The roaming of divine sense was dreamlike and illusory. A thought arose, and it moved; the thought faded, and it returned. The journey outward stretched into the unknown, but the fall back took only an instant.
It was like an ordinary person dreaming that they had spent a long time traveling somewhere far, far away and witnessed all manner of wondrous sights, only to slip as though plunging into an abyss and suddenly crash back into their body.
So it was for Yi A Bao and Mo Yiming, except that instead of falling, they rose. The instant they emerged from the sea, their paper bodies shattered, and their divine sense "fell" back.
The sensation was little different from falling off a cliff or some other height, and they woke on their beds with startled cries.
Before the two old men had even opened their eyes, they heard the four people in the room cry out in alarm, followed by stumbling footsteps and doors banging as they fled.
Old Master Mo slowly opened his eyes and saw the top of the bed curtains.
Beyond the receding cries, the sounds of cups being raised and exchanged in the Dragon Palace still seemed to echo in his ears, along with the faint memory of a story told by what was said to be a Flood Dragon from the Southern Sea.
His memories of the birthday banquet were also exceptionally clear, as though he had merely taken a short nap after an afternoon of drinking.
Was it real or not? Had he merely had a long dream...
Yi A Bao opened his eyes as well. He stared blankly at the canopy above his bed, feeling the bedding around him, a faint sense of loss on his face.
When he had awakened before, he had