Chapter 44: Rumors in the Capital
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“Do we have to wait another few hundred years?”
“Or perhaps we should truly study the power of time. No matter how powerful the legends of old were, they could not surpass time.”
“Among the Three Thousand Dao Depositories, there is only one scroll on time.”
“Then let’s start with that scroll on time.”
“Understood. When the time comes, please help me deliberate on it.”
Having made up his mind and seeing that it was getting late, Chen Changsheng stood up to take his leave and walked out of the hall.
Shuang’er stood on the snowy ground outside the hall, keeping an eye on the surroundings. When she saw him come out, her expression was very complicated.
Chen Changsheng was about to say something to her when he suddenly heard Xu Yourong’s voice from behind.
“Are you very close to Miss Cinnabar?”
Chen Changsheng was taken aback for a moment before he understood that she was referring to the Little Black Dragon. Puzzled, he asked, “Close?”
“Mo Yu saw the two of you embracing before.”
Clearly, Xu Yourong was deliberately keeping her voice very calm, so calm that it was almost stiff.
Chen Changsheng was speechless, thinking, the Black Dragon is as big as a mountain—how could I possibly embrace her?
“Don’t you know that if she weren’t bound by her dragon form, she’d just be a pretty little girl?”
…
…
Night had fallen. Chen Changsheng silently gazed at the calm little pond and the broken ice fragments floating on the water’s surface.
The little girl and the Black Dragon—perhaps it was just a change in appearance, but the feeling they gave was completely different.
Having a name and not having a name also made a huge difference.
Wang Zhice had once given her a name: Cinnabar.
He had also given her two names: one was Zhi Zhi, and the other was Red Garment.
There seemed to be some faint, elusive connection between them.
The Xuan Shuang Giant Dragon that had died in the Zhou Garden possessed a noble soul that yearned infinitely for freedom.
She was the daughter of that Xuan Shuang Giant Dragon, and must have had a heart that craved freedom just as fiercely, yet she had been imprisoned for so many years.
It was truly pitiful.
He didn’t speak to the pond; he simply left.
That night, through the stone bead left by Wang Zhice, he entered the Zhou Garden.
He paid no attention to the sea of beasts bowing low before him, only noticing that the Zhou Garden was now much better than it had been before.
The water pools around the grasslands had been dredged clean, and the collapsed cliffs had been tidied up.
He went to the lakeside by the waterfall and found the scroll on time among the dried books on the rocks.
He returned to Mu Valley and, using the light cast from the distant horizon, began to read.
He didn’t know how much time had passed before he put away the scroll and said to the towering mountains before him, “Rest assured, I will rescue your daughter.”
…
…
In the courtyard of the North Military Command Alley, Zhou Tong was also reading the scroll on time.
Nowadays, people only remembered him as a cruel and fearsome minister of power, having long forgotten that he was once renowned for his profound knowledge and was a cultivator at the peak of the Star Gathering realm.
Since Archbishop Melisandre had returned to the Starry Sea, Zhou Tong had been studying the scroll on time. Only recently had he finally grasped the true meaning of this Daoist scripture.
“Can it really change the flow of time?”
Looking at the snow in the courtyard and the lonely crabapple tree standing in it, the sea of blood deep in Zhou Tong’s eyes churned violently, appearing exceptionally savage and terrifying. This showed that his mind was in a state of shock, his sea of consciousness unsettled, and even his cold Dao heart was struggling to maintain its composure.
As time passed, the sea of blood in his eyes gradually calmed, and a trace of weariness and sorrow appeared on his pale face. He knew that ever since he had decided to follow Her Holiness the Empress in ushering in a prosperous era and had sunk into this endless, irreversible sea of blood, he would never again reach the end of the long path of cultivation. Whether it was time or space, both were now realms he could no longer touch. But that didn’t mean no one in this world could achieve it.
He believed that if one could enter the legendary realm of Divine Concealment, or with the help of certain extremely powerful formations, it might truly be possible to alter the flow of time using the scroll on time. This would mean that someone’s age could have been modified—perhaps that young man and the late Crown Prince Zhaoming were actually the same age?
…
…
Two rumors spread through the capital.
The first rumor was utterly absurd: it claimed that the young Dean of the National Academy, Chen Changsheng, was a descendant of the Chen imperial clan, and even possibly the Crown Prince Zhaoming who had disappeared during the palace coup years ago. No one believed this, because Chen Changsheng was clearly much younger than Crown Prince Zhaoming. Moreover, compared to this seemingly shocking tale, the citizens of the capital preferred a much colder and more sinister rumor—that poor Crown Prince Zhaoming had been smothered in his swaddling clothes by Her Holiness the Empress herself.
The second rumor sparked more interest and gained more acceptance. Perhaps Tang Thirty-Six had drunk too much that night and told a dancer at the tavern; perhaps Shuang’er, when returning to the Eastern Divine General’s Mansion to fetch her lady’s usual hand warmer, had let something slip under the probing of the lady of the house; or perhaps some true masters, gazing down from the capital’s high towers at the streets and alleys, had spotted the young man and woman walking side by side, with the yellow paper umbrella failing to hide Chen Changsheng’s face… Many citizens of the capital had heard that in the days following the Battle of Naihe Bridge, the Holy Maiden and the young Dean often met, and it was said that the young Dean occasionally entered the palace to visit her.
Today was the day of Prince Chenliu’s banquet, and Chen Changsheng was the guest of honor. The theme of the gathering was snow appreciation, and snow appreciation naturally required poetry recitation. Several students from the National Academy, who had come with Chen Changsheng to broaden their horizons, debated poetry with students from the Five Ivy Academies and were defeated after just a few rounds. Though the status of Chen Changsheng and the National Academy was now completely different from before—no one from the Heavenly Dao Academy or the Ancestral Sacrifice Hall dared to mock them over this—the National Academy students still felt somewhat embarrassed and kept stealing glances at Chen Changsheng.
Chen Changsheng naturally noticed these looks and began to miss Tang Thirty-Six—that guy was the best person for handling such occasions. Whether being mocked, humiliated, ignored, or facing low morale or even despair, he always had a way to turn the atmosphere around.
As usual, for reasons unknown, Tang Thirty-Six, who had never liked Prince Chenliu, didn’t even bother with an excuse and directly refused to attend today’s poetry gathering. However, he didn’t go far. He sat with his favorite dancer in the National Academy’s carriage outside the prince’s residence, pointing at the falling snow outside the window and reciting verses, fully playing the part of a dashing young scion.
The gates of the prince’s residence opened, and Prince Chenliu personally escorted Chen Changsheng and the others out.
The snowfall had stopped earlier. Many citizens of the capital, fond of watching a good show, had gathered outside the prince’s residence. As Chen Changsheng appeared, countless gazes immediately turned toward him, accompanied by a buzz of whispers. The quiet street in front of the prince’s residence suddenly felt like a classroom.