The Bloodline's Gradual Backlash?

The whole day of training felt like someone had thrown the three of them into a washing machine, spun them around, then hauled them out and wrung them dry.

By the time Xie Xie climbed onto his bed, his limbs felt as heavy as lead. Every step he took made the bedframe creak. Burying his face in the pillow, he mumbled through the fabric, "Finally... wuwuwuwu, my little bed, I'm back."

Tang Wulin leaned against the edge of his bed, his back pressed to the metal frame as the chill seeped through his school uniform. He stretched out his legs, and his knees cracked. Then he tipped backward and fell onto the bed. The bedframe let out a creak as it caught him, as though it too were sighing.

He raised an arm over his forehead and stared at the ceiling.

Tomorrow was the Class Advancement Tournament.

He was still quite confident about the competition. It was just that his more detailed memories had become somewhat blurry.

"Xu Xiaoyan?" The thought had barely surfaced before he dismissed it himself. "No, Xu Xiaoyan only joined during Class Zero."

Then what had I forgotten? Martial Soul Fusion Skill, Zhang Yangzi, Wang...

"Arm, Xie Xie..." His eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and his voice trailed off midway.

"Why are you calling me?" Xie Xie replied indistinctly. Sleep already colored the end of his sentence, like bubbles rising from beneath a pillow before quickly disappearing.

The dormitory light was still on, casting a dim yellow glow. Wind slipped in through the half-open window, making the curtains sway once before falling still again.

That lamp remained lit, illuminating the two beds and the two sprawled bodies. There was no more sound.

When he opened his eyes again, he was standing on a road with no end in sight.

White mist surrounded him on both sides. He could not tell whether he was standing on solid ground or water, and every step carried a vague echo. In the distance stood a silver-haired little girl with her back to him, the hem of her dress gently stirred by the wind. Her outline flickered in and out through the fog, like a photograph slowly fading.

"Big Brother, if one day I'm gone, will you miss me?"

Her voice drifted over from afar, as though it had risen through a thick layer of water. Tang Wulin wanted to run to her, but something seemed to be dragging at his feet. Every step forward took more strength than the last. He gritted his teeth and kept moving, while the echoes beneath his feet grew fainter and fainter.

"Na'er!" he shouted. His voice scattered through the empty white world, as if swallowed whole, without the slightest echo.

She turned around. He knew that face, yet he could not make out her features, as though they had been wiped away by the mist, leaving only an outline. She was smiling at him. Then her body began to fade. Her edges turned into fine specks of silver light, scattering bit by bit into the silver storm growing ever larger behind her.

"Don't!" His voice cracked, forced out from the deepest part of his throat, carrying a panic so frantic it barely seemed like his own. "No! Golden Dragon King—come out!"

The silver storm paused for a moment. Then the scene shattered. Those silver fragments spun as they fell through the air, vanishing before they reached the ground.

In their place was a bamboo forest. Dense green surged in from all directions, while slender bamboo leaves rustled softly against one another in the breeze. The Golden Dragon King sat inside a small pavilion. A cup of hot tea sat on the stone table, faint steam rising from it. He held the rim of the cup with one hand and looked down at his reflection in the tea without raising his head to look at Tang Wulin.

Tang Wulin stood at the edge of the bamboo forest, his breathing still unsettled and his chest rising and falling faintly.

"...Was that just now a dream?" He did not ask, "Where is Na'er?" Nor did he ask, "Why am I here again?" He only asked that one question.

The Golden Dragon King set the teacup back onto the stone table. The sound was so soft it was almost inaudible. When he raised his head, his expression was different from usual.

There was none of his unhurried laziness, nor his lofty scrutiny.

At that moment, he did not seem like an emperor ruling over all beneath heaven. He was filled with exhaustion.

"I have always thought too highly of you, Tang Wulin."

Tang Wulin froze for a moment. "What do you mean?"

The Golden Dragon King stood up and reached for the teacup. The cup's surface was no longer hot. He walked to the edge of the pavilion and poured the remaining tea onto the bamboo roots beside it. The water seeped into the earth, leaving only a small dark patch that was quickly absorbed by the dry soil around it.

"Have you noticed that your emotions are gradually being assimilated by me?"

Tang Wulin did not answer immediately. He stood in the bamboo forest as the shadows of bamboo leaves swayed across his face, then moved away. He lowered his head and looked at his hands. The lines in his palms were clear, just as they had always been. Yet he recalled his voice in that dream—so urgent, so close to losing control, like someone about to lose their grip on something and making one final attempt.

His emotions had indeed been coming more fiercely lately. It was as though something were prying at him, trying to make him lose control.

"...I don't understand what you're trying to say."

"You don't understand." The Golden Dragon King repeated it without raising his voice, but every word carried a weight pressed flat and heavy. "From today onward, use the Clear Sky Hammer and this king's bloodline power less. You have not yet reached the point where you can rely on them."

Tang Wulin looked up at him. "You're telling me not to use them?"

"Not not use them." The Golden Dragon King turned his head. "Use them less. This king did not consider things carefully enough. The power you need to control now is not equal to the spiritual power you possess."

After saying that, he turned away, as though searching for a direction in the bamboo forest, or perhaps waiting for Tang Wulin to follow. "You still have not reached the point where you need to rely on them."

"Rely on them...?" He looked at the Blue Silver Grass in his hand. "But I'm really too weak." He clenched his fists. Na'er, Father, Mother, Gu Yue, Shrek, the Tang Sect...

"Even without this bloodline, this king believes that you can still become one of the strongest in this little world." The Golden Dragon King's ethereal voice soothed his turbulent emotions. "Rest well, Tang Wulin."