Dragon Drinking

More than a hundred years ago, the Qian Family's situation had been completely different!

Back then, their ancestor Jing Chuan had relied on a White-Fang-grade Tidal Fate to miraculously condense a Dharma Form. He cultivated all the way to the Dragon-Elephant Perfection Realm, then won first place in the Dragon Boat Race and leaped to become the master helmsman of the Hun Ling Number!

This had been a comprehensive, thorough leap between social classes! The entire Qian Family had soared along with him.

From then on, the Qian Family had advanced by leaps and bounds. Raising its younger generation, seizing benefits, pursuing power—nothing had been beyond its reach.

But all of this had completely gone belly-up when the Hun Ling Number fell.

Its rise had been vigorous; its demise had been sudden!

Everything that followed had already been fated.

As for Jing Qian at this moment, he possessed a Tidal Fate, which was enough to help him perfectly blend into Jing Qian's identity.

He also clearly knew how important such a thoroughly legitimate heir of an Aristocratic Clan would be to his future development.

Whether to hide himself and avoid calamity, seize resources, or even pursue higher cultivation, he needed a platform like the Qian Family!

And solving the Qian Family's disaster and severing the hands reaching toward it was the first challenge he had encountered after coming to HunZhou Island!

At that very moment, he was sprinting at top speed precisely to solve the problem at its root.

These people dared to act so recklessly, caring not at all that the Qian Family were descendants of meritorious cultivators and martyrs, and were here to devour the family property after its men had died.

It was all because the Qian Family's cultivator lineage had completely broken off!

All the men in the family were gone, leaving only one young male heir.

One had to understand that in this cultivation world, great power belonged to the human body.

A mortal like Jing Qian, who could not advance in cultivation, did not even possess the most basic human rights!

Others did not even need to act personally. A little wind stirred from the sidelines could produce countless possibilities, any one of which might cause him to die young.

The Qian Family's final breath was hanging entirely on a female cultivator in the Determining Destiny Realm.

No wonder others, driven by greed, had dared to move against the Qian Family.

But Jing Qian intended to completely change this situation!

In the most legitimate manner, he would face every obstacle and doubt, complete the crucial breakthrough in cultivation, and appear before everyone in an entirely new form.

After leaving Hun Zhou Sea Market, he traveled thirty li along the broad, dried-up riverbed before finally arriving before a huge stone platform.

The stone platform had been built right beside the riverbed. A small bronze gong stood upright on it, with a small azure-jade mallet hanging beside it.

Jing Qian ignored everything else, walked forward, picked up the mallet, and struck the bronze gong.

"!"

A crisp ringing note traveled far into the distance, as though echoing leisurely between heaven and earth.

Afterward, he stood before the bronze gong and began to wait.

At the same time, a ninth-grade cultivator of the Determining Destiny Realm rode a ninth-grade great ram, leading a squad of armored cavalry in pursuit of Jing Qian.

In everyone's eyes, Jing Qian was nothing more than a child who had yet to determine his destiny. Sending a Determining Destiny Realm cultivator to lead the team was absolutely foolproof.

But unexpectedly, when this group had covered only half the distance, they heard that ringing note resound across the heavens.

The ringing sounded light and gentle, yet it leisurely spread across the entirety of HunZhou Island, spanning ten thousand li!

Upon hearing it, the ninth-grade Determining Destiny Realm cultivator's expression changed drastically, and he could not help shouting:

"Who gave him the nerve to strike the Dragon Drinking Plate?"

"He's courting death himself, saving me the trouble!"

"We're pulling out!"

With that, he turned his ram around and led his men back toward Hun Zhou Sea Market at top speed.

As he ran, he said to a nearby rider:

"That brat from the Qian Family struck the Dragon Drinking Plate. No one could have expected it. Since I didn't get to witness his death, you can't blame that on me. As for the gold from your Qian Family, I certainly won't refund it."

Hearing this, the mortal rider curled his lips but said nothing more.

At the cavern wharf, boats moved in endless streams, day and night without pause. It was a bustling scene, just like every ordinary day in the past.

But when the ringing of the Dragon Drinking Plate came, everyone seemed to freeze, stopping all movement.

Yet in the next second, they all seemed to have been jolted by electricity. They leaped up in shock and scattered like birds and beasts!

As they fled, all sorts of people shouted wildly:

"It's over, it's over, it's over! We're going to die, we're going to die, we're going to die!"

"Did someone really strike the Dragon Drinking Plate? Did I hear wrong?"

Looking again, the various boats on the lake were speeding toward both sides of the great lake.

Many large ships unloading cargo at the wharf abandoned even their goods, leaving them on the shore as they hauled up their anchors and fled.

Before long, the entire cavern began to shake violently. An earthquake of no less than magnitude eight erupted without warning!

It was not limited to these two places!

When the ringing resounded, every part of HunZhou Island reacted. Most of those reactions were negative, filled with terror.

Yet the instigator of the ringing still quietly guarded the stone platform, as though waiting for something.

Jing Qian had clearly come to HunZhou Island for the first time, yet he had gone and pulled off something huge the moment he arrived!

His recklessness all came from a fragment of memory belonging to Jing Ran.

It was a crystal-clear conversation that had likewise taken place on this very stone platform:

"Little Sister, don't worry about me. Although making the delivery during a Yin Year carries an extra fifty percent of danger, the Qian Family is offering far too much. As long as I complete this trip, I'll have saved enough for the Dragon-Elephant advancement needed by you and me—even Xiao Qian."

"You stay in the Sea Market and guard the Household. If some blind fool truly makes things difficult for you, at worst, we can strike this Dragon Drinking Plate!"

"Our Qian Family has the protection of our ancestor and can strike the Dragon Drinking Plate at only twenty percent of the usual cost."

"Moreover, our ancestor already paid the fee for striking the plate in advance, so the descendants need not worry."

"When the time comes, just strike it!"

"The person who strikes the plate only needs to pay the cost of the damage, then they can make one request to the government office. As long as it isn't too excessive, the government office certainly won't refuse!"

"This is the Qian Family's final trump card. On the entire HunZhou Island, no one else knows of it besides the governor and the chief officials of Three Houses and Two Directorates!"

"I'm telling you this today, so you absolutely must not spread it!"

It was because Jing Qian had accidentally learned this ultimate secret of the Qian Family that the events before the Dragon Drinking Plate had taken place today.

After striking the Dragon Drinking Plate, he only needed to wait for someone from the government office to arrive before requesting, in Jing Qian's identity, to take over his ancestor's relief payment.

He waited silently until a violent earthquake came rumbling from the distance.

Having endured a long drift across the sea and prided himself on having seen the wider world, Jing Qian had never expected to be shocked once again by what he saw and heard!