“Seventh Sister.”
Dongfang Minghui noticed Qian Wanyu, who was stooped over and focused on her work. She didn’t respond, despite several attempts to get her attention. Qing Mo was floating mid-air, occasionally glancing at the time axis theory calculations on the wall.
The complex calculations on the wall seemed like symbols to her. After staring at them for a while, she started feeling dizzy.
Finding herself behind Qing Mo, she listened to his ramblings. Unable to comprehend him, she found both Qian Wanyu and Qing Mo engrossed in time calculations. She decided to retreat to the Nine Dragon Cave with the Sleepy Dragon Seal.
Sleepy Dragon Seal hopped off her back, warning, “If the abyss loses its memory, don’t blame me.”
Dongfang Minghui replied carelessly, “It doesn’t matter, if there are any memories, they should be given to Seventh Sister.” She ventured into the inner cave for the second time. The dark wall, the lifelike nine dragons – everything seemed inexplicably terrifying. It felt as if a mountain was weighing on her shoulders, and those massive dragon eyes were fixated on her.
Upon the Sleepy Dragon Seal entering the inner chamber, she sensed the dragons in the wall stirring. The sight of scattered remains on the ground was nauseating. She whispered anxiously to the Sleepy Dragon Seal, “They’re stirring; they might tear me apart.”
The dragon seal pattern reappeared on the stone gate. She noticed the Sleepy Dragon Seal fit perfectly into it. Nine dragons materialized mid-air, cloud-like, exerting a domineering aura, which was overpowering for Dongfang Minghui.
As the stone gate unified, it slowly opened. Dongfang Minghui quickly hid behind it. Upon turning her head, she noticed the expressions of the nine dragons seemed odd.
Thinking she might be mistaken, she rubbed her eyes. However, with the stone gate closing, the nine dragons appeared shackled and retreated back into the stone wall. But she was sure there was something wrong with the dragons’ expressions.
Among all dragons, she found her little Toothless to be the only adorable one. Recalling the previous group’s entry into the Nine Dragon Cave, she wondered if these dragons had changed their nature.
Once the stone gate shut, the Sleepy Dragon Seal nudged her, “Why are you daydreaming?”
“No, I just feel that something is off with these nine dragons.”
Sleepy Dragon Seal strode towards the deep pool. Water continuously flowed from the dragons’ mouths, forming a stream. He warned, “No matter what you see next, don’t disturb me.”
“Okay.”
As the Dragon Seal levitated into the air, a fiery red light enveloped the pool, and ripples appeared on the serene surface, gradually expanding.
Perhaps because the spiritual power of the Dragon Seal was resonating with the pool. From where she stood, the entire pool seemed like a high-speed boiling magma lake. The surrounding temperature appeared to be increasing.
She thought the water would overflow after reaching a boiling point, but the pool calmed down quickly, revealing a lake surface clearer than a mirror.
She knew the memory fragments were only a part of the mirror fragments in the future, and the images reflected on the water’s surface were likely centuries of memories from before.
As she tried to remember the rapidly changing images, the lake dissipated completely. The Sleepy Dragon Seal, floating above the pool, returned to its original form and approached Dongfang Minghui, “I’ve got it, look here.”
He held a solid-looking ball filled with mottled, colorful marks, which looked beautiful.
“Really!” Dongfang Minghui was overjoyed. She stretched out her fingers to touch it, but the Dragon Seal quickly retreated, “You can’t touch it; you will lose your memory.”
“Then let’s give these memories to Seventh Sister.”
She was confident that once Seventh Sister fully understood the Sleepy Dragon Valley, she would find a breakthrough.
As they exited, Dongfang Minghui, impatiently rushed off. She failed to notice the movements of the Nine Dragons etched in the stone wall.
“Seventh Sister.”
Qian Wanyu felt a looming shadow above her. After a moment of staring blankly, she regained her senses, “Ninth Sister, what is it?”
Dongfang Minghui nodded eagerly, “I have something to show you. The Sleepy Dragon Seal has retrieved all the memories prior to the Sleepy Dragon Valley entry, Seventh Sister, would you like to see them?”
Qing Mo swooshed in front of her but was ignored by Dongfang Minghui.
Her eyes were on Seventh Sister. After several days of relentless work, Seventh Sister’s eyes were no longer red. Seeing this brought pain to her heart.
“Okay.”
Like the time when Sleepy Dragon Seal had returned the memories to Seventh Sister, this time the Dragon Seal pushed the memory ball into Qian Wanyu’s mind.
Qian Wanyu was overwhelmed with a century’s worth of memories from Sleepy Dragon Seal, a past unknown to her. It was as fleeting as a cursory glance at flowers on horseback.
Having transferred the memories, the Sleepy Dragon Seal rushed to Dongfang Minghui, pleading for Little Bean Sprouts.
“Here you go, but don’t take it away.”
“I won’t.”
Sleepy Dragon Seal hugged Little Bean Sprouts and sat at the entrance of the Nine Dragons Cave to stargaze.
“It’ll take a long time to digest a century’s worth of memories, so for now, we’ll just stand guard and not disturb her,” Qing Mo whispered into Dongfang Minghui’s ear.
“I understand.”
They waited for a long time.
For Seventh Sister’s safety, Dongfang Minghui didn’t dare to wander off, but Little Color was restless and bored, so it went to the bottom of the abyss to tidy up all the gravel. The debris was piled on one side, and the overall area gradually shrank. After the site was cleared, Little Color noticed that the water from the black pool had completely soaked the ground, and some stones were even stained.
As for the enormous stone in the centre of the black pool, Little Color dared not touch it.
There was no one in Sleepy Dragon Valley, Little Color once again visited the topmost layer and confirmed Dongfang Minghui’s hypothesis: the power of the self-explosion had bombarded the entire valley, and the rubble at the bottom of the abyss was the stone from the topmost valley.
The previously vast valley had been reduced to a square inch of land, but the dying tree still stood firm.
“This is really strange.” Little Color’s vines reached towards the large tree provocatively.
The already fragile leaves on the trunk fell to the ground after being pulled, and the tree looked even more pitiful from the outside. Little Color was a magical plant, unlike ordinary plants. The nature of magical plants is somewhat malevolent and unrestrained. Some even kill and plunder to cultivate, and there were plenty of examples of evil plants.
Little Color, by nature, was such a magical plant. After several times of reincarnation, it has changed its view of this tree from contempt to indifference to exploration.
The big tree was very patient, allowing Little Color to scrutinize and estimate without retaliating. It was as if being slapped on the right cheek, it would stretch out the left cheek to let it continue…
After Little Color had its fill, it didn’t alleviate its frustration but instead made itself depressed. It had seen every type of large and small tree, but this tree’s soft nature made it feel like it was hitting cotton.
“If I didn’t see you remaining intact over the last three years, I would definitely have torn you apart.” Little Color dropped a harsh word and went back.
The reason was… there was nothing else to do.
“Little Color, where have you been? The Sleepy Dragon Valley is dangerous, don’t roam around.”
“I just went down to the abyss to move rocks.” Seeing that its little friend had time to care about it, Little Color looked around and noticed that Qian Wanyu, who had been meditating, had already got up. “Has your Seventh Sister digested all those memories?”
From its perspective, those memories couldn’t be digested in less than a month. It had been reading day after day, and it noticed that Qian Wanyu had not emerged even after half a month of meditation.
“She should have.” Dongfang Minghui wasn’t entirely certain. She felt that it would take her a few months to read through hundreds of years of memories, but Seventh Sister was always a quick reader. “Seventh Sister didn’t mention anything. After waking up, she started erasing those things on the wall. I don’t know if she discovered anything.”
Qian Wanyu did indeed discover a few things. Most of the memories of Sleepy Dragon Valley were focused on every 20 to 50-year period. Despite it being a century’s worth, many times those memories were blank, which meant that memories were repeated, and most of the time, Sleepy Dragon Valley was empty.
In the past fifty years, several groups of people had deliberately intruded according to the twenty-year rule, and she marked each incident. She successfully found common ground. She also noticed a strange regular phenomenon. The Sleepy Dragon Valley itself seemed to undergo a reincarnation every hundred years, with all creatures returning to life again.
Whether it was life or death, those areas that had been intentionally destroyed by humans or monsters would sprout new life as if they had been regenerated.
“Not only does Sleepy Dragon Valley have time reincarnation, but it also has other types of reincarnation…”
“It’s truly strange, there must be a treasure hidden in this Sleepy Dragon Valley.” This was also Qing Mo’s first encounter with such a peculiar phenomenon, everything reviving, and coming to life again was against the natural order. This meant that as long as there were those rules, even if Sleepy Dragon Valley itself disappeared at this moment, it would regenerate in the future…
Qian Wanyu and Qing Mo were deep in thought on this issue, and Dongfang Minghui didn’t dare to disturb them, so she went out to look for Sleepy Dragon Seal and Little Colour. Sleepy Dragon Seal has been teasing Little Bean Sprouts, not paying attention to what they were researching at all; it seems that it has never mentioned the reincarnation of time.
——
Three years passed by like this in a flash.
TL: What the f- how did 3 years pass by in 1 sentence author LOL.
When the first ray of light leaked from the highest point in the sky, Dongfang Minghui scratched the wall again, and the entire wall was covered with the word ‘正’. Counting it, three years had passed.
Dongfang Minghui’s body was full of spiritual power. She had relied on the continuous warming and nurturing of the Dragon Seal to refine her spiritual power. Coupled with the continuous feedback from the Dragon Seal, she was inexplicably promoted again and again, to become a fifth-level Spiritual King.
She glanced at Qian Wanyu and Qing Mo, who were still immersed in their calculations, and leaned quietly against the wall, watching with her arms folded. Seventh sister had completely fallen into the trap set by Sleepy Dragon Valley for them. Now, three years had passed, but they still hadn’t solved the intersection problem between the time axis theory and the memory lens.
Yes, they were not getting closer, but felt time itself was stretching infinitely.
If Toothless, beneath the abyss, hadn’t let out an angry groan, they probably would have lived like this for years. Since then, Seventh sister had overturned all her previous guesses again and made another reverse calculation with Qing Mo.
“Don’t look, I’m afraid she won’t give up until she unlocks the secret of the Sleepy Dragon Seal.”
Little Color just came back from visitng the old tree. In the past few years, it had habitually been running back and forth between the two extremes. It had observed the large stone in the black pool from under the abyss as well as the old tree. The two stones had almost completely melted into the black pool, “I have bad news for you.”
“Um?”
Dongfang Minghui hadn’t heard Little Colour’s words for a long time. There was a bit of gloating and a bit of anticipation, probably because they were trapped in this place for three years, no matter how passionate they had been, her enthusiasm had been smoothed out day after day.
“What’s the situation?”
“The road below the abyss is open again.”
Dongfang Minghui kept a calm face, “Is there any more bad news?”
Little Color shrugged helplessly, “I just went all the way from the abyss and found that the big tree was withered and decayed. Also, I saw those four crawling monsters on the second floor, and they seemed to have woken up.”
“Three years…”
Dongfang Minghui had been looking forward to this day. She was very curious about what would happen when the memory reincarnation coincided with the real world. Sleepy Dragon Seal said that it didn’t know because it had never experienced such a thing, so she prepared herself for the worst.
“Anyway, I’m bored, let’s go kill monsters.”
“Is it really okay for you to leave your Seventh sister and Qing Mo here?”
“Fine.”
There was still a countdown to the last five days of time reincarnation, and Seventh sister could study it for a while. Ever since Dongfang Minghui had learned that the creatures in Dragon Valley could be regenerated a hundred years later, she no longer felt “sympathy” for the creatures in Sleepy Dragon Valley.
Dongfang Minghui carried her silk umbrella and Little Colour and went to the cave.
The monsters on the third floor were able to jump up and down the abyss on the left and right sides, using their own advantages to block many people who came to explore. Dongfang Minghui saw the densely packed ugly monsters resting on both sides of the abyss.
“You go left and I go right, or I go left and you go right?”
“Up to you.”
The two of them were just about to jump off when Little Color suddenly put on the brakes, “The rule issue, have you thought about how to deal with it?”
Every floor of Sleepy Dragon Valley is bound by rules, and anyone who deviates from it will be punished by the rules. Little Color was worried that the rules would accidentally drive them back to the beginning.
“Then don’t jump from above, let’s kill all the way.”
“Um.”
The two went left and right, killing any that they saw. Maybe because the group of ugly monsters had just woken up or they themselves had become much stronger in the past three years, but the group of seemingly huge monsters’ corpses quickly piled up like a mountain.
After killing one round and returning, the two went back to the cave again.
Qian Wanyu was holding her wrist, “Ninth Sister, quickly copy all these things for me into your drawing book.”
Qing Mo also hurriedly explained, “The things that your Seventh sister wrote on the wall before are disappearing little by little… The results of our calculations over the past three years will completely disappear from our minds at this rate!”
“Crap.” She had actually forgotten about the memory issue!
Fortunately, she had enough sketchbooks, and each person was given one. Even the Sleepy Dragon Seal was forced to put down the little bean sprouts in its hand and help them record it quickly.
“Why is it so troublesome? I can condense these memories into light balls, store them in the abyss, and take them out again when you want them…” The Sleepy Dragon Seal, felt tired after copying for so long. It felt that it had never been this exhausted even when holding Little Bean Sprouts all the time.
“That’s right, why didn’t you say it earlier!”
The Sleepy Dragon Seal walked over and engraved every place Qian Wanyu had touched into a light ball, and then they followed the Sleepy Dragon Seal back outside the stone gate.
This was the second time she had set foot near the stone gate in three years, and the eyes of the Nine Dragons on the painted wall seemed to have lost their luster. They didn’t appear as startled as before, and seemed drowsy. Their approach did not even attract the Nine Dragons’ attention.
“Seventh sister, do you feel that these nine dragons seem to be different?”
“This is normal”
Qian Wanyu didn’t even bother looking at it. There is another way to avoid the Nine Dragons in the Sleepy Dragon Valley. Today, the Nine Dragons will fall into a deep sleep which happens every nine years. This is a sign that they were all deeply asleep at this moment, but they might wake up soon.
Unfortunately, by the time they set foot in the Sleepy Dragon Valley in their original timeline, the nine-year curse had just been lifted. That’s why the Nine Dragons were so violent. Even for humans, after being forced to sleep, they would wake up with a bad temper, not to mention creatures like dragons.
They quickly entered the stone gate.
Qian Wanyu looked at this familiar place, knowing that their memories will disappear when the reincarnation time is up. But, could they start all over again?
“Sleepy Dragon Seal, I have one more request.”
“Seventh sister?”
Dongfang Minghui was very surprised. Seventh sister never asked for help; such a Seventh sister seemed a little strange.
Sleepy Dragon Seal held the Tianyin helmet and rubbed it twice. The little bean sprouts had grown very well in the past three years, especially its two flower buds seem to be ready to bloom. It seems that it wasn’t difficult for Sleepy Dragon Seal to hold the Tianyin helmet in one hand however. “What do you want me to do for you?”
“I want you to help me create a memory.”
After hearing her request, Sleepy Dragon Seal’s head shook like a rattle, “I can only extract the memories from the deep pool, but I can’t help you create memories.”
Create memories?
Dongfang Minghui was taken aback when she heard that, “Seventh sister, what do you want to do? Why do you want to create a memory?”
Qian Wanyu knew that some things had to be faced sooner or later, “Mo Ce died for me, I want to save him.”
Whew what a chapter! Thanks for the support as usual and enjoy everyone look forward to the next update <3