Chapter 103: Dragon (Bonus Chapter for Votes)

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Cheng XinZhan did not lie. Within the Sha acupoint, his physical body’s skin had been burned away by the true Sha, and the scale placed on his chest had fused with his flesh and blood. As new skin grew, it enveloped the marrow cavity end of the scale, connecting the marrow cavity to his meridians and blood vessels, as if the scale had always been part of his chest.

What puzzled him even more was that, while dispelling the true Sha from his body and clearing his hundred orifices, he discovered that this scale seemed to have become one of his orifices!

This was an orifice not belonging to the human corporeal body, one never mentioned in the “Inner Landscape Classic of the Hundred Orifices of the Zhou Heaven.” He did not know its purpose or how to open it.

The Green Chi approached for a closer look, blinking her large eyes, though she naturally could not understand it either. She only nodded slightly, signaling that if he wasn’t returning something, then so be it.

Cheng XinZhan took something from his bosom—an item he had deliberately brought today.

It was a white jade bottle, slightly translucent, through which a blood-red glow could be seen emanating inside.

“This seems to be the heart’s blood of a brocade dragon. See if it’s of use to you,” he said, holding it out to the Green Chi.

But the Green Chi retreated at once, flicking her tail as if urging him to take it away quickly, even blowing out a breath in a gesture resembling blowing fire.

Cheng XinZhan understood—she was afraid of fire.

He had expected as much. The Green Chi must belong to the water element and probably would not want this drop of heart’s blood. Still, he asked just in case, since they were both dragon-kind; it might prove useful.

Seeing that the Green Chi indeed refused, he took back the jade bottle, intending to refine it later into his heart palace to strengthen his blood qi.

He glanced toward the lake and asked, “Are there still loaches and clams?”

At the mention, the Green Chi’s horizontal bone area immediately made a swallowing motion, then swiftly cast a spell to draw some loaches and clams from the lake.

Cheng XinZhan smiled. When he had brought loaches, clams, and shells from the White Jade Capital, he had left only two-tenths in the small bamboo grove pool, pouring the rest into Songlu Lake.

Xiao Shi Niang had not lied; the Green Chi truly liked them. She had joyfully hummed upon first seeing them and tried to chase and bite them, but after Cheng XinZhan roasted some for her, she refused to eat them raw again.

He skillfully began to build a fire and roast the food, casually bringing up a question he had asked many times before.

“Fellow Daoist, fellow Daoist, what is your name, after all?”

Cheng XinZhan knew the Green Chi was very clever. Though she did not speak, she could recognize characters, understood human speech, was versed in music, and even had an immortal zither in hand. She was certainly named but had never told him.

Unexpectedly, this time, the Green Chi responded.

She slapped the lake’s surface with her tail, stirring the water, then tapped Cheng XinZhan’s chest before looking at him.

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Cheng XinZhan understood this was a prompt for him to guess.

Water and heart—that must be “Qin,” wasn’t it?

“Fellow Daoist, is your single name Qin?”

The Green Chi’s eyes widened in surprise. How could he guess it so easily?

She nodded.

“And your surname?”

The Green Chi pretended not to hear.

“Then I’ll guess again,” Cheng XinZhan said. The Green Chi looked at him, her eyes clearly expressing disbelief.

“Your surname is Gu, so you should be called Gu Qin.”

The Green Chi’s eyes widened again, staring at Cheng XinZhan for a long while without moving, not even accepting the clam meat he offered.

Cheng XinZhan fed the clam meat near her mouth but sighed deeply in his heart. While serving at Yingyuan Prefecture, he had helped compile the registry of all the world’s flood dragons. He found that the Green Chi was the sole lineage in Shu, and the friend of the Thunder Immortal was the last recorded Green Chi, named Gu Yi.

It seemed that the young Chi before him was a descendant of Gu Yi.

However, Gu Yi’s whereabouts were unknown, his life or death uncertain. Gu Qin might be the last Green Chi in the world. Did she know anything of her father’s fate?

Cheng XinZhan did not press further, only saying he was guessing randomly. He then focused on roasting the clams for Gu Qin, thinking that if he had the chance to meet the sect leader again, he would ask why the Green Chi was on Mount Sanqing and whether her father lived or died.

———

After roasting all the remaining loaches and clams and teaching a new piece of zither music, Cheng XinZhan left. It was already afternoon when he returned to Mingzhi Mountain.

His third sister’s eyes had indeed improved greatly; she was fetching loaches by the pool. Previously, she had been too afraid to approach the water due to blindness, but now her courage had grown significantly.

So he began roasting loaches for her again, noticing that the sea loaches in the little pool were not many. He thought that since the next month was a big month, he could arrange for some fish to be sent down from Bohai Market in Peacock City. He had already finished the talismans he promised them.

Back at his cave abode, he took out the jade bottle containing the red-haired ancestor’s heart blood.

Opening the stopper, he poured out the essence blood, which filled the room with fragrance.

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He swallowed it directly.

The essence blood passed through the Twelve Layers Tower, manifesting in his inner landscape world as a blood dragon, rampaging wildly. His newly healed body’s meridians immediately felt a swelling pain—this was the sign of blood qi being overly abundant, the body too weak to accept supplementation.

Fortunately, the inner landscape deity of his heart palace naturally emerged from the palace, tasked with transporting the essence blood to nurture the heart qi. The deity sat astride the dragon’s head, clasped its horns with his hands, and chanted an incantation:

“Lord of the Five Palaces’ Heart, ride the dragon, press the tiger, submit!”

In this inner landscape world, the deity’s words became law. The inner world thundered in response, bolstering the heart lord’s authority. The blood dragon was quickly restrained and obediently guided by the heart lord to swim toward the heart palace.

The blood dragon merged into the palace’s blood river. In an instant, Cheng XinZhan felt a vast vitality emanate from the heart palace, spreading throughout his limbs and bones. It reminded him of the first time he opened his heart palace, when his body was filled with strength and even his internal injuries seemed to fade considerably.

No wonder this was the essence blood of a fourth-tier brocade dragon.

At the same moment, a dragon aura tinged with fiery intent rose from Cheng XinZhan’s body. Simultaneously, the Chi scale on his chest, which had never moved before, suddenly fluttered as if violated, emanating a dragon aura as vast as the sea.

His companions, Deng Ge’er and his third sister, prostrated themselves, unsure of what had happened.

“Boom!”

Cheng XinZhan would not allow his body to go out of control. He snorted coldly and produced a thunderous roar. In the nasal acupoint, the Thunder General wielded a great hammer, furiously striking a giant drum. The thunder roared through the inner landscape world as the thunder qi swiftly surged to the heart orifice and the scale orifice. The two foreign dragon auras immediately retracted.

After suppressing the two external dragon auras back into their respective orifices, he carefully felt the dragon auras within the inner landscape world. He had not expected that the Green Chi’s scale also contained dragon aura, which in spirit and meaning was no less than that of a brocade dragon.

More importantly, with these two dragon auras, he could now commence the cultivation of dragon thunder.

Previously, he had practiced divine thunder at the North Pole Division of Yingyuan Prefecture’s Exorcism Office. Later, when the sect leader reopened the Three Mountains auditing order, he had practiced water thunder in the Ganlin Division of Penglai Office.

Now, endowed with dragon aura, he could naturally seek out the North Pole Division’s Demon Slaying Office or even the Five Thunder Courtyard to cultivate dragon thunder techniques.

Too many late nights had left his body unwell. Today, he would add just a small chapter and rest early. He hoped the readers would understand.

(The End of this chapter)