him look less like a youth and more like the father of one.
With a flash of his figure, he instantly traversed four or five zhang through the air and blocked the purple-haired youth’s path. Then, with effortless lightness, he slapped him back the way he had come.
“You haven’t finished today’s lessons. Continue.”
“Wha—?!”
The youth’s appearance was so distinctive that he could only be the only son of Zhong Dingtian, the Young Lord Bukui—Zhong Bukui.
The slap from Lord Yinglong sent him reeling. He spun in place like a top, his purple hair tossed into wild disarray by the wind, strands sticking across his face in every direction. He looked like a sunset torn apart by a gale.
“You hit me! You hit me again! My dad has never even hit me!”
Zhong Bukui’s eyes flew wide. He staggered backward two steps, then dropped heavily onto his rear. Since he had nothing left to lose, he flopped down and threw a full-blown tantrum.
“Go on, hit me! Hit me again! I said I’m not studying, so I’m not studying! At worst, you can beat me to death. I’ll croak once, and then I won’t be a man anymore!”
“Oh? That would certainly make things easier.”
Before the words had even faded, Lord Yinglong flicked his sleeve. Spiritual power surged behind him, transforming into the phantom image of a white dragon. The apparition seemed almost corporeal. It raised one claw and gave a gentle wave.
In an instant, the incessantly whining delinquent was slapped back into his true form: a small purple duck, neck thrust forward and feathers sticking straight up.
Then Lord Yinglong seized one of his duck wings, tightened his dragon claws, and mercilessly plucked out a handful of feathers.
Zhong Bukui let out a shriek of “Quack!” “What are you doing?!”
“What? Weren’t you asking me to beat you to death?”
Lord Yinglong stuffed the feathers into his storage pouch and answered with complete justification, “I heard that Five Phoenix feathers work best when plucked live. Naturally, before killing you, I have to make the most of every part of you. I’ve recently started learning artifact refinement, and I happen to need some top-grade smelting materials. How could I pass up something this good, delivered right to my door?”
As he spoke, he continued plucking handful after handful. Before long, half of the little Yuezhuo’s wing had been stripped bare. Then he reached for Zhong Bukui’s round duck rump.
“Your tail feathers are quite nice. No wonder you keep that tail of yours sticking straight up every day. If you were left with nothing but a bare backside, I wonder if you’d still be able to hold it so high?”
Zhong Bukui was nearly frightened to tears. “W-w-what are you going to do?! Let go of me! Don’t touch me! I-I’m warning you, I’m a respectable bird…”
Lord Yinglong said, “Give me a break. The moment the words ‘respectable’ and ‘bird’ hear your voice, they run for their lives. Stop dragging them through the mud. Besides, you’re clearly beyond saving. Why not become materials for my artifact refinement? That gives you a much better chance of going down in history.”
Zhong Bukui: “…”
Tears shot out.jpg
Shu Fu, who had witnessed the entire scene: “…”
Perhaps it was only her imagination, but she felt that Jiang Xuesheng’s mouth was evolving at a breathtaking pace.
“—Dragon Lord, please show mercy.”
Just as Zhong Bukui’s backside was about to bloom, a gentle male voice suddenly rang out. In the next instant, a streak of light flashed by, and two figures appeared beside the dragon and bird.
One of them was a tall, jade-like young man with fair, delicate skin and exquisite, gentle features. There was a hint of femininity in his every glance and turn of the head. His appearance was even more Mary Sue-esque than Zhong Bukui’s. A head of snowy-white hair hung all the way to his ankles, looking ready to drag along the ground at any moment.
This white was not pure white, but rather a kind of “rainbow-colored white,” as if it had been coated in glaze. When the sunlight struck it, seven-colored radiance shimmered across its surface, dazzling the eyes. From a distance, it looked as though he had draped a rainbow over his head.
The other was a petite young man in blue robes, with black hair. He was shorter than everyone else by a considerable margin. His straight-cut bangs covered his forehead like a melon rind, making him look especially young. He resembled a spoiled young master, and his pair of bright, sparkling eyes were so lively and spirited that anyone who saw them would immediately feel well-disposed toward him.
“Dragon Lord, Bukui is still young, and he’s simply being mischievous. A little discipline should suffice. You’re busy managing countless affairs every day—why bother arguing with him?”
The young man with the rainbow-colored hair gently tried to persuade him. “Besides, perhaps he simply isn’t fond of cultivation and has some other talent…”
“Liu Jinghong, are you serious?”
Lord Yinglong raised his eyelids coldly, a hint of awkward, newly acquired sarcasm already showing in his expression.
“Last time, Bukui went down to the human realm to gamble, lost everything he was wearing, and nearly ended up streaking through the streets. In the end, he could only turn into a bird and fly back. Eating, drinking, womanizing, and gambling—womanizing and gambling are already the lowest of the low, and he can’t even gamble properly… Tell me, what exactly is he good at? At this rate, sooner or later he’ll gamble away every last feather. I might as well pluck him bald now and save them from going to waste.”
“This…”
Liu Jinghong was left so thoroughly overwhelmed by the barrage of words that he could only force himself to find something else to say.
“In any case, Bukui is simply at an impetuous age. Nothing he does should be taken too seriously. Even if he acts outrageously and speaks without restraint, those of us who are older should indulge him a little…”
At that moment, the blue-robed youth beside him seemed unable to bear it any longer. He tugged on Liu Jinghong’s sleeve and interrupted him.
“Brother Liu, you still haven’t answered my question. My mother says that every other race has a special treasure, but our Azure Luan clan doesn’t. We can’t make one properly ourselves, so whenever we intermarry with other races, they always look down on us.”
“Brother Liu, do you have one or not? I want to make one just like it. Let me take a look, please.”
“Brother Liu? Are you listening to me?”
“Let me see it, please. Just once, all right? At most twice! I have a very good memory. I can remember it after looking only twice!”
Liu Jinghong: “No. I don’t. Shut up. If you say one more word, Brother Liu is going to smash your little head open.”
