Chapter 31
“Rest assured, we will raise this child to be plump and healthy.”
The Azure Dragon clan, dominant in the deep sea, was wealthy.
They spoke with particular confidence about raising children.
“Weren’t there other important matters?” Patriarch Yu hurriedly tried to change the subject.
Regarding the child staying temporarily with the Azure Dragon clan, he needed to first ask his precious daughter’s opinion and let her decide for herself.
He still remembered how happily the child had been playing in the sea just moments ago. If his little Youyou liked it here and agreed to stay, then naturally, there would be no problem.
Without yet consulting the child, he vaguely shifted the topic, urging the Azure Dragons to hurry and attend to their own offspring.
Indeed, this was an important matter. Ao Yong looked at his wife reluctantly. Seeing her indifferent to his longing gaze, he sighed and quickly spoke up, “That’s true. There really is no other way. Why can’t the child be born?”
As he spoke, he glanced toward Ao Qing, clearly placing all his hopes on him.
Even though Ao Qing had already explained the reasons, since it concerned the continuation of the Azure Dragon clan, as a clansman, Ao Yong naturally paid close attention. He said to Ao Qing, “Take us to see, I’ll assess the situation myself.”
Ao Yong hurriedly agreed and, with his wife leading the way, brought the group to a secluded palace.
That palace was exquisitely magnificent. Coral, tortoiseshell, and pearls—precious treasures of the sea—were scattered casually on the ground like little pebbles, not even worthy of being hung on walls.
The palace shimmered with spiritual light, crafted entirely from water-elemental spirit stones and marine spiritual creatures.
It radiated an aura of immense wealth and extravagance.
Surrounding the palace was a vast spirit-gathering formation. The slightly damp water-elemental spiritual energy from all directions of the deep sea was concentrated here and channeled into the palace.
This dense water-elemental spiritual energy filled the air with a fresh fragrance, prompting Yu Youyou to frequently peek curiously.
Ao Zhen, holding her dearly, couldn’t help but kiss her twice and laugh, “My dear, when we return, Aunt Zhen will build one just like this for you!”
She spoke with the generosity of someone ready to spoil and raise a child. The little one waved her hands busily, then kissed her beautiful aunt back obediently, saying, “Auntie!”
“The little junior sister means that she only needs the lady,” Chu Xingyun said gently from the side.
Since taking in his little junior sister, Chu Daojun felt he had learned the sweet words he hadn’t known for a hundred years.
Half a year ago, if anyone had heard him say such sweet things to a woman, it would have been like the sun rising in the west.
“Yes!” His little junior sister nodded eagerly to affirm.
Ao Zhen was momentarily stunned, then laughed and kissed the shy little one again.
Ao Yong glanced back at his wife, who was getting along wonderfully with the child, and felt a pang of envy. He restrained himself and quickly shifted the topic, quietly asking Ao Qing, “How is Ao Xin doing? Is he still... alright?”
Although Ao Xin was a fool, they were all dragons, so of course he cared.
Ao Qing thought of the silly dragon that had been terrified by the little one, and then looked at these two dragons who wanted nothing more than to keep the gluttonous child and raise her. He said lightly, “He’s been living quite eventfully lately.”
Ao Yong couldn’t imagine how being trapped in a restriction could be eventful. Still, he trusted Ao Qing’s words and said with satisfaction, “As long as he’s happy.”
The little one overheard this and thought about how she often played with Ao Xin recently; he must be quite happy.
“That’s all thanks to me!” she proudly puffed out her little chest.
---
“Oh, Youyou is going to visit Ao Xin too? He’s really lucky to have such a kind-hearted Youyou.”
The little one couldn’t bear to see the lonely old dragon trapped in the restriction, so she accompanied him every day. Ao Xin was truly living a heavenly life!
Ao Zhen inwardly envied this and couldn’t help but praise the little one for patiently keeping company with the elder, speaking softly, “Our Youyou really is the best child in the world.”
That “our” gave Patriarch Yu a headache.
At that moment, he suddenly felt a sense of impending danger, as if inviting wolves into the home.
How did it become “our”?
Already overwhelmed by disciples competing for favor at home, Patriarch Yu watched two dragons with no connection to him trying to snatch his child. He sighed and decided to learn more bedtime fairy tales to prevent his daughter from being taken away.
Chu Xingyun never spoke carelessly in front of so many elders; he just smiled and walked through the seemingly endless palace corridor... The dragons, with nothing better to do, had built the palace corridors as labyrinthine as their schemes for abducting little ones.
Chu Daojun inwardly despised this.
Joking aside, they soon reached the deepest part of the palace. In the center lay a spirit jade-carved spirit-guiding formation.
This formation drew all the spiritual energy gathered by the outer formation into itself, then directed the energy onto a massive dragon egg standing above the formation.
The dragon egg shimmered with spiritual light, nurtured in the abundant water-elemental spiritual energy.
Yu Youyou, snuggling with her beautiful aunt, suddenly turned and caught sight of the dragon egg. Her gaze froze, her heart pounding, and she felt a sudden dizziness.
It was an indescribable sensation.
As if her soul floated upon seeing the egg, wavering and momentarily unable to think.
Yet, more than the halted thoughts, she instinctively reached out her hand toward the dragon egg.
“Familiar,” she said instinctively.
“Youyou feels a sense of familiarity?”
Patriarch Yu, always attentive to his daughter’s thoughts, did not miss the momentary abnormality.
Hearing this, he hesitated, finding it strange... The Azure Dragon clan had no connection with the Red Flame Demon Lord. It couldn’t be that she had seen this egg in the Demon City, right?
Nevertheless, he valued his daughter’s feelings and, seeing her reaching toward the egg, asked with concern, “Youyou wants to greet it?”
“Hold,” Yu Youyou whispered.
The Azure Dragon clan lord and his wife didn’t quite understand this single word and looked to Patriarch Yu.
Ao Qing, however, squinted and observed Yu Youyou for a moment, then instructed Ao Zhen, “Let her hold the egg.” Since he gave such an order, and considering Yu Youyou was their beloved little one, there was no harm in letting her touch the dragon egg.
Ao Zhen stepped forward happily and placed the little one on the spirit-guiding formation.
The child sat amid the gathered cool water-elemental spiritual energy. She clicked her lips but did not consume the energy. Instead, her gaze fixed on the dragon egg beside her.
The egg’s shell was like jade, its light flowing. Somehow, she instinctively reached out and carefully half-cradled the egg in her arms, pressing her little face naturally and skillfully against its surface, gently rubbing it.
It was an indescribable feeling.
A comforting familiarity, as if she had once embraced something like this somewhere before, always leaning on each other, offering solace in loneliness and darkness.
It was as if they were perfectly matched.
She habitually pressed her small ear to the shell, feeling a joyful mood and even a sleepy drowsiness.
---
The silence in her ear was profound, yet within it, a faint but steady heartbeat seemed to tell her it was still here.
She rubbed the dragon egg again, happily clutching it as if embracing her only belonging — the only presence whose body she could hold.
Her affectionate rubbing left the Azure Dragon lord and his wife dumbfounded.
Ao Yong coughed softly and whispered, “...Could this be love at first sight?” Truly, there is always someone more skilled. When his little dragon was as thin as a chopstick, he had learned to pursue his beloved, eventually winning her heart — a story he often boasted about.
Yet he never imagined that now, even when it was just an egg, it could already capture a little girl’s attention.
Ao Yong’s eyes flickered as he whispered to Ao Zhen, whose eyes also sparkled, “She’s reluctant to let go! If she doesn’t, Youyou might be willing to stay here!”
Ao Zhen nodded slowly, “If Youyou likes it, why not betroth her to it?”
Patriarch Yu and Chu Xingyun remained silent.
They wouldn’t even speak through spiritual transmission, pretending to whisper secrets openly in front of powerful cultivators — wasn’t that just speaking to them?
Not understanding why the child reacted so differently to the dragon egg, Patriarch Yu hesitated but couldn’t refuse... In case his daughter truly had fallen in love at first sight, refusal would be unwise.
Still, Patriarch Yu’s concerned gaze lingered on the child. Seeing her curled up beside the egg, holding it tightly, he muttered to himself, “Is Youyou lonely?”
He inexplicably felt that his daughter was lonely at this moment.
Lonely enough that even an unresponsive presence in her arms was something she clung to dearly.
“This egg is fine,” Ao Qing stood beside the dragon egg. As a high-level immortal cultivator, his spiritual perception was sharp, but his expression was unreadable.
In these three hundred years, this was not his first time probing inside a dragon egg.
There was a dragon growing inside — that was a fact.
Yet, although the dragon was gestating, the inside was strangely silent, a deep stillness. An empty body had formed, but the dragon soul had not yet appeared.
His spiritual perception had not been mistaken just now.
When the little one had just blankly uttered one word, the egg’s shell had trembled slightly. When she extended her hand and slowly hugged it, the shell emitted the heartbeat clearly for the first time.
Though still silent within, it was as if a dragon was indeed alive, its heartbeat sounding clearly by her ear, comforting her.
In the mortal world, this would be considered extremely strange, but in the wondrous cultivation realm, Ao Qing roughly boiled it down to two words:
Fate.
“Youyou may have fate with it; it’s the chance for it to be born,” Ao Qing said lightly to Ao Yong. “But maybe not. If it doesn’t hatch in three hundred years, don’t pin all your hopes on Youyou.”
He was, in effect, clearing Yu Youyou of responsibility.
Ao Yong smiled and said, “Naturally. We’ve waited so long as a couple; waiting a few hundred more years is nothing.”
Though he spoke with such ease, who was it that came looking for him every day in anxiety?
Ao Qing nodded calmly, sensing Ao Yong’s tact, and said, “We’re planning to go out and relax. Let’s take it with us.”
Seeing the little one unable to wrap her little arms fully around the huge egg but unwilling to let go, and recalling the first signs of life inside the egg, Ao Qing thought, since they’re going out anyway, they might as well bring it along.