The Old Man and the Sea

On Lone-Hanging Peak, in Dragon-Baiting Pool, Elder Sikong gazed at the silver waters with a profound expression, his aged hand clenched tightly around the fishing rod.

Since the day the people from Silver Sword Peak had left, the rod’s trembling had grown steadily more frequent. At first it quivered only once in half a day; now it shook once every moment.

Eyes that had seen no ripples for more than a hundred years suddenly blazed with clear, piercing light.

After another brief stillness, the rod trembled again. This time the golden fishing line was pulled taut in an instant. Within Dragon-Baiting Pool, a vast silver whirlpool began to form, and with its rotation the wind and clouds shifted dramatically.

The sky darkened at once; black clouds gathered!

Elder Sikong felt a force coming from beyond. He spread his arms and braced the rod with all his strength, his upper body shaking uncontrollably. Before long, the whirlpool grew larger and larger, yet nothing emerged.

Feeling that his strength was failing, he gritted his teeth, bit through the tip of his tongue, and spat a mouthful of blood onto the golden rod. Then he pointed with his right hand.

In an instant, golden flames burst from the rod where his palm rested, and with a sharp hiss the fire devoured the entire golden line, extending toward that unseen, mysterious whirlpool.

Elder Sikong knew he was not fighting against the thing at the other end of the rod. Rather, they were joining forces to resist some vast, nameless law!

With a thunderous boom, as the golden fire rose, the power at the rod’s end surged violently. He rose on his old legs, mustering the lonely courage of his final years. Golden radiance burst all around him, making him seem like a deity.

A deep rumbling followed, like the collapse of great city walls, coming from within the already skyward-reaching whirlpool.

From the end of the fiery line, a massive head suddenly burst forth. Just the eyes on that head were taller than Elder Sikong’s whole body.

Its horns were proud, its scales gleamed, and within its eyes burned vertical pupils wreathed in golden flame. It seemed to have come by way of some thorn-choked road; its ancient scales were full of fractures and breaks, with traces of blood still visible, as though it had survived some titanic battle of gods and demons.

It was unmistakably a dragon.

“It has been more than a hundred years...”

Elder Sikong’s voice trembled. With a dragon’s head appearing before the world, the weather above and below changed in an instant...

Golden, scale-like clouds shrouded the sky for hundreds of li.

Amid the crackling roar of shattered thunder,

a winding body leapt into the air and finally broke free of the whirlpool. A white true dragon soared high overhead, graceful and powerful!

“At last... Shushan has given birth to a dragon!”

Tears seemed to glisten in Elder Sikong’s eyes.

After waiting bitterly for more than a hundred years without giving up, this moment felt like a gift from heaven, a harvest finally reaped!

But the enormous white dragon did not spare the old man, who had waited so long for it, even a glance. Its vertical pupils, burning with fire, were icy cold. It turned its head and suddenly lunged toward the direction of Sky-Piercing Peak.

It was as though that was its true destination!

With a roar, the true dragon took to the sky, and wind and clouds followed in its wake.

In a single turn it had already reached Sky-Piercing Peak. At that very moment, however, a colossal hand reached out from the heavens!

That giant palm emerged from the clouds, five fingers pressing down upon the dragon’s head. With that one press, it actually rendered the storm-turning, cloud-ruling dragon unable to move!

“A true dragon of our age willing to bear the fortunes of Shushan is indeed a blessing to our mountain sect. But this mortal world is too small to withstand a true dragon’s upheaval. I ask that you remain in peace. From this day forth, Dragon-Baiting Pool shall be your dwelling.”

The voice rolled across the heavens like thunder.

Within the white dragon’s pupils, flames flickered in and out, seeming to hold unwillingness. Whether it was unable to contend with that giant hand or had understood the reasoning, it swept its tail once through the sea of clouds, then plunged back into the now-still Dragon-Baiting Pool.

At that moment, every gaze in the world was drawn to the clouds.

Though the one who had struck did not appear, everyone knew who it was.

The current leader of Shushan, Venerable Wen Yuan.

One palm subdued the dragon!

...

Only moments earlier, Chu Liang had still been enduring unprecedented embarrassment atop Sky-Piercing Peak.

Faced with the questioning of the disciples from the Heavenly Pivot Pavilion, he had racked his brain, trying to think of how to explain things to them. After those questions just now, he had already grasped the key issue.

You can never wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.

A simple story of punishing evil and upholding justice was something the Heavenly Pivot Gazette wrote several times in every issue; it was no longer enough to seize attention.

This Zhang Xiaohan was clearly trying to steer the matter toward scandal between him and Xue Lingxue.

And now, with the Southern Melody Pavilion on tour, Xue Lingxue and the others were at the height of their fame. If some ambiguous gossip surfaced at such a time, it would surely draw countless eyes.

She wanted to make a huge splash!

Having understood this, Chu Liang shifted his thoughts from how to explain himself to how to deal with Zhang Xiaohan.

In truth, under ordinary circumstances, he would not have minded much. But now Miss Jiang was sitting across from him, smiling as she watched. For some reason, he felt a cold wind creeping up his back.

He had a strong sense that if he answered wrongly, trouble would follow.

After thinking it over, he lowered his voice and said, “What happened between Miss Xue and me was nothing more than an excuse she used to turn down the invitation from that young marquis. You know... why would she not want to have anything to do with the young marquis of the Marquis of Ding Mountain?”

“Do you know what kind of perverse nature that young marquis has... or the story behind the father and son of the Marquis of Ding Mountain?”

“Do you know the truth behind my publicly binding that young marquis...?”

“Was it the distortion of human nature, or the corruption of morals...?”

“Do you know?”

This string of rhetorical questions immediately set Zhang Xiaohan’s eyes blazing.

She knew she had been stirred with curiosity herself, and readers of the Seven Stars Gazette would surely be interested in those explosive words as well.

So she urged Chu Liang, “Go on. In detail.”

“Don’t rush,” Chu Liang said, waving a hand. Let me make this up for you slowly...

There was no helping it. If he wanted people to stop paying attention to one explosive matter, suppression would not work. The best method was to throw out something even more explosive.

This was what you called shifting the trending topic.

To keep Zhang Xiaohan from focusing on him and Xue Lingxue, he could only throw out something a bit more lurid.

It was just...

He would have to wrong the young marquis a little again.

Though he probably would not mind a little more wronging, would he?

Just as he was about to speak, Chu Liang suddenly felt a chill of alarm, as though some terrifying gaze had turned toward them. He looked up and found that Jiang Yuebai across from him had also tensed at the same time.

She had sensed it too.

Then came the shifting of wind and clouds, thunder rolling across the horizon, and a dragon’s cry that shook heaven and earth!

All the Shushan disciples on Sky-Piercing Peak rushed out and looked toward the clouds and sky, toward that awe-inspiring sight.

The white dragon soared with divine grace, and a giant hand covered the heavens.

The conversation was interrupted, and everyone flew out to see what had happened.

The moment Zhang Xiaohan saw that giant dragon, her excitement surged beyond measure. She realized that her trip had coincided with a major event in the mortal realm!

“Legend says that many years ago, a great upheaval struck the mortal world. The true dragon clan left the ancient Dragon Nest and went to the legendary Dragon-Taming Abyss. From then on, there were no more true dragons in the mortal realm.”

“Only immense fortune can summon a true dragon from the Dragon-Taming Abyss.”

“But in this world today, the only true dragons that suppress fortune are the Azure Dragon of the Supreme Penglai Sect and the Golden Dragon of the Yu Dynasty’s national destiny—just those two. Even if there are others, at most they are fortune flood-dragons, not true dragons.”

“Yet today, Shushan has also drawn a true dragon to suppress its fortune...”

“The pattern of the mortal realm may be about to change dramatically!”