The Forgotten Silver Dragon King
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion suddenly sprang up from its gnarled roots, its four legs landing firmly on the ground, and the hairs on its neck bristled like golden flames bursting forth.
She turned her head warily, her three eyes on her forehead and two eyes scanning her surroundings simultaneously, her gaze piercing through the dark, dense forest.
No invaders. No natural enemies. No threats.
The core area of Star Dou Great Forest remains as silent, peaceful, and isolated as it has been at dusk for thousands of years.
However--
Deep within her perception, that long-standing, subtle "knot" suddenly snapped.
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion stood frozen in place.
She remembered the first time that knot appeared. She was still young then, and her identity as the "Emperor Auspicious Beast" was confirmed, bearing the flow of fortune of the Star Dou Great Forest.
One ordinary afternoon, she vaguely felt that her fate was like a thread picked up by an invisible hand, with the other end being gently pulled into the vast unknown distance.
She woke up with a start, feeling uneasy, and even tried to break free.
But the pull was not malicious; it was more like some unspeakable law of the universe quietly at work.
Fate told her, "This is destiny. You are destined to be connected with him; there's no way to avoid it, and there's no need to try."
So she stopped resisting.
Over the long years, she grew accustomed to the existence of that thread. She grew accustomed to occasionally sensing the vague life force at the other end—weak, struggling, stumbling upwards. She didn't know who it was, whether it was male or female, human or Soul Beast. She only knew that at the other end of that thread of fate, there was an aura that inexplicably concerned her, yet she was unwilling to delve into it.
Sometimes, she vaguely sensed that the other person was draining her luck.
It's not plunder, not theft, but more like a kind of "sharing"—a transfer that seems to be tacitly permitted by the laws of the universe, transcending time and space.
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion did not like this feeling. Her destiny belonged to the Star Dou Great Forest and the billions of Soul Beast she protected; it should not flow to a stranger she had never even met.
But she couldn't stop it.
That's fate.
--But at this moment, that thread, which had existed for countless years, broke.
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion stood still, its three eyes staring blankly into the void, a pure bewilderment appearing in its golden pupils for the first time.
It's broken.
Luck has returned.
The accumulated fortune of many years has suddenly returned!
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion trembled violently, its four legs almost unable to stand.
The fortune that originally belonged to her, but had been quietly drawn away to other places over countless years, was now surging into her body like an inverted celestial river, with unstoppable force!
The golden hairs shone even more brilliantly from the roots, each strand appearing as if it had been re-plated with fragments of the sun.
The golden irises in the three eyes above the forehead became increasingly bright and deep.
The golden pupils of the Three-Eyed Golden Lion reflected the unchanging, dim light of the Star Dou Great Forest for millions of years.
She lowered her head, looking at her original source of fortune, which had become pure, complete, and no longer leaking out, and at her hair, which was becoming more and more brilliant and gorgeous due to the feedback of fortune. She felt the powerful force within her, which she had lost and regained, surging like a river.
She should be happy.
This was the liberation she had been waiting for, the shackles imposed on her by fate.
She was indeed happy.
--But for some reason, the place deep within her perception, where the threads of fate once clung, now felt empty.
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion shook its head, its golden mane drawing brilliant arcs in the air.
She turned and leaped lightly back into the gnarled roots of the ancient tree, lying down again and resting her chin on her front paws.
She stopped thinking about complicated things.
She stopped thinking about why the connection of fate had been severed.
She simply closed her eyes three times and gradually calmed her breathing.
The winds of the Star Dou Great Forest continued to sweep through the core area, caressing her shimmering golden fur, carrying ancient whispers and timeless tranquility.
Fate had once bound her to a stranger, and for many years, they shared a common destiny.
Now, she is finally free.
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion's tail gently swept across its gnarled roots, and in its last moments before falling into slumber, it vaguely thought:
--That's fine too.
Anyway, we shouldn't have met in the first place.
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Qian Xunji withdrew her gaze.
The sudden surge of pure energy deep within the Star Dou Great Forest, like a stone thrown into a lake, rippled outwards at the edge of his perception before returning to calm.
He had no interest in investigating further.
It's better to have missed out.
Qian Xunji looked away. His earlier statement, "Let everything get back on track," was not a perfunctory remark.
This world is no longer the world depicted in the original story.
Without the rise of the Sun Moon Empire, without the Holy Spirit Cult gnawing on carrion in the darkness, without iron hooves trampling mountains and rivers, and without countless people being displaced.
Soul Master and Soul Beast walk side by side on the streets of the Contract Town, living in peace.
There is no savior, nor is there a need for a savior.
Moreover, Qian Xunji thought of what Huo Yuhao did in the original work.
They looted the Sun Moon Empire's royal armory, stole the blueprints, and detonated the armory during their retreat, causing half of the Bright Capital civilian district to collapse. The aftershocks of the level-nine Soul Cannon engulfed the entire street, and tens of thousands of corpses could not be properly collected and had to be cremated. The black smoke in Bright Capital that day lingered for three days, and the moat was filled with floating corpses.
In terms of relationships, he initially didn't know Wang Dong'er was a woman and said he liked Ju Zi. Later, when he saw Dong'er in women's clothing, he said he liked Dong'er. Then, he became ambiguous with Qiu'er, and finally had a child with Ju Zi. He was wavering and indecisive...
During the Advanced Soul Master Tournament, he relied on the powerful spiritual energy of his Spirit Eyes Martial Soul, making it undetectable to others even when used. He even helped his teammates cheat right under the referee's nose...
Forgiving one's mother's killer, breaking a vow, "returning to one's ancestral lineage," stealing, detonating a bomb that killed tens of thousands of people, cheating, being indecisive...
The original Huo Yuhao is dead; Dai Yuhao is the one who survived...
Later he became a god.
Later, he erected a shrine.
Later, people enshrined him in the ancestral hall, praising him for being "upright and honest" and "benevolent and virtuous."
Qian Xunji wanted to laugh.
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Huo Yuhao's leg is broken.
He would harbor resentment in that dilapidated house for many years.
Perhaps you'll never get over it, or perhaps when you do, you'll be someone even Qian Xunji wouldn't recognize.
But that wasn't what Qian Xunji was concerned about.
He just felt that this was for the best.
He doesn't need to be a savior.
He doesn't have to bear the burden of a fate he can't possibly carry.
He doesn't need to deceive himself, nor does he need to deceive the world.
He just needs to be an ordinary person.
An ordinary person who might be trapped in hatred for the rest of their life, unable to take revenge.
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Qian Xunji turned and stepped into the depths of the night, without looking back.
Behind him, the boy in the dilapidated house of the White Tiger Duke's Estate still lay alone on the cold ground, gazing at the leaden-gray sky outside the broken roof.
The snowflakes fell even more heavily.
Some of it covered his wound, congealing into tiny ice crystals.
He didn't have the strength to brush it away.
I simply kept my eyes open, gazing from dusk till nightfall, and from nightfall till the deepest dew.
No one came.
No one will come.
The thread of fate has snapped.
He lost his extraordinary luck and his mother's genuine love.
Some were brothers whose blood was as thick as water, some were fathers who didn't even know he existed, and some were mistresses who hated his birth...
This time, it's for real; he can finally be himself.
He can proudly say his name is Dai Yuhao, without having to go through the trouble of tracing his ancestry.
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The body wasn't discovered by the servants until it had stiffened and decomposed several days later, but no one paid any attention to it.
After all, the one who died was just an insignificant illegitimate child, and his mother was merely a maid...
Chapter 362 The Forgotten Silver Dragon King
No one has been to the underground prison of Spirit City for a long time.
long time.
Gu Yuena didn't know exactly how long this "long time" meant.
She had counted them, with her own heartbeats, with her breaths, and with the marks she made on the wall with her fingers.
But as she counted, she forgot the meaning of the numbers. The dense, intricate marks covered the entire wall, which she then scraped smooth with her fingernails before starting to count again from the beginning.