A New Chapter Has Arrived

The four of them finished the last brew of tea beneath the ancient tree. The setting sun turned Lake of Life into a golden mirror. Gu Yue rose from the lakeside and brushed the bits of grass from her skirt. Di Tian set down his teacup, the fragmented light on the lake reflected in his golden eyes. After a long silence, he finally spoke. "My Lord, this time that you've returned—can you stay for one night?"

It was neither an order nor a request, but the tentative question of an old man who had waited for tens of thousands of years. Gu Yue turned to look at Di Tian. His golden eyes were still those dragon eyes from more than eight hundred thousand years ago, naturally majestic even without anger. Yet the fingers holding his teacup—those dragon claws capable of tearing open space—were tightening slightly, as though he feared hearing her say, "No."

"Alright." Gu Yue sat back down and pushed the teacup toward Di Tian. "I'll stay for one night. I'll go back tomorrow."

Di Tian lowered his head. Something flickered in his golden eyes, but he quickly suppressed it. He stood and gestured behind the ancient tree. Several ten-thousand-year soul beasts that had long been waiting immediately scattered to prepare the banquet and the overnight arrangements. Holding her thermos, Lu Menge hid the smile at the corner of her lips behind its rim and whispered to Tang Wulin beside her, "Did you see that gesture Di Tian made just now? He started preparing the room last night. He was afraid Gu Yue wouldn't stay. He's lived for over eight hundred thousand years, yet he still gets nervous in front of the Silver Dragon King." Tang Wulin watched Di Tian struggle to maintain his solemn expression while his steps were clearly lighter than usual, and suddenly felt that this black dragon, known among human soul masters as the Beast God, was more like a father waiting for his daughter to come home.

The banquet was held beneath the ancient tree. The ten-thousand-year soul beasts brought over stone tables and stools, and the table was covered in rare fruits and fine liquors unique to the Star Dou Great Forest. Di Tian sat to Gu Yue's right, Lu Menge to her left, and Tang Wulin across from her. He discovered an extra plate of unfamiliar golden fruits before him. When he peeled one open, the flesh inside was crystal-clear, and a faint dragon aura melted across his tongue as he tasted it.

Di Tian watched him peel the fruit from across the table and said evenly, "Dragon Saliva Fruit. A rare fruit unique to the Core Area of the Star Dou Great Forest. One tree bears one fruit, and it takes a thousand years to ripen. It nourishes dragon bloodlines—there is the Divine Core of the Golden Dragon King inside you, so eating it will benefit you."

Lu Menge reached out, picked one up, and tossed it to Tang Wulin. "Di Tian, you're playing favorites. I've come here so many times, and the Dragon Saliva Fruit was either unripe or only had one left. Today you brought out a whole plate—Wulin must be the reason." Di Tian lifted his teacup without denying it. "Ninth Sister does not have a dragon bloodline, so the Dragon Saliva Fruit would not do much for her. Tang Wulin is different—though he is not a pure-blooded dragon, the Divine Core of the Golden Dragon King has long fused with his bloodline. The Dragon Saliva Fruit can help him temper the remaining violent aura of the Divine Core." He paused, then turned to Tang Wulin. "This is the first time My Lord has brought a human back. This plate of fruit was meant to be saved for you."

Tang Wulin's fingers paused slightly as he peeled the Dragon Saliva Fruit. He looked up at Di Tian, then solemnly said after a moment, "Thank you, Senior Di Tian." Then he placed the first Dragon Saliva Fruit he had peeled onto the plate before Gu Yue. Di Tian held his teacup and watched without saying anything, but the curve of his lips lifted slightly more than usual when he drank.

After the banquet ended, the conversation beneath the ancient tree continued until the moon stood high in the sky. Lu Menge leaned against the tree's roots with her thermos in hand, gazing at the stars overhead. Then she suddenly turned to Gu Yue beside her. "There are more stars tonight than there were a few days ago. Are you going to visit the Stone Palace?"

Gu Yue was silent for a moment. Then she stood and held out her hand to Tang Wulin. "Come. I'll show you where I used to live."

Stone Palace.

Tang Wulin stood before the palace gates and looked up at the ancient structure that had slept across from Lake of Life for tens of thousands of years. Its body was built from massive slabs of bluestone, with moss crawling through the seams. Yet the patterns of every joint remained clear—traces left behind by the Silver Dragon King's origin power during her slumber. Gu Yue pushed open the palace doors. The hinges gave a deep groan as moonlight poured through the stone windows in the roof, illuminating the stone platform in the center of the hall, carved from a single piece of lakeside stone. A layer of dried Silver-Scaled Grass covered the platform. It had been laid beneath Gu Yue when she slept tens of thousands of years ago. It had long lost its luster, yet faint silver veins could still be seen on its blades.

"This is where I slept for tens of thousands of years." Gu Yue walked to the stone platform and gently brushed her fingertips across the Silver-Scaled Grass. Her tone was calm. "Tens of thousands of years ago, I closed my eyes here. Tens of thousands of years later, I woke up here. The outside world had changed. Humans had invented Soul Tools, built cities, and driven soul beasts into hunting grounds. But when I opened my eyes, the first things I saw were still this lake and this forest. Di Tian knelt outside the palace gates and said, 'My Lord, you have awakened.' At that moment, I thought I had merely taken a nap."

Tang Wulin walked to her side and looked down at the withered grass on the platform. He remembered what Di Tian had said by the lake—how Di Tian had stood on that bluestone every day for tens of thousands of years, listening for any sound from within the Stone Palace. He did not repeat Di Tian's words to Gu Yue, because there was no need. When Gu Yue told Di Tian that he no longer needed to kneel, she had already understood. She simply was not good at saying such soft words in the Star Dou Great Forest—just like Di Tian.

Gu Yue gently placed the Silver-Scaled Grass back on the platform and led Tang Wulin farther inside. Dragon reliefs filled both sides of the Stone Palace corridor. Some dragons rode clouds and mist, some coiled atop mountains and rivers, and some fought deities amid the clouds. Gu Yue pointed to one of the reliefs—a complete dragon, its head held high, its tail curled around its body, two dim gemstones embedded in its eyes. Her voice echoed through the empty Stone Palace, softer than usual. "This is the Dragon God. The source of all dragon bloodlines. The Golden Dragon King and I were both born from Its division."

Tang Wulin stood before the relief for a long time without moving. This was not the first time he had heard of the Dragon God—the Golden Dragon King had mentioned It countless times in his spiritual sea, and Sister Lu had also said in the forging room, "You deserve the name Dragon God Armament." But this was the first time he had faced the Dragon God's image. The Dragon God on the relief was whole, gold and silver scales intertwined across Its body. Though the gemstones in Its eyes had dimmed, they still carried a trace of ancient majesty. The Golden Dragon King remained silent within Tang Wulin's spiritual sea—not because he did not wish to speak, but because even he did not know what to say. One half that had been divided for tens of thousands of years stood in the Stone Palace of the other half that had been divided for tens of thousands of years, gazing upon their original, complete form. At a moment like this, words felt unnecessary.

Gu Yue stood quietly at his side. Only when his uneven breathing had steadied did she lead him onward. Beyond the stone archway at the end of the corridor was a smaller stone chamber. A round carpet lay in the center—Di Tian replaced it with a new one every year. An ancient qin rested in the corner. Its strings were intact, though its body had grown somewhat dull. Gu Yue entered and sat before the qin. She gently plucked its thinnest string, and its clear, distant note echoed between the stone walls.

"This is the Dragon God's Qin. After Its division, no one ever played this qin again. When I was little, I would sit on this carpet, and the Golden Dragon King would lie beside me—sometimes in dragon form, sometimes in human form. He always said this qin was a relic of the Dragon God and couldn't be touched carelessly, but whenever I plucked its strings, he never went to report me." She withdrew her hand and looked at the faint tremor left in the strings by her fingertips. "Later, during the war of the God Realm, the Golden Dragon King was sealed by Tang San, while I was sealed within the Elemental Core and fell asleep. This qin remained here and never sounded again. Now that the Golden Dragon King is within you, this qin has finally waited for the person it was meant to wait for."

Tang Wulin sat cross-legged on the carpet opposite her and suddenly asked, "Would you like to—play it together?"

Gu Yue looked at him, then lowered her gaze to the ancient qin that had been silent for tens of thousands of years. Then she shifted half a place to the side, making room for Tang Wulin beside her. Their fingers fell onto the strings at the same time—Gu Yue pressed them down, while Tang Wulin plucked. The music drifted out of the stone chamber, through the corridor, through the eyes of the Dragon God on the reliefs, through the dome of the Stone Palace, and toward the opposite shore of Lake of Life.

Beneath the ancient tree on the opposite bank, Di Tian's hand froze around his teacup. He abruptly looked toward the Stone Palace. Moonlight reflected from the lake shone in his golden eyes, along with the faint sound of the qin filtering from the palace dome. His fingers trembled slightly against the rim of the cup. A drop of tea spilled onto the stone table, but he did not notice.

"Ninth Sister. That is the Dragon God's melody." Di Tian's voice was extremely soft, as though he feared waking a dream that had slept for too long. Lu Menge had already risen to her feet. Facing the Stone Palace, the phantom images of nine tiger tails flickered behind her. The usual laziness and amusement were absent from her amber fox eyes. She had lived for so long and passed Lake of Life countless times, believing the Dragon God's lingering echoes had long been washed away by the tides. She had never even dared hope that this qin would sound a second time. Yet at this moment, the combined notes of the ancient qin came from deep within the Stone Palace—not an echo, not a reverberation, not any illusion. Someone was pressing and plucking the strings at the same time.

"Gu Yue is pressing the strings, and Wulin is plucking them. When the qin was in the Dragon God's hands, it never needed two people to play it—because the Dragon God was originally one being. Now that It has become two, this piece has instead been made whole. Di Tian," she turned toward him, a solemnity in her voice that he had never seen on Ninth Sister's face, though the smile in her eyes could not be suppressed, "do you hear it? The Dragon God has returned. Not as a godhood, not as power, but through the hands of these two little brats, pressing the same string together. I waited all these years just to hear this sound."

Di Tian said nothing. He stared in the direction of the Stone Palace, and something glistened in his golden eyes beneath the moonlight. More than eight hundred thousand years had passed. He had guarded the Dragon God's fall, guarded the Silver Dragon King's slumber, guarded against countless invasions by human soul masters and upheavals of nature. He had thought he was guarding a forest, a mission, a name that would never return. Now the music told him that the Dragon God had never truly left.

Inside the stone chamber, the final note faded into the air. Tang Wulin's fingers still rested lightly on the strings, while the string Gu Yue held down continued to tremble faintly. Looking at Gu Yue's profile, he suddenly felt that this chamber was no longer the empty, lonely space he had sensed when he first opened its door. The place where she had pressed the strings was close to his own, and the silence that had settled for tens of thousands of years had been filled to the brim by the notes they had just played.

Gu Yue turned to look at him as well. Moonlight leaked through the stone window and fell precisely between their hands—two index fingers that had pressed the strings together lightly touched at the edge of the carpet. There was no Water-Mirror Reflection from practical combat class, no quenching tank in the forging room, no lunch beneath the ginkgo tree, no bamboo skewers before the grilled skewer stall. There was only the Stone Palace beneath the moon, the music just fading, and their fingers touching.

Tang Wulin took her hand into his palm, his grip light but steady. The Golden Dragon King turned over in Tang Wulin's spiritual sea, buried his head in his tail, and pretended to be asleep. Gu Yue lowered her eyes and gently withdrew her fingers from his palm—not in refusal, but to interlace her fingers with his instead. She raised her head and looked into his eyes. "This qin has sounded. For the first time in tens of thousands of years, someone has pressed its strings together. It was you and me." Her voice was as cool as ever, but the moonlight in her dark eyes softened the faint silver glow within them. "Whenever we return to the Star Dou Great Forest from now on, we'll come play it once—this is an order." Tang Wulin smiled and answered, "Alright," then tightened his grip around her fingers.