Chapter 35: Endless Dream

Ye Jingqiu had another dream.

She dreamed of an endless sea.

To be precise, it was the Ice Sea. Iron-gray skies loomed overhead, rust-red clouds hung low, and the boundless pale surface shimmered with an eerie light blue. Vast icebergs began shattering without warning, like an avalanche unleashed by the ocean itself.

Chunks of floating ice plunged into the depths, and explosive cracks echoed from nowhere, booming in her ears like the clamor of humanity’s first steam engines, deafening and relentless.

So noisy… so painful…

An inexplicable trickle of spring water jolted Ye Jingqiu awake.

A stinging gleam of light swept low across her vision. Even with her eyes still closed, she couldn’t help furrowing her brow.

Perhaps a minute passed, or maybe an hour. Time had never felt so slippery and vague. As her awareness slowly returned and her mind sharpened, the dual torment of body and spirit grew starkly vivid.

In the next instant, rending agony surged through her. It felt as if her soul was being torn asunder, every inch of flesh stretched to its breaking point, her blood roiling upward like writhing earthworms desperate to flee this dying shell.

Someone—or something—was ripping her apart. Ye Jingqiu drifted like a drowning soul at the seam between water and sky, caught in limbo between dream and wakefulness.

She strained to open her eyes but couldn’t. Her sharpening mind dredged up long-buried memories, and suddenly, Ye Jingqiu remembered.

This sensation… was it the Exotic Beast Dream from half a year ago?

But why did she possess such vivid self-awareness in the dream? And if the Candle Dragon, on the verge of revival, was also on her list of enemies, shouldn’t she be dreaming of its emergence point tonight?

The riddles piled up, her thoughts tangled, but soon she had no leisure to ponder them. A sharper, more vicious bite tore into her right leg—unknown fangs like iron spikes clamped mercilessly into her flesh.

Hissing steam suddenly filled the air around her. Ye Jingqiu thrashed with all her might. Unreal or not, she had to see clearly what manner of beasts encircled her!

Her vision remained fogged and hazy, though faint light seeped in from the outside. Gritting her teeth, she lifted her head and forced her eyes open once more—

She beheld a colossal dragon.

Ghostly blue flames, devoid of warmth, flickered in its vertical pupils. The dragon’s head, vast as a small building, bristled with iron-hard scales in a ferocious snarl, its broken horn jutting like a thorned spike. Gazing further back, its crimson-scaled body stretched like a city wall, coiled in thick layers across the towering distant iceberg. No one could have guessed its length in such a moment.

At last, Ye Jingqiu could behold the true form of this legendary divine dragon. All the ancient texts—lion’s head, deer’s antlers, serpent’s body, fish’s scales—failed to capture even a fraction of its majesty.

The dripping of spring water continued. Enduring the pain, Ye Jingqiu struggled to sit up, but the Candle Dragon’s fangs remained buried deep in her bone and meat. The blood seeping from the wound refused to flow in this Ice Sea; it evaporated instantly into drifting white mist, vanishing into the rust-streaked layered clouds.

The Candle Dragon clamped down another inch, then shot her a mocking glance.

Ye Jingqiu, midway through rising, froze. It wasn’t the pain’s neural fire that halted her—she had no idea if the Candle Dragon understood human speech, but emotions transcended words. In its gaze, she read smug triumph and seething hatred, like a humiliated hero finally slaying the ultimate boss at the story’s climax.

Ye Jingqiu stared in bewilderment.

No—she was just an ordinary middle school student. What had she ever done to enrage the Dragon God?

The question hung unanswered. Her attempt to rise thwarted, she was slammed back toward the ice.

Weariness and pain crept onward. Ye Jingqiu ground her teeth until they creaked, her clenched right fist tapping feebly against the frigid surface.

Wait…

It didn’t feel like ice. It was thick, viscous liquid.

Slowly, Ye Jingqiu turned her head to the right, straining to make out the substance.

Blood. Bright, searing red, trickling slowly from the iceberg beside her, saturating every inch of pale blue floe.

She yearned to crane her neck toward the peak; instinct whispered that her answers waited there. But pain had stolen control of her body. The summit, a mere dozen meters away, loomed as distant as the world’s far side.

The crimson stain spread. Indescribable despair and regret enveloped her like binding tape, the spring’s flow quickening, the coils tightening until breath itself became a torment, her heart twisting in the vise of execution.

What was she regretting? What despair gripped her?

Ye Jingqiu’s world blurred anew. She gulped frantic breaths, but in that instant, the blood from the berg reached her side. The vivid scarlet finally pooled into the ice beneath her.

An unknown force erupted. The blood gleamed like a key unlocking a forbidden gate. Molten gold radiance blazed from the ice. Dazzled, the Candle Dragon recoiled with a reluctant snarl, releasing its grip.

The blood etched intricate talisman-like patterns. The golden glow intensified. Ye Jingqiu’s wounds knit at impossible speed, a profound ease flooding her limbs. Suddenly, she knew precisely what to do!

She had committed an unforgivable error once, squandering everything. Now, redemption beckoned!

The spring’s drip echoed clearly. Seized by urgency, Ye Jingqiu surged to her feet, snapping her eyes open in the near-black void.

A deep cavern, moss-clad, with a thin sheet of water meandering toward a distant underground spring.

The grand dream shattered at last.

Instinctively, Ye Jingqiu looked up. The taxi driver was gone. She sat within an animal’s skeleton, a single withered bone lying solitary where the driver’s seat had been.

And still, the spring sounds persisted.

~~~

Beijing’s evenings were always choked with traffic. Horns blared ceaselessly along elevated highways and expressways, crowds swelling at subway entrances and bus stops.

The distant sunset wrung out its final glow, though it hardly mattered—the streetlights would blaze to life soon enough.

For the heart of the main city district, this modest crowd merely signaled the beginning of rush hour on public transit. But in the suburbs beyond the Fifth Ring Road, it made for an unusually lively evening.

Cars whipped past on the asphalt road, while the nearby market was wrapping up for the night.

Dressed in casual clothes, Xie Pingzhi jerked her chin toward a stall in the distance, its sign proudly proclaiming an old Tianqiao brand name. “See? We’re here already. Just a bit of patience, Captain. I told you to think of it as a nice stroll with me.”

Shi Zui merely flipped her wrist to check the time, ignoring Xie Pingzhi’s chatter entirely. She only said, “Seventeen minutes until the shift handover.”

“Buy it and go, buy it and go. I just want to try a taste,” Xie Pingzhi said, waving her off as she quickened her pace ahead.

That afternoon, the base had made progress near Cat Ear Mountain. They’d detected unusual Rampage Values in an abandoned mine pit.

Shi Zui and Xie Pingzhi had been standing guard there all day. It was nothing for Captain Shi, but Xie Pingzhi was getting restless. During the evening break, she’d insisted on dragging Shi Zui out for a detour.

It wasn’t exactly aimless wandering—they had a clear target. Xie Pingzhi had heard from someone that there was an old famous stall here specializing in hairtail fish, with absolutely delicious flavor. She’d come specifically to buy some.

Shi Zui stood beside Xie Pingzhi, watching as she enthusiastically chatted with the stall owner, an amiable older woman buying fish. But her brows furrowed slightly.

After all, Xie Pingzhi never ate fish. Even if it was just trying something new, it seemed oddly out of character.

The stall owner was grinning ear to ear as she chatted with Xie Pingzhi, stuffing the last scraps of fish bones from her tray into the bag. “Young lady, you came at just the right time—that was the last of it. Here, let me throw in a few extras for you to try. No need to stand on ceremony.”

“Great, thanks so much!” Xie Pingzhi, having successfully cleaned out the stock, was in high spirits. She reached out to take the bag from the woman when suddenly, a flurry of wingbeats sounded. A streak of pure white flashed right in front of her eyes.

Xie Pingzhi jumped in surprise. Curious, she looked up and saw a bird resembling a falcon perched atop the stall, its sharp, hawk-like eyes fixed on her.

“It showed up out of nowhere a few days ago. This bird always comes by right when I’m closing up to pick at the bones,” the older woman explained with a laugh as she handed over the bag again. “Probably just passing through on its way south.”

“Fair enough. No wonder my friend raves about your cooking,” Xie Pingzhi said with a relieved chuckle. She exchanged a few more words with the woman before waving goodbye.

She had just turned to leave when she noticed the captain behind her staring intently at the falcon.

Separated by three or four meters, the woman and the bird seemed locked in a silent standoff.

Xie Pingzhi instinctively checked her wrist. The Will Ring showed no reaction—the Rampage Value was perfectly normal.

“Captain?”

Shi Zui snapped out of it, shaking her head at the puzzled look in Xie Pingzhi’s eyes. “Let’s go.”

She had simply felt, in that moment, that the falcon looked strangely familiar.

Xie Pingzhi didn’t dwell on it, assuming it was just occupational paranoia. She teased her a bit about it, and the two headed back together.

This was a residential area, with the market right on the edge of the neighborhood. The abandoned mine pit wasn’t far—a ten-minute walk at most.

The streets grew emptier as they went, the sun fully set, leaving only the afterglow in the sky.

“When we get back, we’ll split half with Xiao Qiu,” Xie Pingzhi said, hefting the bag contentedly. “She’s probably grown roots waiting at the Branch Division by now. Captain, why don’t you nudge Qin Zhimiao to add her to the duty roster sooner?”

A few more pure-white falcons streaked across the sky. Shi Zui shook her head. “It’s too early for that.”

Xie Pingzhi let out an “oh” and added casually, “You know, I still don’t quite get the Base Leader’s orders. Newbies aren’t supposed to handle missions like this within their first half-year, so how…”

Shi Zui suddenly raised a hand, stopping Xie Pingzhi mid-sentence.

The words died on her lips, replaced by a faint vibration from the Will Ring.

A fierce gale whipped up out of nowhere, as if countless falcons were beating their wings. The flapping grew faster, more frantic—like a beast sealed underground for a thousand years, desperate to burst free from its lightless prison.

A razor-sharp gust howled like a blade. Miraculously, the Tactical Dual-Blade Knife appeared in Shi Zui’s hand. Without giving Xie Pingzhi a chance to ask, Shi Zui slashed forward!

A silver-white knife trail flashed like lightning. With a soft cha—like a cat landing lightly—one falcon materialized right in front of Xie Pingzhi. In the instant it met the blade, its body split apart.

Dark blood oozed out.

Xie Pingzhi’s face changed instantly. She scooped up the falcon’s corpse from the ground and realized with a shock that this wasn’t a bird at all—it had human feet in the shape of an eagle!

The Awakening Ring’s Rampage Value spiked. A low rumble echoed from the distant mine shaft. Shi Zui now knew why the falcon had seemed familiar.

It wasn’t some migratory bird heading south. It was an exotic beast she’d read about in ancient texts.

One of the Candle Dragon’s vassals from thousands of years ago: Shu Si.