First Spirit, Time Dragon King

No, wait, lady—who are you calling Mom?

I was a proper little shota right now, okay? I was only about one meter fifty-five tall.

Qian Jue sized up this woman who had suddenly appeared here. Clearly, whether from where she had made her entrance or the methods she had just displayed, the person before him was definitely no ordinary woman.

This was the Spirit Pagoda's forbidden ground, after all. Only an elder on Qiangu Dieyan's level had any chance of coming here.

And yet, he kept feeling that the person before him was very familiar.

Like a family member who had been separated from him for a very long time.

The woman's body trembled uncontrollably, and her gray eyes were gradually veiled by mist.

Outside, Qiangu Dieyan, Qiangu Qingfeng, and the others were all dumbfounded.

The divine beast their clan had worshiped for generations—why had she suddenly started crying for no reason?

Such a thing was simply unheard of. In the clan's historical records, there had never been any description of Shu crying.

For tens of thousands of years, she had been like a lofty deity, never showing joy, anger, sorrow, or delight. The only things that could be called her interests were farming, looking after the clan's children, or caring for all young living beings.

In the eyes of Qiangu Dieyan and the others, Shu was like a loving mother.

Whether human or soul beast, she could treat them all with the same care and affection.

Forget it. They would keep watching.

At the very least, Shu's reaction had exceeded their expectations. Perhaps there really was a chance.

Inside the Spirit Ascension Platform.

"Big sister, why are you crying out of nowhere?"

Qian Jue lowered his guard, walked forward, stood on tiptoe, and gently wiped away the tears sliding down Shu's face.

"I'm sorry. I'm already an adult, yet I still made you worry, Mother."

Wind surged over from the far side of the forest, brushing past the ends of her gray-white hair.

Shu lightly tapped her right foot backward, and her heel struck the ground with a crisp sound.

She lifted both sides of her skirt with her hands, the plain white fabric gathering into shallow folds between her fingers and revealing a short stretch of gray-white tail tip by her ankle. Then she bowed, and the necklace at her throat swayed gently.

She paused for a moment before straightening, the falling hem once again covering the tops of her feet.

"Long time no see, Mother."

Shu's voice carried the moist softness of earth after rain, like the joy of sprouts emerging beneath a spring shower.

Qian Jue froze for a moment, then immediately thought of a possibility, and his expression changed.

"You... you're Shu?"

"Mm."

With that soft reply, Qian Jue's chest was suddenly filled with joy.

A reunion after who knew how many tens of thousands of years.

Two lonely souls had met once again in a different era.

By the time he calmed down, Qian Jue was already sitting inside the thatched cottage.

He had far, far too many things he wanted to ask Shu.

After his death, how had Xiao Jiu and Shu's other brothers and sisters lived? Later, had the dragon race been plotted against and slaughtered by the human God Kings...

In response, Shu only shook her head helplessly.

She extended her fair, slender wrist. Though beautiful, it carried a crystalline translucence.

"I'm already dead. I died a very, very long time ago. What you see now is only an insignificant fragment of my soul."

"As I was about to dissipate, I was fortunate enough to receive the aid of an unknown divine power and barely survived."

The light that had risen in Qian Jue's eyes gradually dimmed again.

That was right. Hadn't he already known the ending from the original work?

The Dragon God had been slain by the Asura God, the God of Goodness, and the God of Evil joining forces with the Tri-Realm Judgment Sword. Countless dragons had advanced wave after wave to protect the Dragon God, fighting to the death against the human gods and God Kings, and in the end, almost all of them had fallen.

Before his death, Shu had already served as the dragon race's chief minister of revenue. She had been a first-rank god, in charge of the Divine Realm's agriculture.

Even if the Dragon God had inherited her position, Shu would still absolutely have belonged to the dragon race's inner core.

How could Shu possibly have stayed out of that great war that had nearly destroyed the entire dragon race back then? Besides, with her personality, Shu would never have stood by and allowed her kin to be killed.

If anyone wanted to harm any other dragon kin, they would have to step over her corpse first.

As the one who had personally raised Shu into an adult insect, Qian Jue understood this better than anyone.

"However, I can confirm that the dragon race was indeed destroyed..."

Shu looked at Qian Jue, her hands unconsciously clenching the hem of her skirt, the tail behind her drooping onto the ground. "Sure enough, I still disappointed you. I failed to inherit your will and carry the mission of protecting the dragon race through to the end."

Qian Jue shook his head, sat beside Shu, and gently stroked her beautiful hair.

"I raised you not because I wanted to demand that you accomplish anything. I raised you because I was thinking about what I could do for you, for the other children."

Shu wiped at her tears and responded, caught between laughter and sobs:

"No matter what, Mom is always this gentle. And here I am, crying like a child. How embarrassing."

"Being able to cry is a good thing too. Cry your heart out, and if you can still smile afterward, then there's no problem."

Qian Jue gently stroked Shu's back, his tiny self holding the much larger Shu in his arms as he said softly, "The most important thing isn't the beginning, nor the process, but the end."

"So, does that mean as long as the result is good, everything is fine no matter what happens along the way?" Shu asked in puzzlement.

Qian Jue smiled faintly and lightly tapped a finger beside Shu's lips. "That's not how you should understand it. This is Mom's... no, I should be called Dad now."

"In short, this is the homework I'm leaving you."

"From now on, please witness this life together with me, and answer my question on this journey of starting over."

Looking at Qian Jue's outstretched hand, Shu understood at once.

How many tens of thousands of years had it been? She, a lonely soul who had wandered beyond the world, had finally found a place to belong once more.

"Yes, Father."

The moment Shu's hand gently clasped Qian Jue's, the surrounding scenery underwent an earth-shaking change. Rings of time ripples spread outward one after another, and all the spiritual energy in the entire Spirit Ascension Platform gathered at this moment.

Qian Jue summoned his martial soul, the Coiling Dragon Staff. After Shu officially formed the contract and became his soul spirit, the white within its dim nine-colored radiance was completely lit up.

Shu's figure dispersed and merged into the Coiling Dragon Staff. In her place, two silver-white soul rings inlaid with golden patterns appeared beneath his feet.

First soul spirit, Time Dragon King!

A vast amount of spiritual energy gathered here with the sacrifice of the Space-Time Dragon King, transforming into a giant cocoon.

No, it was more like a dragon egg constructed from spiritual energy.

Gradually, Qian Jue was enveloped within it.

Because of the phenomenon caused by Shu's soul spirit contract, the outside world could no longer know what exactly was happening inside the Spirit Ascension Platform.

Qiangu Dieyan and the others discovered that the originally cold hibernation pod had, at some point, turned into a silver-white dragon egg.

And the hardness of its shell was such that even the three peak powerhouses of the continent present had no confidence they could break it.

"Father, does this phenomenon mean Xiao Qian has already succeeded?"

Qiangu Dieyan shook his head. He did not know whether this counted as success either.

"I'm not sure, but these changes are very likely connected to this matter. The Spirit Ascension Platform will probably need maintenance for quite some time. Hurry and handle it, so the Spirit Pagoda doesn't start wavering."

After receiving the reply, Qiangu Dongfeng was in a wonderful mood, so much so that he did not even spare a glance for Leng Yaozhu, whom he had secretly loved for so long.

"Just you wait and see, you old dog Yun Ming. If my grandnephew doesn't beat the shit out of you ten years from now, then I'll fucking take your surname from then on!"