Way of Choices: Book II - Youths We Were, Schoolmates, Part 2

by Mao Ni

  His strand of spiritual sense was just like a torch landing in a mountain of dry leaves.

  The crystals formed of star radiance instantly began to release limitless light and then fiercely burn.

  There was no sound or smoke, only an explosive flame.

  This small section of the snowy plain was still several thousand qing in area, yet it only took an instant after the spiritual sense descended for this part of the snowy plain to be set completely ablaze.

  Clean and transparent flames carrying a boundless heat seared the sky.

  On one side the crystals blazed while on the other they melted into something akin to lava which slowly flowed in all directions. It didn't take long before this stream of lava spread to the edge of the snowy plain and touched the wasteland. This lava was the essence of star radiance and contained an unimaginable power. It exuded a bright red light that seemed particularly horrifying. Everything it passed, whether grass or rock, began to burn.

  The lava flowed into the ruptured cliffs, and the cliffs began to burn.

  It poured into the shattered earth veins and the underground began to burn.

  The entirety of this small world began to burn.

  * * *

  A sudden warmth appeared in the cold and lonely cavern.

  The Black Dragon gazed at Chen Changsheng as he meditated, saw the snow on his body instantly melt, and the indifference in its eyes was replaced by a tinge of astonishment.

  Immediately after, its eyes became extremely grave.

  Chen Changsheng's face became completely red, the breath coming from his mouth and nose instantly turning into white steam upon colliding with the cold air.

  The snow fell on his body and then swiftly vaporized, enveloping his entire body in steam.

  Just how high was his body temperature?

  The Black Dragon showed concern in its eyes and gently blew at him.

  Dragon breath speckled with shards of ice fell on Chen Changsheng's body.

  For just an instant, Chen Changsheng's body was covered in a transparent armor of ice.

  Yet soon after, this armor of ice cracked, melted, vaporized!

  Chen Changsheng's face was becoming redder and redder, his body becoming hotter and hotter. The veins on his neck thickened and then bulged. Soon after, more and more veins began to thicken and bulge from his skin. This dense network of blue veins was a horrifying sight, and blood could faintly be seen swiftly flowing through them.

  Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump. The silence of the underground cavern was broken by this drumbeat of a sound. It was… his heartbeat.

  His heart was quickly beating, his blood swiftly flowing. His clothes were instantly soaked and then steamed dry.

  His body had already made many automatic responses to resolve his current difficulties.

  But at this moment, the true essence converted from star radiance was currently running free through his body. Without having undergone Purification, how could his body last?

  And this wasn't even considering that his meridians were innately broken and thus able to hold much less true essence than normal, making his situation even more dangerous.

  Chen Changsheng's eyes were tightly closed, the veins at the corners of his eyes pulsing. His forehead was furrowed extremely tight, making it seem like he was in great pain.

  He had jumped past Purification to directly enter Meditation because he wanted to see if the star radiance was there or not. Only this way could he calm his heart, as otherwise he would be completely unwilling to just give up on the Grand Examination.

  Now he saw the snowy plain, the star radiance began to burn and convert into true essence, and he was about to die, so was his heart satisfied now?

  As it looked at the suffering youth, the Black Dragon revealed pity in its eyes, but it did nothing.

  Chapter 124 – Stainless

  The Black Dragon did not do anything because it was well aware that it could not save Chen Changsheng. Even its royal father would not be able to save this youth. The process by which the star radiance of the natural world became the true essence of a cultivator's world, and also the following flow of true essence throughout the body, had very high requirements with regards to the toughness of a cultivator's body. Chen Changsheng had not cultivated, so his muscles, bones, and organs were all too weak and were simply unable to bear it. True essence was currently exploding outward from his body, innumerable tiny and sharp knives cutting at his body. Even the Ethereal Palace was destroyed in an instant, so who could save him?

  Chen Changsheng's face was getting redder and redder, not a healthy sort of red, but a terrifying one. His body was enveloped in scalding steam and he seemed in excruciating pain, his brow tightly furrowed and his face twisted. With a pop, the bulging vein at the corner of his eye burst under the pressure.

  Blood spurted from his face like a flower, steaming as it shot off into the cold air. It was almost instantly frozen into crystals that clattered to the ground like coral. Soon after, more and more veins on his body began to burst, several dozen spurts of blood shooting out of his body with scalding heat, slightly warming the cold space before swiftly being frozen.

  More and more red coral-like objects began to appear around Chen Changsheng. It was very beautiful, yet equally gory.

  Once the veins burst, what followed right after was the skin, then the muscles. Blood was pouring out of every part of his body, and a bone could occasionally be glimpsed. He still kept his eyes closed despite his suffering, yet he could no longer keep his sitting posture. He collapsed to the ground and began to twitch. The entire process was a sight too terrifying to watch, one of absolute horror.

  The Black Dragon raised its right foreclaw to cover its eyes, unable to watch this sight, and felt a profound regret. This rather decent human youth had just died like this and would be unable to help it with completing that matter. It could have stopped all of this, but Chen Changsheng himself had chosen death, and out of thanks for the roast lamb, it had respected his choice and not involved itself.

  At this moment, the Black Dragon ceased thinking about escape, ceased thinking about its centuries of solitude and its oncoming repetition. It only silently prayed, hoping that Chen Changsheng's death could come just a little faster so that he did not need to endure so much pain. When pain could just end a little faster, that was called joy, and only this way could it match with Chen Changsheng's courage to calmly face his death.[27]

  This underground cavern was cold as winter year-round and the ground was covered in snow and ice. Chen Changsheng lay collapsed on the ground, his flesh bursting and his bones breaking, his scalding blood hissing onto the frigid ice and instantly creating a cloud of steam. The star radiance in his body burned so fiercely that even his blood began to boil.

  Just like that medical case recorded in the appendix to the 'Four Classics of Meditation', if he had not spent tonight in this cold underground space, perhaps Chen Changsheng's final end would have been death through combustion. At present, thanks to the bitter cold brought about by the Black Dragon, he did not burn, but he had done nothing more than switch to a more beautiful method of death.

  Time slowly passed.

  After quite a while, the Black Dragon put down its right foreclaw, intending to mourn for Chen Changsheng's death. After all, this human youth was the first person it had truly gotten to know in its centuries of imprisonment.

  When it thought about this, it decided that even if Chen Changsheng's corpse had become a repulsive pile of cooked flesh, it would still hold its nose and bury him.

  When the Black Dragon turned to the center of the ground covered in bloody coral, its eyes instantly constricted, boundless shock surging in the abyss of its eyes.

  Steam still wafted off the ground and the blood in the ice was still boiling, not swiftly cooling because of Chen Changsheng's death.

  Because… Chen Changsheng was still alive!

  Why was he not dead yet? How could he not have died?!


  Of course, the Black Dragon did not wish for him to die, but it was still stunned at the sight before it. This sight already surpassed the understanding the Dragon race held about this world—and anyone knew that the Dragon race had the most extensive understanding of this world.

  When star radiance blazed out from the body, everything from the heart to the skin would be destroyed. This was an unstoppable and irreversible process. Why was he still alive?

  The Black Dragon suppressed the shock and inexplicable fear in its heart and slowly drifted over.

  As its massive body moved, a cold wind stirred in the cavern.

  This wind blew about the bloody coral on the floor, blew away the steam produced by the boiling blood, blew away the bloody foam covering the horrific wounds on Chen Changsheng's body, revealing the scene within.

  The explosion of star radiance had truly exploded from the inside out. The majority of his organs had been heavily damaged.

  But in his chest, there was still something forcefully beating!

  His heart was still vigorously beating!

  The Black Dragon's pupils constricted.

  It naturally knew what a human heart looked like.

  But it had never seen such a clean and beautiful heart.

  The blood on the heart's surface would be jolted off with each beat, revealing the heart's original appearance.

  It was a clean, pink heart, seemingly made of colored glass. It gave off no repulsive feeling and looked more like a fruit that had been washed in a stream for a very long time.

  The Black Dragon was stunned as if… it had seen a Bone Dragon in a desert.

  Chen Changsheng's flesh, skin, and even bones had all been destroyed and as time passed, that star radiance was still blazing, his body was constantly festering. So how was his body still functioning? What was this heart made of? It was actually completely undamaged!

  The Black Dragon's gaze fell on the scattered blood coral and the steaming blood, finding things stranger and stranger. It was clearly a scene of mangled flesh and blood, yet the sight did not stir any disgust in it—truly noble existences like dragons had never regarded other intelligent beings as food—and that blood did not seem like blood, but something else.

  Yes, it was like coral or colored glass, clean and transparent.

  The Black Dragon turned again to Chen Changsheng's heart, faintly seeming to understand something.

  Purification by starlight washed one's body of filth, leaving behind cleanliness. Purification was a matter that cultivators did throughout their lives to pursue the highest realm: Stainless.

  Chen Changsheng's body was very special with many aspects about it that didn't make sense, such as nine severed meridians. Then perhaps his flesh and bones were also different from the rest, perhaps even… naturally stainless. Even if he were to gain a few impurities on the following day from breathing or eating, it would be an extremely tiny amount, so when he began drawing in starlight for Purification, only an instant would be needed to complete the process.

  Then what could the starlight still purify?

  When starlight fell on a colored object, it could display its color, but when it fell on something absolutely transparent, what sort of color could it show?

  To be transparent was to have no color.

  The starlight would naturally not stop.

  From spring until now, the starlight that Chen Changsheng had taken in every night for Purification had not been used on his hair and skin, nor had it effected any change to his flesh or bones. Instead, it had directly entered his body, following along the connection between the greater world and smaller world, and arrived outside his Ethereal Palace.

  At the end of a winding path was a quiet and secluded place, a palace.

  This was the Ethereal Palace.

  Chapter 125 – Red Makeup

  The Ethereal Palace was the heart.

  All the starlight Chen Changsheng had gathered over these many nights had fallen around the Ethereal Palace, gradually and silently accumulating.

  Upon understanding this point, the Black Dragon displayed even more shock in its eyes.

  Chen Changsheng had drawn in starlight for Purification every night yet had gained no result, ultimately forcing him to resolve himself into taking such a massive risk and attempting Meditative Introspection in advance. However, he was completely unaware that all the starlight he drew in every night had penetrated through his body and fallen outside his Ethereal Palace, lightly knocking on its door every night.

  He was not at Purification, but had directly passed Meditation and was in Ethereal Opening!

  Just how many nights had it been since he had first lit up his Fated Star?

  The Black Dragon stared at the youth collapsed in blood whose breath was about to stop, finding itself so nervous that it almost forgot to breathe.

  * * *

  Ever since the Heavenly Tomes descended upon the world, there had never been anyone who cultivated like Chen Changsheng. This was because very few people had his stainless constitution, and there were also very few people who lived under the shadow of death every night and who possessed an unimaginable perseverance and will. Even if someone did possess all these traits, those people did not have his sort of good luck.

  Without luck, he would still die. Even if he directly leapt past the two realms of Purification and Meditation, and succeeded in entering Ethereal Opening, he would still die. There could be no mistake with the cultivation realms that had been developed through the sum knowledge of humanity. It was simply impossible to leap past cultivation realms, and a cultivator who had not succeeded at Purification would never be able to withstand the energy released when star radiance converted into true essence.

  Chen Changsheng's heart was still forcefully beating, but less and less blood was coming out of those burst veins. With his tightly closed eyes and his pale face, he looked like a corpse.

  The Black Dragon silently stared at him, its eyes a turmoil of emotions: struggle, hesitation, unwillingness.

  It knew that it was Chen Changsheng's good luck.

  Chen Changsheng was on the verge of death, and not even the rarest of panaceas could save him now. Not even the personal appearance of a Saint like the Pope would be able to save him, but the Black Dragon could.

  In the entire world, only one method existed to save Chen Changsheng.

  The Black Dragon hesitated and struggled for a very long time. When it thought about its bitter encounter with humanity that had led it to being imprisoned for several centuries, it truly wished to turn and leave and wait for Chen Changsheng to die.

  For just a human youth, it had to pay such a great price?

  But… it had not been easy for him to finally gain this chance at life.

  In addition, it still needed him to help it with something.

  In addition, he really was the first person it had truly gotten to know in the past several hundred years.

  Perhaps his one chance at life was also its own one chance at life?

  The Black Dragon silently thought, yet it failed to sense that it was truthfully just seeking an excuse for it to save this human youth.

  After some time, it finally made a decision.

  The Black Dragon floated in front of Chen Changsheng and let out a deep roar. With this roar, a scale between the dragon's eyes gleamed.

  It raised its right foreclaw and slowly approached this scale.

  Squelch.

  This dragonscale broke.

  Blood gushed out of this small wound.

  It was the true blood of the dragon.

  Splash.

  The dragon's blood poured down from the dark air and fell on the ground, drenching Chen Changsheng's entire body.

  * * *

  It was just a simple action, but it seemed to consume all of the Black Dragon's strength. This amount of dragon blood was sufficient to immerse Chen Changsheng's entire body, but compared to the massive size of the dragon's body, it wasn't much at all. Yet for som
e reason, it quickly weakened.

  The Black Dragon slowly descended to the ground, its whisker lifelessly drifting in the air. Then, the slightly twisted and massive body of the dragon became utterly devoid of vitality, transforming into a silently sleeping mountain range.

  Soon after, an incredibly mystical event took place.

  Dragonscales scraped against the icy ground, rustling like the crumbling of metal or stone.

  The Black Dragon was slowly getting shorter! Slowly getting smaller!

  The sleeping black mountain range was gradually becoming a mountain ridge!

  The Black Dragon continued to shrink!

  The mountain ridge transformed into a small protrusion on the ground.

  Those scales covered in frost and dust became an old and black-colored dress!

  After a moment, a hand slowly emerged from the dress, a white and tender hand.

  This hand fell on the ground and slightly pushed, propping her body off the ground.

  Under the black dress was a little girl.

  A very beautiful girl.

  The little girl's face was frigid, her pupils two slits. She was naturally enchanting and although she was very young, she gave off a feeling of extreme callousness.

  Between her eyes was a red line, as if something was broken there.

  It was a wound that was very difficult to heal, but it was very beautiful, just like the sort of makeup that was very popular in the capital of the Great Zhou several centuries ago.

  She was not able to stand up, as she was currently very weak and exhausted, but also because two thin chains were tied to her ankles.

  These chains were covered in rust and extended into the darkness, to be held in the death grip of the portraits of those two legendary Divine Generals on the stone wall.

  She gazed at Chen Changsheng amongst the blood and said with a grim expression, "If you betray me, I will overcome my disgust and eat you."