Chapter 254: A Chance Hearing of a Flood Dragon's Transit

One month later, early morning.

As the Sun God's chariot drawn by four dragons swept across the heavens, wisps of golden sunlight scattered down upon the earth.

Qingping Xian too began a new day of life; at the street corners people started carrying morning loads or pushing small wooden carts to sell breakfast.

Because the regulations of the Great Xia Dynasty were not that rigid, the entire small county was full of wandering vendors everywhere.

In an instant, the whole small county changed from the night's stillness into bustle, and from time to time a few children with bound-up braids pointing skyward ran, roughhousing as they went, into the largest private school in the county.

Before long, the entire private school fell quiet for a moment, then at a single "Good morning, Teacher," the children began their daily routine of recitation.

Yet within this private school that should have been ordinary and commonplace, in a world unseen by others, there was an incomparably massive flood dragon coiled atop the nearby Qinglong Lou.

At this moment its enormous dragon head stretched curiously toward the private school's roof, a pair of dragon eyes as if burning fixed unblinkingly upon that teacher's instruction.

It seemed to be studying along with those children.

Yet this scene was visible to no one; it was as if this incomparably massive flood dragon did not exist, or as if it existed in another world occupying a different space from this realm.

This was an extremely spine-chilling sight — such a colossal creature coiled atop Qinglong Lou, with parts of its body even blocking the entrance of that Qinglong Lou, yet not a single one of the pedestrians coming and going through this county's largest teahouse was barred by the giant at the door.

Instead they passed straight through the dragon's body as if it were nothing, and the flood dragon's enormous head did the same — treating the roof above the private school as nothing, passing through it to watch the private school teacher teach from close range.

As Time passed bit by bit, it soon reached noon.

And at this time the teacher inside the private school also stopped the day's instruction; in response, the flood dragon that had been curiously listening to the teacher's teaching slowly drew its dragon head back again.

Then it directly thrust its dragon head back into the giant teahouse it had been coiled around, casually found a good spot and comfortably rested its dragon head upon it, and the flood dragon began to wait patiently.

Because at this time the storyteller who gave the customary daily performance inside the teahouse was also about to begin.

This routine of listening to the private school in the morning and the teahouse storyteller at noon — Baichuan had already kept it up for nearly half a month.

Since that day when he had casually picked a direction and gone far away, it wasn't long before he luckily encountered a caravan of merchants; thinking that he currently had no particular destination to go to, on a sudden whim he quietly followed this caravan to this small county situated nearby.

Through his understanding during this period, he also learned that this small county was called Qingping Xian, a marginal small county under Cangzhou of the Great Long Dynasty that currently ruled this land.

Although it was a small county, as the saying goes, though a sparrow is small, it still has all its organs — the buildings that should be there were still there.

So, having no specific information about this world, Baichuan simply stayed directly in this small county; in the mornings he followed those children to learn the Great Long script from the teacher, and at noon he listened inside the county's largest teahouse to the storyteller's tales of rumored stories from various places, to gain a more concrete understanding of this world.

As for the bizarre scene he had created before — not only could others not see him, but he was like an intangible thing that could pass through any object at will — that was merely his application of the ability to become energy.

Although becoming energy could not let him freely change shape, or grow larger or smaller.

But this Characteristic of becoming energy alone was enough to let him ignore the influence of surrounding physical objects, and thus move freely among them.

After all, no matter how you put it, the ability to become energy was at least a power only beings of the Divine Realm possessed.

With the help of becoming energy, after people could not touch him, combined with the invisibility he had always deliberately maintained, this scene naturally came about.

"... Today we shan't speak of other matters; I wonder if any of you have heard of the recent matter of the evil flood dragon running rampant in the Cang Jiang of Jingzhou?"

While he was thinking, at this moment Baichuan's gaze suddenly shifted, and he came back to himself and looked toward the storyteller at the center of the teahouse.

At this moment that storyteller was sitting upright at the very center, smiling mysteriously to himself.

"Is the gentleman perhaps speaking of that Cang Jiang which is flooding?"

Amid the storyteller's mysterious air, a deep, resonant male voice rose from somewhere below to play the straight man and respond.

"What? Is it that place?!"

With these words, a few exclamations rose from below from time to time, and at the same time the crowd grew even more expectant of the rumored tale the storyteller was about to tell.

"Ahem~" Having hooked the crowd's appetite, the storyteller also cleared his throat lightly, and amid the expectant gazes of the crowd slowly began: "That's right, what I'm telling today is precisely that flooding Cang Jiang, but today's protagonist is not the Cang Jiang itself, but the evil flood dragon stirring up trouble and running rampant within the Cang Jiang."

"As for why the Cang Jiang is flooding, you may only know one part and not the other. Normally speaking, the Cang Jiang floods between the Lotus Month and the Osmanthus Month, but what month is it now?"

"It's only the Cattail Month — this is a whole one or two months earlier than previous years."

"Isn't it just a little earlier? That doesn't count for much, does it? What about the evil flood dragon? Being so brazen and rampant, isn't it afraid the divine soldiers and divine generals will come arrest it?"

At this moment, someone below said dismissively.

"No, no, no — the timing of heaven and earth's patterns is not so easily altered." The storyteller shook his head and said, "This flooding of the Cang Jiang coming early is because the evil flood dragon in the river wants to emulate that one from the Longwang Miao fifty years ago, and carry out the matter of a flood dragon's transit!"

"What?! A flood dragon's transit?!"

"Th-this — is this an omen of once again flooding three Sanzhou regions?"

"Our Qingping Xian isn't that far from there either."

Feeling the crowd's shock, the storyteller unhurriedly picked up a cup of tea, took a light sip, and savored the tea's fragrance and its Characteristic of being first bitter then sweet.

After letting the crowd discuss in shock for a while, he continued: "As for why this evil flood dragon chose to begin early, it considered that currently the court, in preparation against the soon-arriving heavenly disaster, cannot spare that many hands, and so prepared to seize this opportunity to strike unexpectedly and succeed in its flood dragon's transit in one go."

"After all, once it succeeds in transforming into a true dragon, no matter how many experts the court has, none of them can do anything to it. By then, whatever consequences follow, the evil flood dragon will simply walk away, leaving a scene of devastation for others to clean up."

"It must be said, it chose just such a time — when the court is busy, and when the heavenly timing is about to arrive. Even though the heavenly timing has not fully descended, it carries a few threads of heavenly might; this must have an Expert advising it from behind."

"If the court cannot check it in time this time, perhaps after this, at the cost of the people of three Sanzhou, there will be one more true dragon in the world."

With these words, the crowd also sighed somewhat; but they were all mere mortals, and before such a great tide they didn't even a sliver of room to resist.

A flood dragon's transit?

After hearing all the content spoken below, Baichuan above was also somewhat lost in thought.

Having stayed here for over a month now, he had finally heard an explosive piece of news.

At this moment, the heart that had lain quiet for a month also began to stir a little.

A dragon — and moreover a true dragon from a xianxia-type world.

Unlike him, a flood dragon who had gathered the strengths of all things and evolved step by step from a snake, that was an evil flood dragon innately possessing the bloodline of a dragon, and was about to begin its flood dragon's transit to transform into a true dragon.

Such a flood dragon — compared with him, how would it fare?

He was somewhat curious.

At this moment, Baichuan's gaze was deep and distant, as he murmured to himself.

……

(End of this chapter)