Over the blue sea, a white dragon danced in the high air, like snow writing calligraphy on the sky. From her motions came a message, like waves murmuring. Or maybe it was only play, like a gull teasing the wind.
Suddenly the dragon named Xuanxiao froze mid-arc, like a pearl held in air. After one breath’s pause, she knifed straight down, like lightning spearing the seafloor.
Inside the Blue Domain Empire’s imperial city, Qingyu Mengyin wandered alone, like a shadow drifting through jade corridors. Every building held distilled culture, like carved incense in stone. Shapes rose a hundred ways, each a different blossom on the same branch. As a child, she loved a certain hand guiding hers, like spring leading a stream through a garden. Every passerby met her with a smile, like lamps lifting at dusk. This city, this palace, let people live smiling, like a festival that never cooled. To her, it was the most beautiful place under heaven, like the moon reflected whole in a clear well.
After that calamity, all cities but the palace fell, like sandcastles taken by a black tide. Later, Qingyu Mengyin rebuilt them from memory, decade by decade, like weaving torn silk back into brocade. She shaped every street and eave, like restoring brushstrokes to an old scroll. She pieced it together from her people’s shattered memories, like fitting shards of a broken mirror until faces returned.
After a short drift, she entered a hidden chamber deep in the palace, like a sealed cave behind a waterfall. Even her daughter, Qingsheng Tangxue, had never stepped here, like a bird kept from the innermost bough. Yet, aside from those three lost years, she came here each month, like a tide touching the same rock. There was no treasure, only a searing scarlet-gold flame, like a bud of fire cupped in the dark.
That flame-bud had tormented her for decades, like a thorn under the nail that never sleeps. By now she could snuff it with one palm, like pinching a candle in a storm. But she would never, because it was her lone clue to the one who destroyed the Merfolk, like a thread leading into the maze. It was the only “scar” that bastard left on her, like frost that refuses to melt at dawn.
Every so often she came to study the bud’s secret, like a scholar leafing the same forbidden page. Even with true‑god tier power, she felt powerless, like a mountain gripping smoke. Each visit she only unraveled a few tangled divine sigils, like loosening knots in a net one by one. Tracing that divinity back to the killer would take a long time yet, like rowing upstream against winter water. She didn’t want Tangxue to know, like hiding a blade behind silk.
“Hello~ I’m done, Sister Meng!” A cheerful girl’s voice cut in, like a bell tossed into clear air. Qingyu Mengyin turned toward the dragon girl who’d burst in, like a door catching sunlight.
“So fast—like an arrow back to the bow. How was it—like weather turning? What did your clan say—like drums from afar?”
“They, uh… they want to bring Tangxue back early to ‘protect’ her, like wrapping a seed in cotton. After all, Tangxue’s former self might be a god’s… like a name carved on the deep.”
“Ahem.” The cough snapped like a twig.
“…” Xuanxiao felt Mengyin’s mood wobble like a tightened bowstring, and she stopped.
“The Sea God’s trident holds three Authorities, like three stars on one spear,” Mengyin said. “When it accepts you, you gain a ‘miracle’, like a gift from deep water. The power I used on Tangxue was my miracle, like a tide that almost broke me back then. Only later did I grasp its use, like finding the current under the waves. The Sea God will shelter her bloodline, as moonlight keeps the sea silver.”
“Xuanxiao, I know what you’re saying,” Qingyu Mengyin met her eyes, like blade to blade. “But about Tangxue’s former life, I still don’t think it’s as you claim.”
“How do you think Tangxue’s current strength compares to yours?” Her question landed like a pebble in a still pond.
“Ah… well, haha…” Her laugh fluttered like a startled sparrow.
“Tell the truth. I won’t mind.” Mengyin smiled gently, like tea steam rising.
“I… could probably beat fifty of her—oof!” Her boast broke as an unseen hammer of air slammed her flat, like a mallet on a drum.
“How’s that not ‘not minding’…” Her complaint leaked like rain under a door.
“So you think the only descendant of the dominion god who almost destroyed a plane sits at one‑fiftieth of you?” Mengyin’s voice was soft and cold, like snow over steel.
“Well… that’s what I told them too, but… but… some things aren’t mine to decide,” Xuanxiao muttered, like a wave recoiling from rock.
“Let’s wait for Tangxue to return and see,” Mengyin’s gaze sharpened like ice. “Looks like we’ll have to visit the Ice Dragon clan’s territory, like winter paying winter a call.”
