Chapter 312

No matter how formidable Liu Junyan's mother is, the heart-protector armor is definitely her most precious possession.

Without the heart-protector armor, she would be exposing her greatest Mìngmén to the enemy.

Motherly love has always been the most impressive presence in this world!

There are many rumors about my mother outside; most are false, some were deliberately spread by my mother herself, and some were fabricated by the Linghai Dragon Clan, for example, that my mother is the Linghai Dragon Clan's most beloved little sister and little princess.

Dragons beget nine offspring, each different; the pureblood main line of the Linghai Dragon Palace has only four members: the Linghai Dragon King, his two brothers, and my mother. The Linghai Dragon King is a black dragon, the second and third uncles are azure dragons, while my mother is the sole white dragon.

Among the Linghai Dragon Clan, all white dragons are the most conspicuous beings; after reaching adulthood, each time they undergo tribulation they shed all their scales until final formation, and during this process white dragons have an infinitesimal chance to grow Golden Scale, transforming into golden dragons.

At least in the past three thousand years, within the Linghai Dragon Clan only my mother succeeded in becoming a golden dragon; before that she may have been happy, with three older brothers doting on her, but she was certainly not a spoiled person.

I nodded directly.

Although I have only seen Liu Mu once, she has helped me several times.

She is very gentle and also very imposing.

All the changes occurred when she became a golden dragon… They said she failed her tribulation, met with disaster, and disappeared for a full ten years; in fact, my mother broke free of their bonds and fled.

I jerked upright, staring at Liu Junyan in disbelief: "Escaped? What happened?"

Liu Junyan took a deep breath before saying: "That scene…… you have already seen it."

I blurted out: "The bronze cauldron, the sword mound!"

Liu Junyan nodded: "That bronze cauldron has a very cruel name, called the Dragon Transformation Cauldron."

The so-called Dragon Transformation Cauldron, as the name implies, every dragon imprisoned inside will, with the passage of time, gradually turn into nothingness, ultimately vanishing completely—let alone other creatures.

"Why would they treat my mother like this?!" I almost gritted my teeth, "She is clearly of pure dragon bloodline, and she has done nothing at all!"

Liu Junyan gave a bitter smile: "Because she is a golden dragon—an innocent man bears no guilt, but he who holds a jade is guilty; the golden dragon of the Linghai Dragon Clan is like the clan's stabilizing divine needle, her inner elixir can calm the Resentful Qi accumulated over countless myriad years in the Linghai Forbidden Ground, and the vast Linghai's ages of calm seas are bought with the lives of one golden dragon after another."

My head buzzed: "But you said golden dragons are rare? Before your mother became a golden dragon, how was the Resentful Qi in the Linghai Forbidden Ground suppressed? Surely there must have been gaps in the lineage?"

Liu Junyan's gaze grew more sorrowful.

Through his sorrowful gaze I seemed to see more and more, realizing: "Zhong Shushu, carp leaping the Dragon Gate…"

"Yes, they are all sacrifices," Liu Junyan said. "The chance for a carp leaping the Dragon Gate to turn into a dragon is minuscule, but any being with hope of ascension is the family's elite, and their inner elixir is a great tonic."

So that's how it is!

This secret is probably unknown even to some branch lineages of the Linghai Dragon Clan, let alone the Red Carp clan.

Thus Li Qingying is unfortunate, yet also fortunate.

If her clan had not harbored wolfish ambitions and insatiable greed, then the one who leaped the Dragon Gate, was cast into the Linghai Forbidden Ground, and became a sacrifice would have been Li Qingying.

I pressed on: "And Zhong Shushu—what is her story?"

Zhong Shushu's father was once the chief strategist under the Linghai Dragon King, commanding the Linghai Dragon Clan's dragon-taming guard squad; later he fell in love with a white dragon from a branch of the dragon clan and fathered Zhong Shushu. Liu Junyan continued gently, "Zhong Shushu has lived in the Linghai Dragon Palace since the day she was born, essentially a hostage, growing up alongside Xiāo gē as childhood sweethearts; everyone thought they would achieve fruition, but who would have thought that after Zhong Shushu's father died, my eldest uncle immediately seized control of her, forcing Xiāo gē to marry the Eastern Sea Dragon King's little daughter."

I said firmly: "Xiaoye must have caused a scene."

"Yes, back then Xiāo gē was young and hot-headed, nearly wanting to overturn the entire Linghai Dragon Clan, even plucking a whisker from my eldest uncle, then he went to the Eastern Sea Dragon Palace, forcing them to proactively come to call off the engagement; to this day the relations between the Linghai Dragon Clan and the Eastern Sea Dragon Clan remain unreconciled, basically a situation of eternal estrangement."

"But he still couldn't save Zhong Shushu; Zhong Shushu was thrown into the Linghai Forbidden Ground by my eldest uncle, and without my mother she might have already turned into a pool of blood in the Dragon Transformation Cauldron."

I felt my nose sour and tears nearly fell.

Zhong Shushu also has white dragon bloodline.

"The Linghai Forbidden Ground is a forbidden zone; many know of its existence, but few truly know what lies inside, let alone can approach it."

I recalled the scene of my first trip to the Linghai Forbidden Ground with Li Qingying; it required picking the right time.

And Li Qingying's ability to approach the Linghai Forbidden Ground at specific times is actually due to Xiaoye's indulgence.

After Xiaoye appeared, Li Qingying said that might have been her last visit to the Linghai Forbidden Ground.

And my multiple occasions of approaching and peeking into the scenes within the Linghai Forbidden Ground are all connected to Xiaoye, Liu Junyan, and Liu Mu.

"Xiāo gē caused a disturbance for years, unable to find Zhong Shushu, nearly going mad, until he finally broke into the Linghai Forbidden Ground, saw Zhong Shushu and my mother… then he ran to me to question."

I embraced Liu Junyan tightly again, feeling the unspoken pain and sorrow deep within his heart.

He had suppressed it for so long; when he personally tore open a crack in the dust-sealed memory and laid it before me, it was bound to be bloody.

How could it not hurt?

"Do you think Xiāo gē is rather foolish? Acting on impulse, charging recklessly, yet like a mayfly trying to shake a cauldron, overestimating himself." Liu Junyan self-mocked, "Actually I am even more foolish than he."

"I was born in the Snake Clan of Wangting Mountain, surnamed Liu, third in my family; my eldest brother died young, my second brother is only slightly older than me, I lived there carefree for a full ten years, never doubting my origins."

"My father's health was poor, he coughed constantly year-round, he treated me well but not as close as to my second brother; yet I had my mother's love, so there was little lacking in familial affection."

"On my tenth birthday, my mother gave me an ancient bronze sword; that sword was truly huge, so heavy I couldn't even lift it, but I still liked it very much, and I would sleep holding it in my arms."

"But from that night onward my mother fell ill, she constantly coughed blood, her whole body grew ever weaker, sometimes a gust of wind seemed like it could blow her over."

"One day after she had been bedridden for over two months, she suddenly vanished; my father told me she had returned to her maternal clan, for only her maternal clan could cure her illness."

"I innocently asked my father, 'Will Mother come back once she's healed?'"

"And he instead asked me, 'Did Mother leave a golden bead for you…'"