For three full seconds, the only sound in the freezing underground cavern was the gentle sizzling of red chili oil soaking through the fluffy white crust of the meat bun in Pei Xuan’s hand.
Ao Ming—once the terror of the Eastern Seas, a Rank 7 Nascent Soul Flood Dragon who had swallowed entire warships whole three thousand years ago—froze like a silver statue.
His giant nostrils flared wide, sucking in every last molecule of roasted mutton fat and cumin spice floating in the cold air. Deep inside his two-hundred-foot silver belly, a noise erupted that sounded like ten empty wooden barrels rolling down a rocky staircase:
GRUUUUUUMBLE-GROOOOOOOWL!
Ao Ming’s silver-scaled cheeks actually flushed a faint pink under the glow-stone searchlight. He hurriedly snapped his massive jaws shut, raised his horned head ten feet higher to look dignified, and glared down his snout at Pei Xuan.
“Insolent mortal!” Ao Ming rumbled, trying very hard to keep his eyeballs from drifting back down toward the bun. “Do you know who stands before you?! This Seat is the Azure-Wave Flood Dragon Sovereign, Ao Ming! Three millennia ago, when the sky split open and those dogs from the Upper Realm descended in their bronze star-ships, I fought three Soul-Formation enforcers for seven days and seven nights before they pinned me to this cursed nail! Do you truly believe a mere mortal pancake stuffed with dead sheep can bribe a Dragon Sovereign?!”
Right above his twitching silver whiskers, the RTS Tooltip refreshed with shameless honesty:
Pei Xuan bit back a laugh. If he didn’t have the Honest Loyalty Bar and Thought Tooltip, he might actually have been intimidated by a two-hundred-foot silver dragon talking about Upper-Realm enforcers and bronze star-ships.
Instead, Pei Xuan casually tossed the steaming [Rank 2 Spicy Braised Lamb & Meat-Potato Bun] into the air.
“My apologies, Senior Ao,” Pei Xuan sighed, pretending to reach out to catch it back. “Since a Dragon Sovereign would never eat mortal mutton, I shouldn’t insult you by dropping it—”
SWOOSH—CHOMP!
Faster than the eye could follow, Ao Ming’s house-sized head lunged forward thirty feet—stopping precisely two inches short of hitting Pei Xuan’s iron basket so he wouldn’t accidentally knock the boy down—and caught the tiny meat bun right on the tip of his giant forked tongue!
compared to the dragon’s mouth, the fist-sized bun was smaller than a sesame seed.
Yet Ao Ming didn’t swallow it whole. He closed his eyes, pressed the bun gently against the roof of his mouth with his tongue so the soft crust burst open, and let the hot, spicy lamb gravy and buttery Meat-Potato filling coat his parched taste buds.
A shudder ran all the way from the tip of Ao Ming’s silver nose down two hundred feet of frozen scales to the end of his tail.
For three thousand years, the only thing that had entered his mouth was bitter underground rust-water and the cold metallic taste of the purple lightning chains.
Then, sixty days ago, the dry mud hole above his head had suddenly turned into a sweet quartz spring! At first, Ao Ming had been delighted, drinking the sweet water that trickled down into his lake.
But soon after that, a new torture had begun.
Every single morning, noon, and night, the water dripping down from the human village above carried the faint, maddening scent of roasted lamb potatoes, deep-fried spicy scorpions, braised beef noodles, and crispy roast duck! For two whole months, the poor dragon had lain at the bottom of the dark shaft sniffing the ceiling like a starving hound outside a kitchen door, unable to climb up because of the chains through his collarbones.
And now—finally—he was tasting the real thing!
As the fused Meat-Potato and Sweet-Spring broth slid down his throat, a wave of warm, gentle Rank 2 vitality spread through Ao Ming’s dried-up stomach meridians, soothing the biting ache of the Hundred-Year Black Frost.
“Haaaaah...”
Ao Ming breathed out a long, misty sigh of pure bliss, a tiny tear of happiness squeezing out of the corner of his left golden eye before freezing into a pearl on his cheek.
Ao Ming opened his eyes and stared at Pei Xuan’s cloth belt-pouch like a giant silver cat staring at a mouse hole.
“Ahem,” the ancient dragon coughed softly, his voice suddenly ten times gentler and much more polite. “Young man... you said your name is Pei Xuan? This Seat must admit, after three thousand years of ascetic meditation, this small mortal pastry has a... passable balance of Yin and Yang spices. Especially that soft root vegetable mixed with the mutton—it melts on the tongue without needing to chew! Do you... happen to have a second one in that little bag? Just so this Seat can verify the recipe, of course.”
“I actually brought three,” Pei Xuan smiled, pulling out the other two warm buns from his belt pouch and tossing both of them straight onto Ao Ming’s waiting tongue. “Here you go, Senior. Eat them while they’re hot.”
Gulp! Gulp!
Ao Ming savored every single crumb, licking his giant silver lips three times to make sure not a single drop of red chili oil was wasted. His Loyalty bar ticked up again to 53/100.
“Too small! Way too small!” Ao Ming sighed wistfully, resting his huge chin on the edge of the blue ice ten feet below Pei Xuan’s basket. “Three buns aren’t even enough to fill the gap between two of my back teeth! Kid, let this Old Dragon ask you a question. How did a mortal boy like you turn the dead mud pit above my head into a Spirit Well? And why does your food carry zero impurity?”
Pei Xuan tugged the iron winch cable once—the signal to Old Wei up top that he was safe and wanted the basket lowered another ten feet so he could stand on the flat ice ledge beside the dragon’s head.
Stepping out of the iron basket onto the blue ice in his warm [Flame-Shell Winter Battle Cloak], Pei Xuan walked closer and looked up at the colossal six-sided black metal pillar rising out of the center of the lake.
Up close, the black pillar was even more terrifying. Where the dark purple chains came out of the pillar and pierced through Ao Ming’s silver collarbones, the dragon’s flesh was blackened, frostbitten, and oozing drops of pale silver blood that immediately got sucked into the pillar’s glowing purple runes.
“Before I tell you about our kitchen, Senior Ao,” Pei Xuan said seriously, pointing at the black pillar, “can you tell me what this giant black spike is? When I looked at it from above, I noticed it is sucking the spirit energy out of the earth beneath us and blowing dry heat out through side vents into the desert.”
Ao Ming’s golden eyes darkened with deep hatred and old grief. He shifted his massive coils slightly, making the heavy purple chains clank like thunder.
“You have sharp eyes for a mortal,” Ao Ming growled softly. “Ten thousand years ago—and even three thousand years ago when I was young—this land above us was not called the Red-Sand Wastes. It was called the Azure-Cloud Spirit Valley, the richest land on Planet Canglan! Ten thousand miles of forests, spirit lakes, and herbs!”
Pei Xuan blinked. “The Red-Sand Wastes used to be a forest valley?”
“Until the Upper-Realm Harvesters came,” Ao Ming spat a tiny spark of silver frost onto the ice. “To those high-and-mighty sects in the upper star-realms, our entire planet is nothing more than an herb garden they visit once every few thousand years! Three thousand years ago, an Upper-Realm Soul-Formation Enforcer descended through the ancient Star-Gate buried beneath this valley. To condense a single ‘Planetary Origin Pill’ for his young master, he drove this Planetary Spirit-Draining Nail straight into the main heart-vein of the world!”
Pei Xuan looked up the length of the ten-story black spike, his eyes narrowing as the RTS System scanned the ancient structure:
“Wait a second,” Pei Xuan read the system prompt and asked aloud, “there are four smaller branch nails under the Four Great Immortal Sects?”
“Hah! Those shameless human traitors!” Ao Ming sneered, his silver whiskers bristling. “When I rose up from the sea to stop the Enforcer from driving the main nail into the planet, the ancestors of your human Immortal Sects kneeled down like dogs and helped him! As a reward, the Enforcer placed four smaller branch nails under their mountain gates, funneling ten percent of the stolen planetary spirit Qi into their sects while leaving the rest of the world barren! As for me... the Enforcer chained me to the main nail as a living battery to keep the array running while it slowly drains my dragon marrow!”
Ao Ming lowered his huge head, his voice dropping into a tired mutter.
“For three thousand years, the nail has sucked away my strength. In the beginning, I could still roar and shake the desert. Now, my Nascent Soul is locked inside my skull by these purple chains, and the only power I can move in my body is roughly equal to what you mortals call a Rank 3 Peak Grandmaster. And every winter, when the surface freezes, these chains turn ice-cold and bite into my bones until I can barely breathe... That is why I was inhaling the warm water from your well upstairs. If I don’t pull some warmth down here, my tail is going to freeze solid and snap off!”
Pei Xuan walked right up to the side of Ao Ming’s massive left shoulder, where the thickest purple iron chain pierced through a gap in his silver scales.
Because of the three thousand years of rubbing and the sudden minus-forty chill of the Hundred-Year Black Frost, the dragon flesh around the iron links was cracked, dry, and encrusted with painful black ice-scabs. Even a tough ancient dragon couldn’t help wincing when the cold draft blew against the open wound.
“Hold still for a minute, Senior,” Pei Xuan said calmly.
“What are you doing, kid?” Ao Ming tensed up. “Don’t touch the purple iron chain! It carries residual Upper-Realm frost-lightning—if a mortal touches the link, your arm will freeze and shatter!”
“I am not touching the chain. I am putting medicine on your shoulder,” Pei Xuan replied.
He opened his Fusion Cube interface right there on the ice.
From his storage bag, he pulled out:
1. [Five Jars of Jade-Clear Healing Soap] (from the village storehouse)
2. [Fifty Pounds of Rendered Mutton Tallow & Scorpion-King Oil]
3. [A Bucket of Warm Sweet-Spring Water + Red Chili Powder]
Spend 1,000 LP. Fuse!
A warm golden-red light swirled inside the Cube, merging the healing soap, rich animal oils, and spicy warmth into a huge wooden tub of thick, fragrant, ruby-red ointment that steamed gently in the freezing cavern air.
Pei Xuan grabbed a long-handled wooden brush used for oiling cart axles, dipped it into the steaming tub of ruby-red salve, and reached up to brush a thick, generous layer directly onto the raw, frostbitten flesh around Ao Ming’s chained collarbone!
SZZZZZZ-MMMMM!
The moment the hot, slippery ruby salve touched the cracked silver scales and raw wound, the cruel black ice-scabs melted away into harmless steam. The rich mutton-and-scorpion oil seeped three inches deep into the dragon’s frozen muscles, creating a warm, slick cushion right between the biting purple iron links and Ao Ming’s tender bone!
“OOOOOH—!”
Ao Ming’s two hundred feet of silver body went completely limp on the ice.
His four giant claws stretched out straight, his toes curling and uncurling in pure relief, while his massive tail thumped happily against the frozen lake like a giant silver dog getting its belly scratched!
“Left a little! Brush three inches to the left, right under the third chain link!” Ao Ming groaned shamelessly, tilting his giant neck to give Pei Xuan better access. “Ahhhhh, yes! Right there! By the Dragon God’s whiskers, that spot has been itching and aching for eight hundred years! How can mortal grease feel this good?!”
Pei Xuan spent ten minutes brushing the entire fifty-pound tub of [Dragon-Scale Soothing Salve] over both of Ao Ming’s chained shoulders and down the cracked scales of his back.
By the time Pei Xuan set the brush down, the purple chains no longer scraped against raw bone whenever Ao Ming breathed, and a cozy layer of red medicinal oil kept the cavern frost completely out of his wounds.
Pei Xuan looked at the [Loyalty: 59/100] bar floating over the dragon’s head and grinned.
Unlike Ye Guhan’s stubborn sword-pride 59, Ao Ming’s 59 was only waiting for one real dragon-sized dinner!
“Senior Ao,” Pei Xuan wiped his hands on a clean towel and looked up at the giant silver dragon. “How about we make a deal?”
Ao Ming lazily opened one golden eye, still basking in the warm tingle of the salve on his shoulders. “Speak, little friend Pei. As long as you don’t ask me to break this Upper-Realm Nail right now—which I can’t do while my soul is locked—this Seat is in a very good mood.”
“First, stop sucking the water and heat out of our well shaft above,” Pei Xuan held up one finger. “Up on the surface, I have fifteen thousand citizens who need sweet water to drink, wash, and water our crops. Second, whenever you breathe out, instead of blowing cold frost up the well, breathe your warm dragon-fire into some copper pipes I’m going to install down here.”
Ao Ming squinted at him. “You want this Sovereign to work as a water pump and a charcoal stove for fifteen thousand mortals?! Do you know how much stamina it takes to breathe Yang-fire all day when I’m chained to a Spirit-Draining Nail?!”
“In exchange,” Pei Xuan held up three fingers, “every single day—morning, noon, and midnight—my head chef Old Guo will lower a five-hundred-pound iron cauldron of steaming [Spicy Chili-Oil Braised Whole Lamb & Meat-Potatoes] straight down the well shaft into your mouth. Plus a weekly full-body rubdown with hot Dragon-Scale Salve. And every time my town grows stronger and loosens this black nail, I’ll help you pull it out so you can get your full Rank 7 body back and go settle the score with those Upper-Realm dogs!”
Five hundred pounds of spicy braised whole lamb and meat-potatoes... THREE TIMES A DAY?!
Ao Ming’s head snapped up so fast the chains rattled like wind chimes.
“Wait—real whole sheep? Cooked in that red chili oil and cumin with those soft meat-potatoes that melt in the mouth?!” Ao Ming demanded, a long string of silver drool already hanging from his chin. “When does the first cauldron come down?! If I have to wait until tomorrow morning, the deal is off!”
Pei Xuan walked over to the iron winch cable, grabbed it with both hands, and gave two sharp tugs.
Then he cupped his hands around his mouth and projected his Rank 2 Peak voice straight up the echoing quartz shaft:
“Old Guo! General Tie! Hook the biggest five-hundred-pound iron cauldron in the kitchen onto the main chain! Fill it to the rim with roasted whole lamb, braised meat-potatoes, and double red chili oil—we have a VIP guest downstairs waiting for dinner!”