Chapter Ninety-Five: What a Coincidence, I Have a Spell Too (Please Subscribe and Vote)

Within a purple sun, a pair of vertical golden dragon pupils opened, casting a gaze of oppressive indifference over the entire geomantic nexus.

The mere look rendered Huang Yuanzhou’s party and the pursuing gentry silent as cicadas, as if any movement would constitute an affront to divine majesty. They had never been to the Imperial Capital of Yujing, nor had they ever laid eyes on a living Son of Heaven. Yet, facing these eyes, their legs trembled uncontrollably, and they subconsciously wondered if they were standing before the Master of the State. Some with weaker wills nearly collapsed to their knees, only held upright by their companions.

"Is this the noble from the Han clan? Too powerful. We cannot win; it is simply impossible."

Between the two dragon pupils, a centipede-like "Nine Provinces State Decree Talisman" extended countless purple veins to connect heaven and earth, manifesting in the air as a massive formation net.

The "Nine Dragons Spitting the Pearl" formation requires three conditions: Heaven, Earth, and Man.

"Heavenly Accord is the timing of the Dragon Raising Its Head on the second day of the second lunar month. On this day, the Horn Asterism—the first of the Azure Dragon’s seven mansions—rises above the horizon, while the dragon’s body remains hidden.

Earthly Accord is the geomantic pattern formed by linking the Nine Dragons River with a series of water dragon veins and terrestrial nexuses, using a dragon pearl as the critical talismanic anchor to complete the array.

Human Accord involves obtaining the flood-dragon aura from Lady Yan or the Prince of Jinghai, filling the gaps in the original formation, and linking it to the great ships within the East Sea Eye to siphon their essence.

All three are indispensable."

Ultimately, the goal is to extract the flood-dragon aura to assist the "Dragon Scion" in completing the karmic transformation of a fish leaping over the dragon gate, sharing the authority of the Master of the State, or even becoming a new Son of Heaven!

Wang Cheng had long noticed this purple-wreathed, impossibly noble dragon pearl. Yet, looking at it was like looking at the reincarnated form of Yun Xiao; without someone telling him its name and origin, it appeared as a blank slate. He suspected it concealed an consciousness from the start, a rank at least one great realm higher than his own seventh-rank White Water Lad status. Especially given that the noble could focus on refining this technique while simultaneously handling the White Scale Guard imperial envoy, this person likely possessed the strength of the peak of the Middle Three Ranks.

"If he truly completes the formation and absorbs enough flood-dragon aura, he will step into the Upper Three Ranks on the spot, becoming a 'living ghost-god.' A mere distraction of his could easily suppress us all."

This thought had barely surfaced before Wang Cheng suppressed it. He realized that once the Nine Dragons Spitting the Pearl was complete, he and Yun Xiao would have long since been drained dry, destined to become a pair of tragic lovers on the Bridge of Helplessness.

"But how could they bypass the requirement of capturing me or Yun Xiao and activate the formation directly?"

Pu Shouying saw the disbelief on Wang Cheng’s face, and the frustration he had bottled up for so long vanished, replaced by a refreshing clarity, as if drinking cold water on a sweltering day. Having lost so many times, it was rare to show off.

"Wang Fugui, oh Wang Fugui, so there are secrets even a spoiler like you don't know? Lady Yan was able to ascend to a divine seat while still alive, wielding massive influence across the Nine Dragons River. It seemed like a tremendous blessing. But since she became a living dragon vein, she naturally fell into the compass of my *Classic of Shaking Dragons of Mountains and Seas*, inherently countered by me! You thought our charge on the tower was to break into this Dragon-Locking Well? Wrong! It was merely to keep you from paying attention to our other arrangements, using the 'Eight Gates Golden Lock Formation' to seal the geomantic energy of Nine Dragons Pool. The effect might be slightly weaker, but it is already enough."

Treasure-seekers are inherently sensitive to dragon aura and spiritual treasures. Even though it was his first time there, using the dragon-finding and gold-splitting techniques of the *Classic of Shaking Dragons*, Pu Shouying immediately pierced the secret of Yan Yunxiao. By emulating the story of the Celestial Master establishing the Twenty-Four Parishes, he performed the ritual of "felling mountains and breaking temples," bypassing the localized earth deity to strike at the core!

The secret experiment had worked, and for the first time, Wang Cheng tasted the bitter fruit of information asymmetry.

Pu Shouying finished speaking and bowed deeply to the dragon pearl suspended in the sky: "Noble one, Lady Yan has entered the formation! With my *Classic of Shaking Dragons* harmonizing the spiritual information of heaven and earth, your speed of absorbing dragon aura is only about thirty percent slower than killing a dragon to extract its essence."

For the first time, an unrecognizable male voice emanated from the dragon pearl: "No matter, Boatman Pu. You have done well. A mere thirty percent delay is something I can afford to wait for. In those years, the Pu family presented me with the supreme treasure, the 'Obedient Dragon Pearl,' and served me with all their might for many years. Your merit in supporting a dragon—I shall never forget it!"

"Thank you, noble one! My Pu family has always treated our benefactor as our faith, which is why we have remained standing for three dynasties. In the future, I shall certainly devote my life to your service." As Pu Shouying heard the promise of reward from this Han noble, his deeply lowered eyes flickered.

He was not ignorant of the cultivation path of the world’s most powerful official legal positions, even if his lineage was incompatible with the "Dragon Scion" status. However, when it came to the origin of this "Obedient Dragon Pearl," his knowledge surpassed everyone else's. Hearing the noble say he would not treat them poorly, he could only sneer internally.

"I want your fiefdoms and your country, and I will be repaid with these things."

Back in the days of the Zhao-Song Dynasty, the Pu family had been part merchant, part nomad, arriving from the distant West at Quanzhou’s Zaitun Port. They grew rapidly through the favor of the Zhao-Song imperial clan, entering the court to control the Maritime Trade Bureau. At their peak, they monopolized thirty percent of exported ceramics and fifty percent of the spice trade, commanding a massive commercial empire that even the imperial clan relied upon.

Yet, when the Zhao family's reign tottered and the imperial clan sought help from the Pu family, they not only refused to save them but dealt a vicious backstab. Colluding with the Cloud-Mongol Empire, they defected, deploying private troops to crush the Song maritime defenses and slaughtering tens of thousands—including the Zhao-Song imperial family, opposing clans in the city, and ordinary citizens. This led to the total annihilation of the Song army at the Battle of Yashan, causing the entire Middle Kingdom to sink into darkness.

The crimes were too numerous to record. When the Zhao-Song state perished, the prime minister carried the young emperor into the sea to die, followed by many loyal officials; a hundred thousand soldiers and civilians jumped into the sea to die for their country.

That was the beginning of the Pu family’s three-dynasty plan: "Nurturing the Pearl with Humans." It was the fundamental reason Pu Shouying served this noble—to nurture the pearl!

Few outsiders noticed that the Battle of Yashan took place in the waters of Qiongzhou, and the three great pearl beds of Hepu were also located there. The residual aura of the Zhao-Song and the heroic souls of the soldiers and civilians formed a dragon vein on the seabed, which was eventually harvested by the then-head of the Pu family, the fourth-rank "Treasure-Seeker" Pu Gengshou, as a heaven-sent treasure saturated with flood-dragon aura: the "Obedient Dragon Pearl."

He presented it to Prince Wei Amuge, the grandson of the Golden Family’s Prince Zhenjin and one of the most powerful "Dragon Scions" of the time, who cultivated it into his life-bound dragon pearl. This was the only mixed-blood prince in the Golden Family, whose fiefdom happened to be in Dinghai County, Ningbo, adjacent to the Quanzhou administration. Relying on the Wei family’s patronage, the Pu clan gradually seized military and political power over the entire Quanzhou region, becoming regional governors.

Then, at the end of the Cloud-Mongol Empire, they betrayed their masters again, sparking the "Ispah Rebellion" in the chaos, once more raising their blades against the people and officials, and conveniently wiping out the fallen Wei lineage. The "Obedient Dragon Pearl," passed down through the Wei line, returned to the South Sea pearl beds, only to be harvested by Pu Shouying himself during the great pearl harvest six or seven years ago.

"The 'Obedience' in this dragon pearl is not about docility, but perversity. According to the *Classic of Shaking Dragons*, it is only by using the Nine Provinces State Decree Talisman of the world's strongest official rank—the 'Dragon Scion'—as a core, and having it refined by the Zhao-Song, Cloud-Mongol, and Great Zhao clans, that the essence of Heaven, Earth, and Water can be gathered to dissolve its perversity and forge a supreme treasure. It allows any grassroots flood-dragon to leap into a true dragon, with the potential to become the Ancestral Dragon of a new dynasty!"

"Zhao-Song, Cloud-Mongol, Great Zhao—we viewed you as prey from the start; where is the gratitude to be found? Everything we obtained comes from our god, not from you!"

Seeing success within reach, Pu Shouying’s heart burned with fervor. "Our Pu family has spent three dynasties and several hundred years of accumulation for one great ambition: to welcome all our brothers who have wandered for a thousand years to this place and establish a country of our own on this fertile land. I have a premonition that the Great Zhao Dynasty has entered its countdown; without a restorer-emperor or a brilliant statesman, it will last at most a few more decades. That is when we will harvest. As the head of the Pu family, I hope to see that day with my own eyes."

As his ambition churned, the "Nine Dragons Spitting the Pearl" formation fully activated. The sky mirrored the scenes from the Mountain-Sea Curse and the East Sea Eye. Those half-human, half-dragon grassroots fighters and great ship captains roared in agony, their divine light visibly dimming. Even the newly erected Temple of Prince Jing on the Curse-Forbidden Great Wall began to see its luster fade.

As expected, the Wang family of the Water Tribe had avoided the fate of filling the sea eye, but they could not escape the Nine Dragons Spitting the Pearl formation set from the beginning. All dragon aura was gathered by the "Nine Dragons Pattern," using Yun Xiao and the terrestrial veins she fused with as the final nodes, spitting out the flood-dragon aura to nourish the "Obedient Dragon Pearl."

Stolen from by the Pu family’s centuries-long scheme, the situation had deteriorated to the extreme.

"We have one last trump card." Wang Cheng was always prepared; he had considered the possibility of being forced back into the array. He silently looked at the other "Nine Provinces State Decree Talisman" within his own body. It was nearly identical to the one above. He had obtained it from the Dragon Scion Borjigin Daiqin, and after checking the lineage records when burying him at Zaitun Port, he knew it belonged to the descendants of the Wei line of the Cloud-Mongol Empire.

As the flood-dragon aura from the East Sea Eye flowed through Wang Cheng’s body, the incomplete talisman within him, like dry earth meeting sweet rain, rapidly restored its vitality, clawing and twisting like a dragon. It was eager to consume the flood-dragon aura surging like a river through the formation.

The only problem was that Wang Cheng’s own cultivation was too low; he was not the noble’s match, nor was he a key node, and he could not block all the aura. Most importantly, he was neither the child of the Master of the State nor a true flood-dragon, and he had no qualifications to hold the "Dragon Scion" position.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he dived back into the Dragon-Locking Well and leaped onto the light cocoon wrapping Yun Xiao.

"Sold!"

He slammed the "Nine Provinces State Decree Talisman" onto the wailing Yun Xiao.

"I am not qualified to hold the position? Then I shall sell it directly to you, Yun Xiao, a true flood-dragon!"

"Ah Xiao, you are already the strongest Heavenly-class official, the 'Dragon Scion.' Absorb it for me!!!"