Chapter 886 — Dragon's Roar in the Azure Sea, Accompanied by Song

Shen Mu, his face wreathed in smiles, pushed the old man's hand back inside the gate and shut the door of the Gate of Bearing Heaven. "Heaven Venerable Yu is doing very well," he said. "I left him at the Jade Capital Academy, and right now he cultivates alongside thirty-five Human Emperors, the First Ancestor Human Emperor among them. He is quite formidable these days.

Once I step down from the seat of Human Emperor, he will be the thirty-eighth generation Human Emperor. .

.

" The old underworld courier had no intention of leaving. Shen Mu forced the door shut and at last closed the Gate of Bearing Heaven; then, at a thought, the gate dissolved.

"Young Master, the seawater has turned black," Yan'er said, looking down into the water.

Shen Mu lowered his head. The sea had indeed gone dark and heavy, and in that black water a paper boat floated beneath the surface, where the old underworld courier, hurricane lantern in hand, shone its light up at him with a resentful air.

At the sight beneath the waves, Long Qilin shuddered and hastily sprang into the air. Shen Mu said helplessly, "Heaven Venerable You, go and take a look at the Jade Capital Academy, and you will know whether my words are true or false.

Why must you dog my steps?

" The old courier beneath the water faded away little by little, and his voice drifted up, faint and eerie: "I will make one trip to the Jade Capital Academy.

If I find that matters are not as you say, I will come and have a proper talk with you! " Only then did the darkness beneath Shen Mu's feet disperse.

Not long after, another old underworld courier arrived at the Jade Capital Academy.

The realm of the dead and the realm of the living are not the same; unwilling to meddle in the world of the living, the old courier did not show himself, but hid in the gloom and watched.

And then he saw the Human Emperors of the Hall of Human Emperors drilling a plump little boy.

The smile on the old courier's face stiffened, and he thought, 'This chubby little fellow surely cannot be Heaven Venerable Yu. .

.

' "Lan Yutian, let us trade a few blows!

" The burly Human Emperor Qi Kang sealed his own divine treasury, and then began to pummel the little fat boy; when Qi Kang was done, Yi Shan took his turn, and when Yi Shan was done, Lan Po took his.

The old courier's face went entirely black, and he felt a sudden urge to annihilate the world.

Fortunately, though the little fat boy was beaten soundly, the Human Emperors measured their blows, and his life was never in danger.

The Human Emperors circled around Heaven Venerable Yu, who had been beaten into utter submission, saying that this move was bad and that move wrong. "The tradition of our Hall of Human Emperors is this: no beating, no tempering; no thrashing, no talent.

" "We have another tradition in the Hall of Human Emperors: once you have mastered what you came to learn, you must thrash your teacher!

" "Do not imitate us! We never learned a thing from our masters; we all created our own arts and our own divine powers!

If you do not create your own arts and your own divine powers, how will you ever defeat that wretched young pup named Shen? " Hearing this, the old courier was reassured; the Human Emperors' manner of instruction irked him somewhat, but their goal was excellent. Shen Mu, Yan'er, and Long Qilin pressed on in the direction the old courier had pointed out.

After more than ten days of travel they still had not found the Kingdom of Longbo; upon the sea there was nothing but waves and flying fish, and venturing into that ocean was like stepping into a desert, enough to drive a person mad. Long Qilin was about to drift along the surface again, and Shen Mu no longer had the strength to beat him; he took Long Qilin by the tail and walked upon the sea, dragging that enormous creature along on the road.

These days Yan'er had eaten nothing but sea fish and sea beasts, and she had grown sick of them. Perched on Shen Mu's shoulder, her eyes glazed, she would from time to time raise a paw to pick at the corner of her mouth and pull out a fish bone.

Shen Mu opened the geographical chart Bai Qu'er had drawn, glanced at it once, and tossed it into the sea.

The chart Bai Qu'er had drawn recorded the seas as they were forty thousand years ago; the blue sea becomes mulberry fields, and the geography of the East Sea was long since no longer what Bai Qu'er had seen in her day. Moreover, the Primal Realm had once been sealed, and after the seal was broken its geography had changed greatly.

The sea especially: the shifting of the mountains and rivers beneath its floor was all but imperceptible, and many islands that had stood upon its surface had vanished, making bearings still harder to fix.

Suddenly Shen Mu tilted his head and said, his voice hoarse, "Sister Yan'er, do you hear singing? " "There is no singing anywhere, Young Master; you must have misheard," Yan'er said listlessly.

".

.

. Eh?

There really is singing! " They followed the song, and before they had gone far they saw upon the sea an immense skeleton, half sunk in the water, half towering above it.

It was the skeleton of a divine dragon beyond imagining.

The water there was deep, and yet half of that dragon's bones still stood above the surface; one could well imagine how colossal it had been in life. The song came from the skeleton.

Only when Shen Mu and the others drew near did they see that it was this bone dragon itself that sang. Its dragon jaws opened and closed, and the song issued from its mouth.

Yet this divine dragon was nothing but bones; how could it still sing?

The bone dragon's singing was rough and long-drawn, deep and low; it was like a poet of the ocean, and its song was steeped in melancholy and grief.

"What is he singing, Young Master?

" Yan'er asked.

She could not understand the dragon tongue. "He sings of his homeland in a very ancient dragon tongue. " Because in his early years Shen Mu had labored to decipher the dragon script upon the lair of the Lord of True Dragons, his knowledge of the dragon tongue ran deep. "His homeland is the Kingdom of Longbo. " Listening to the bone dragon's song, Shen Mu said, "He says that Longbo was a beautiful place, where divine dragons roamed over the face of the sea and a beautiful tongue of the Dao was spoken, where the dragons raised splendid and imposing buildings upon the islands and ruled the vast ocean.

The peoples of the sea made offerings to them, presenting fine foods and the beautiful jade and pearls of the deep, and they lived in harmony and joy.

Many dragons went far away to other lands and became rain-bringing Dragon Kings, greatly revered. " Suddenly the song turned somber, laden with killing intent and bewilderment. "He says that one day, of a sudden, the Feathered Forest Army of the Heavenly Court came and destroyed his homeland.

The dragons were torn from their wives and children and made slaves, chains run through their bodies. Many captives were beheaded, and their blood dyed the sea red; many slaves were driven aboard ships. " Listening to the bone dragon's chant, Shen Mu went on: "The Heavenly Court's Feathered Forest Army used their flesh and blood as offerings, sacrificed for the Heavenly Emperor of the Heavenly Court to feast upon. Their king, the Longbo King, was taken too and made a slave, sent up to the Heavenly Court for judgment. Thus was his homeland destroyed, and he became a wanderer with no homeland.

When he longed for home, he came back to that devastated land and saw rootless ghosts and wandering spirits drifting there. " Hiding behind Shen Mu, Long Qilin peered timidly at the divine dragon's skeleton and asked, "Cult Master, where is his homeland?

And why did he die here?

" The bone dragon had long since died; it was longing for its homeland that kept it singing this song of homesickness of the dragon clan, and it could not answer them.