Ze Tian Ji

Edited by: Michyrr

Chen Changsheng reclined against the pillar for a very long time. Only when the sun had moved west and his body was warm did he finally open his eyes.

The Black Goat walked in front of him, preparing him to lead him out.

Chen Changsheng shook his head at it, saying, "I still have some other things to do."

He continued to sit where he was, gazing at the pieces of ice in the pool in silence as he mulled over something.

The Black Goat’s eyes, dark as the night, revealed a bewildered expression.

After quite some time had passed, Chen Changsheng stood up. He did not leave the Imperial Palace and return to the Orthodox Academy, but instead went to another palace hall.

He had already visited this palace hall several times. Every time, he would come under the cloak of the night and speak a few words with her through the window. This was the first time he walked into the hall.

As expected, Shuang’er had also entered the Imperial Palace. She instantly paled on seeing his face and nearly cried out in alarm. With great difficulty, she calmed herself down, but when she served tea, her hands shook so much that she almost soaked his body.

"Don’t take it to heart, I can say with great certainty that she isn’t thinking about seizing the moment to take revenge on you."

Xu Yourong looked at him and calmly asked, "What happened?"

She was keenly aware that since she had requested for their relationship not be known, Chen Changsheng would definitely not risk it being discovered for a normal situation.

Chen Changsheng dithered for a while before saying, "I...have a friend who’s been imprisoned in a place for a very long time and I want to rescue him."

Hearing this, Xu Yourong fell silent, then softly asked, "And?"

"In the past, he might have done some bad things, but...he’s already been imprisoned for so long, it’s really very pitiful."

Chen Changsheng didn’t know how to talk about this matter, so his words were rather disorderly, "But I’m powerless to do it, so..."

Xu Yourong did not wait for him to finish. Calmly looking him in the eyes, she asked, "You’re sure you want to do this?"

Chen Changsheng vacantly stared back for a moment, then very seriously replied, "Yes, I want to do this."

Xu Yourong continued to stare into his eyes, asking, "Your friend...is Zhusha?"

(TN: Zhusha means ’Cinnabar’)

Chen Changsheng was somewhat confused, "Zhusha?"

Xu Yourong was rather surprised, asking, "You don’t know her name?"

Startled, Chen Changsheng replied, "You know who I’m talking about?"

Xu Yourong explained, "Zhusha is precisely the name of the little dragon girl. It’s said that back then, it was Wang Zhice that named her so."

Chen Changsheng looked at her in shock, saying, "You know about the Black Dragon?"

Xu Yourong nodded.

Chen Changsheng said nothing for a very long time. The Black Dragon was a taboo of the Great Zhou Imperial Palace, a secret known by very few. However, Xu Yourong was the Holy Maiden and was also taught and raised by the Divine Empress. For her to know of this matter was truly not difficult to imagine.

"As it turns out...she was called Zhusha."

"As it turns out, you didn’t know."

"Why was it Lord Wang Zhice that gave her this name?"

”Many years ago, the entire Golden Dragon tribe suddenly vanished, so the respected Black Frost Dragons became the sole candidate for the next leaders of the Dragon race. But that generation’s most powerful Black Frost Dragon possessed a soul that had an incomparable longing for freedom and was not willing to bear this burden. Quietly and invisibly, it came to the human world and then encountered Zhou Dufu."

"After that?"

"The noblest, most powerful, most proud Black Frost Dragon in the past one thousand years fell to the earth and became the Garden of Zhou’s Sunset Valley."

Chen Changsheng fell silent.

Back in the Garden of Zhou, he had once seen with his own eyes that magnificent sight of the winding mountain range ablaze in the twilight. He had also felt that peculiar feeling arising from the soul of the Black Dragon, but he could never have imagined that Sunset Valley had originally been the fallen body of that Black Frost Dragon.

"After that?"

"Zhusha was this Black Frost Dragon’s daughter. Somehow, she managed to leave the dragon islands in the Southern Sea and arrive alone to the human world...according to the records left behind in the Li Palace and the Imperial Court, she said that before her father left, he had forgotten to bestow upon her a name, and the name given to her by the tribal elders was too long, too ugly-sounding, and too difficult to remember. She didn’t like it, so she came to the human world to find her father and have him give her a better-sounding name."

"She just wanted a name?"

"Yes, so in those years, she was called the evil dragon searching for a name."

"Evil dragon?"

"Yes, after she came ashore on the continent from the Southern Sea, she destroyed many fishing villages and towns, killed many people, and almost caused chaos in the capital itself. You should know what happened after, Lord Wang Zhice made a plan to capture her and then used that array to imprison her under New North Bridge."

Chen Changsheng shook his head. "That’s not called a plan, it’s deception."

Xu Yourong thought it over, then agreed, "It truly is."

Chen Changsheng asked, "Why did Wang Zhice give her the name Zhusha?"

Xu Yourong noticed that this time when mentioning Wang Zhice, he did not address him as ’Lord’, so she couldn’t help but faintly smile.

"No one knows why, but there’s definitely some profound meaning behind this naming that Lord Wang Zhice gave her."

She glanced at him as if it held some deeper meaning.

Chen Changsheng paid no attention to it, asking, "So then how old is she now?"

"If we equate the lives of the Dragon race to us humans, then she should be one or two years younger than us?"

"Although I thought about it before, I still found it somewhat weird...I’ve always called her Senior."

"You still want to rescue her?"

"Yes."

"Even if she once committed monstrous crimes?"

"You said before, she’s only one or two years younger than us, so when she left the Southern Sea and came to the human world, how old was she? One or two years old?"

Chen Changsheng fell silent for a while, then continued, "I don’t know what happened back then in those fishing villages and towns, nor do I have any intention of defending her, but she was just an infant back then. Even if she committed the most heinous of crimes, I think several hundred years of imprisonment is enough."

Xu Yourong very seriously pondered this, then softly replied, "It truly is enough."

Chen Changsheng was very happy that she shared the same opinion as him, but no matter how slow-witted he was, even he knew that his request was rather inappropriate. Thus, he did not become overjoyed, but instead even more prudent and cautious. His voice became much softer as he asked, "Can you help me?"

Xu Yourong looked back at him and earnestly replied, "Of course I can, but besides the Divine Empress and His Holiness, who could remove the array left behind by Lord Wang Zhice?"

Chen Changsheng recalled that conversation in the Li Palace he had with his Martial Uncle, the Pope, after his return to the capital from the Garden of Zhou, and then shook his head.

Xu Yourong understood and said, "Although I haven’t personally seen it, I can also imagine that this array is not something the two of us can break with our current level of strength."

"We can’t wait around forever. No matter how many years pass, it’s not like New North Bridge will actually become a real bridge."

"That’s not necessarily the case. Even an ocean can become a mulberry field—the strength of time is far more powerful than we can imagine."

......