The Silver Dragon King's... Bathwater? (Seeking Collections and Follow-ups)

Star Dou Great Forest, the Land of Great Danger.

Baili Du was a man who, if he did not wish to be found, could not be discovered by anyone in this world. This held true even for those soul beasts with exceptionally keen senses.

Without alerting a single soul beast, he stood there quietly, gazing at the lake before him.

The lake was not particularly large; one could see the opposite shore at a single glance.

The water was as smooth as a mirror, its pale green hue resembling the finest natural jade, shimmering with a vibrant, life-filled emerald glow. Surrounding the lake, towering ancient trees reached straight into the clouds. A faint mist hung over the surface, and the humid air rushed toward him, carrying the unique fragrance of vegetation.

This place was brimming with the aura of life. The vitality here was at least several times stronger than in the outside world. It felt like the origin of life itself, as if every creature in the Star Dou Great Forest had been birthed from this very spot.

"Lake of Life... It really has been a long time..."

The lake he looked upon was the most sacred water of life in the Star Dou Great Forest, the source that nurtured all living things within it.

This was a treasure! Although it was of no use to him now, it would be immensely beneficial to the current Huo Yuhao!

He crouched down halfway and used a large leaf to gently scoop up a portion. The emerald liquid shimmered like jade, radiating a rich aura of life.

However, as if something had just occurred to him, Baili Du's expression turned peculiar, and his hand faltered for a moment.

If others didn't know, how could he not? This water of life was formed by the life force emanating from the Gold of Life, and it was a potent tonic for any living being.

But... this was also, apparently, the bathwater of his sister-in-law, the Silver Dragon King Gu Yuena, the half-body of the Dragon God and the universally acknowledged greatest beauty of the Douluo Continent.

Bathwater?

Baili Du looked at the water in the large leaf with a strange expression. He had even drunk it back in the day... was he really going to make his current self drink it too?

Shaking his head to discard this bizarre thought, Baili Du's gaze sharpened. His eyes turned a solid, metallic gold, his vision piercing through the Lake of Life to land on the silver giant dragon sleeping in the space at the bottom of the lake.

He narrowed his eyes slightly: "Sister... in-law, it has been a long time since we last met."

The giant dragon lay on the ground in a comfortable posture, fast asleep. Her silver dragon scales were as crystal clear as glass, possessing a strange, ethereal beauty. Even the horrifying cracks marring them did not diminish this allure; instead, they added a touch of fragile, delicate grace.

Baili Du used his divine sense to carefully probe the Silver Dragon King's injuries, and his heart was struck with shock.

He knew the Silver Dragon King had been recuperating, but he hadn't expected her injuries to be this severe! She likely didn't even possess the cultivation of a God Official at this moment.

It was no wonder the Silver Dragon King had not emerged in this era; in terms of raw combat power, she was currently inferior even to Di Tian.

He, too, had struggled to crawl out of the Space-Time Turbulence and the Samsara Hurricane, but in terms of peak strength and physical fortitude, he had been a Half-Step Supreme God King at the time—stronger even than the Golden Dragon King had been. Although he had been weakened to his current level of a second-tier god, his strongest asset, his divine sense, remained intact. Unlike the Silver Dragon King, whose mental power had regressed to the level of mortal spiritual consciousness.

Looking at his sleeping sister-in-law, Baili Du couldn't help but let out a wry laugh.

Tang Wulin really was a lucky bastard (he thought sarcastically). If not for Gu Yuena, that kid would have been torn to shreds by Di Tian and the others long ago... and Tang San's ten-thousand-year grand plan would have been ruined, his own son destroyed on the spot.

From the perspective of a leader, Gu Yuena was absolutely, unequivocally incompetent.

But from the perspective of a lover, she was leagues better than Tang Wutong.

To be frank, if the twelve-year-old Huo Yuhao had seen the true faces of both the Silver Dragon Princess and the Goddess of Light at the same time, he certainly wouldn't have lingered on the Goddess of Light for even half a second.

Thinking this, Baili Du shook his head. It was just a pity that he and Gu Yuena truly had nothing in common to talk about, even though they were both people whose entire lives had been calculated by Tang San.

Suddenly, Baili Du felt a wave of bitterness and distress.

He still remembered the scene after Lan Xuanyu resurrected Di Tian in the Dragon God Realm.

He had expected a long-awaited reunion of old friends, but the result was...

By then, Tang San had already martyred himself for his sword sheath, Xiao Wu. The highest combat power of the Tang family was Lan Xuanyu. Backed by this Dragon God master, Di Tian, along with the surviving beasts who had transformed into soul spirits—such as Bi Ji and Zi Ji—had all joined together to condemn Huo Yuhao.

They didn't need to point to anything else; the mere fact that the Spirit Transmission Tower founded by Huo Yuhao had become the ultimate culprit in the destruction of soul beasts was enough for these beasts to stand on the moral high ground and berate him.

No one cared that he might have saved them; people only hated those who took away their hope and confidence.

Then, Gu Yuena, the former co-ruler of the soul beasts, joined in. Since Gu Yuena had come, there was no reason for Tang Wulin not to join... After all, it was the Spirit Transmission Tower and the Holy Spirit Cult that had orchestrated the destruction of Shrek Academy and the Tang Sect. In their eyes, the Spirit Ice Douluo Huo Yuhao, as the founder of the Spirit Transmission Tower, was beyond redemption.

Huo Yuhao had wanted to defend himself, to say something like, "At least the soul spirit technology preserved the intelligence of many soul beasts," but soon even his wife, the Butterfly Goddess Tang Wutong, joined the ranks of her younger brother and sister-in-law, even going so far as to say, "You shouldn't have established the Spirit Transmission Tower back then; it would have been better to just develop the Tang Sect in peace."

Powerless to refute them, he could only shoulder all the blame. Not long after, the Spirit Transmission Tower was merged into Shrek Academy and vanished from the history of the Douluo Continent.

The massive source of faith that had once belonged to the Emotion God King Huo Yuhao disappeared, leaving him to split the faith of the Shrek and Tang Sect organizations with the three generations of the Tang family. One could easily imagine how much faith someone not surnamed "Tang" could actually receive...

Soul spirit technology was thereafter completely controlled by Shrek Academy. It could be said that the Shrek Academy of that era held absolute control over the soul master world through both "education" and "soul power advancement." Coupled with the Tang Sect, which was already in league with them, the so-called Douluo Federation existed in name only.

Because all the high-ranking officials of the Douluo Federation were graduates of Shrek Academy, asking them to choose between the "Federation" and the "Academy" was no difficult task at all.

Baili Du exhaled a long, deep breath. The man who was still alive was no longer Dai Yuhao, no longer that weak and incompetent Dai Yuhao!

If Gu Yuena truly stood before him in the future to stop his revenge, he would swing his scythe at this greatest beauty of the Douluo Continent without the slightest hesitation.

When it came down to it, everyone in the Tang family and everyone who stood on their side was his enemy.

Baili Du stood up with the makeshift cup filled with the water of life and turned to leave, muttering to himself: "I will make up for what needs to be done in this era, but if you soul beasts still end up in that state in the end, you really can't blame me for it..."

His figure vanished from the Land of Great Danger, as if he had never been there at all.

A long time later.

Within that dark, sunless silver space, a pair of massive purple vertical pupils slowly opened...