Before speaking, she first cleared her throat. She appeared very calm, even playful like a child.
But Shang Xingzhou and Chen Changsheng could both hear the slight tremble in her voice.
It was not because she was excited to meet Chen Changsheng with her free body, but because she was uneasy.
She felt that she was too close to the middle-aged Daoist, somewhat dangerous.
At this moment, she still did not know that this person was Chen Changsheng's master, but she could clearly sense that he had the ability to harm or even kill her.
There were very few human experts in the world that had the ability to harm or even kill her, but tonight, just as she had escaped her imprisonment of several hundred years, she had encountered one.
This made her feel a sense of defeat as if she was facing her fate, so much so that she did not dare to glance at Shang Xingzhou. She only stared into Chen Changsheng's eyes, seeming especially serious and focused.
She had no idea that in Shang Xingzhou's eyes, she was also an extremely dangerous existence.
The records of the humans in the Daoist Canon clearly stated that one could never be too wary of the Dragon race, the highest level of creatures under the starry sky.
Moreover, she was a Black Frost Dragon with the noblest and strongest bloodline of the Dragon race. Her petite body was brimming with energy that countless human experts dreamed of but could never possess. If she learned to use that energy, or if that energy were to just passively explode, it would assuredly create a terrifying momentum and bitter consequences.
She feared Shang Xingzhou, and Shang Xingzhou was wary of her. Chen Changsheng was only very shocked.
He had not expected that she had actually escaped from the bottom of the well!
Even if he and Xu Yourong had used the correct method, his blood, driven by the sublimation of the Scripture of Flowing West, was constantly being corroded by time. Based on his calculations, it would still take at least two years for the chain to snap. Moreover, after leaving the underground world, why had she not hurriedly left this continent brimming with the aura of humans that she disliked the most and returned to the warm archipelago in the south? Why had she come to the Orthodox Academy?
There were many variables in this negotiation, and they were faintly advantageous to him, but Chen Changsheng was not happy. He did not want anyone or anything other than himself to participate in this negotiation, whether it was the priests of the Li Palace, the teachers and students of the Orthodox Academy, Mount Li and Scholartree Manor, or his worried senior brother in the dark palace. And what did she mean by those words?
Protector? Chen Changsheng recalled the relevant records in the seventh book of the Daoist Canon, the Covenant of Dawn, and then he recalled a few matters of the past that the Pope had seemingly inadvertently mentioned that night.
Whether it was the Orthodoxy or the Daoist faith of the past, if they wanted to preserve their Daoist orthodoxy that would never change for ten thousand generations, they would inevitably place great importance on their inheritances. The current Pope would often begin his plans many years in advance, educating and raising his disciples. Those young disciples possessed incredible talent in cultivation and astonishing potential, but if they wanted to grow into true experts capable of leading the Daoist sect forward, they still needed a very long time and many trials. Moreover, the number of orthodox disciples of the Daoist sect had always been very small. For example, in the previous generation, there was only the Pope and Shang Xingzhou. In this generation, there was only Yuren Chen Changsheng and Shang Xingzhou, who had used some unknown method to confirm his identity, Mu Jiushi.
With such a long and arduous journey of cultivation and such a small number of successors, logically speaking, the inheritance of the Dao Sect could be cut off at any time. However, for countless years, Taoism had been passed down for countless generations, and such a situation had never occurred. Apart from the fact that those successors were as amazing as Yin and Shang, there was another very important reason. When these young successors traveled the world to cultivate, Taoism would often invite an extremely powerful or extremely influential senior to be that successor's guardian.
The Daoist orthodoxy had existed for tens of thousands of years, and this rule had also been maintained for many generations, even longer than the Great Zhou Dynasty. If Chen Changsheng had lived in Xining Village's old temple as a legitimate disciple of the Orthodoxy, then he truly should have had a guardian, and that guardian would assuredly be one of the few experts of the continent, most likely one of the Storms of the Eight Directions. But at the time, no one on the continent knew of his identity. Now that he was the Pope, did he still need a guardian? And why was it her?
"So the person Yin spoke of was you."
Shang Xingzhou's expression was calm, not at all surprised. It was obvious that he had already known of this matter.
He looked at the little Black Dragon and said, "After several hundred years, you can finally leave that old well of New North Bridge and regain your freedom. Why don't you return to the Southern Sea?"
"Because this is my promise," the little Black Dragon stood in front of Chen Changsheng and solemnly said.
It was obvious that Shang Xingzhou had placed an enormous pressure on her. Her small face was filled with nervousness, but it was still determined.
Shang Xingzhou suddenly asked, "Will you protect him?"
She raised her face and proudly said, "Of course."
Shang Xingzhou continued, "Are you willing to become one with him before the starry sky, to love him, to respect him, to comfort him, to love him as if he were yourself, to always place his name before your own in sickness and health, in wealth and poverty, in success and failure, all the way until you leave this world and return to the sea of stars?"
These words were like a cool breeze, slowly arriving, but also like a clap of thunder, rumbling without end.
This was one of the most ancient words in the scriptures of the church. This was the oath of a guardian, this was a rule of the Li Palace.
After a moment of silence, she said, "I am willing."
Shang Xingzhou asked, "Even if you have to give up your life?"
Without the slightest hesitation, she answered, "Yes."
Several years ago at the bottom of New North Bridge, she had already given up something more important than her life for Chen Changsheng, at least in her view.
Of course, this did not mean that she was truly willing to die for Chen Changsheng without any conditions, nor did it mean that she was not afraid of death. As members of the Dragon race with their long lives, death was something they rarely considered, but it was precisely because their lives were so long that when they occasionally thought of it, they would feel a fear that far surpassed that of ordinary humans.
She stared into Shang Xingzhou's eyes and said, "Not even Wang Zhi Ce dared to kill me back then, only to imprison me. I don't believe that you would dare to kill me."
In the common understanding of the cultivation world, the Dragon race was often immortal. The main reason for this impression that went against the truth was that the Dragon race was the highest level of life below the starry sky. They possessed an incomparably long lifespan and unimaginably powerful strength. Moreover, countless years ago, when the Dragon race withdrew from the continent, they formed a pact with the other worlds — any life form that offended the Dragon race must die.
The main reason that this pact had been passed down to this day was not because the Demon race or the Human race attached great importance to this promise, but because the Dragon race was powerful. Whether it was the peak experts of the Demon race or the Human race, even if they were facing a lone or even weak dragon, they would rarely try to do anything. This was because every dragon had a Soul Pearl in its body. Once the dragon was killed, the Soul Pearl would shatter, and its clansmen in the distant south would sense it and carry out a frenzied vengeance.
Not even the Great Zhou Dynasty ruled by Emperor Taizong was willing to pay this price. When the little Black Dragon wreaked havoc everywhere, Wang Zhi Ce had used a scheme to capture her, but he had never killed her. Besides her being forgivable, an even more important reason was that she was not easy to kill and was not easy to kill. These two words of 'not easy to kill' naturally had different meanings.
For countless years, the Dragon race had always been an object of reverence, far from the continent.
But at certain moments in history, a few accidents would occasionally occur.
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