If you looked at her with ordinary eyes, the little girl lying on the bed was just a normal human child—at most, a very pretty one.
But through Long Yuan's divine sense, everything looked entirely different.
In the daytime, she had seemed like an utterly ordinary child. Yet at night, the world's energy continually streamed into her body, each wisp rushing to get there first.
"She's absorbing energy on her own? How is that possible?"
As far as Long Yuan remembered, Na'er shouldn't have been able to absorb the world's energy. She hadn't even awakened a Martial Soul later on.
But now, it all seemed to be happening by instinct.
Long Yuan immediately began to form a few theories.
Unlike the "Na'er" who would later appear at Shrek, this Na'er was the Silver Dragon King herself, not the two halves, Gu Yue and Na'er.
For some reason, however, she had lost her memories.
But...
"Why? Setting aside the question of why the Silver Dragon King lost her memories, I remember that when she awoke, the Ferocious Beasts of the Star Dou Forest were right beside her. How could they let her wander outside alone, only to find her three years later?"
This was what Long Yuan found most puzzling.
If losing her memories was the result of the Silver Dragon King sealing her own power, what about those Ferocious Beasts? Could they really not stop a little girl?
Unable to make sense of it, Long Yuan moved closer, until he was standing right beside the bed.
He stretched out a hand and placed it over her head, intending to use his divine sense to examine her condition.
"How is this possible?!"
As his divine sense probed deeper, he didn't see the meridians and organs inside her, as he would in an ordinary person. Instead, he saw a sea of silver light.
Familiar waves of spiritual energy emanated from within.
They were imprinted deep in his instincts. But when he tried to look further, he could see nothing else.
It was as if this body contained nothing but spiritual power!
He didn't believe his senses could be wrong. He was confident that his divine sense would miss nothing.
At least in the field he knew best, the one he was most authoritative in—Bloodline Power—he couldn't possibly be mistaken.
From the very old, whose next breath might be their last, to newborn infants, everyone had Bloodline Power within them.
The only difference was its strength. Even the corpses of some powerful beings could still stir with Bloodline Power and unleash considerable force.
In other words, the being lying in front of him wasn't a real person at all, but a manifestation of spiritual power!
Long Yuan thought he understood, and once more sent his divine sense into that "Sea of Consciousness."
Although Na'er's entire body was made of spiritual power, the fact that she could fool his cursory examination proved that her precise structure was still no different from a human's. There was an overwhelming chance that something was hidden in the part corresponding to the Sea of Consciousness.
Sure enough, as Long Yuan's spiritual power delved deeper, the silver light around him grew brighter, until it was almost painful to look at.
He was in the form of divine sense. If even he found it uncomfortable, then ordinary people—and even their instruments—would never be able to detect this place.
"Perhaps this is what gives her such confidence."
At last, after passing through a region where the silver light was dazzling, the spiritual power around him abruptly thinned. In its place was a swath of emerald-green clouds, brimming with vitality.
In the center of those green clouds was a small silver sphere, tightly bound by chains formed from seven-colored light.
"Is this... a seal?"
Long Yuan immediately thought of the claim that the Silver Dragon King had sealed herself to blend into human society.
Perhaps, for the Silver Dragon King, the hardest part of fitting into human society without attracting the plane's attention was hiding her immense and formidable spiritual power.
She had divided her seal into two parts. First, she sealed her divine sense, and only afterward did she seal her dragon body.
During the self-sealing process, something might have gone wrong—perhaps the plane had retaliated. Gu Yuena's spiritual power had become the amnesiac Na'er, who ended up outside the Star Dou Forest.
The fortifications built by the Spirit Pagoda could hold back the Soul Beasts of the Star Dou Forest, but they couldn't stop a manifestation of spiritual power.
The Ferocious Beasts of the Star Dou Forest had no idea what had happened, so all they could do was guard the dragon body left behind at the Lake of Life.
Perhaps they thought their Lord had simply fallen asleep again.
Meanwhile, drawn by the Golden Dragon King Bloodline, the amnesiac manifestation of spiritual power, Na'er, had wandered to Aolai City, where Tang Wulin had come across her...
Piecing together what he knew and what he suspected, Long Yuan felt he was gradually getting closer to the truth.
Perhaps this also explained why Na'er couldn't awaken a Martial Soul. After all, she was only a mass of spiritual power, not even a person. How could she possibly awaken one?
Long Yuan examined her carefully for a long time. As expected, under the scrutiny of his divine sense, wisps of the world's energy, mixed with tiny specks of seven-colored light, passed through the spiritual power and emerald-green clouds, heading toward the seal.
More and more specks of light also began to emerge from the sealed divine sense.
The three mingled together, then seemed to drift away and vanish.
But Long Yuan saw them clearly. Though they were "invisible," they were there—it was simply difficult to observe them.
"Could these be the Silver Dragon King's memories, gradually returning?"
If she had chosen to seal herself, then she must still have had a "personality"—she couldn't have been left with amnesia, at the very least.
Gu Yuena's memories were instinctively resurfacing. The specks of light flying out of the seal might be fragments of those memories, while the specks flying in from outside might be the memories of what "Na'er" had experienced.
"I see. No wonder the Gu Yuena who regained her memories in the original story couldn't forget Tang Wulin, and even split herself apart. So this is where the problem came from."
"It seems that in three years, Na'er's memories will have fully returned. She'll also be able to contact the Ferocious Beasts through her spiritual power. After that, the original story's scene of Na'er leaving will play out."
After carefully sorting through his theories, Long Yuan took one last look at the sealed divine sense and began to withdraw from the Sea of Consciousness.
Now that he had a general understanding, there would be plenty of room to act in the future.
But there was no need to rush. He had three years. There was no shortage of time.
Yet when Long Yuan's divine sense returned outside, it suddenly met a pair of violet eyes.
Na'er had somehow woken up.
!!!
Long Yuan glanced up at the window. A streak of orange-red was spreading across the seashore.
"So it's almost dawn already. Time really flies."
Only then did Long Yuan realize that he had spent the entire night in Na'er's Sea of Consciousness, observing those almost imperceptible memory fragments!
He looked at Na'er again and saw that she was merely sitting in a sleepy daze after waking, her gaze unfocused.
"I knew Na'er in this state couldn't possibly have noticed me."
Long Yuan shook his head and passed through the wall, leaving.