321 Ren Xun's Ancestry

Hi. My name's Da Wei, and I'm bone tired. I had been mind-hopping between my Six Souls like a distracted god with too many browser tabs open: prodding the Ghost Soul in New Willow to keep the local faith from fracturing; nudging the Animal Soul and its golden retriever antics to prod David_69's campaigns around the Nameless City; whispering strategy to Liu Yana through the Heaven Soul to buy time and delay the wider war threatening to consume the realm; bolstering Lu Gao's Hell Soul for deep infiltration; letting the Asura Soul be the wrecking ball behind enemy lines; and lending my Human Soul to Yellow Dragon so Ren Xun and his court didn't collapse under their own drama.

On top of that, I'd been resurrecting the dead with Divine Word: Raise, refining Manasouls, patching holes in my cultivation, and generally playing cosmic traffic cop. I was doing all of this while nominally "hiding" in a mountain like a monk on indefinite leave. Projecting into Yellow Dragon to break up a family shouting match was the last thing on my itinerary, but here we were.

"So what in tarnation are you?" I asked the cat, because apparently that was how the day would go.

Ren Xun had just performed the most spectacular act of melodrama I had seen in a long while, tearing his own heart out and brandishing it like an accusation, and I had no desire to watch him expire theatrically. So, if I said this intervention was needed, I wasn't kidding.

I reached across the little tea table and grabbed the ginger cat by the scruff of its neck. The nametag on its collar read Dog. I blinked. It was Liang Na's cat that was called Dog. I had a soft spot for the absurd, but I did not have time for this kind of existential feline comedy.

"Greetings, Da Wei," the cat said in a clear, insolent voice, "please unhand me or I shall smite you."

If I had been less tired and far less amused by the universe's ongoing commitment to bad timing, I might have felt alarmed. As it was, I managed a weary, sarcastic remark even as my fingers tightened.

"Me? Smite me? Oh, sweetie, you have no idea who's gonna do the smiting."

Our spiritual pressure clashed, stirring the winds.

I silently cast Lion's Courage and Bless on Ren Xun to protect him.

That was when it suddenly escalated.

See, there was an army of dragonesses ready to protect Ren Xun. They didn't bother with doors, windows, or even common sense. The room simply exploded in every direction as scaled bodies poured in like a storm of glitter, wings, and questionable priorities.

One claw ripped half the roof away. Another tail turned a perfectly respectable table into firewood. By the time the dust settled, Ren Xun looked like the groom at the most violent wedding reception in history.

"Your Majesty!" cried a silver-haired dragoness, falling to her knees so hard the stone cracked. "I sensed your life force weaken… please, lean on me!"

"Don't listen to her!" shouted a bronze-scaled one as she shouldered the silver-haired aside with all the subtlety of a bull in a tea house. "Lean on me! I'm stronger!"

A third, draped in silks that had no business surviving her crash through the wall, grabbed Ren Xun's arm like a damsel in reverse. "Your Majesty, forget them! I'll protect you… And also, are you free this evening?"

Ren Xun's face went redder than spilled dragon blood.

I rubbed my temples. "Ren Xun, can you please take care of your girls?"

"Yes, Senior… apologies…" he muttered, trying to untangle himself from three pairs of claws, a very unnecessary lap pillow offer, and at least one impromptu marriage proposal.

The formations around him flickered out, the dragons calming the moment his aura steadied. Still, they hovered, glaring daggers at each other like predators competing for territory, except the territory was one very overwhelmed Dragon King.

Meanwhile, the cat, Dog, yawned, stretched, and strolled right back to Nongmin's lap, looking so thoroughly bored it was insulting.

That was when Deng Chan herself arrived. She didn't so much enter as storm in, her Ninth Realm aura splitting the air like lightning.

"What is the meaning of this!?" she snapped, her voice sharp enough to cut steel. "Sisters, step back from His Majesty at once! Have you all forgotten our rules? None is permitted to lay a hand on him!"

The dragonesses froze, shame and reluctance warring on their faces. But Deng Chan wasn't looking at them anymore. Her eyes had locked on the cat.

Her pupils shrank. The color drained from her face. Without hesitation, she dropped to one knee, pressing her forehead nearly to the ground.

"I, Deng Chan, offer my deepest salutations to Your Greatness… the Dragon God!"

The room held its breath. Even the air seemed to fall still.

Dog yawned. Then her small furry body shimmered, expanding, twisting until there sat a woman on Nongmin's lap. She had brown hair like silk, golden robes embroidered with ancient runes, and eyes that burned with mischievous eternity. She didn't bother to rise; one hand lazily looped around Nongmin's neck to steady herself, as though daring anyone to complain.

The weight of her aura struck like a tidal wave. It wasn't the Ninth Realm. It wasn't even Tenth. It was something older… Deeper… Primeval. It reminded me of the dead god I fought back in the Shadow Clan's Sacred Grounds.

All the dragons collapsed to their knees as one, their voices trembling as they chorused. "Greetings, Dragon God!"

The Dragon God sniffed dismissively, her words filled with disdain. "Look at you. Reduced to clinging, simpering things. Without spine, without strength. Relying on a lesser race to survive. Dragonkind has sunk so low… it is pathetic."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. Honestly, the hypocrisy was choking me. Here she was, delivering a speech on dignity and power while perched comfortably in Nongmin's lap like some spoiled pet. This was the grand Dragon God? A cosmic beast reduced to cuddling a failing Emperor? Saints above, what had the world come to? And her name was supposed to be Dog!

"Then what does that make you?" challenged Ren Xun.

"Child, watch your tone," said the Dragon God. "Before I drew my first breath, your bloodline was still dust on the wind. Do not mistake my tolerance for mercy."

"I have read the chronicles of your so-called divinity, Ancestor. What stands before me now is but a vestige, a shadow gnawing on the scraps of faith. Each Yellow Dragon Festival raised your name high, and in return, you bestowed Riverfall with blessings. Yet when the traitors' banners blackened the horizon, when blood washed our gates… where were you then?

"Without the Emperor's favor, you would have crumbled into dust alongside the countless immortals driven mad by time. Do not pretend otherwise. The Emperor is your master, just as once the dragons themselves chose to serve me. So tell me, Dragon God… what right do you have to look down on those who have given me their loyalty?"

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"Oh, you are gravely mistaken," said the Dragon God. "Tell them, Nongmin…"

"Our relationship is not like that," said Nongmin, careful and distant. "A debt is owed, and now she has come to collect. In exchange for defending the dragons from being persecuted and hunted by the rest of the world, and for allowing me to claim Riverfall, I must forge her a vessel—"

"—Instead, you tried to build a weapon that could overcome me," the Dragon God finished, her voice spitting cold. "You roused his destiny, suppressed the blood that slept within him. Your tricks failed because you don't know the seals and formations I engraved in his heart—"

"Time out! Time out!" I snapped. "For the love of bananas, the fuck is going on?"

My fingers closed around the Dragon God's throat.

It wasn't a melodramatic grab, all claws and thunder. It was efficient and boringly practical, the way you shut down engines or stop a bleeding wound when you've no time for speeches. I didn't want to crush bones; I wanted to stop the performance, to press a hand across the throttle of their theatrics so the world could keep spinning without them turning it into a sacrificial stage.

Her scale heat met my palm. Power uncoiled beneath the skin. She blinked, surprised, but not in pain. "What is the meaning of this?"

"I don't really want to do this," I said, the words flat. "But would it solve the problem if I just smite you?"

"How dare you, brute!? Unhand me at once!" she spat in fury. "You don't want to challenge me!"

Around us, the other dragons answered in kind. The air shimmered, less like qi and more like tide, an enveloping pressure that tasted of storm and old mountains. I'd call it Draconic Force if anyone cared for labels; it was their world-force analog, and it tried to roll over me like surf. Fine. Let it roll. I tightened my grip a fraction more. Her throat was warm under my palm, her breath coming faster, and somewhere inside the rhythm I felt the unevenness: she was strong, but injured. Debuffed! I could tell with my Divine Sense. Her Ascended Soul realm felt like it was patched with cracks.

A bright, anxious voice cut through the pressure. "Lord Wei! Unhand her at once! She is the progenitor of our race!" It was Deng Chan.

"Nah," I said, because sometimes blunt answers are the best medicine for arrogant idiots.

Nongmin's tone came quietly and oddly patient. "It's fine, friend. You can let her go."

"Why?" I asked because I was tired and did not fancy listening anymore.

He sighed in that old, weathered way he had. "I foresaw this moment. Or at least I tried to. Without the Heavenly Eye, the visions fray. But the pieces seemed… aligned. There is no need to smite her…"

Ren Xun spoke then, voice low but hollowly triumphant. "It's done."

The Dragon God's eyes snapped to him. "Impossible! How did you manage to untangle them!?"

Ren Xun answered simply, "I've always had a talent for formations."

For a second, I registered nothing but the absurdity: the kid who had just ripped his own heart out now bragged about formations. The chamber's air went cold in a different way.

From Ren Xun's chest, where his robes had been torn and the blood still had that raw, too-bright sheen, something moved. Iron-dark chains erupted, not made of metal but of condensed formation-light, each link a lattice of inscriptions and seals. They writhed and slithered like living things, seeking something. The chains flowed across the floor, up the Dragon God's sleeve, and wrapped around her like a noose of geometry.

I kept my hand on her throat, but my awareness was split. That sight was something you wouldn't see every day, chains from a mortal's chest binding an Ascended Soul dragon. Even if this Dragon God was weakened, it was still insane.

Ren Xun's voice cracked like thunder. "I demand thee, give me your name!"

The chains rattled, and the Dragon God writhed against them. Her scales shimmered faintly, blood spilling past her lips as though each syllable of resistance carved deeper into her core. Slowly, inevitably, she broke.

Her voice came low, resonant, and yet subdued. "Zhou Yong… is my name."

Ren Xun's eyes burned bright. "From now on, I am your king!"

It should've sounded ridiculous, but instead, the chamber itself trembled. The Dragon God, Zhou Yong, the Yellow Flood Dragon, progenitor of this entire brood, fell to her knees. Her expression was twisted, caught somewhere between spite and submission, before softening into something that looked suspiciously like relief.

She smiled. A dragon, kneeling and smiling. My day just kept getting stranger.

"Well played, Nongmin," she said, turning her head toward the emperor, her voice filled with grudging admiration. "Millennia of scheming against each other, and I lost. I suppose… this is not a bad result either. Your majesty, monarch of dragons—" her gaze lifted to Ren Xun, "I, Zhou Yong, Ascended Soul, Yellow Flood Dragon, am at your command."

I nearly choked on my own tongue as Ren Xun's aura exploded outward. His qi swelled, a storm that rattled the pillars, his cultivation surging straight past the early stages and into the Fourth Realm as if fate itself shoved him upward.

I remembered something I'd read. Dragons were born in the Fourth Realm, their first breath stronger than most cultivators' life's work. For a human, or half-human prince, really, to just leap there in a single bound? Unimaginable. Outrageous! And yet here it was.

I rubbed my temples. "Great. Just great. I don't mind being a total side character right now, but can someone please explain what in tarnation just happened?"

Nongmin chuckled, blindfold shading his ruined eyes, the smugness practically dripping. "I see that you are surprised…"

"Surprised?" I shot back. "Try confused. Utterly confused. I blink for one second, and suddenly my junior prince here shackles a Dragon God like he's wrangling cattle. So, yes, explanation, please?"

Ren Xun straightened, looking down at Zhou Yong as though she were nothing more than another attendant in his halls. His lips curved into a quiet, dangerous smile.

"Fate is immovable, spontaneous, and inevitable… That's what happened."

Oh, fantastic. He was quoting philosophy now. Just what the world needed: another pretentious king with dragons under his command. I felt worried for Ren Xun, now…

When all was said and done, Ren Xun gathered his dragon entourage… yes, an entire harem of scaly maidens, each looking at him like he was their personal savior. I'd meant that with sarcasm when I thought it earlier, but seeing them crowd around him now, whispering and fluttering, I felt a pang of pity.

For example, pity for Lin Lim. Poor girl. His bride probably had no idea she was about to share her husband with an entire species.

Before leaving to attend his new duties as Lord of Riverfall, Ren Xun stopped at the threshold, turning back toward me. His tone softened, serious for once.

"Senior… help me save Lin Lim from Jia Sen. Please."

I looked at him, at the arrogant dragon-crowned brat who somehow stumbled into destiny and schemed his way into power. I remembered the kindness within him and how all of this was, in fact, forced on him.

"I'll do it," I said simply. "You have my word."

Finally, Ren Xun left, his new court of dragons following him closely behind.

Nongmin brewed another pot of tea like nothing world-shaking had just happened, as if this was simply our normal afternoon routine. Honestly, I didn't mind staying a bit longer. I could use the break. Besides, there were questions clawing at the edges of my mind.

Steam curled between us. Nongmin, blindfold on, sat calmly, as if he could still see the world clearly in ways no one else could.

I sipped my tea first. "How are your eyes?"

"I will be fine," he said, tone dismissive but not unkind. "Ask away. I know your time is precious."

Well, since he invited it… "Racing to the Fourth Realm like that should be impossible. Breaking those formations in a single glance? So much more impossible. Please—" I leaned forward, narrowing my eyes at him. "Enlighten me, my friend."

Nongmin set his teacup down. His voice dropped to something quiet, almost reverent. "Ren Xun, my grandson… He's… He's a Lost God, and an Immortal Soul."

I spat my tea all over his face. I didn't even try to stop it.

"What… WHAT in the fucking fucking fucks did you just say!?"

Nongmin didn't flinch. He merely lifted a hand and evaporated the liquid from his face with a small heat spell, like I'd just sneezed on him during a casual stroll. Then he calmly continued, as though he hadn't just detonated a bomb of cosmic nonsense in my ears.

"Recently, I've been awakening memories hidden from forgetfulness."

My head spun. "And why am I not aware of these memories, then? I'm literally plugged into your soul like a parasite that pays rent. Shouldn't I have gotten at least a notification or something?"

Nongmin shook his head. "Your Divine Possession is not omniscient. There's powerful god-magic in them… on the realm of laws. Some decisions I made were not mine alone, but were influenced by these hidden memories. The same goes for Ren Xun."

I squinted. "Influenced? Don't tell me you're about to say your grand 'spur-of-the-moment choices' were all scripted by divine leftovers."

Nongmin's lips curved faintly, bitterly. "I thought I bred with that commoner woman that day to create Ren Jin, or perhaps to show my conviction to my court… but in truth, it was to create him."

I sat back, blinking. My mind tried to process the words, but just kept circling back to the same thought: Man, cultivators sure were hardcore.

Still… Lost God? Immortal Soul? I didn't expect to hear those words from him of all people. I rubbed my temples, groaning. "Nongmin, you can't just say things like that and expect me to nod along politely. What the hell does that even mean? A Lost God? An Immortal Soul? Am I supposed to clap, or panic?"

He poured us both fresh tea, his hands steady despite the weight of the revelation. "Then let us talk for as long as we must. There are truths buried in these memories, Da Wei, and I believe… You should hear them."

And so, we sat. Hours passed as I grilled him, and Nongmin, with all the gravity of a man recalling fragments of eternity, began to unravel the tapestry of secrets his "hidden memories" had awoken.

For once, I didn't interrupt with sarcasm. Not much, anyway.

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