Mo Li silently crawled out from the golden dragon’s claws.
At first, he didn’t think much of it; after all, he often carried the sand rat with him, and this size comparison was such that neither side lost out. Everyone could experience the feeling of lying in the palm of someone else’s hand—yet there were other dragon veins present now!
The Qimao Mountain dragon vein felt quite out of place.
From the dragon’s form to the appearance of the beings transformed from it, there were too many commonalities.
This was fine, but the Feihe Mountain dragon vein was resentfully suspecting that the Taijing dragon vein had abducted children.
The green dragon snorted through its nose, “Enough! Do you really take my compliments seriously? What’s so great about fish? Especially such a large fish. The moment I saw this little brother, I knew he was born from a rather ordinary mountain; his dragon form is also smaller. Otherwise, like you and me, due to too much spiritual energy, the dragon forms as mountain spirits are too large and cumbersome. When transforming into a physical form, it’s instinctive to wish to be as small and agile as possible, so it’s impossible to turn into a fish.”
So this was the reasoning, Mo Li thought as he looked at the golden dragon with a thoughtful expression.
However, Meng Qi had considered being a pair of furry sand rats and also thought about being a pair of carefree fish, so he questioned, “Why can’t it be fish?”
“Fish can’t swim without water. Only in the southern mountains are there many rivers, and the crown of Jiangnan belongs to my Feihe Mountain,” the green dragon sneered, clearly thinking that even it found being a fish inconvenient; there was no way any dragon vein could claim that transforming into a fish was easy.
Meng Qi ruthlessly exposed him:
“That’s because your Feihe Mountain has plenty of water and fish, and more beings that eat fish.”
“Nonsense! The spiritual cave where I was born is in a valley under a cliff, and I instinctively yearn to fly upward!” the green dragon puffed its cheeks and glared.
Meng Qi was not swayed by this reasoning; he sneered and said, “This valley is your spiritual cave? I think not; the spiritual cave should be in a deeper dark river, as any spiritual cave that can give birth to a dragon vein, due to the excessively dense spiritual energy, would have nothing growing around it. This place doesn’t seem to be like that.”
This was also the main reason Meng Qi couldn’t find the Feihe Mountain dragon vein decades ago and couldn’t even determine whether Feihe Mountain had a dragon vein.
Where there is water, there are wild grasses and trees. With such a vast mountain, if even a piece of barren land couldn’t be found, how could one determine a suspect? This time, it could only be said that this valley had extremely rich spiritual energy, making it the most likely place.
The green dragon shook its head and said discontentedly, “So what if it’s underground? Why do you care about my family’s matters?”
Mo Li worried that the two dragons might fight, and quickly asked, “Do you know that Feihe Mountain has hidden a group of people from Xiliang, secretly planting opium here?”
The green dragon remained silent, its gaze wandering, wanting to say something but hesitating.
Meng Qi found him displeasing, and coupled with the fact that Ayanpuka was not a good thing, he was about to open his mouth to mock.
The black dragon forcefully blocked the golden dragon’s path, turning its head to give a signal of “don’t speak, just look at me and act accordingly.”
—With such a small frame, it had to mediate for a companion so much larger than itself; it was incredibly tiring.
The golden dragon didn’t think that way. It felt that Doctor Mo was too cute; if this place weren’t someone else’s…
The dragon whiskers and scales made of formless energy trembled lightly.
It wanted to swallow the black dragon whole, letting this mass of spiritual energy have you within me and me within you.
“Is there anything inappropriate to say?” Mo Li asked the green dragon seriously.
“I… I don’t know any Xiliang or Zhongyuan people.”
The green dragon turned its head shyly and said softly, “Although I know that the people from the North Border look different from Zhongyuan people, to me, all humans look the same!”
Meng Qi was speechless.
In fact, this flaw was shared by him and Mo Li, though evidently not as severe.
They simply didn’t care much about human beauty or ugliness; when they got to the Feihe Mountain dragon vein, looking at people was probably like humans looking at sparrows. Even if the sizes and patterns of the feathers and spots on the face were different, they were still sparrows; how could one tell if it was the same one?
“Also, what is opium? Is it something that needs to be planted by people and can be eaten?” The green dragon scratched the mountainside with its claws, looking awkward.
The dragon form was not physical, and scratching the mountainside wouldn’t have any consequences; this action was merely a way to mask its embarrassment.
The Feihe Mountain dragon vein felt that after being absent for hundreds of years, its first appearance had ruined its reputation completely.
“Opium is a type of poison, originally found in the southern border, with extremely bright red flowers…”
Mo Li quickly described opium and the dangers it could cause to the green dragon.
The green dragon seemed to understand but still blinked and asked, “It’s harmful to humans; what does it have to do with us?”
“…”
Mo Li wanted to say that the world was in chaos and the common people were suffering, but it was evident that the Feihe Mountain dragon vein had no interest in such matters. It seemed that he could only start asking about Ayanpuka’s oddities.
The black dragon turned back to give the golden dragon a look.
“Brother Meng?”
Mo Li was puzzled to find that the golden dragon seemed to be in a daze, staring at him with a very hungry expression.
— Thankfully, it didn’t have a physical form, nor dragon saliva.
The green dragon’s brow furrowed high, looking at the Taijing dragon vein with a twisted expression: Can you not make a scene in someone else’s house?
“Ahem.” Meng Qi realized that controlling the dragon form was even harder than controlling the sand rat’s nature. He steadied himself and, pretending to be nonchalant, asked, “There’s someone who came with a feather filled with spiritual energy that radiates light, claiming it was left by the Feihe Mountain dragon vein. He has been trying to find a dragon vein and has stayed at Feihe Mountain for many years; you wouldn’t have seen him, would you?”
The green dragon burst into laughter, tilting its head and saying, “Indeed, there are people who want to find dragon veins, but from ancient times to the present, there have been many such people. They rely on feng shui to find spiritual caves, and they do have some skills. But even if they come knocking, so what? If I don’t come out, or just stand on a branch mingling with a bunch of sparrows watching the fun, could they possibly discover me? The people of Feihe Mountain worship the mountain gods, and sometimes I’ll play some pranks.”
“So?”
“Just give them something from the mountain god, like particularly large scales, luminous feathers, or rice with three or four ears.” The green dragon said playfully, “People like to call it auspicious and offer it to local officials or the emperor.”
The golden dragon squinted its eyes and slowly shook its head, saying, “No, that feather was filled with spiritual energy.”
The dragon veins knew about dragon veins; as long as they found particularly large fish, the scales would suffice, and the Jia He rice grew naturally. The feather emitting light was extraordinary.
It even tricked the two dragon veins into thinking it was truly dropped from the Feihe Mountain dragon vein; this was not something that could be easily faked.
“Put the feather in the spiritual cave. I specifically found a beautiful feather; as long as I infuse it with spiritual energy…”
“Hold on.”
Meng Qi and Mo Li spoke simultaneously.
“What do you mean by infusing it with spiritual energy?”
“How do you infuse it? Infusing it will make it glow?”
Faced with the questioning from a massive golden dragon and a slender black dragon, the Feihe Mountain dragon vein was confused.
“Just… push the spiritual energy inside?”
The green dragon seemed to answer as if explaining how humans breathe; isn’t this something one should instinctively know?
“Aren’t all dragon veins capable of this?”
“No.” Meng Qi said decisively.
The gaze directed at the Feihe Mountain dragon vein was no longer right; after all, harnessing spiritual energy was also a skill of Ayanpuka.
This was a skill that he and Doctor Mo could not comprehend.
“Who did you teach this ability to?”
“Who else could I teach? Only dragon veins can do it!” The green dragon protested.
Meng Qi stared at him for a while and suddenly said, “You’ve seen a fourth dragon vein besides us.”
This time, the green dragon fell silent; it turned to return to the body of a sparrow.
“Wait, this matter is very important.” Mo Li hurriedly stopped him.
At this moment, they could only lay all their cards on the table. Mo Li was willing to bet that the Feihe Mountain dragon vein had nothing to do with Ayanpuka because once the green dragon transformed back into a sparrow and avoided them, it wouldn’t matter if they turned the valley upside down.
“We are here tracking the Xiliang people who are planting opium…”
Mo Li directly revealed the strange aspects about Ayanpuka, who could harness spiritual energy, produce glowing feathers, and confidently asserted that Feihe Mountain had a dragon vein.
The green dragon’s expression changed repeatedly, and finally, it slowly turned around, remaining silent for a long time.
When it spoke again, the voice in its consciousness was low.
“I’m not completely without experience; two hundred years ago, a dragon vein invited me to its home as a guest.
“That was a dragon vein on the brink of extinction.
“It deceived newly born dragon veins, wanting to use them to extend its own life.”
These three sentences shocked Mo Li immensely.
“How did it use them?”
They were formless; their roots were the mountains and rivers, and the mountains could not be moved.
The green dragon spoke bitterly: “That dragon vein was born from a snow mountain beyond the pass; the people there call it Anahduo Mountain, meaning the home of the blue eagle.”
“Anahduo Mountain?”
This time, it was Meng Qi who was shocked. He looked at Mo Li and said, “About two hundred years ago, there was a major earthquake beyond the pass, and even a section of the border walls collapsed. The smaller southern peak of Anahduo Mountain was split in two.”
“What split was the spiritual cave where the dragon vein was born, and since then, the spiritual energy has been continuously leaking out,” the Feihe Mountain dragon vein said with a depressed expression. “This certainly wouldn’t claim the dragon vein’s life, but the human form can’t be maintained, and even the transformed form of a blue eagle can’t continue to exist. It may have to revert to the most original formless energy, and even consciousness could dissipate.”
Mo Li was left speechless, and after a long pause, he quietly asked, “Is that death?”
“Not quite.” Meng Qi thought for a moment and then said, “Just like the Silang Mountain dragon vein. As long as it shifts a bit, after a thousand years, once the mountains and spiritual caves recover, new consciousness will gradually emerge.”
Mo Li suddenly found himself at a loss for words; natural disasters often accompany human disasters.
Although their dragon veins collapsing was a natural disaster in itself, many other events had nothing to do with dragon veins, such as the heavy snowstorm at Qimao Mountain this winter.
Some things just happened; there was no way to avoid them.
It turned out that nothing in the world was eternal, and no one could stay in this world forever, not even the dragon veins.
Time changed all, as it always had.
“Does Silang Mountain also have a dragon vein?” The green dragon was intrigued by Meng Qi’s words but soon became disinterested and said in disappointment, “The dragon vein of Anahduo Mountain searched all over the Zhongyuan land, even reaching overseas, and in the end, only found two mountains with transformed dragon veins.”
Those were Feihe Mountain and Taijing Shangyun Mountain.
“The Taijing dragon vein is filled with spiritual energy; it wouldn’t dare to lay a hand on you and instead turned its attention to me,” the green dragon said angrily at first but then spoke listlessly, “At that time, I had just transformed and had no interest in humans, only a bit of curiosity about my companions. He taught me many things, including how to infuse spiritual energy into other beings, saying this was something all dragon veins could do. Of course, it could also be done on inanimate objects, but the spiritual energy in inanimate objects doesn’t last long, at most half a month.”
Meng Qi hesitated. The other was a blue eagle; shouldn’t it be on guard?
But upon further thought, he realized that any dragon vein wouldn’t have anticipated such a situation; after all, they were formless beings.
“But the spiritual energy from other dragon veins… cannot be consumed at all.” Mo Li said, confused.
— Don’t ask how Mo Li knew this.
The green dragon replied expressionlessly, “It’s not about direct consumption; it’s about breaking down the forms of other dragon veins and using them to fill and repair the cracked spiritual caves. As long as there is enough spiritual energy, whether it be spiritual caves or mountains and rivers, they will gradually recover.”
The first step was to trick those dragon veins into coming to its territory.
Then they could take action.
The green dragon noticed that even the Taijing dragon vein looked surprised and bewildered, clearly unaware of such matters, and said gloomily, “I don’t know how the Anahduo Mountain dragon vein did it, but evidently, it knew many methods of manipulating spiritual energy. This was all its research; if you hadn’t mentioned it today, I would’ve thought that infusing spiritual energy was something all dragon veins could do. I didn’t have a human form, so I had to learn it, but I picked it up easily without much effort.”
Meng Qi also intended to learn this, but that wasn’t the main point. He pressed on, “How did you escape?”
“Perhaps he overestimated my strength.” The green dragon boasted first and then said fiercely, “The Anahduo Mountain was originally not a mountain rich in spiritual energy; he was greedy and didn’t think about the fact that he couldn’t deal with me at all, and so I escaped!”
Mo Li had to remind him, “Actually, there was no choice.”
Two hundred years ago, Feihe Mountain had just transformed, and at that time, Mo Li certainly wasn’t around.
The Silang Mountain dragon vein was still just a tree today, having also escaped a calamity back then.
The Anahduo Mountain dragon vein didn’t want to die, but it had no choice and could only deceive the weaker of the two mountains.
“When I destroyed Xiliang, I also went to Anahduo Mountain; the spiritual energy there is weak, and there are no signs of a dragon vein existing. The dragon vein you mentioned… should already be gone.”
Meng Qi couldn’t help but scratch the mountainside with his claws, feeling anger rise; what if Ah Li had been born a hundred years earlier and had suffered?
“I fought with him, and while escaping, I severely injured him. He couldn’t maintain his form any longer and wouldn’t be able to deceive other dragon veins,” the green dragon said, gnawing on its claws, looking troubled. “Logically speaking, he should have died. What’s this Ayanpuka all about? Can dragon veins still reincarnate as humans?”
The author has something to say:
Reincarnation is impossible; there’s no underworld in this story.
It was mentioned before that aside from the main characters, there is no third dragon vein that can transform into a human form.
————
Mountain Sparrow: I don’t want to see companions stronger than me; it makes me feel unsafe, especially since the Taijing dragon vein has gone off to be an official.
