CH 53

Chapter 53: "Ride the Air" Design (IV)

These motherfuckers really had buried his dragon bones into the fucking mud!

Of course, Xue Xian was delighted to have found another part of his body, but as well as joy, he also felt an immeasurable rage. To have to go around the entire land digging in the earth to find bits and pieces of his own body... probably no one else in the world understood the complexities of that feeling.

He'd had that feeling at Gravestone Island, and then again at Stone Zhang's compound... now, he was starting to get used to it, and it gnawed at him. He didn't plan on waiting for Xuanmin –– he had already investigated the surroundings and was headed toward Thumb Mountain, sure that he would not lose his way.

Thus, he summoned another gust of wind to push his wheelchair and zoomed away. In an instant, he was sitting by the old gingko tree at the foot of Thumb Mountain.

Normal trees' crowns always faced the sun –– this was the case no matter what, even if the tree's trunk was twisted this way and that. But this gingko faced the earth, its forehead skimming its ankles so that it was entirely bent over –– a strange sight.

Although Xue Xian had never seen Thumb Mountain before, he could see that there used to be a stream coming down it –– not because there was any trace of the water on the mountain, for there was none, but because the gingko's orientation demonstrated that it had found far more nutrition in the earth below than in the sunshine that filtered in from above yet was dimmed by the village's fog.

If Xue Xian wanted to find his dragon bone, all he had to do was look beneath the tree.

Xue Xian slowly pushed his wheelchair so that he could see the patch of earth beneath the gingko tree. The patch of earth was about one zhang in width, and was of a slightly darker color than the soil around it –– it was damper and contained more moisture, and seemed less packed, as if someone had recently dug it.

Although the person who had disturbed the earth had attempted to cover their tracks, a close look could show the difference. Besides, just Xue Xian's presence made the patch of mud begin to tremble. The person who had buried the bone had only assumed that no ordinary townsperson would visit a haunted, abandoned village in the middle of nowhere, but had not considered that the dragon himself might come knocking at the door.

Xue Xian laughed coldly. He curled his fingers into a claw and swiped at the ground. In response, something deep within the earth jolted, like a heartbeat, sending a large ripple through the entire mountain, which scared a flock of birds away. 

As the piercing caws of the birds dissipated, Xue Xian clawed again.

Another heartbeat-–

With this jolt, something seemed to thrust into that patch of damp mud, making the earth look recently ploughed.

Another heartbeat––    

And after that third jolt, Xue Xian lost his patience and clawed as hard as he could.

Suddenly, the entire patch of mud sank deep into the ground, as though sucked away by something, and the earth around it began to quiver, soften, and slide. A pitch-black hole appeared and grew ever wider as more and more earth fell in, so that it quickly became a kind of sinkhole, hungrily devouring everything around it.

In the blink of an eye, that bent over gingko tree was also sucked into the sinkhole, which made no sign of stopping as it began to loosen the very foundations of rock beneath Thumb Mountain. Xue Xian hurriedly pushed his wheelchair back, trying to resist the pull of the sinkhole.

Clearly, all of this had was being caused by Xue Xian trying get at his bones. It seemed that the dragon bones had been clamped down tightly by some kind of spell, so that any slight shift would harm the entirety of Wen Village. 

The things he had to go through to take back what rightfully belonged to him... Xue Xian laughed with rage.

He relaxed slightly, and the shaking earth beneath the village and the mountain seemed to calm down a bit too, along with the sinkhole itself, which was now swallowing everything around it in a slower, less terrifying manner. Even Xue Xian's wheelchair was no longer straining as hard against the sinkhole's pull...

And when Xue Xian put more force into his hand to summon the dragon bone, the earth around him began to rumble once more and the sinkhole resumed its eager current.

Xue Xian's brows furrowed, and his expression took on a bitter coldness.

With that aloof expression set against his pale face, he appeared uncannily apathetic, and utterly alienated. The difference between his demeanor now and his unserious, carefree day-to-day attitude was as clear as night and day, and extremely unnerving.

You extracted my muscles and bones from my body while I was still alive, and now you want me not to take back what's mine out of concern for others' lives? What the hell are you playing at?

But it was precisely because of this absurdity that Xue Xian was unable to proceed.

As Xue Xian stared into the sink hole with a face full of hatred, another figure appeared beside him, and, although the figure did not approach him, he could feel their body heat, which, amidst the freezing chill of the fog, felt like such a breath of fresh air that Xue Xian's heart suddenly skipped a beat –– and then slowly resumed again. With the advent of that warm body, his anger and irritation suddenly seemed to dissolve by half –– replaced by a profoundly reassuring sense of peace and relief.

"Let me," Xuanmin's deep voice rang out from behind him.

Then, that light white robe drifted past Xue Xian's vision as a slender arm reached over his shoulder and retrieved the copper coin pendant that he'd still been holding tightly in his hand.

Xue Xian listened, stunned, as that familiar chime of the copper coins rang out from behind him and an immense force pressed down upon the plants and rocks around them. It pushed against the fierce current of the sinkhole, which slowed down and finally came to a complete halt, the mud and boulders no longer tumbling into the abyss, the mountain now standing rigidly again.

Xue Xian looked up and saw that Xuanmin was, in turn, looking down at him. Xuanmin said, "I'll hold it back for you. You go ahead and retrieve your bones."

Two simple, short sentences, but they seemed to wipe away all of the fear, confusion, and resentment in Xue Xian's heart. Xue Xian looked back into the seemingly infinite sinkhole in front of them, feeling the thrumming call of his dragon bones buried deep within, and suddenly snorted with laughter -– a laughter that was so different from his daily mockery and sneering; a laughter that contained no irony and was a genuine, sincere laugh. 

"That's nice of you," Xue Xian said. Then, without adding a word of thanks, he simply nodded and said, "Are you holding it steady? I'm going for it now––"

Then, he reached out those fingers and clawed again.

This time, he did not restrain himself in any way. Although Xuanmin was using all of his power to hold down the shifting earth beneath the mountain, there was still a slight tremor as Xue Xian pulled. As the force buried in the soil shuddered in response, the skin between Xuanmin's thumb and forefinger split from the pressure and began to bleed. But his face did not change –– he continued to hold down the mountain with his copper coin pendant, steady and safe.

As Xue Xian strained harder, the pendant's ringing grew louder, and the fog seemed to be drawn toward them so that it wrapped itself around them and began to swirl violently. 

Just as Xuanmin's hand fully split open, a distant dragon's roar rose from within the dark abyss. Next, a thick piece of white bone leapt out from the ground and flew into Xue Xian's hand –– in the instant that it came into contact with his skin, it seemed to suddenly melt from some great heat and slowly sank into his flesh, integrating itself fully into his body.

It felt as though someone had light Xue Xian's palm on fire, and that the flame had crept into his body and crawled all the way to his heart, and then made its way up to his head and scorched his brain.

For a brief moment, all Xue Xian could feel was that endless flame extending all across his body, accompanied by burning pain –– apart from the agony, he was aware of nothing else, not even where he was and what was happening, but he could remember, somewhere in the ocean of his blurred mind, that the reliable Xuanmin was standing right beside him, waiting for him to get better.

After a long period of pain, Xue Xian finally found something that could help appease the scorching flame inside him.

He nuzzled eagerly against that thing and allowed it to cool him down, as his half-conscious mind gradually began to emerge from its agonised daze. When he was finally able to open his eyes and look at his surroundings, he saw that he had long transformed back into his dragon body –– and from the looks of the flipped-over wheelchair and the tattered grass around him, it seemed that he had done so rather suddenly...

And that 'something that could help appease the flame' happened to be Xuanmin –– 

Xue Xian's dragon body had somehow managed to coil itself around Xuanmin. And not only was he wrapped around him, but his scales kept rippling against Xuanmin's body, as though needing to extract every bit of relief from the monk's ice-cold body to soothe his own...

Xue Xian did not know what to say.

What now? This was rather embarrassing...

A divine dragon, lord of the seas, had somehow become someone's large, unwieldy pet. With the way he was slithering all over Xuanmin's body, those who knew the context would chalk it up to a panicked attempt to cast off some of his heat, but those who did not... would think that he was one extremely clingy lizard. 

The main problem was that, apart from himself, no one else was able to actually know about his "about to die of heat" context, including Xuanmin.

Now, Xue Xian finally forced himself to peek over at Xuanmin's face.

Although he was crushed on all sides by immense dragon scales, Xuanmin was simply standing there calmly and silently, with his eyes closed –– one hand was folded in a priestly greeting, and the other was still gently rubbing the copper coin pendant. Somehow, perhaps due to Xue Xian's newfound dragon bones or some other enigma, the coins seemed just slightly different from before.

Xue Xian had been using the coins to heal his body, so he seemed to have established some kind of minor connection with the pendant, as though tying a thin thread between him and the coins. 

As Xuanmin traced the contours of each coin with his thumb, Xue Xian could feel, ever so slightly, that something within the coins was slowly loosening –– and on the surface of the coins was a dim, oily glow, as though they had finally begun to activate with some of that magical copper skin...

He suddenly recalled that Xuanmin had mentioned a seal on the coins, but that two of the seals had begun to loosen, and that soon, some kind of turning point would cause the seals to shatter.

Seeing the way Xuanmin was now, it seemed that the turning point had arrived.

Realising that Xuanmin was not paying the slightest attention to the thing slithering around his body, the embarrassment evaporated from Xue Xian's mind. Compared to his own body temperature, Xuanmin's coolness was extremely comfortable, and, now that he had nothing to worry about, Xue Xian abandoned the last shreds of his dignity and enthusiastically resumed running his long body all over Xuanmin's, hoping to cool himself down as quickly as possible.

The copper coins in Xuanmin's hand trembled one by one, and each tremor sent a strange prickly feeling rippling across Xue Xian's body, as though each of his scales were lifting up to let the hot air escape through his pores. This kind of intimate connection with the pendant was a new feeling to Xue Xian, but it was so beneficial that he readily accepted it.

Kada––

As a sound reminiscent of reeds knocking against each other rang out within Xue Xian's mind, he lazily opened his eyes and shifted his long dragon body. He raised his head and rested it on Xuanmin's shoulder to look over at the monk's hand –– the copper coins had entirely changed their appearance. Two of the coins had shed their drab grey shells and now shone brilliantly with a layer of oil, so that their raw magical power could now be felt from afar.

But then Xue Xian noticed the wound on Xuanmin's hand: fresh blood welled up from a horizontal gash between his thumb and forefinger and streamed down his hand, dripping onto the floor, which was already smattered with several large bloodstains. 

It was obvious where the wound had come from, and within Xue Xian's cold, cruel heart, he suddenly discovered the emotion of guilt. It occurred to him that, as a divine dragon, every part of his body was precious and magical, whether these were dragon scales or dragon spit... basically, he could easily help stop the bleeding.

Thus, a certain dragon, whose mind was still in the throes of disorientation and confusion, bent down his head and licked the wound. As the metallic taste of the blood hit his tongue, Xue Xian's mind suddenly cleared. And the finger of Xuanmin's that had been clicking away at the coins suddenly stopped, too. The monk opened his eyes.

Xue Xian froze. 

If I explain my "context" how, could I get my dignity back?