It's Called Chapter One

Star Dou Great Forest, core region.

Di Tian knelt by the lake, and he had been kneeling for a long time.

So long that the soil beneath his knees had been warmed by his body heat; so long that the savage beasts in the forest had wisely retreated three miles away. They did not understand—what was the Beast God waiting for, that he needed to wait like this?

Di Tian himself was not sure what he was waiting for.

He was simply waiting for Gu Yue to awaken.

His Lord had slept for far too long. The Silver Dragon King's divine consciousness needed time to readjust to this shell, needed time to piece those shattered memories back together bit by bit. This process should not be disturbed.

So he waited.

As he waited, he recalled some things.

Having lived for eight hundred thousand years, Di Tian's book of experiences was so thick that even he could not be bothered to flip through it. Yet some names were buried too deeply, not easily dug out. At this moment, perhaps the wind in the Star Dou Great Forest was too quiet—so quiet that he could hear the sediment at the bottom of his memories shifting loose—and a name surfaced for no reason.

Lu Menge.

Di Tian frowned slightly.

He was not actually sure whether that name was correct. An eight-hundred-thousand-year lifespan was too long, so long that many memories were no longer reliable. Some things he had witnessed himself; some he had heard of; some he could no longer tell whether he had experienced personally or read in inscriptions within some long-destroyed ruin.

Lu Menge probably belonged to the third kind.

He had only heard of her. He could not remember where he had heard it, and what he had heard remained only as skeletal fragments—

Nine-Headed White Tiger.

No divine position.

Older than even the Dragon God.

That was all.

Di Tian pieced those fragments of old bones together in his mind several times, and even he found the result absurd. Nine Infants had been a savage beast totem from the beginning of chaos, older than the birth of the dragon race, so ancient that no text could accurately record its origins. And the Nine-Headed White Tiger—nine heads, a tiger's body, ruler of slaughter—was not even recorded in any official history. It only occasionally surfaced in the nearly lost oral tales of soul beasts, like a ray of light shining up from an ancient abyss.

If it had merely been a legend, that would have been one thing. But Di Tian remembered that at the height of the Dragon God's glory, the supreme ruler of all beasts, unparalleled beneath heaven, had once casually mentioned a name.

When the Dragon God mentioned that name, his tone had been wrong.

—It was not reverence. The Dragon God revered no existence.

—It was silence. A rare silence, something akin to regret.

Di Tian had not dared ask at the time, and later, he had no chance to ask. The Dragon God fell, the dragon race declined, and the twilight of the God Realm burned everything into ash. That name sank with the ashes into a sea that had gone undredged for eight hundred thousand years.

Until today.

Until the day his Lord was about to awaken, that name suddenly floated to the surface.

Di Tian did not know why he had remembered her at this moment. Perhaps it was because his Lord was the Dragon God's continuation, and there seemed to have been some bond between the Dragon God and that white tiger which no one yet knew. Or perhaps he had simply lived too long, and his memories had reached the point of loosening.

Perhaps... because over the past several tens of thousands of years, he had vaguely caught traces of something.

They were too fragmented. Not enough to count as evidence. Rumors scattered here and there, as though someone had deliberately broken them apart.

But one term kept appearing.

East Sea City.

The lake's surface suddenly stirred.

A ripple spread from the center of the lake without warning. Di Tian raised his head.

Silver hair rose from the water, followed by a face so cold and clear that it stole one's breath away. Gu Yue opened her eyes. Stars rose and fell within her purple pupils, while ancient storms slowly subsided in their depths.

Di Tian lowered his head. "My Lord."

Gu Yue stepped out of the lake. Droplets slid from the ends of her silver hair without wetting a single corner of her clothes. She stood by the shore as though reassessing the world once more before finally turning her gaze toward Di Tian.

"How many days have you been kneeling?"

"Seven days."

"What were you thinking about?"

Di Tian fell silent for a breath. It was brief, but in a conversation between beings of their level, it already counted as hesitation.

"A name."

Gu Yue slightly raised her chin. She waited for him to continue.

"Lu Menge," Di Tian said. "Has My Lord ever heard of her?"

"No."

The reply came quickly. So quickly that Di Tian confirmed something—in the Silver Dragon King's memories, the Dragon God had not left behind any record concerning that white tiger.

"She has no divine position," Di Tian said. "From the beginning of heaven and earth until now, she has never attained one."

Gu Yue's purple pupils narrowed slightly.

Not attaining a divine position meant refusing the investiture of heaven and earth's laws, not entering the God-Sealing List, and not falling under the jurisdiction of the God Realm. It sounded simple—but any existence that had lived long enough understood what it meant. It meant loneliness. It meant forever standing beyond the borders of all order, watching others become gods, watching others enter reincarnation, watching others step into their stories. You could only watch from the sidelines forever.

Any existence capable of enduring such solitude was either insane, or powerful enough to need no order to contain them.

"How long has she lived?" Gu Yue asked.

"According to rumor—longer than even the Dragon God."

The forest fell silent.

This was no ordinary silence. Even the wind had stopped in its tracks, and the air itself seemed to be holding its breath.

"How strong is she?"

"Unknown."

"Where is she?"

"The last clue—East Sea City."

When Di Tian spoke those three words, he lowered his voice. Not deliberately, but instinctively. It was the body's reaction before the will when a hunter mentioned a hunter older than himself.

Gu Yue looked at him. There was no emotion in those purple eyes—or rather, her emotions were buried too deeply for even Di Tian to read.

"Everything you've said," Gu Yue said faintly, "has been 'heard of' from beginning to end."

"Yes."

"No one has seen her?"

"To this subordinate's knowledge—no living person."

"Then what makes you think she is still alive?"

Di Tian raised his eyes.

"Because occasionally... far too occasionally," he said, "an unnamed white tiger figure appears in ancient tales passed by word of mouth among soul beasts. She appears in different eras, in different places, finishes one thing, and then disappears."

"What does she do?"

"I don't know," Di Tian said. "I only know she came, and then she left. Like a gust of wind."

Gu Yue was silent for a while.

"You want to win her over."

"Yes."

"With a name whose life or death cannot even be confirmed."

"Yes."

Di Tian did not defend himself. He merely knelt there, eight hundred thousand years of undying fire blazing in his golden eyes.

"This person's significance to the soul beast lineage," he said, "is likely no less than My Lord's own."

Gu Yue withdrew her gaze and looked toward the lake. Its surface was calm, like a mirror without memories. But beneath the water lay undercurrents. She knew.

"Go find her," she said.

Her voice remained cold and unquestionable. But Di Tian heard it—at the end of those two words was an almost imperceptible pause. That pause was the echo in this Silver Dragon King's heart of the Dragon God's silence toward an old friend.

"If you cannot find her, then she does not exist."

Gu Yue turned and walked toward the depths of the forest.

Di Tian bowed his head to the ground.

In his heart, he recited that name three times.

Lu Menge. Nine-Headed White Tiger. One without a divine position.

No matter the price—find her.

—

At that time, East Sea City.

This coastal city had not yet welcomed the group of youths destined to arrive. Tang Wulin was still curled up at home, Gu Yue had yet to set foot in human society, and several teachers at Eastsea Academy's entrance were hanging a banner for the new term's admissions.

"Teacher Lu—Teacher Lu, could you help me see whether this is crooked?"

"Coming—"

The woman in the white lab coat set her thermos on the windowsill and swayed out of the office in black stiletto heels. One leg was clad in a white stocking, her foxlike eyes tilted slightly upward, and her amber pupils narrowed into two lazy slits beneath the afternoon sun. The black beauty mark beneath her left eye lent her alluring face an indescribably ancient air.

She walked to the gate and tilted her head to inspect the banner.

"A little to the left—"

"To the right, right—"

"Oh, forget it. I'll do it."

She reached out and straightened it. The moment she raised her arm, the hem of her white lab coat was lifted by the wind, revealing her tall, slender figure—her impressive bust, an impossibly narrow waist, and long legs made all the more striking by her miniskirt and mismatched white stocking.

Every passing male student slowed down.

Lu Menge did not notice at all—or rather, she was used to it. She straightened the banner, casually dusted off her hands, and turned toward the office.

Halfway there, she suddenly stopped.

She raised her head and looked toward the western horizon.

That was the direction of the Star Dou Great Forest.

For several seconds, Lu Menge simply stood there, her foxlike eyes half-lidded, a faint smile that was not quite a smile resting on her M-shaped lips. The wind blew past, carrying East Sea City's distinctive salty, fishy scent.

"...Someone who's been silent for eight hundred thousand years," she murmured. "Suddenly thought of me?"

She smiled. That smile held laziness, indifference, and something buried at the deepest level, like an old wound that had been sealed for too long. Even she could not be bothered to count how many layers sealed it.

"Fine, then."

Lu Menge wrapped her white lab coat more tightly around herself and strode into the school building. Her stilettos clicked across the terrazzo floor, the rhythm light and unhurried, carrying the composure that only someone who had lived too long could possess.

"This teacher of yours," her voice drifted from the end of the corridor, "is best at waiting for people to come."

"If you've got the skill—come find me."