Fang Qing was momentarily speechless, his mind going blank before he managed to say, “Are you… possessed by someone’s spirit?”
“No, I’m perfectly lucid,” Shen Zhaomu replied. “I need to find Akasamo. There’s a sense of kinship among members of the same species; if there’s another dragon nearby, he would detect it faster than I would.”
“So, you two are really a pair?”
“No. It’s fake.”
“…But you. So. But… what?” Fang Qing stammered again, stuck for words.
He didn’t know what to say.
Should he point out that Shen Zhaomu comes from a dragon-hunting family? Shen Zhaomu’s goal was to find the Dragon King, so what he was doing couldn’t exactly be considered a true betrayal.
Should he argue that one shouldn’t keep an exotic creature close by? The deed was done; Shen Zhaomu was well aware of what he was doing and wouldn’t listen to him.
So, after a long pause, Fang Qing reached out a hand. “Give me a cigarette.”
Shen Zhaomu passed him a cigarette, and Fang Qing lit it, took a deep drag, and then said, “If people find out, you’ll lose more than just your position as the chief. This kind of situation could be considered concealing information and treason, possibly leading to a court trial.”
“I don’t plan on going to court before I find Akasamo,” Shen Zhaomu said. “If I wanted to flee, I doubt anyone in the alliance could catch me. Of course, if you want to report me, I won’t object. I’ll face the consequences of my actions.”
“…Although I have a bit of a temper, I’m not so idle as to report a junior I’m fond of,” Fang Qing said. “But why admit it suddenly? If you hadn’t, I might never have known about this.”
Shen Zhaomu simply said, “At first, I did treat him as prey, always cautious that he might harm someone. But after some time and experiences together, I realized I was wrong. So, I think it’s unfair to him to continue letting everyone treat him under the false identity of my boyfriend.”
Fang Qing took another deep breath, “Do you plan to tell Lu Shanhuai, Song Qianqian, and the others?”
“I’ll tell them soon, but now is not the right time.” He paused, “Also, his real name is Long Shiyu. One day, I’ll let everyone know.”
Fang Qing rubbed his face, then suddenly laughed, “You really are an odd one. If others found out, your persona of being cold and ruthless towards exotic creatures would disintegrate.”
Shen Zhaomu smiled too, “That impression was always wrong. I’ve only ever judged based on whether they’re good or bad.”
Just as Fang Qing was about to say something else, a powerful shout suddenly emanated from the depths of the sentry post.
It was Yang Zhiming’s voice.
The two exchanged a look and immediately hurried over.
Inside the sentry post’s machinery room, the table was cluttered with an assortment of wrenches, screws, and high-precision instruments. A pile of submarine cores lay scattered about, all collected by Uther—apart from those found at the Star Capital Hunters Association, Uther also boasted an entire room filled with collectibles.
Yang Zhiming, holding his mechanical prosthetic leg, banged the table loudly.
Uther, standing beside him, was dumbstruck: “My old pal, because of the love of God, please speak properly!”
Yang Zhiming pointed at the partially dismantled submarine core on the table: “You’re a damned genius! Do you have any idea what you’ve found?”
“Wh-what?”
“The core of the Titan, the core of the Titan!” Yang Zhiming began to swing his prosthetic leg again, creating a whooshing sound. “These engravings, these serial numbers, they’re unmistakably the work of that genius master. Never in my life did I dream of seeing it again. With it, any ship could navigate to the Evernight Lands.”
“Old buddy, old buddy,” Uther kept saying, “first, put your dear prosthetic leg back on.”
The Evernight Lands lie at the northernmost tip of the Bei’en planet.
It’s where the ocean reaches its zenith, the edge of the territory marked by an eternal cascade, the World Waterfall. Approaching it in a small boat feels like reaching the end of the world.
Lonely, ethereal, and dreamlike.
Surrounded by pouring starlight as you fall.
A pitch-black sky interwoven with ribbons of light, all dark tides carrying stardust originate from there.
The magnetic fields of the Evernight Lands are unique, making it impassable for aircraft to travel there. Vehicles, however, can reach it via the Damocles Bridge—though it’s fraught with exotic creatures, was once the stronghold of marauding skeletal merfolk, and doesn’t have particularly breathtaking scenery.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Thus, aside from a few mercenaries, few venture there now, content with viewing the magnificent World Waterfall from its edge before returning.
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Of course, after precise adjustments, it could be installed on other vessels as well.
Yang Zhiming, still exhilarated, added: “Damn it all, let’s hurry up and deal with the exotic creatures around here. I’m already itching to start my research.”
Suddenly, everyone’s devices pinged simultaneously.
Yang Zhiming, still caught up in his excitement, paid no mind, but Fang Qing glanced down at his device and muttered, “…What the heck is this nonsense from the Star Police?”
Shen Zhaomu opened his device to find a newly issued Class C warrant.
The photo was so blurry it bordered on the unbelievable. He squinted for ages but could only make out the edges of a face, the features indistinct, the mouth nowhere to be found. At the center of the image was an inexplicable object, intertwined shades of brown and white, with brown dominating.
Shen Zhaomu: “…”
Shen Zhaomu: “…………”
The style of the photo was painfully, despairingly familiar.
Seeing Shen Zhaomu’s troubled expression, Fang Qing asked, “What’s wrong? Can you actually make something out from this mess?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Shen Zhaomu took a deep breath, “Absolutely nothing.”
…Aside from the photo, which eerily resembled Long Shiyu with a chicken leg in his mouth.
…
Song Qianqian screamed from the back seat: “Sis-in-law, sis-in-law, slow down, there’s a sharp turn up ahead!”
No sooner had she spoken than the car skidded around a bend on the coastal road, narrowly missing the guardrail—just a bit more, and they would have plunged into the endless deep sea.
Long Shiyu, with a chicken leg in his mouth, mumbled, “It’s fine, I used to sweep floors at the racetrack.” After another sharp turn, Song Qianqian nearly flew out of the car, clinging desperately to Li Jianchun beside her.
Trailing them was a group of frustrated mercenaries.
Song Qianqian and Li Jianchun had been following a group of mercenaries through the alleys. Although they lost track of Augusta, they rented a car and followed the mercenaries’ convoy, eventually locating a trading spot that those who wanted to trade with the church would use.
It was a relic of the Bei’en Dynasty architecture, off-limits at this hour, deserted, making it an ideal spot for covert transactions.
They carefully avoided security cameras, daring to dive deeper and captured many faces and evidence of the trade.
Their efforts were fruitful, but they were eventually discovered.
After all, as hunters specializing in exotic creatures, their people skills were lacking.
Lacking Shen Zhaomu’s capability, fighting inside a nest of mercenaries and cultists wasn’t something anyone with a brain would do. So, Song and Li ran off, and at the crossroads, they ran into Long Shiyu enjoying a late-night snack.
Behind them was an enraged mob of mercenaries and cultists.
Without hesitation, they dragged Long Shiyu, who was holding a roasted chicken leg, away with them.
Long Shiyu: “?”
Song Qianqian yelled, “Hurry up and drive!”
Li Jianchun, being a hunter skilled in close combat, had better physical conditioning. She was just about to nod and make a dash for it—
But Long Shiyu, beside her, also nodded: “Oh.” He thought Song Qianqian was talking to him.
Holding a Zaun flower in one hand and a chicken leg in the other made running particularly cumbersome. Thus, he put the chicken leg in his mouth and dashed toward the distant car at great speed, accelerating near instantly.
Song Qianqian only felt a violent gust of wind blow past her. By the time her eyes focused, Long Shiyu had sprinted off into the distance.
He was ridiculously fast, leaving behind two bewildered security cameras, their lenses askew, having captured only a blur.
Song Qianqian was dumbstruck.
A dozen seconds later, their rented car pulled up, with Long Shiyu at the wheel.
…And so began the high-speed chase down the coastal road.
Song Qianqian, still clutching Li Jianchun’s arm in a death grip, exclaimed, “I’ve ridden in Brother Shen’s car before, and you two are really, really alike. You two are seriously a fucking match made in heaven.”
The Zaun flower in front of the car swayed and commented, “Fuck, fuck.”
With another sharp turn, Long Shiyu maneuvered the car down a narrow path, the vehicle wobbling as it navigated the uneven, rocky terrain. Outside the window, the world seemed to spin, with moments of weightlessness throwing Song Qianqian into near hysteria. At this critical moment, Long Shiyu began to eat the chicken leg with one hand while steering with the other.
“Stop eating, sis-in-law, stop eating! If you keep eating, the others will be eating at our repast instead!” Song Qianqian yelled.
Finally, Long Shiyu reluctantly put the chicken leg away.
They managed to shake off the mercenaries in their wake.
Ten minutes later, a relieved Song Qianqian boarded the boat back to the main island.
The boat cut through the glittering sea, its waters shimmering with a stellar glow beneath the rising tide.
They safely returned to the hunters’ sentry post. Ordinary mercenaries wouldn’t dare follow them there. Li Jianchun backed up the information immediately.
In the hall, Long Shiyu said to them, “Then I’m off to my room.”
Song Qianqian waved weakly: “Good night, sis-in-law, you, you’re really something else.”
After his late-night snack and the drive, Long Shiyu returned to his room in high spirits.
Inside sat a princess, his mood dark and stormy.
Long Shiyu immediately went to cheer him up, his tail winding around his hand: “Why the long face?”
Shen Zhaomu opened his device, pointing to the warrant on the screen: “Take a look for yourself, what is this?”
Long Shiyu glanced at it: “What’s this, it’s just a blur.”
“Look closer, this is your eye, this is your nose, this is your jaw, and although this brown and white object is blurry, if you look closely, you can tell it’s a chicken leg, one that’s in your mouth… Putting it all together, isn’t this you with a chicken leg in mouth?”
Long Shiyu: “…”
Long Shiyu: “Ah!”
Then he was caught by Shen Zhaomu, who shook him by his horns. Unable to break free, Long Shiyu curled his tail into a dejected semi-circle. “I was helping Song Qianqian and the others get back. Stop shaking me…”
Only then did Shen Zhaomu let go. “…You had a reason this time. But how did you end up there again? Didn’t I tell you to go back?”
“I was getting food… Ah, stop shaking me, stop shaking me.”
In the midst of vigorous shaking, Shen Zhaomu ended up with an irritated dragon.
But Shen Zhaomu wasn’t planning on leaving tonight. If he went back to his room, who knows what sort of trouble Long Shiyu might find himself in by tomorrow.
He moved all his materials in, locked the windows, and barricaded the door with a table to start working.
He was determined to prevent any escapades from Long Shiyu tonight.
The irritated dragon lay on the bed, amusing himself with a game of landlord, quickly losing all his beans.
Long Shiyu glanced at Shen Zhaomu. The man’s profile was handsome under the light.
His princess looked so good.
Long Shiyu’s mood lifted, forgetting his recent bout of anger.
He pulled up a chair beside Shen Zhaomu, watching him scribble and sketch on paper: “Sob.”
Shen Zhaomu rubbed his head.
Shen Zhaomu was reviewing the latest updates on the deceased’s locations—within a 90-kilometer radius centered on the main island, the bodies still formed intermittent lines, creating concentric circles of varying sizes.
He still couldn’t recall where he had seen this pattern before.
Growing slightly frustrated, he began to rub the dragon’s head more vigorously to soothe himself.
Long Shiyu, his hair a mess from the rubbing, suddenly said, “Why are you looking at a star map?”
“Star map?” Shen Zhaomu paused for a moment, then explained, “These are the locations of the corpses underwater. They seem to form circles around the main island, which I find odd.”
Long Shiyu looked for a while longer, then said, “This really is a star map. Look,” he extended his slender finger to point, “this one is Alpha III, this one is the Fiery White Star, and I don’t know how to say the names of many others in Alliance language, but they’re all stars near Bei’en. The circles you mentioned are probably their orbits.”
“Fiery White Star? That planet disappeared seven or eight hundred years ago, leaving this star system forever,” Shen Zhaomu said. “And while the number of satellites orbiting Bei’en is large, it’s not this vast.”
“That’s because they’ve either disappeared or fallen,” Long Shiyu said. “Many years ago, they were still present.”
Records of Bei’en’s satellites date back almost a thousand years, to a time before Bei’en’s civilization had ventured into space.
That would be a lifespan even dragons couldn’t reach. Shen Zhaomu said, “Then how could you…”
“I know of every star that has fallen. After all, I am a child of the stars,” Long Shiyu said with a smile.
“…” Shen Zhaomu smiled too, rubbing his head.
But the next second, he suddenly paused.
Long Shiyu might be right.
He had finally recalled where he had seen this pattern before.
Years ago, Bei’en too danced with the waves and the stars. The people of Bei’en, obsessed with space, yearned to embrace the glittering cosmos.
The earliest Bei’en script mimicked the trajectories of stars—winding and twisting, each star representing a different tone, with the lines’ breaks and depths conveying the writer’s emotions. Reading a book was like entering someone’s heart, whether it was tumultuous or tender.
That script was particularly complex, and many years later, only the royalty knew how to read the ancient text.
Centuries after the fall of the royal family, the ancient script remained solely in libraries.
Among them was an ancient tome, a book of poems and songs. Now, no one could understand it, save for a few roughly translated titles, carrying the ancient Bei’en style of singing. Like many other books, it remained forever slumbering at the bottom of a shelf.
Shen Zhaomu, a voracious reader, had stumbled upon that book in a library during his first visit to Bei’en years ago. Inside was a special song, written in perfect circles.
He widened his eyes slightly, memories bubbling up, and in a flash of insight, he recalled the title of that song: The Song of the Sirens.
Amidst the raging waves of the deep sea, under the dazzling array of stars, was a bizarre form of worship.
Someone had used corpses to stage a grandiose song.
The author has something to say:
One cutesy sob a day (1/1)
In today’s chapter, we have Truth Princess vs. Daring Dragon
The little dragon has so much job experience…
Thank you for the chapter! ❤
Oh~ that Bei’en script sounds fascinating! I’d love to see that…
Thank you for the chapter!
What a cool concept
The zaun flower commenting ‘fck, fck’ sent me 💀 and our little dragon always know how to get into mess and anger his princess haha