A One-Character Paper Dragon Soars Through the Heavens

A One-Character Paper Dragon Soars Through the Heavens

Zi Bofeng had summoned the "Heavenly Soldier" because there was no one by his side who could use it. He then ordered the Heavenly Soldier to take Si Gou away, but had not specified where to take him, so the Heavenly Soldier had seized Si Gou and brought him to the Ancestral Shrine.

Moreover, without Zi Bofeng's command, the Heavenly Soldier had kept holding Si Gou until the spiritual energy accumulated within it ran dry and it turned back into a stone statue.

And the sight before them was simply too bizarre.

The Yan Clan's ancestor—that awe-inspiring Heavenly Soldier—stood upon the altar. One hand held a long halberd, while the other gripped one of Si Gou's ankles, hanging him upside down in midair.

The statue's other hand had originally rested at its waist, and it had been solid stone. Yet now it held Si Gou straight out before it. That solid palm seemed to have grown directly onto Si Gou's ankle, without even the slightest crack between them.

"Th-this... has the ancestor manifested?" Yan Lao Wu muttered. Had Si Gou not still been hanging in front of him, he would likely have dropped straight to his knees.

"It... it was him..." Si Gou spotted Zi Bofeng and immediately shrieked, "He made the ancestor capture me... I don't want to die! I don't want to become a Heavenly Soldier! I don't want to die..."

This fellow probably thought that if he died while hanging here, he would become a Heavenly Soldier. But where in the world was there such a good deal? Don't treat Heavenly Soldiers as if they weren't civil servants.

"Fifth Grandpa, save me! Save me!" Seeing Zi Bofeng glare at him, Si Gou immediately yowled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, crying out for Yan Lao Wu's help even as he screamed.

Only then did Yan Lao Wu turn to look at Zi Bofeng.

"He's gone mad." Zi Bofeng spread his hands. "What do you plan to do? Smash off the stone statue's arm?" he asked.

Yan Lao Wu's expression instantly changed. "How can the ancestor's divine statue be damaged?"

Most villagers believed in every ghost and god under heaven, but deep down, what they truly believed in was their ancestors. They had done no shortage of things that offended their ancestors in ordinary times, but now that the ancestor had manifested right before them, what unfilial descendant would dare defy the ancestor?

"Then saw off his leg. The wooden prosthetic my father made is quite handy!" Zi Bofeng propped up his chin. "I can have my father give you a fifty-percent discount."

"No, no!" At Zi Bofeng's words, Si Gou immediately wailed in terror. "Scholar, Scholar, please put in a good word with the ancestor! Please ask the ancestor to let me go! I'll never dare offend you again! I'll go back and pay the taxes immediately, Scholar! Village Chief! Grandpa Zi! My own dear grandpa, oh heavens!"

This hooligan had always bullied the weak by relying on his strength. If he became crippled, how could those he had bullied before possibly leave him a path to live? Besides, he had truly been frightened out of his wits. Everyone else merely did not understand what was happening, but he had genuinely been carried back by the divine statue. He had watched with his own eyes as the statue changed from living to stone, and had seen it obey Zi Bofeng's every word.

"Have you truly repented?" Seeing how pitifully he cried, Zi Bofeng asked.

"I've repented, I've repented!" Si Gou nodded again and again.

"Then what will you do from now on?" Zi Bofeng asked again.

"From now on, whatever you tell me to do, I'll do! If you tell me to go east, I won't go west; if you tell me to beat a dog, I won't chase a chicken!" Si Gou hurriedly pledged his loyalty.

"Since that is the case, I shall write a letter and see whether this Heavenly Soldier will grant me this favor." Zi Bofeng swept his sleeve and called toward the back, "Bring paper!"

Everyone was at a loss, staring at him eagerly.

Zi Bofeng suddenly found it dull. This bunch truly had no sense of propriety.

In the end, Yan Lao Wu went back and brought his little grandson's paper and brush. Then he wiped the dust from the offering table with his sleeve—the disorderly footprints upon it gave the old man quite a fright. The ancestor had truly walked down on his own!

Zi Bofeng spread the paper across the table—it was rather poor-quality straw paper, and the brush was worn nearly bald, but it would do.

"Grind the ink!" Zi Bofeng stood solemnly before the divine statue, staring without blinking at its face as his lips moved in muttered incantation. Even Si Gou, who had been howling miserably, no longer dared make a sound. He covered his head, twitching and gasping like a fish on the verge of death.

Yan Lao Wu looked around. Everyone had retreated far away, so he could only awkwardly begin grinding the ink himself.

The poor-quality ink dissolved in the inkstone. When Zi Bofeng felt it was about enough, he pulled back his sleeve with one hand and held the bald brush in the other. After soaking it full of dark ink, he swept the brush grandly, and the four lines of poetry he had just written leaped onto the page once more.

In truth, Zi Bofeng was still worried about one thing: whether his Monster Raising Art could truly be transmitted through paper and brush.

As his strokes spread, spiritual energy flowed into the paper. Zi Bofeng could see with his naked eye that spiritual energy was filling the sheet. It was merely poor-quality straw paper, with limited carrying capacity. Light flickered across it, as though it might erupt the next instant.

Zi Bofeng did not dare delay. He lifted the brush with his right hand, and an ink trace like a blade mark sliced through the entire page. Then his left hand suddenly seized the straw paper and flung it forward. The paper fluttered in the wind and shot straight toward the divine statue.

Upon striking the statue, the straw paper finally could no longer endure the spiritual energy within the Ink Trace Stage. It exploded with a sharp bang, transforming into burning scraps of paper that scattered through the air.

Zi Bofeng's eyes widened. Even he had not expected such a thing to happen.

The spiritual energy within the paper dispersed and was directly absorbed into the stone statue. The statue gave off a creaking sound, then, amid the crowd's cries of alarm, actually began to move.

"Divine Lord!" Zi Bofeng clasped his fists. "Though Si Gou offended me, he has already received punishment. I ask that the Divine Lord spare his life!"

Those words were far too literary, and the stone statue's intelligence was clearly not sufficient. Its stone-carved eyes stared blankly at Zi Bofeng.

Zi Bofeng hastily lowered his voice. "Let go!"

The stone statue loosened its hand, and Si Gou immediately plunged headfirst down with a thud. Yet he did not care that he had been hung upside down for half the night. He hurriedly scrambled up and kowtowed like a pestle pounding garlic. "Thank you, Ancestor, for sparing my life!"

"Many thanks, Divine Lord!" Zi Bofeng clasped his fists again. "Please return to your place!"

Knowing that the Divine Lord's intelligence was lacking, Zi Bofeng added quietly, "Change back..."

When Si Gou raised his head, he discovered that the Divine Lord had already returned to its original imposing pose, holding the long halberd in one hand and resting the other at its waist. Everything from before seemed like a dream.

Zi Bofeng turned around and was greatly startled.

From inside the shrine to outside it, a black mass of people knelt upon the ground. Curious children raised their heads to look around, only to be shoved back down by their parents, clutching their heads and crying out in pain.

"The ancestor has manifested! The ancestor watches over the descendants of our Yan Family—he has manifested!" Shouts rose from somewhere, one after another.

Yan Lao Wu was also kneeling nearby, though half his gaze was fixed on Zi Bofeng.

The old man's ears were not deaf and his eyes were not dim. Zi Bofeng's little movements had not escaped his notice. Yet he was now uncertain and suspicious. Though he knew this matter was related to Zi Bofeng, still...

No one had ever said that Zi Bofeng was actually an immortal!

"There's nothing more for me to do here, right..." In any case, these were not ancestors of the Zi Clan, and it was not Zi Bofeng's turn to kneel. He lifted a foot and waded a path through the densely kneeling villagers. As he passed Little Stone, he even kicked him before fleeing in haste. At a time like this, it was better to leave the scene as quickly as possible.

Outside, he saw his father waiting alone beneath a tree. When Zi Bofeng emerged, his father asked worriedly, "What happened? Why are they saying the ancestor manifested?"

Zi Bofeng did not dare speak carelessly. If his father suddenly shouted "Monster," would the impassioned Yan Family clansmen not beat him to death with random clubs?

Still, his father would find out sooner or later... Zi Bofeng had a headache. He briefly explained what had happened inside, and his father's gaze upon his son immediately turned suspicious once more.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I once read some tales of legends and strange happenings. The people in them all summoned Heavenly Soldiers this way. I merely copied the gourd as it was drawn..."

"If only the ancestors of our Zi Clan had manifested back then..." Zi Jian asked no further questions. Instead, he recalled once again the great flood that had left them wandering without a home.

After all that commotion, Zi Bofeng no longer wanted to sleep. He went directly to the Private School, while his father returned to make breakfast, saying that he would bring some over for Zi Bofeng later.

Zi Bofeng came to his study and sat there, frowning in thought.

Zi Bofeng only half understood the abilities of his Monster Raising Art. Everything he had done today had been a blind cat catching a dead mouse, and he did not know precisely how his Monster Raising Art functioned.

He had never expected paper to truly transmit the effects of "Unity Transformation." Otherwise, if the performance had fallen flat, he might have needed to go up and write on the Heavenly Soldier again.

So he planned to conduct an experiment.

He found some straw paper and divided it into several palm-sized pieces. Then he lifted his brush and placed a single dot upon the first sheet: the character for one.

Unity transformed into the Ink Trace Stage. This first stroke was the beginning of splitting heaven and earth, and the spiritual energy contained within seeped into the paper, lingering for a long time without dispersing.

Then Zi Bofeng wrote the character for two upon the second sheet. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight... He wrote them in sequence, and nearly every character had more strokes than the one before.

Nothing changed on these sheets. Evidently, a single character remained within the capacity of the straw paper.

It was only that straw paper itself possessed no spirituality. Zi Bofeng's Unity Transformation was merely a method of infusing spirituality and spiritual power; it did not alter the paper's inherent nature. It was like scattering seeds—whether they could sprout still depended upon the soil. Yet straw paper could not retain power, and after a short while, both its spiritual energy and spirituality dissipated into the air.

After thinking for a moment, Zi Bofeng crumpled those sheets and tossed them aside. He took out another sheet, drew a deep breath, and wrote a huge character for dragon upon it.

That stroke danced like dragons and phoenixes, as though entering the ninth heavens.

The moment Zi Bofeng lifted his brush, the dragon character on the paper lit up. A sudden gale swept forth and rushed straight at his face. Zi Bofeng staggered backward as the withered yellow straw paper curled up, then in the blink of an eye transformed into a divine dragon that wagged its head and tail as it flew out through the window.

Clouds followed dragons, wind followed tigers. A wisp of smoke drifted over from nowhere and shrouded the paper dragon, as though it were about to ascend to heaven and attain the Dao.

But in the next instant, the paper dragon exploded in midair with a crack, becoming a rain of burning fire that was already completely reduced to ash before it reached the ground.

Record of Raising Monsters