This is machine translated and all copyrights belong to the author. Please note that the translator might take creative liberties for better readability. Thank you for reading.
Abduction and counter-abduction routine.
Mo Li bent down, carefully reaching out towards the white ball.
As soon as his fingertips touched the outer layer of fur, the water droplets clinging to the white rat evaporated. The round little creature immediately rolled onto the top of Mo Li’s shoe, belly up, with its four paws comfortably resting at its side.
— A spiritual animal that could survive in the cave and cultivate itself!
Mo Li, finally finding a kindred spirit, grew fonder of the white rat the more he looked at it. He wanted to feed it something, but he had brought nothing with him as he had rushed into the mountains.
Mo Li tentatively poked the white rat’s little belly.
It was soft and warm.
The white rat didn’t resist and even wrapped its tiny paws around Mo Li’s finger.
Spiritual power flowed from Mo Li’s fingertips, and quickly met with a response. The chubby white rat’s aura, though out of place in this stone cave, absorbed the spiritual power given by Mo Li without any hindrance. It even shook Mo Li’s fingers a couple of times, as if asking for more.
“Where did you come from?”
Mo Li didn’t continue to tease the chubby rat, thinking that if it was a kindred spirit, it might have already developed spiritual intelligence.
He guessed that it was this white rat that had sneaked into the cave a few days ago, knocked over the medicine basket, and broke the ice. Mo Li, startled, had jumped out of the water, frightening the little creature.
Mo Li touched the white rat’s tender paws, thinking that as a rat, it should also be adept at burrowing.
That day, he had searched the entire Qimao Mountain without considering looking underground.
Moreover, this little creature’s aura was too weak.
Mo Li couldn’t help but hold the chubby white rat up to his eyes, assessing its strength. Even though both were monsters, there was a difference between a tiger demon and a rat demon.
Speaking of himself, Mo Li’s original form was a fish. Over a decade ago, during the relentless downpour on Qimao Mountain, the cave was filled with water. Mo Li, as a fish, desperately swam to the bottom of the pool but was still washed out by the mighty flood.
It struggled to escape, but what could a fish do? Spiritual power couldn’t stop the rushing floodwaters, and even if it leaped out of the water with effort, it would still be carried away by the current.
When Mo Li grasped a piece of driftwood, he realized he had subconsciously transformed into human form.
The driftwood wasn’t large, only capable of supporting the size of a child.
— And then he was found by Master Qin.
At that time, Mo Li couldn’t speak, walk, read, or even know the various dangers of the human world. If someone had discovered his true identity, the consequences would have been unimaginable.
“My luck has been good, and it seems yours is too,” Mo Li said, tapping the chubby white rat’s nose. The latter tilted its head to look at him and then curled itself into a ball.
“Come back with me?” Mo Li again poked the ball, negotiating with the chubby rat.
The white rat shook its head.
“Right, the cave here has more spiritual energy,” Dr. Mo mused.
But he always felt that the white rat’s aura was out of place in the cave. Even with the soft creature lying in his palm, Mo Li had the illusion that it might disappear at any moment. Thinking of the recent strange occurrences in Zhushan County, Mo Li tentatively asked, “Do you know about dragon veins?”
Unexpectedly, the white rat nodded its head.
Although with its fluffy body, the nodding was much less obvious than shaking its head.
Mo Li was startled and raised the white rat to his eye level: “Do you really know about the dragon vein? Is there a dragon vein under Qimao Mountain?”
The chubby rat nodded affirmatively again.
Mo Li couldn’t help but lower his voice to ask, “Then, where is the dragon vein?”
The chubby rat stepped on Mo Li’s palm.
“……”
Realizing that its body size couldn’t fully convey the correct meaning, the chubby white rat turned over and raised a paw toward the ground.
“Underneath… our feet?” Mo Li had never imagined that the so-called dragon vein was actually hidden beneath this cave.
It made sense; this was where the spiritual energy of Qimao Mountain was most abundant.
The white rat waved a paw towards the pool, then drew a long line, stopping in the direction of the cave entrance. After doing this, it seemed to think it wasn’t enough and used its front paws to gesture the largest space it could encompass, like holding a pine cone.
“Is it the Lingquan Pool? The entire cave? Qimao Mountain?”
When Mo Li mentioned the last word, the chubby rat nodded its head heavily.
Dr. Mo sighed; the dragon vein was so vast, covering the entire Qimao Mountain. It was the worst-case scenario. How could such a large mountain be protected when it couldn’t be moved or covered?
Master Li said that natural and man-made disasters would reveal the dragon vein, but there had been no changes in this cave. Since entering the mountain, Mo Li had not seen anything unusual. Could the dragon vein be an intangible entity, invisible and untouchable in both its existence and its passing?
It shouldn’t be.
Humans can’t feel it, but he, as a demon, couldn’t detect it either?
What exactly is a dragon vein?
The chubby white rat, seeing Mo Li deep in thought with a frown, moved its tiny paws, quietly curling up, and then its whole body suddenly floated, hurtling straight towards Mo Li’s forehead.
It moved so fast that by the time Mo Li reacted, the white ball was already inches away.
Mo Li hastily dodged, feeling bewildered. Missing its target, the white ball suddenly disintegrated, transforming into a dense fog that swiftly enveloped Mo Li.
“Boom!”
The pool water churned, forming a high column of water.
The jetting water even passed through the crevices of the cave ceiling, spraying outward.
Silver moonlight continuously swirled in the water, followed by a faint golden glow, which then grew brighter. The gold and silver lights filled the entire pool, while the cave trembled, and the accumulated snow melted.
This was just the beginning; a slight shaking began to occur within three hundred miles of Qimao Mountain.
The people panicked and fled their homes, exclaiming that the “earth dragon” was turning over.
No tragedies of destroyed houses or deaths occurred. Although the shaking was noticeable, the magnitude was not large. Standing on the ground, people could only feel their feet tingling, making them involuntarily shiver.
The shaking lasted for a full quarter of an hour before stopping.
People held their heads, looking around tremblingly, and found that the houses were still intact, the ground had not cracked open, and nothing was broken inside their homes.
However, everyone was covered in snow shaken down from higher places.
Some particularly unfortunate people were injured by falling ice.
Qin Lu held Tang Xiaotang in his arms, his face as dark as the bottom of a pot, looking in the direction of Qimao Mountain, unable to stop worrying.
In the cave of Qimao Mountain, Mo Li’s consciousness was lost in a void of emptiness. Looking up, he saw a blinding light; looking down, clouds were tumbling. He couldn’t see his own body and felt as if he had become a gust of wind, a wisp of cloud, drifting aimlessly.
After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly saw a crisscrossing array of houses and markets beneath the clouds.
There were mountains in the distance, and a river flowing through the city.
In the city, there were faint glimmers of fire. Mo Li wanted to see more, but his “body” drifted forward uncontrollably. He saw a majestic palace city with red walls and glazed tiles, built along the mountain, resembling a long snake.
The palaces were arranged in order, one after another.
In the central palace, the extended corners of the eaves had ten different crouching beasts.
“This is…” Mo Li exclaimed softly.
His teacher had taught him that nine is the ultimate number, and there’s only one place in the world with ten crouching beasts on its roof. That is the Wanhe Hall, where the emperor, facing south and sitting north, holds court, receives tributes from all directions, and commands the world.
Although the world is in chaos now, with anyone able to claim the throne, building such a large city and such a grand palace is not something that can be achieved with just money.
So, this must be Taijing Xianyang.
Xianyang, the capital of several dynasties, also known as Taijing, is so named because each dynasty liked to rename the capital, causing records to be quite confusing. Constantly changing names made it troublesome to mention the capital in writing, often leading to taboos, hence the nickname Taijing.
How did he suddenly end up in Taijing?
Mo Li was utterly bewildered. Suddenly, an immensely powerful aura enveloped the entire city, and he was deeply immersed in it, unable to escape. Instinctively looking up, the originally glaring golden light suddenly became much gentler, and he saw a colossal creature coiling above Taijing. The rafters of the Wanhe Hall were only the size of one of its scales.
A dragon, a golden dragon.
Mo Li’s mouth hung open uncontrollably because he felt that the aura of the giant dragon was exactly the same as that of the little chubby rat that had been sitting in his palm just moments ago.
“Who are you?”
“……”
The golden dragon slowly bowed its head, its body so huge that its eyes were like two suns suddenly lighting up in the pitch-black night.
Mo Li had a strange expression, feeling “himself” held in the dragon’s claw. The golden dragon gently exhaled, and Mo Li instantly felt the world spinning. When he reappeared, it seemed as though he had a body.
He inexplicably raised his paw.
Wait, where did this paw come from?
Mo Li looked down at “himself” and then froze.
He had a long, slender body, shiny black scales, sharp claws on his belly, and what seemed like long whiskers fluttering on the sides of his face.
— He didn’t look like a snake, nor a lizard.
Mo Li looked up dazedly, seeing his own reflection in the dazzling pupils of the golden dragon.
A tiny black dragon, so frail that one might suspect it was malnourished.
But why did this feel so familiar, as if something similar had happened before? Mo Li suddenly thought of the chubby white rat, which had been sitting in his palm just like that, soft, seemingly harmless, and docile.
He had been deceived.
Mo Li, expressionless, watched as the golden dragon lifted another claw, pointing first at itself and then at him.
“Come to me.” The voice was like distant thunder, accompanied by countless echoes.
“Why?”
Mo Li wondered why he should talk to a dragon that had deceived him.
“You are a dragon vein, and so am I. Protect yourself.” The golden dragon turned its head, gently pushing Mo Li with its claw.
“Wait, what did you say?”
Mo Li was shocked and instinctively asked more, but a gust of wind swept him up, tossing him around. When he could finally open his eyes, he saw the Lingquan Pool churning amidst the gold and silver light.
“Boom.”
The water fell back into the pool, splashing all over Mo Li. He took several steps back, leaning against the cave wall, gasping for breath.
There was no dragon in the cave, no chubby rat, and that strange aura had completely disappeared.
Mo Li wiped his face and soon realized that his body had never left the cave. What he had just experienced was only within his consciousness, similar to how he occasionally used his spiritual power to explore Qimao Mountain.
Dragon veins, Taijing…
Golden dragon, black dragon…
Mo Li sat down on the ground in bewilderment. So, he wasn’t a demon?
The author has something to say:
The chubby rat sat on Mo Li’s hand, squinting its eyes, then transformed, holding Mo Li in its palm: “This is the feeling. Isn’t it fun?”
Mo Li: “……”
He punched it.
————————
Mo Li couldn’t help but lower his voice to ask, “Then, where is the dragon vein?”
The chubby rat stepped on Mo Li’s palm: “You.”
————————
Thinking he was the protagonist in a cultivation story, with the mindset of an old father, holding a white ginseng, white fox, and a giant snake, suddenly a chubby little rat falls from the sky. He picks it up happily, ready to care for it, but then the world spins, and a huge golden dragon looks at him with a fatherly smile.
Protagonist: “……”
Protagonist: “Where’s the author? I’m going on strike! I can’t believe I’m not a demon!”
Last Edit: December 20, 2023 at
This is machine translated and all copyrights belong to the author. Please note that the translator might take creative liberties for better readability. Thank you for reading.
Thanks for picking this up!! I love this novel!!
Mo Li, ah, Mo Li, is a personified dragon vein not also a type of spiritual being? Poor guy. Thanks for picking this up!