Arrival in Heaven Dou City

"Awake?" Shui Bing'er's voice came from above him. "You slept really deeply. You were even snoring."

Only then did Jiang Lan realize he had been resting on her lap the whole time. He hurriedly sat up, and the hood of his penguin onesie flopped over his head, covering his entire face.

He reached out from beneath the hood and fumbled around several times before pulling it back, revealing a little face flushed from sleep, with marks from the folds of her skirt still imprinted on his cheek.

"H-how long did I sleep for, gah?" Jiang Lan rubbed his eyes, his voice still hoarse with sleep.

"Almost two hours." Shui Bing'er gently massaged the thigh that had gone numb beneath his head.

Two hours meant four hours.

Jiang Lan scratched his head, feeling a little embarrassed. He had only meant to take a short nap, yet he had slept like the dead.

"I don't snore when I sleep!" Jiang Lan turned and refuted Shui Bing'er, then seemed to remember something and added, "And I don't drool either!"

"Is that so?" Shui Yue'er poked her head over from the side, pointed at the corner of her own mouth, and said with a smile, "Then what's that there?"

Jiang Lan instinctively touched the corner of his mouth.

It was wet.

The sleeve of his penguin onesie brushed over his mouth, leaving behind a glistening streak on the cuff. His face instantly flushed all the way to his ears.

A burst of good-natured laughter rang through the carriage.

Doro lay on Shui Yue'er's lap and let out a gloating "doro~." After Jiang Lan glared at her, she rolled over, belly-up, and pretended that nothing had happened.

Shui Bing'er pulled Jiang Lan into her arms and said softly, "It's fine. Go back to sleep. It takes two months to travel from Vast Sea City to Heaven Dou City."

Hearing that, Jiang Lan yawned and nodded to show that he understood, then leaned against Shui Bing'er and went back to sleep.

Two months was neither particularly long nor particularly short.

To Bo Saixi, though, those two months felt as long as another six years.

Every day, she stood on the steps outside Sea God Palace and gazed northward. Every day, she set out an extra bowl and pair of chopsticks at the dining table. Every day, she flicked the dried-fish wind chime hanging from the doorframe, listened to its soft rustling, then muttered a curse under her breath at that little brat.

Everyone on Sea God Island had noticed that the High Priestess had been in an even worse mood lately. Even Sea Witch Douluo reported on official matters with trepidation, afraid that one wrong sentence would bring disaster upon her.

But for Jiang Lan, these two months had practically been the most comfortable days he had enjoyed in all six years of his life.

Skywater Academy's carriage was luxurious, but no one could endure riding in one continuously for two months.

Fortunately, Shui Yue'er was not one to sit still. Whenever they reached a town along the way, she insisted on stopping to look around. If they came across a good restaurant, she would reserve the whole place for a meal; if they found somewhere interesting, they would stay an extra few days.

Over those two months, Jiang Lan had thoroughly become the beloved favorite of Skywater Academy's girls.

The girls took turns washing his penguin onesie more than twenty times. After every wash, they scented it with incense, so that now he smelled like a walking blue rose. His cheeks were pinched at least fifty times every day, so much that he was practically developing immunity to it.

Doro had it even worse. Shui Yue'er held her while sleeping more often than Jiang Lan did. One morning, she woke up to find that someone had braided two little pigtails into her fur, complete with pink ribbons.

Still, Jiang Lan was not simply eating and staying for free.

They encountered several groups of foolish bandits blocking the road along the way, and he knocked every last one of them down using nothing but his physical strength.

The first time the girls of Skywater Academy saw him punch a two-meter-tall burly man into the air and leave him hanging from a tree, their jaws nearly dropped to the floor.

From that day onward, the way they looked at Jiang Lan changed from what an adorable little dumpling to what a terrifying but adorable little dumpling.

Finally, on the sixty-second day after leaving Vast Sea City, the carriage traveled onto the official road leading to Heaven Dou City.

"We're here, we're here!" Shui Yue'er stuck her head out the carriage window and excitedly pointed at the towering city in the distance. "Little Guga, look! That's Heaven Dou City!"

Jiang Lan poked his head out from Shui Bing'er's embrace. The hood of his penguin onesie was crooked to one side, revealing half of a little face that had not fully awakened yet.

Heaven Dou City unfolded in the morning light like a gigantic beast crouching upon the earth.

Its walls were absurdly tall, more than twice as high as those of Vast Sea City. The blue-gray bricks gleamed with a steady, solemn luster beneath the sunlight.

Merchant caravans and pedestrians flowed in and out of the city gates like ants, forming a dense mass in the distance.

"It's so huge..." Jiang Lan leaned against the carriage window. The wind blew the hood of his penguin onesie backward, exposing a pair of eyes widened perfectly round.

He had lived for six years, and Vast Sea City was the largest city he had ever seen. Yet compared to Heaven Dou City, Vast Sea City was practically just a little town.

"This is the heart of the Heaven Dou Empire, one of the most prosperous cities on the entire continent." Shui Bing'er sat beside him, leaned over slightly, and pointed through the window at the tallest spire in the distant city. "See that? That's the tip of a tower in Heaven Dou Imperial Palace. The imperial family of the Heaven Dou Empire lives there. Spirit Hall's Heaven Dou City Branch Hall is in the city as well. It's one of the highest-ranking branch halls on the continent, with Soul Master experts as numerous as fish in the sea."

"And Heaven Dou Royal Academy!" Shui Yue'er hurried over to add. "Heaven Dou Royal Academy is one of the best Soul Master Academies on the continent. The school is near Heaven Dou City."

After listening, Jiang Lan nodded thoughtfully, then asked a question that left everyone in the carriage silent. "Is the cafeteria at Heaven Dou Royal Academy good?"

Shui Yue'er opened her mouth, only to realize that she could not answer that question at all.

"It... should be pretty good, right?" She looked uncertainly toward Shui Bing'er, who helplessly shook her head to indicate that she had never eaten at their cafeteria either.

"Forget it. I'll find out when we get there." Jiang Lan did not dwell on it. He leaned back against the carriage window, his eyes fixed on the approaching city gates as he considered something else.

The first trial of Sea God's Nine Trials: travel to Heaven Dou City and obtain the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud.

Now that he had reached Heaven Dou City, he had no idea whether the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud, a national treasure of the Heaven Dou Empire, was hidden in the imperial palace or somewhere else.

But since Big Brother Sea God had sent him here, there had to be a way.

As the carriage approached the city gates, the crowd waiting to enter automatically made way for it.

When the guards at the gate saw the emblem of Skywater Academy on the carriage, they did not even inspect it and simply waved them through.

Once they entered Heaven Dou City, Jiang Lan discovered that it was even livelier than he had imagined.

The carriage stopped in front of an inn, and Jiang Lan and Shui Bing'er stepped down.

Shui Bing'er crouched down and looked at Jiang Lan. "Jiang Lan, how long do you plan to stay in Heaven Dou City?"

Jiang Lan thought for a moment before answering, "Half a year, maybe? I can't say for sure exactly how long."