Chapter Eighty-Seven: Crimson Dragon

Who released you from the Hall of Fiery Punishment?

Aochi watched the scarlet dragon in the distance plunge into the clouds, then saw it transform into a delicate, lovely young woman who came to stand beside him. Frowning, he asked in a cold voice.

“Second Brother, it wasn’t them who stole the Tiding Pearl,” Ao Ning said, exhaustion flickering in her eyes as she looked at the brother before her.

“I asked who released you from the Hall of Fiery Punishment!”

Aochi’s voice turned suddenly icy as he barked at her.

Thunder flashed through the clouds. Firelight flared everywhere.

“Second Brother, you don’t need to ask me. I won’t tell you,” Ao Ning said, shaking her head. “The ones who stole the Tiding Pearl weren’t them. I can see from Fan Wu’s side who really took it.”

“I can also see you sending Little Gold to take your Golden Scale Spear to kill him.”

Ao Ning lifted her gaze slightly and said to Aochi in a calm tone.

“Put her back in the Hall of Fiery Punishment.”

Aochi stood in silence, looking at his sister as she stared back at him. Then he turned away and said coolly, “Take her back.”

The scarlet dragons threading through the clouds instantly became two men in red robes. Just as they were about to approach Ao Ning, she smiled faintly and looked at her second brother.

“I sustained his life with my own dragon pearl. After these several hundred years, it has long become one pearl, two lives. Otherwise, how could I see things from his perspective? If he dies, I won’t survive either.”

Aochi whirled around. Seeing that Ao Ning made no resistance and allowed the men in red to drag her away, he swept his sleeve, sending a scorching gale that hurled the two men aside and left Ao Ning behind.

“If you don’t kill him, then I can live. And I have a way to help you find the Tiding Pearl,” Ao Ning said slowly, looking at Aochi.

“If you truly can find the Tiding Pearl, then why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Aochi asked, lowering his eyes to her.

“You were so enraged by its theft that you had people bind me and drag me straight to the Hall of Fiery Punishment. How could I have even gotten a chance to speak half a sentence to you? If he hadn’t stolen Uncle’s and Elder Brother’s Dragon-Splitting Rope, I’d still be tied to the fire pillars there, tormented day and night by the Sixfold True Fire.”

Ao Ning sighed helplessly.

“How did it sneak into the Azure Sea Dragon Palace in the first place?”

Aochi looked down at the old man amid the flowers of the other shore below, and an inexplicable irritation rose in him. How had the Azure Sea Dragon Palace become like a public latrine in the mortal world, open to any sort of creature that wished to come and go?

“Second Brother, do you still remember that shrimp soldier?” Ao Ning asked with a playful blink and a smile.

You can laugh at a time like this?

Aochi’s thoughts turned at once, and he understood how it had happened. Looking at Ao Ning, who was still smiling and blinking at him, he could only sigh in resignation.

“Fan Wu often told me that there is a saying among mortals: a smile keeps you young,” Ao Ning said, sticking out her tongue.

“Don’t mention him at a time like this,” Aochi said with a chill in his expression.

“Second Brother, if I help you recover the Tiding Pearl, then promise me you won’t stay angry with Fan Wu. He was only bewitched by others and ended up wanting to steal the Tiding Pearl.”

Ao Ning walked to Aochi’s side, blinking her bright eyes as she tugged at his arm with an air of pitiful innocence.

“When you were being punished by fire, did he even think for a moment of coming back to see you?”

Aochi said coldly.

“Back then, you were furious enough to dare bind even me to the fire pillars of the Hall of Fiery Punishment. If he had come back then, wouldn’t you have ground him to dust and ashes?!”

At this, Ao Ning puffed up with indignation and raised her little hand to pound Aochi hard in the chest once.

Aochi said nothing, his eyes cold.

“Besides, our Azure Sea isn’t like the Four Seas. We don’t have a sea eye that needs a treasure to suppress it and keep the Four Seas from surging and flooding the land. So as long as we recover the Tiding Pearl, won’t that be enough?

“When Elder Brother returns from cultivating at the South Sea spring, he surely won’t want to see that the Tiding Pearl of the Azure Sea Dragon Palace is missing, will he?”

Ao Ning asked curiously, blinking again and again.

“If you can bring back the Tiding Pearl, I can let that traitorous wretch’s matter go for now. But after Father and Elder Brother return, I will tell them everything,” Aochi said coldly to Ao Ning.

“I knew Second Brother was the best!!” Ao Ning said with a grin, shaking his arm.

“Father and Elder Brother will deal with your punishment in due course,” Aochi said with a cold laugh before stepping onto an auspicious cloud and leaving.

After Aochi departed, the thick clouds dispersed at once. Scarlets dragons wound their way toward the red pillars of the Azure Sea Dragon Palace’s halls, while the condensed auspicious mist spread out and drifted over the glazed roof tiles.

The gathered radiance also coiled through the wind chimes hanging from the palace’s soaring eaves.

At first glance, everything seemed to have returned to normal.

But the scorched and half-melted ground, still sparking with electricity, and the foul green pool of poison told everyone that a battle had in fact taken place here.

Ao Ning descended on a cloud of auspicious mist, landing lightly on the ground as the cloud dissolved into nothing.

“Little Dragon, are you certain you can do what you promised me? The dragon energy I gave you wasn’t for nothing,” Ao Ning said, hands on hips, looking at Duan Lingqi in the middle of the crowd before her.

“Little Princess, rest assured. Since you gave me this dragon energy for transforming into a dragon, I certainly won’t just talk nonsense. This is the one I recommended to you as someone who can defeat those who stole the Tiding Pearl,” Duan Lingqi said cautiously, pointing at Su Yuanbai.

Su Yuanbai gave him a slight sidelong glance.

“Your Majesty, please help me with this one favor. This little bit of dragon energy isn’t enough for me to complete my dragon transformation. She promised she would give me more afterward, so please show some mercy!” Duan Lingqi clasped his hands tightly, his eyes full of grievance as he looked repeatedly toward Su Yuanbai, while speaking to him in a voice as faint as a mosquito’s buzz.

“The human cultivators who stole the Tiding Pearl are not easy to deal with. Him? Are you sure he really can do it?” Ao Ning blinked at the human Duan Lingqi was pointing at.

This human was quite handsome, though unfortunately a little inferior to her husband, Su Bofan. Still, there was not the slightest trace of aura about him, only something of the noble steadiness she had sensed when she first met her husband.

But that sort of noble steadiness was hardly useful!

“No, he cannot.”

Su Yuanbai said calmly.

When Duan Lingqi heard those words, he drooped in dismay. It seemed the remaining dragon energy would not be his after all. He wondered how many claws of a dragon he could manage to become with what little remained.

“You lied to me, Little Dragon!”

The moment Ao Ning heard Su Yuanbai speak and saw the old man transformed from the little dragon lower his head, she immediately realized she had been tricked. Flames burst from her mouth.

“He didn’t lie to you.”

Su Yuanbai casually raised a hand and blocked the flames, then lifted his eyes to look at Ao Ning in her tattered red robes.

“Then why did you say it cannot be done!”

Ao Ning saw that Su Yuanbai had so easily stopped the Sixfold True Fire she had spewed forth, and only then did she begin to believe somewhat in his strength. Even so, she still looked at him with indignation and said: