Chapter 42: Ice and Snow Have Never Been Smart
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That ordinary Taoist surnamed Wu had no fame to speak of. In his lifetime, he had written only three books, one of which was that *Compendium of Array Diagrams*. At first, Chen Changsheng merely skimmed through it without much hope, but the more he read, the more he felt something was off. The formations recorded in Wu's *Compendium of Array Diagrams* were all very simple, even crude by some standards—utterly unremarkable to anyone accomplished in cultivation. Yet on a few pages, he vaguely discerned traces of the formation from the Boiling Stone Forest.
Time passed slowly. Chen Changsheng continued reading, without a trace of anxiety or irritation, his gaze calm and resolute.
He had promised the Black Dragon that he would rescue her, and so he would. If not this year, then next year; there would always be a year when he could. He firmly believed that the Black Dragon would not remain imprisoned underground for centuries more. Of course, all of this was predicated on his surviving past the age of twenty.
"A few nights ago, I saw a burning sword... very powerful."
A cold, crisp voice sounded behind him. At some point, the Black Dragon had silently drifted to his back. When she mentioned that burning sword, a flicker of fear passed deep within her dragon eyes. "That was... Su Li's sword?"
Chen Changsheng had long since confirmed the Black Dragon's gender and had heard this voice before, but he still found it somewhat unsettling.
During the ten-thousand-mile journey south, the Black Dragon had spent most of her time asleep because she had expended too much of her divine soul suppressing his injuries back in the Zhou Garden. But he had to admit that another important reason she refused to wake was her desire to avoid being discovered by Su Li.
At that time, Su Li was gravely wounded, weaker than an ordinary person, yet the Black Dragon still instinctively feared him. She had sensed it back in the snowy mountain hot spring—Su Li's sword had once slain many of her kind, even those stronger than herself.
"Senior Su Li fought a battle with Her Holiness the Saint Empress... the final result was probably a draw?"
"And you? You haven't come to see me for so many days—you must be very busy. What have you been up to?"
"I've been researching books on formations."
Chen Changsheng glanced at the two towering portraits of divine generals on the stone wall, then added, "...The rest of the time, I've been preparing for a battle."
"You're the next Pope. Who would dare challenge you?"
"Many people."
"You don't have to fight them."
"That one, I can't avoid."
"Who?"
"Xu Yourong."
"...Your fiancée?"
For some reason, the Black Dragon's voice turned cold, its tone losing much of its inflection.
Chen Changsheng didn't notice this. "I don't know if she still counts as my fiancée now."
A complex emotion flickered in the Black Dragon's eyes. "Tell me about it."
After a moment's hesitation, Chen Changsheng recounted everything that had happened in recent days to the Black Dragon in full detail—from the events around the Bridge of Helplessness to the snowy night when he entered the palace, and even the most subtle emotions in his heart, holding nothing back.
This was the first time he had spoken about these matters between himself and Xu Yourong. Though he had mentioned it to Tang Thirty-Six, he had never gone into such detail. He concealed nothing from the Black Dragon because she had saved his life several times, and he trusted her deeply. Although he knew that, given the dragon race's immense lifespan, this Black Dragon was only just entering adolescence, she had still lived for centuries. Subconsciously, he always regarded her as a venerable senior.
In short, he trusted the Black Dragon completely and found it convenient, so he recounted everything without omission.
The underground space fell into a deep silence. Suddenly, a layer of frost appeared on the stone wall, obscuring the faces of the two legendary divine generals.
The Black Dragon drifted down. Her pitch-black dragon eyes reflected Chen Changsheng's figure, and then she slowly opened her mouth.
During his recent visits to Beixin Bridge, whenever Chen Changsheng exhausted himself studying formations and pondering ways to free the Black Dragon, she would lower her noble head and exhale a cool, refreshing dragon breath to dispel his fatigue and restore his spirit—just as she had done earlier.
Chen Changsheng had grown accustomed to this. Seeing her action now, he naturally closed his eyes, ready to welcome the chill laced with specks of frost and snow.
A low, solemn dragon roar sounded.
A stream of dragon breath landed on Chen Changsheng's face and body.
It was not the coolness of frost and snow, but the true breath of a Black Frost Dragon.
In an instant, Chen Changsheng's body froze solid, encased in a block of transparent ice.
...
...
Water gently lapped against the ice block, producing a splashing sound.
This was not the Luo River, but a small pond within the palace. Because of the formations, the palace remained spring-like year-round, and the small pond never froze.
For Chen Changsheng, this was both good and bad.
A massive, transparent ice block bobbed up and down in the pond water, and he was frozen inside it.
It was good that the pond hadn't frozen because the water's flow helped the ice melt faster. It was bad because the water constantly churned, causing the ice block to sink and rise unevenly, tumbling about. He was uncomfortable inside and, moreover, very embarrassed.
Embarrassment usually only struck when someone saw you in an awkward situation.
If no one was watching, whether you were like Tang Thirty-Six hugging a tree and hiccupping in a snowy forest, or like him now, frozen in an ice block and drifting with the current, it didn't matter. Chen Changsheng felt embarrassed now because someone had been watching him all along.
To be precise, it wasn't a person.
The Black Goat stood by the pond, its head slightly tilted, staring at him inside the ice block.
It had been watching for a long time, apparently finding this very amusing, and hadn't left.
Thus, Chen Changsheng grew more and more embarrassed.
If he could have broken out of the ice, he would have done so long ago. But the Black Frost Dragon's breath was truly extraordinary—it had frozen both his sea of consciousness and his body solid. Even though he now fully mastered the Liao Tian Sword and could condense sword intent into flames, he couldn't shatter the ice around him.
It took him a long time just to melt the thin layer of ice over his face, barely opening his eyes.
Time passed slowly. The ice block continued to bob up and down, and the Black Goat kept watching with keen interest, as if it didn't understand what he was doing—or whether this was some kind of cultivation technique.
The ice in front of Chen Changsheng's face melted more and more. After opening his eyes, he could finally move his mouth. He quickly shouted to the Black Goat, "Please help me."
Because of that shout, icy water poured into his mouth and nose, choking him terribly.
Though his voice was very weak, the Black Goat understood his lip movements.
As it had every time over the past two years when Chen Changsheng needed help, the Black Goat responded to his request.
The Black Goat walked slowly into the pond, used its horns to push the large ice block back onto the stone steps, then lowered its head and pressed down with force.
With a crisp cracking sound, the ice split open, and Chen Changsheng tumbled out.
He was drenched in icy water, frozen to the bone. His face was pale, and the cold had invaded his lower dantian and sea of consciousness, leaving him with not-insignificant internal injuries.
A flicker of fear and bewilderment passed through his eyes.
Why had the Black Dragon suddenly become so cold and violent? What had he done to offend her?
The snow clouds above the palace gradually dispersed, revealing the faint, almost fake sun.
No matter how faint or unreal it seemed, it was still the real sun, and its light was warm.
Chen Changsheng took a spare set of clothes from his sword sheath. His hands and feet were stiff from the cold, and it took him a long time to change with difficulty.
He leaned against a pillar of the desolate palace, closed his eyes, and began to restore his body temperature with the sunlight.
The Black Goat slowly bent its front legs, crouched quietly beside him, and then slowly closed its eyes.
...
...
Much later, when Chen Changsheng looked back on that winter day, he would always feel a mix of emotion and faint melancholy.
Back then, he was still very young, so there were many things he didn't understand, many details he failed to notice.
Those details lay both in the underground lit by night pearls and by the sunlit pond.
He thought the Black Dragon was a senior, someone he could trust, someone convenient to confide his romantic troubles to.
In that statement alone, there were two absolute mistakes.
Of course, the Black Dragon was worthy of his trust, but she was not a senior. As she listened to Chen Changsheng's story about Xu Yourong, she found it very inconvenient.
Because she was a young girl, and she had every reason to be angry.
In the dark, cold underground cave, the young girl was eating.
She didn't want to eat in front of Chen Changsheng in her dragon form, because that would be too ravenous and lacking in grace—she was afraid of scaring him.
But Chen Changsheng didn't understand, so she was very angry.
She was also angry when she heard about Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong meeting on the Bridge of Helplessness.
She had thought before that it would be better if he never knew about this... but now, whether it was the food or her anger, her cheeks puffed up slightly. Her beautiful little face was full of displeasure, the vermilion scar between her brows brimming with murderous intent, and her dignified vertical pupils were now filled with grievance.
"Faithless man! If it weren't for the fact that you also had a wound on your brow on the Bridge of Helplessness, making you a bit like me... I would have swallowed you whole just now."
She held the blue lobster in both hands, gnawing on it fiercely, hatefully, like chewing on sugarcane, while thinking fiercely, hatefully.
It didn't take long for her to finish all the dozens of snacks Chen Changsheng had brought.
Under her black clothes, her belly was only slightly rounded.
Then, she slowly lowered her head and sat in her own shadow.
In truth, she didn't care what she ate.
No matter what she ate, she ate alone.
She just didn't want to eat alone.
She had been eating alone for centuries.
She wished someone could eat with her.
Or if not eat, just talk.
Or if not talk, just sit together.
...
...
(Note: Yesterday I said there would only be one chapter today, but in the afternoon I felt in good form and decided to write another one. However, when I locked myself in the writing room, I entered too many words, and it ended up taking until now to finish. My apologies for the wait, everyone.)