Chapter 58: Storming the Dragon’s Lair Alone
Knowing Tong Palace did not mean one could break out of it. Finding the life gate of Tong Palace did not mean one could escape alive. In fact, throughout countless years from ancient times to the present, countless powerful figures had been imprisoned in Tong Palace, yet not a single one had dared to set foot through its life gate.
Those qualified to be imprisoned in Tong Palace were naturally extraordinary. They understood well the principle that life is death, and were certain that the Pope who built Tong Palace back then would never leave any loophole. Once one stepped through the life gate of Tong Palace, it was equivalent to stepping into a death zone.
In the abyss of despair, one could not always see hope. Who truly dared to seek life through death? Rather than choosing that seemingly simplest and most direct yet most dangerous path, it was better to try finding other methods. Even sitting alone in waiting was a better choice.
Chen Changsheng was likely the weakest prisoner in Tong Palace’s history, but he was the most special one. Unlike those former prisoners of Tong Palace, he had always been searching for hope in the abyss of despair, seeking life through death every day and every night.
He was the person in the world who treasured time the most, unwilling to waste it on futile struggles like resistance. After that conversation with Mo Yu confirmed some of his earlier conjectures, he made a decision very quickly and stepped into that cold pool without hesitation.
At that time, he didn’t know the cold pool he was about to enter was called Black Dragon Pool—even if he had known, it wouldn’t have mattered. He needed to leave the abandoned garden and rush to Weiyang Palace to do that thing, so whether what blocked his path was a tiger’s den or a dragon’s lair, he had to charge through it.
The abandoned garden was bitterly cold because of this cold pool, so the pool water was naturally even colder. The moment the soles of his feet touched the pool’s surface, he realized it was covered with an extremely thin, transparent layer of ice. With a series of cracking sounds, it broke under his step, turning into ice shards.
Chen Changsheng didn’t feel the pool water wetting his shoes, because his feet didn’t sink into the water. The cracking sounds continued. The thin ice on the pool’s surface split open, and the pool water beneath the ice also parted, revealing a stone staircase extending toward the bottom!
The stone staircase descended gradually from the shore to the pool’s depths. Its surface was bone-dry, with no trace of water, not even any moss.
The pool water was parted by an invisible force. The scene looked miraculous, and the darkness deep within the staircase seemed to hide endless dangers. Yet Chen Changsheng acted as if he hadn’t seen that wondrous sight at all, as if this passage had always been there. His expression was calm and steady.
After a dozen steps, the stone staircase disappeared beneath the pool water, and the entire passage sank to the bottom of the pool.
The ground of the passage remained dry, but frost had accumulated in the corners. The temperature here was even colder than at the shore. The starry sky and the music drifting from distant Weiyang Palace gradually faded away. The passage ahead grew darker and darker, until nothing was visible. The farther he walked, the more it felt like he was leaving the real world behind, on the verge of falling into an abyss or some other realm at any moment.
Chen Changsheng didn’t stop or slow down. Instead, he quickened his pace, until finally he was running.
He ran toward the dark abyss.
No one knew how much time passed before he reached the end of the passage, only to find that it wasn’t completely dark here.
The starry sky was gone, and the lanterns of Kyoto’s Seventh Night couldn’t reach this place. But behind the passage, some faint light still filtered through the clear pool water, dimly illuminating the space before him and a stone door.
This stone door was about ten zhang high, appearing extremely heavy. Its surface bore no carvings or decorations—just two massive boulders simply stacked together. It looked like a toy block set from the childhood of a god, or like some deity’s coffin, eerie and deadly.
What unsettled Chen Changsheng even more was the indescribable aura emanating from behind the stone door.
At the side gate of the Heavenly Academy and the side hall of Weiyang Palace, he had twice felt the oppressive aura Xu Shiji deliberately released. Yet compared to the restrained aura behind the stone door, the powerful general’s presence was like a mere cricket—not even on the same level.
Yes, Chen Changsheng had never felt such an aura from behind the stone door before, nor had he ever heard of anything like it. It was an existence completely beyond ordinary imagination. Approaching it meant absolute crushing, an inescapable death.
Not to mention that he was just an ordinary fourteen-year-old youth. Even a Star Gathering realm powerhouse like Mo Yu couldn’t withstand this aura head-on. Even a Saint Realm master would choose to flee far away!
That aura wasn’t deliberately released by the terrifying existence behind the stone door; it was merely residual energy seeping through the door’s cracks. Yet even so, it crushed Chen Changsheng’s body and soul, turning his face pale as snow, his feet seemingly frozen to the ground.
Granny Ning worried he might mistakenly enter the life gate and encounter the legendary being beyond the stone door. Mo Yu didn’t think so, because she was certain that no one, after feeling the aura behind the stone door, would dare push it open and walk in. As for an ordinary youth like Chen Changsheng, he couldn’t even stand—how could he enter?
No one expected reality to differ from Mo Yu’s assumption.
Chen Changsheng was in extreme agony, but he didn’t collapse. He even managed to keep his mind clear.
He didn’t understand why either. He had never encountered such a majestic aura as the one behind the stone door, yet his body and spirit naturally produced some extremely subtle reactions and changes, allowing him to stand clear-headed before that pressure.
He didn’t know that when he was just born, before his eyes had even opened, he had once encountered an existence similar to the high-level life behind the stone door.
That majestic aura still lingered.
Chen Changsheng’s body was stiff, but he didn’t fall, nor could he leave.
Instinctively, he gripped the short sword in his hand tighter, because he felt that the tighter he held it, the more bearable the pressure from behind the stone door became. He felt much more comfortable, as if a force was flowing from the sword’s hilt into his body, protecting him.
He didn’t know what that force was. He thought it was courage.
The short sword was a gift from Senior Brother Yuren before he left the mountain.
He had read through the Three Thousand Daoist Scriptures and never found anyone more courageous than Senior Brother Yuren.
So he believed his senior brother’s sword was the source of courage.
Holding the short sword, he lifted his foot and took a step forward. His palm pressed against the stone door and pushed.
Silently, the heavy stone door slowly opened with his push.
Deep beneath the Great Zhou imperial city, a stone door that had never been opened since its construction was pushed open tonight.
A few specks of dust rose—the dust of history.
This history had lasted a thousand years.
…
…
Behind the stone door was darkness—absolute darkness.
Chen Changsheng held the short sword horizontally across his chest with one hand and took out a night pearl with the other, raising it high.
This night pearl was dazzlingly bright, round as a melon. It was the one Luo Luo had presented to him as a token of respect when she became his disciple. No one knew where he had kept it before.
Soft light radiated from the night pearl in his hand, spreading in all directions. Yet after a long time, it still hadn’t illuminated anything like stone walls.
This was an extremely vast space, so empty it seemed capable of holding a real palace.
Chen Changsheng couldn’t imagine that beneath the Great Zhou imperial palace, there could be such a huge underground space. Based on the distance he had run earlier, his current position was likely already beyond the palace walls, somewhere unknown beneath Kyoto.
The light from the night pearl gradually reached farther, and the boundless space began to feel real.
In the distance, silver light flickered densely, like countless layers of silver shavings, or like all the stars in the night sky descending to the mortal world.
Chen Changsheng raised the night pearl and walked toward it. When he reached the silver shavings, he was shocked to discover they were actually piles of silver ingots!
Countless silver ingots formed a sea of silver.
At the center of the silver sea stood a mountain of gold blocks.
On the peak of that gold mountain grew a coral tree, crimson to the extreme.
Among the dense branches of the coral tree hung countless fruits carved from diamonds and crystals.
A sea of silver, a mountain of gold, red coral, and ten thousand jade fruits.
This scene was truly vulgar—too rich, unspeakably rich.
Chen Changsheng was speechless with shock, almost forgetting the oppressive aura.
He had never seen so much money in his life.
To be precise, no one on this continent had ever seen so much gold and treasure.
The surface of the silver sea was covered with a thin layer of frost.
Many silver ingots had begun to flake on the surface, piling up like wood shavings. The silver shavings he had seen earlier were these.
The underground space was so cold that even silver couldn’t withstand it.
Just then, a cold wind suddenly arose.
Ripples formed on the surface of the silver sea. Countless silver shavings rustled and shifted. The frost deepened, and snow began to accumulate in the depths of the silver sea.
This cold wind blew for a long time.
A layer of frost formed on Chen Changsheng’s body, and his eyebrows and eyelashes turned white.
But his heart grew even colder.
Because this long-lasting cold wind was just a single breath.
An extremely long and terrifying breath.
In the dark night, two faint flames suddenly appeared.
Those two flames were pure and cold, without any color.
They seemed like icy fire from the underworld.
The two flames slowly approached Chen Changsheng.
That terrifying aura enveloped the entire underground space.
Chen Changsheng could no longer bear it. Blood began to seep from the corners of his mouth.
Something called emotion suddenly appeared in those two flames.
First confusion, then shock, then wild joy, then curiosity, and finally, it all turned into coldness and brutality.
This naturally couldn’t be real underworld fire. They were a pair of cold eyes, larger than Chen Changsheng’s entire body.
How massive must the creature possessing these eyes be?
The night pearl left Chen Changsheng’s hand, floating up until it settled on the dome.
Suddenly, the entire dome lit up. Because thousands of night pearls were embedded in it. Earlier, when Chen Changsheng looked at the silver sea, he thought the stars of the night sky had descended to the mortal world. Now he understood that this place had its own night sky and stars.
The underground space gradually brightened.
A black rock appeared in midair.
Then more and more black rocks appeared.
Those black rocks absorbed the light falling from the dome, not letting a single ray escape.
Chen Changsheng saw clearly—they weren’t rocks. They were scales.
Each massive black rock was a black scale.
In this world, only one kind of scale could be so huge—dragon scales.
A terrifying black dragon slowly emerged in the night sky.
It looked down at Chen Changsheng, its eyes like underworld fire, cold and cruel.