Chapter 736: The Guardian
Before she spoke, she cleared her throat first, appearing very composed, even with a hint of childlike playfulness.
But both Shang Xingzhou and Chen Changsheng could hear her voice trembling slightly.
Not from excitement at meeting Chen Changsheng as a free being, but from unease.
She felt she was too close to that middle-aged Daoist, and it was dangerous.
At this moment, she still did not know that this man was Chen Changsheng’s master, but she clearly sensed that he had the power to harm or even kill her.
There were very few human experts in the world capable of harming or killing her, yet tonight, just after she had escaped centuries of imprisonment, she had encountered one.
This gave her a sense of fateful frustration, so much so that she dared not glance at Shang Xingzhou. Instead, she fixed her eyes on Chen Changsheng, appearing unusually earnest and focused.
She did not know that in Shang Xingzhou’s eyes, she was also an extremely dangerous existence.
Human records in the Daoist scriptures made it very clear: no amount of caution was excessive when dealing with the Dragon race, the highest-order beings beneath the starry sky.
Moreover, she was the most noble and powerful of the Dragon race—the Xuan Shuang Dragon. Her petite body contained an energy that countless human experts dreamed of but could never possess. If she learned to wield that power, or if it erupted even passively, it would inevitably create a terrifying spectacle and catastrophic consequences.
She feared Shang Xingzhou; Shang Xingzhou was wary of her; Chen Changsheng was simply astonished.
He never expected that she had actually escaped from the bottom of the well!
Even if the method he and Xu Yourong had used was correct, and his blood, driven by the sublimation of the Western Flow Canon, was accelerating the iron chain’s erosion by time, according to his calculations, it would still take at least two years for the chain to break. And after leaving the underground, why hadn’t she hurried away from this continent she despised, filled with human presence, and returned to the warm southern islands? Why had she come to the National Academy?
This negotiation had gained an unexpected variable, and it seemed to favor him, but Chen Changsheng was not pleased. He did not want anyone or anything outside himself to interfere in this negotiation—whether it was the priests of the Li Palace, the teachers and students of the National Academy, the masters of Li Mountain and Huaiyuan, or his senior brother worrying in the Night Palace at this moment. And what did she mean by those words?
Guardian? Chen Changsheng recalled the relevant records in the seventh volume of the Daoist Canon, “Morning Light Covenant,” and then remembered some past events the Pope had seemingly mentioned casually that night.
Whether it was the State Religion or the Daoist sect of old, to preserve an unchanging orthodoxy for ten thousand generations, they inevitably placed great importance on succession. The current Pope often began planning many years in advance, educating and cultivating successors. Those young disciples possessed extraordinary talent and astonishing potential for cultivation, but to grow into true experts capable of leading the Daoist path forward, they needed a long time and many trials. The number of orthodox Daoist successors had always been small—for instance, the previous generation had only the Pope and Shang Xingzhou, while this generation had only Yu Ren, Chen Changsheng, and Mu Jiushi, whom Shang Xingzhou had confirmed through some unknown method.
With such a long and arduous journey of cultivation and so few successors, logically, the Daoist lineage should have been at constant risk of being severed. Yet for countless years, the Daoist sect had passed down through countless generations without such an occurrence. Besides the fact that those successors were as remarkable as the master-disciple pair Yin and Shang, there was another very important reason: when these young successors traveled the world to cultivate, the Daoist sect often invited an extremely powerful or highly esteemed senior to act as the successor’s guardian.
The orthodoxy endured for ten thousand years without perishing, and this tradition had been maintained for many generations, even longer than the Great Zhou Dynasty. If Chen Changsheng had lived in the old temple of Xining Town as an orthodox successor of the State Religion, he should indeed have had a guardian, and that guardian would inevitably be one of the continent’s top experts, most likely one of the Eight Winds and Rains. But at that time, no one on the continent knew his identity. Now that he had become the Pope, did he still need a guardian? And why her?
“So, the person Yin spoke of was you.”
Shang Xingzhou’s expression was calm, showing no surprise, clearly having known about this matter beforehand.
He looked at the Little Black Dragon and said, “After centuries, you have finally left that old well at Beixin Bridge and gained freedom. Why not return to the Southern Sea?”
“Because this is my promise.” The Little Black Dragon stood before Chen Changsheng, looking at him earnestly.
Clearly, Shang Xingzhou had brought her immense pressure. Her small face was tense with anxiety, but she remained resolute.
Shang Xingzhou suddenly asked, “Will you protect him?”
She lifted her face, speaking with great pride, “Of course.”
Shang Xingzhou continued, “Are you willing, before the starry sky, to unite with him, to love him, respect him, comfort him, as you love yourself, whether he is sick or healthy, rich or poor, successful or failed, always placing his name before your own, until you leave this world and return to the sea of stars?”
These words came like a gentle breeze, slowly arriving, yet also like thunder, rumbling endlessly.
This was one of the most ancient texts in the canon—the oath of a guardian, the rule of the Li Palace.
She was silent for a moment, then said, “I am willing.”
Shang Xingzhou asked, “Even if it costs your life?”
Without any hesitation, she said, “Yes.”
Years ago, at the bottom of Beixin Bridge, she had already given Chen Changsheng something more important than life—at least, in her own eyes.
Of course, this did not mean she was truly willing to die for Chen Changsheng unconditionally, nor that she was unafraid of death. As a Dragon race with an exceedingly long life, death was something they rarely considered. But precisely because life was so long, when they occasionally thought of it, they felt a fear far beyond that of ordinary humans.
She stared into Shang Xingzhou’s eyes and said, “Wang Zhice didn’t dare kill me back then; he only dared to imprison me. I don’t believe you dare to kill me.”
In the common understanding of the cultivation world, Dragons were often considered immortal. The main reason for this impression, contrary to fact, was that Dragons were the highest-order beings beneath the starry sky, possessing immensely long lifespans and unimaginable power. Moreover, countless millennia ago, when the Dragons withdrew from the continent, they formed a covenant with the various realms—any being that actively offended a Dragon must die.
The reason this covenant had been passed down to the present day was not primarily due to how much the Demon race or the Human race valued promises, but rather stemmed from the Dragons’ strength. Whether peak experts of the Demon race or the Human race, even when facing a lone or weakened Dragon, they rarely attempted anything, because every Dragon had a Soul Pearl within its body. If that Dragon was killed, the Soul Pearl would shatter, and its kin in the far south would sense it and launch a ferocious retaliation.
Even the Great Zhou Dynasty, under the rule of Emperor Taizong, was unwilling to bear such a cost. When the Little Black Dragon had rampaged in the past, Wang Zhice captured her with a scheme but never killed her. Besides her having some redeemable qualities, the more important reason was that she was hard to kill—and hard to kill in two different senses.
For countless years, the Dragon race had remained far from the continent yet was an object of great reverence.
But in certain historical moments, occasional exceptions arose.