In a corner, Tang San quietly watched the scene on the Sky Screen as Yao Lao fastened the gourd back to his waist.
Suddenly, he noticed a detail. That pill of Yao Lao's was a "Great Desolation Water Spirit Pill," refined by a disciple under Su Changqing.
Su Changqing actually had disciples skilled in alchemy under him.
Just how deep did the Great Desolation Divine Realm's foundations run?
He recalled the stone tablet the three Thousand Jun Ant Emperor brothers had dug up earlier: "Su Changqing, Great Desolation Lord, slew demons here and suppressed a branch of the Otherworldly Demons."
Then he recalled the relief on the back of the tablet, that black-robed figure standing with his hands behind his back, a Saint Dragon coiled at his feet.
And the game piece on the relief that he had noticed, but no one else had.
Su Changqing.
Playing a board game.
Yao Lao had beaten him three times.
Tang San suddenly felt as though there was some connection between these fragments, but he could not explain exactly what that connection was.
He simply committed all this information to memory in silence.
Remembering it piece by piece.
Waiting for the day when he could fit them all together.
On the Sky Screen.
On Dragon Nest Mountain.
Yao Lao and Zhu Kun sat down beside the warming stone, watching the young dragon slowly regain its spirits as they chatted intermittently.
"How have things been with Su Changqing lately? Anything new over in Great Desolation?"
"Same as always. You know what he's like. He shuts himself in the Main Hall to cultivate all day. Apart from playing a game, nothing can drag him out of seclusion, and he hardly bothers with anything else."
Yao Lao stroked his beard and said with a smile.