Tang San felt helpless when he heard that.
But he could only nod.
"It's all right."
"I know you can't accept this right away."
"But I can wait as long as it takes..."
"Until you're ready."
Tang Wulin nodded without conviction.
He did not meet Tang San's eyes. His gaze rested on a point in the emptiness just beyond his toes.
Right now...
Too many thoughts churned through his mind.
He could not make sense of a single one.
Then Tang San's expression shifted.
His body was growing more and more translucent.
The starlight around him began to dim.
"I don't have much time left," he said quickly, urgency entering his voice.
"Take care of yourself, son."
With that, Tang San's figure faded.
The golden apparition drifted away before Tang Wulin like morning mist scattered by the wind.
The trident vanished with him...
In an instant, all of it was gone.
The dark starfield receded in every direction, and Tang Wulin's consciousness suddenly plunged.
Then his eyes snapped open, as though he had surfaced from deep water.
Tang Wulin was awake again.
He found himself sitting on his dormitory bed, legs crossed and hands resting on his knees, exactly as he had been when he began meditating.
The night outside the window was still deep.
In the distance, Sea God Lake...
Shimmered a quiet silver beneath the moonlight.
He sat motionless, breathing steadily.
After a while, he left the dormitory and stepped into the corridor, where he looked up at the star-filled sky.
He was utterly lost.
Was he really not his parents' child?
Was Tang San truly his biological father?
Yet everything Tang San had said was true.
The Golden Dragon King bloodline ran through him, and the eighteen seals were there. Both the seals and the Golden Dragon