Chapter 176: The Shrinking True Dragon? The Changed Crowd

The moment that tiny speck appeared, some sharp-eyed people in the city instantly cried out in alarm.

"A dragon! A dragon! The True Dragon has appeared once more after all these years!"

"What? Where, where?"

"Over there! A dragon has appeared over there!"

"Is this the True Dragon Grandfather kept muttering about even on his deathbed?"

"Is it the one that dragged my whole family from a life of fine clothes and plenty down to begging on the streets?"

……

The cries of alarm were followed by a great stir.

In that instant, some were shocked, some sighed, some gnashed their teeth — every shade of human reaction was laid bare for all to see.

Outside the hall, Zhang Rang naturally saw all this as well, and could only sigh helplessly in his heart, thinking:

In the end, can we never escape Its shadow…

He leaned quietly against one of the great pillars outside the hall, gazing somewhat dazedly toward the horizon; for a moment he felt his once-powerful body grow weak and feeble.

It was a helplessness and despair that came from within — the True Dragon's once-unmatched majesty had long since been seared into everyone's mind.

If even the mighty thousand-year Da Zhou Dynasty had been utterly destroyed when the True Dragon descended, what hope was there for his Great Qin, whose martial power was already fading away?

Yet as the "True Dragon" drew closer, he began to feel puzzled — this True Dragon…

Did its size seem a little off?

But after squinting and observing carefully, he found that several features on its body clearly matched what he had seen before — only the size had shrunk?

Why was that?

He had not considered the possibility of a second True Dragon appearing, because back in its day Da Zhou had searched the entire world for traces of the dragon, leaving its footprints on every continent.

And the reason Da Zhou never went on to rule the whole world afterward was simply that those in the imperial house deemed those lands to be of little value.

Given the difficulty of travel, their strength at the time was not enough to govern territories that vast; once they were too far away, they also feared the martial artists would slip beyond their control and form a counterbalance against Da Zhou.

These hidden pieces of information, of course, were ones Zhang Rang had pried from the mouths of certain soft-spined Da Zhou remnants after capturing them.

Therefore, he understood that there should be only one True Dragon in the entire world, and such a rare creature as the True Dragon could hardly give birth to a whole race so easily — let alone how a single dragon could possibly reproduce at all.

Then, setting aside the possibility of a second True Dragon, why had the True Dragon's size shrunk now?

Even a dragon could not escape the limits of living things, so under normal circumstances it would surely grow larger with the passage of Time.

This point had been proven during the days when he and others had provided for it — he had personally watched the True Dragon visibly grow larger before his eyes.

In other words, under normal circumstances it liked to grow bigger — so why now? Why had it shrunk?

Was it injured, or…

At that moment, a startling thought — and a wildly treasonous impulse — rose within him.

But there was no rush; his Great Qin could not afford to gamble. He would let the most familiar Huang Zhongtian go sound out the situation first.

The mere thought of Huang Zhongtian gave Zhang Rang a bit of a headache.

As the power of martial artists grew ever weaker, those once-mighty figures who had held positions of great importance became increasingly useless.

The importance of numbers began to show itself, so Zhang Rang's focus gradually shifted toward the great army.

Yet this inadvertently bruised the martial artists' fragile pride, and one after another they began to grow resentful.

But they never stopped to think — how could his thriving Great Qin hand all its important posts to these martial artists who, aside from martial prowess — oh, even that was nearly gone — understood nothing else?

The martial artists' strength was indeed about to vanish, but their tempers had not shrunk in the slightest; recently they had even begun flocking around Huang Zhongtian, banding together under him for warmth.

And Huang Zhongtian had once brought him the most crucial intelligence back when he was still weak, had been a meritorious minister who rallied support for his claim to the throne, and was also the bridge of communication with the True Dragon — truly a man of great toil and high merit.

From then on, that fool Huang Zhongtian kept pestering him every other day, giving him endless headaches. Now was the perfect chance — he could just toss him over to the True Dragon to do the talking.

Thinking this, he smiled faintly at the True Dragon's approaching figure, then turned and went straight back inside the palace.

Before long, an order was issued from within, heading out beyond the palace walls.

But to his surprise, the True Dragon soon flew straight over the Great Qin capital of Qingzhou without so much as slowing down, showing no intention of stopping at all.

This discovery left the people — who had assumed the True Dragon was about to descend — dumbfounded. If the True Dragon wasn't coming here, why make such a grand show of passing through?

Of course, amid their bewilderment, their hearts also settled a little. So long as it didn't come, their lives wouldn't be upended, and they wouldn't have to abandon their homes and flee once again.

But this left Zhang Rang completely stunned; after a long moment of shifting expressions, he rubbed his chin and chuckled softly — so the True Dragon wouldn't even deign to land here now?

And what was the reason for that?

Could it have truly forgotten about them?

But if so, why pass through with such fanfare?

There was truly something worth pondering here.

Of course, if it didn't come down to the final moment, he didn't want to truly issue that order. All his Great Qin needed was peace, for the common folk to live and work in contentment — everything else he could give up.

He had clawed his way up from the very bottom to where he stood today; perhaps other things could change, could be compromised, but the one thing that must never change was the dynasty's stability and peace.

What he wanted to see was the common folk living and working in peace and happiness, smiles of joy on their faces — never again the sight of corpses stretching for miles in every famine year, of parents trading children to eat!

That was the thought and impulse truly left in his heart from the days he had wandered through every corner of Da Zhou.

It was also the lifelong wish of his life; for that, he could give up everything else.

Little did he know that the Progenitor Dragon above was also feeling rather puzzled — ever since it had entered this continent, no matter where it flew, wherever a slightly larger building appeared, a group of strange little people would come out to watch. This was something it had rarely encountered in other regions.

But it paid them little mind. Having just been entrusted with such an important task by its Father God, it was now in a state of utmost excitement and enthusiasm, and from this moment on, no one could stop it from completing the charge its Father God had given!

Absolutely no one!

Just a bunch of small-timers who had never seen the world — this dragon need not bother with them.

Leaving aside the changes in the crowd, at the eye of the storm, Huang Zhongtian was now thoroughly headache-ridden.

Because he had just received the Son of Heaven's order to approach the True Dragon and inquire whether It had any commands or requests.

Back in the days when the whole nation provided for the True Dragon, such a request would have been nothing.

But this time, the True Dragon's appearance came over a decade after It had left, and although the True Dragon did appear, It simply flew across the sky without pausing at all — the meaning conveyed by this was already perfectly clear.

It had not remembered them in the slightest, and had made no demands whatsoever.

He didn't even know where the True Dragon was headed now, yet the Son of Heaven wanted him to make contact with the True Dragon…

What was he to do about this?

Yet no matter how much his head ached, the command personally issued by the reigning Son of Heaven was both reasonable and proper, leaving him not the slightest room to refuse.

Behind him now stood far more than just himself as an individual.

Thinking of the heavy gazes of those behind him, especially the nightly tearful laments of the one who shared his pillow, Huang Zhongtian felt somewhat helpless as well.

It seemed the life he had once wanted most was growing ever more distant; the man who had once cherished freedom above all was now entangled by all manner of trivial affairs, with no strength left to struggle.

Sigh — he had to make this trip.

And the most important thing right now was to find out where the True Dragon was headed.

He had already issued orders, instructing his scouts to go search.

Fortunately, perhaps because the True Dragon had not concealed Its direction, it wasn't long before he received word —

The True Dragon's destination was the former capital of Great Zhou — today's Tiandu Feixu.

With a long, drawn-out sigh, Huang Zhongtian had no choice but to mount his fine horse and charge out of Qingzhou amid the varied expressions of the crowd, setting off toward Tiandu Feixu…

(End of Chapter)