Chapter Ninety-Five: Red Rain

“Second Brother, he was fine just a moment ago. How could he be dead now?”

Ao Ning whirled around, lifted Su Yuanbai, who was still sinking toward the depths of the sea, and carried him over to Ao Chi with a look of utter shock.

“I do not know the answer to that either. But from what I can tell, only the faintest trace of his soul remains. His body and bones are shattered beyond repair, and all three hundred and sixty-five acupoints have been destroyed.”

Ao Chi looked down at Su Yuanbai in Ao Ning’s arms and said coldly.

That last wisp of soul energy was already on the verge of dispersing. In less than an instant, this human would become an empty shell. If fortune favored him, perhaps one day he might be refined into a puppet by another human.

A body that could withstand the attacks of the Dharma Protector Vajra with bare hands would surely become an existence that would shock the Twelve Provinces if it were turned into a puppet.

Alas, Ao Chi knew nothing of puppet arts.

“Not even if he were sent to the netherworld?”

Su Bufan frowned and asked.

“No. He is already beyond salvation; both body and soul will scatter into nothingness.”

Ao Chi glanced at Su Bufan, whose face had grown somewhat aged, then at Ao Ning, who was watching him, and finally gave this cold reply to his brother-in-law.

“Then there is truly no other way?”

Ao Ning asked, looking anxiously at her husband, then at her elder brother.

“None—”

Ao Chi suddenly felt something, his expression turning grave as he looked up. In an instant his form transformed into a colossal crimson dragon, rising up and surging straight out of the surface of the vast sea.

“Could it be those two humans have returned?”

Ao Ning was startled, and looked at Su Bufan.

“Probably not...”

Su Bufan was not certain either. He cast Ao Ning a puzzled glance.

The two exchanged a look and understood one another without words. Ao Ning’s crimson dragon form lengthened abruptly, and Su Bufan rode upon her back while holding tightly to Su Yuanbai, who had no breath left in him.

Ao Ning floated upward and burst through the boundless surface of the Azure Sea.

Rain.

Red rain.

Like blood, red rain fell in a sparse drizzle from the heavens, which shimmered with five-colored auspicious light. The rain did not stink of blood at all; instead, it carried a faint, strange fragrance.

Beneath the firmament, within the clouds, countless figures stirred.

Whether in the air or upon the sea, all manner of water spirits and sea monsters poked their heads out, greedily drinking in the gentle red rain.

“Husband, you’ve become younger again?”

Ao Ning turned back and looked at Su Bufan on her back, only to discover that his aged face and body were, under the baptism of the red rain, gradually growing younger and more vigorous.

“Ning’er, even your dragon horns have changed.”

Su Bufan looked at the dragon horns on Ao Ning’s forehead. The crystal-clear horns, which had originally split into three branches, now had a fourth branch.

And the somewhat youthful crimson scales on Ao Ning’s body also shifted in pattern like turning rings of age, their color deepening all at once.

“They have changed too.”

Ao Ning could feel that after being washed by the red rain, the weary strength in her body had suddenly surged forth. That abundance of power even made her unable to hold back a resounding dragon cry.

Yet at the same time, Ao Ning also felt a desolation, and this sorrow lent a note of grief to her cry.

After that dragon cry came the rising and falling calls of the water spirits and sea monsters. Though their voices differed, they too carried the same thread of sorrow.

Su Bufan also felt this grief of heaven and earth. He looked up and saw that the firmament above, glowing with five-colored auspicious light, now seemed faintly bleak and dim.

“Husband, quickly look at our benefactor!”

After Ao Ning’s dragon cry, much of the desolation lingering in her heart faded. At once she remembered Su Yuanbai on her back and asked him to look.

Su Bufan lowered his head and discovered that the strange condition he had seen on Su Yuanbai’s skin earlier on Tearfall Reef had appeared again, though this time it seemed somewhat different.

As the red rain fell upon Su Yuanbai, his skin once again gave off golden light. Ancient and intricate runes emerged from within that light, yet they did not form chains of gold.

Instead, each rune transformed into a tiny golden figure sitting cross-legged within Su Yuanbai’s acupoints.

On Su Yuanbai’s back, the black and uncanny intricate patterns still remained. They flowed and unfolded, forming black lotus blossoms, upon each of which either a grim ghost or demon stood, or a Buddha or bodhisattva sat in compassionate repose.

Beyond that, a blood-red trigrams diagram suddenly appeared over Su Yuanbai’s chest. The red rain fell into that diagram, and as the diagram shifted with the current, it transformed into blood-red yin and yang that flowed toward Su Yuanbai’s hundred bones and nine apertures.

With that, the trigrams diagram dispersed, and the strange phenomena upon Su Yuanbai’s body faded away as well.

Yet the red rain did not cease. In fact, in the place where Ao Ning and the others stood, the rain suddenly grew heavier.

And yet not a single drop fell upon Ao Ning or Su Bufan. Instead, every last drop converged upon Su Yuanbai.

“Father.”

Ao Ning suddenly cried out in surprise.

Su Bufan looked up and met a pair of deep crimson dragon eyes. One of those eyes alone was large enough to contain ten men the size of himself. And the owner of those deep crimson eyes was a five-clawed, dark-red colossal dragon that obscured the surface of the Azure Sea.

The scale patterns on its body were so ancient that one could no longer tell how many ages it had lived. On its forehead were nine branches of crimson dragon horn, each one thicker and more massive than the horns upon Ao Chi’s brow.

Its majestic presence and dragon might pressed every sea tribe of the Azure Sea into lowering their heads in submission.

“Have Ao Ping release all those humans and send them back to Cloud Sea Province.”

The Azure Sea Dragon King spoke in a deep voice.

Even Ao Chi’s several-dozen-zhang-long, sturdy dragon form looked like a slender hemp rope before the Dragon King’s vast body, whose breadth seemed without end.

“Father, what has happened?”

Ao Chi asked, his expression grave as he looked up at the Azure Sea Dragon King.

“The Divine Emperor’s path has come to an end, and his blessings are scattered upon all living beings.”

The Dragon King did not look at Ao Chi. Instead, his dragon eyes rested silently upon Su Yuanbai on Ao Ning’s back as he spoke slowly.

“And the Heavenly Emperor...”

“You should not ask what you ought not to ask. Some things, you still need to learn from your eldest brother. Even if you do not govern the Azure Sea Dragon Palace in the future, you will still be called upon to oversee other lakes, rivers, and seas.”

The Dragon King’s voice remained deep and unreadable, neither pleased nor displeased.

Ao Chi said no more, and with a streak of red light, sped straight toward Mulberry-Late Island.

“Take this dragon scale and borrow a passage through the South Sea. Do not send him back to Cloud Sea Province. Carry him to the far edge of the eastern domain of the South Sea, and deliver him into the territory of Southern Wasteland Province.

“You need not return to the Azure Sea first. But absolutely do not linger in Southern Wasteland Province. The remaining eleven provinces are yours to roam.”

The Dragon King looked at Ao Ning and Su Bufan upon her back, then plucked from his body a deep-red dragon scale large enough to cover Su Bufan entirely.

“Really, Father? You are truly allowing us to travel the Twelve Provinces again?”

Ao Ning’s eyes lit up. She looked up at the Azure Sea Dragon King and said happily.

The Dragon King nodded.

By rights, if the Azure Sea Dragon King allowed Su Bufan to return to the Twelve Provinces, Su Bufan should have been overjoyed. Yet his face showed no joy whatsoever.

Su Bufan silently looked up at the Dragon King.

“Do not let my daughter down again.”

The Dragon King gazed at Su Bufan. His immense dragon body drifted slowly through the air. He did not return to the Azure Sea, but rose on the wind and vanished into the cloud layers of the five-colored heaven.