After Death, I Became My Shijie’s Palm-Sized Birdie – Chapter 79

Pledging Myself

I own nothing of value, so all I can do is pledge myself in marriage.

The Dragon Gate was woven from the dragon souls of true dragons. An ordinary demon or human standing beside it would be crushed breathless by the power radiating off it — so who could tell him why a Heart-Contemplation Realm bird was perched on top of the Dragon Gate?!

            

Since when could a Heart-Contemplation Realm bird come and go beside the Dragon Gate at will?!

No one could answer the Demonic Flood Dragon’s question. Everything about that bird screamed wrong — but he had reached the point where the arrow was on the bowstring and simply had to fly¹. The Dragon Gate was right before his eyes — the opportunity the Worthy Master had schemed so painstakingly to win for him. Miss it now, and he might never lay eyes on the Dragon Gate again.

Once he became a dragon, he would hold the qualification to step onto the threshold of the God Realm, and every problem like the bottleneck that refused to break at his current realm would dissolve on its own. So no matter what stood in his way, he had to charge through that gate!

            

“Roar!” He bellowed, trying to drive off that baffling bird with the bloodline pressure of his roar.

The little white bird-ball crouched atop the Dragon Gate, covering her beak with one wing, her tiny face the very portrait of disdain.

Next to that Demonic Flood Dragon, the palm-sized little bird wasn’t even as big as one of his teeth. She was on the verge of being shredded by his fangs — and in the very next instant, the bird-ball perched on the Dragon Gate was gone.

            

When the flood dragon realized she’d vanished, he sped toward the gate all the faster. He knew the bird was trouble, but the Dragon Gate mattered more! Once the inheritance began, the remnant souls of the true dragons would let no one disturb the ceremony — whatever heaven-defying tricks that bird possessed, she couldn’t interfere with him!

He wasn’t worried she’d fight him for the inheritance, either. The Feather Tribe was a special case — belonging to the Phoenix lineage, they were unable to receive the Dragon Clan’s inheritance. So the bird could do nothing but watch. Otherwise, at this distance… the true dragons’ inheritance would have been snatched away by her long ago.

He simply didn’t know whether she was here to watch the show or something else.

            

The flood dragon converted every last scrap of his remaining power into defensive barriers, guarding against ambush by man or demon.

The majestic Dragon Gate was close enough to touch. He could already feel the dragon souls upon it turning their gazes toward him — the remnant souls of the true dragons, no doubt, appraising the successor about to transform into a dragon.

Whether it was the pressure in his bloodline or the sheer terror of those remnant souls’ undiminished power, a thread of cowardice crept into the flood dragon’s heart. A low dragon’s chant rolled off the gate. He lifted his head and locked eyes with one of the dragon souls — those burnished-gold pupils bored into his consciousness, and the jiao reacted like a cat sighting a tiger, one full-body shiver of dread.

            

The instant his resolve wavered, his charge hitched — and a white ball dropped out of the sky and planted a foot squarely on top of his skull.

A crisp “Dong” rang out across the sea, thunderous, laced with the faint crackle of splintering bone.

His defensive barriers might as well have been pasted together out of paper before the bird-ball; they offered no resistance whatsoever.

            

“Boom!” The black jiao’s enormous body was driven crashing into the sea.

Having punted the colossus into the ocean, Qingtuan, hovering in midair, chirped twice in mocking laughter, then flitted back to her perch atop the Dragon Gate.

She didn’t kill the flood dragon. She simply kicked him back the way one kicks a ball, and when he came charging up again, she crumpled him up and punted him back once more — as if she’d acquired a self-returning toy she could never tire of playing with.

            

From every possible angle, Yun Heng could not allow the Demon Realm’s demons to claim the true dragons’ inheritance. She simply hadn’t expected that one to have taken up her post atop the Dragon Gate so early.

When she saw the scene unfolding on the distant sea, she quietly withdrew her sword. Only now did she understand how gently her shimei’s Little Ah-Niang had treated her — she had, after all, once kept that one shut inside a cage, and Qingtuan had only pecked her twice… presumably for her shimei’s sake?

The sound of shattering bone kept rolling in from the sea, and hearing the commotion coming off the flood dragon’s body, Yun Heng felt something close to relief.

            

“Can you still hear them?” Yun Heng gently kneaded her shimei’s temples.

“A little, but it’s clearer now.” Wen Qiwu lay straight down in her shijie’s lap. The voices in her mind had sharpened considerably — no longer like thousands upon thousands of flies beating their wings all at once.

Yun Heng warmed her immortal power before channeling it into Wen Qiwu’s forehead. Even raised a few degrees, that power still felt cool to Wen Qiwu — which was exactly what her groggy, aching head needed.

            

“Do the voices you hear have anything to do with the Dragon Gate?” Yun Heng asked only after the small crease between her shimei’s brows had slowly smoothed away. She must truly be better now — earlier, she’d certainly been forcing herself.

“Mm. I think I heard the true dragons’ voices — lots and lots of dragons talking in my head. And they wouldn’t take turns, either; they all had to mutter over each other at once. That’s what set my head aching.” Wen Qiwu snuggled a little closer to her shijie. Her head no longer hurt, but it still felt faintly swollen — probably because her divine soul wasn’t strong enough yet?

“They were saying things about pacts and inheritances. I’m going to dig through the Phoenix Clan’s inheritance memories and see if there’s anything related.” The phoenix’s inheritance memories were vast, and considering the young phoenix’s limited capacity to take them in, they revived only little by little. Wen Qiwu had not yet been granted any memories concerning the Dragon Clan, so for now she had no choice but to dig for them herself.

            

“If your body feels unwell, rest first. Search later.” Yun Heng feared for her shimei’s divine soul.

Wen Qiwu nodded. Little Ah-Niang was there, after all — she surely knew the history between the Dragon Clan and the Phoenix Clan, so she shouldn’t be needed for the moment.

Wen Qiwu stopped digging through those memories and rested a while. The commotion out on Canghai was enormous, and she finally made out that the demon out there playing ball on the sea was her own Little Ah-Niang.

            

“Little Ah-Niang has… found a new toy?”

Yun Heng stroked her shimei’s head, words dying unspoken on her lips. “She’s having fun. Let’s not disturb her for now.”

Wen Qiwu held Earth Immortal Realm strength; a single glance took in everything happening on the sea. She could tell Little Ah-Niang wasn’t exerting a fraction of her full power — otherwise the flood dragon would never have had the chance to crawl back at all. She was simply toying with him.

            

“Fine. But if her toy goes missing, I’m afraid she’ll come peck the two of us.” Wen Qiwu sighed softly. Little Ah-Niang had a ferocious temper — compared to her true body, the gap was no small thing — and she genuinely believed Little Ah-Niang was fully capable of walloping the both of them.

Yun Heng nodded in silent agreement, a thread of helplessness seeping into her expression. If that one truly wanted to peck them, they’d have no choice but to bow their heads and take it.

Wen Qiwu abruptly reached up and pinched her shijie’s cheek, then used a fingertip to tip the corner of that mouth upward — molding it into the shape of a smile.

            

“Don’t be so tense. If we really do make Little Ah-Niang unhappy, I’ll protect you! She’d never actually peck me hard, anyway.” Wen Qiwu’s entire strategy rested on being Little Ah-Niang’s favorite — hence the fearlessness.

This time Yun Heng needed no fingertip to lift her mouth; a gentle smile warmed her eyes, and her fingertip drifted, half by accident, across her shimei’s rosy lips.

“Thank you, Ah Que. But I possess nothing of value², and I have no way to repay you…”

            

Wen Qiwu blinked, momentarily lost. No way to repay her? Since when did her shijie owe her repayment? But her shijie had gone thoroughly bad over the past century — this was definitely not the literal meaning.

Yun Heng’s deadpan earnestness was profoundly deceptive. Especially in front of Wen Qiwu, that grave, straight-faced bearing always made her believe her shijie was an honest soul who couldn’t scheme to save her life.

Time, however, had proven just how many little schemes her shijie kept up her sleeve!

            

Sure enough, her shijie’s next line was…

“After turning it over and over, only one thing remains: I’ll simply have to pledge myself in marriage³.”

The moment she heard “pledge myself in marriage,” Wen Qiwu’s heart thumped twice without permission. Even now, she still couldn’t hold on to her composure before her shijie. Long, long ago, she’d still been able to replay every scene of the Heart-Questioning Tribulation in her head and muse about locking her shijie in a room and pinning her down on the bed — but ever since her shijie had begun closing the distance herself, she seemed to blush more and more easily.

            

The sight of a bashful Wen Qiwu resembled, absurdly, a fluffy little bird trying to tuck her head beneath her own wing. Something in Yun Heng’s chest went warm. She bent down to kiss her own little bird — and at that exact moment, the ground at the very heart of Jiaoyue City split open into an enormous crater. The violent tremor jolted Yun Heng into clutching Wen Qiwu tight against her.

What was that?

A gigantic demon beast, something like a crocodile, crawled up out of the earth. It ignored the City Master Manor guards’ attacks entirely and made straight for the sea.

            

The hard-won calm of Jiaoyue City shattered all over again. The Dragon Gate Grand Ceremony wasn’t due yet, and the demon kings in the sea had held no rite — so how had the Dragon Gate opened early?

Even with that gold-blazing structure hanging over the sea, for a while no one dared believe it was the true Dragon Gate. Most humans and demons alike assumed it was part of the festivities — after so many years without a single summoning, perhaps the demon kings had built a fake one for a bit of fun?

But the power in the air grew stranger and stranger, and the summons rising in their own blood drained the demons’ faces of color. Little by little, they realized the Dragon Gate was real!

            

The demon race plunged into madness. They stampeded over one another toward the Dragon Gate, even cutting down the demons beside them just to thin the competition.

All because of Tianyan Sect’s divination — the proclamation that only a single demon would leap through the Dragon Gate — the demons this time went madder than at any point in history.

The streets the City Master Manor’s shadows had only just finished cleaning became heaps of blood and mangled flesh once more. But that wasn’t what mattered most — what mattered was the city being destroyed.

            

They’d had no idea so many demons were hiding underground! The Dragon Gate’s appearance had flushed out every last skulking thing that never dared show its face.

Everywhere those things passed, the ground was left shattered and strewn with wreckage, until the shadows clutched their aching heads. If the City Master ever laid eyes on this, she’d likely mince those demon kings into meatballs — and when that day came, every single one of them could forget about running!

The demon kings out in the sea caught on just as fast, scrambling out of the water and charging the Dragon Gate. The rumors on land hadn’t yet reached the sea, and the demon kings knew nothing of Tianyan Sect’s divination — so for now there was peace among them, no knives slipping into backs just yet.

            

What emerged this time wasn’t only the demon kings known to the surface, but also old monsters who hadn’t shown themselves in ages — ones the outside world had long assumed dead.

“Too many demons this time. I’m going to go help her. You stay right here and don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back very soon.” Yun Heng was worried. Qingtuan was only an avatar split from the Phoenix Lord’s remnant soul, and most of the demons had already gone red-eyed and frenzied — could she really cope?

Wen Qiwu nodded, promising to stay put and go nowhere.

            

Parting made Yun Heng anxious enough as it was — of course Wen Qiwu wouldn’t dare run off.

She rose to her feet and pressed a kiss to the corner of her shijie’s mouth — the one they hadn’t managed to finish. “You be careful too.”

The anxiety in Yun Heng’s eyes seemed to ease a little. She laid down thick defensive barriers throughout the room — on close inspection, hundreds of layers deep. Even a God Realm powerhouse couldn’t break through them all at once.

            

Wen Qiwu stood at the window, eyes fixed on Canghai, not daring to look away for a single second. Compared to Little Ah-Niang, she worried far more about her shijie. If that woman dared do anything reckless, she’d drag her back on the spot.

And while she was wholly absorbed in watching the direction of the Dragon Gate, a black-robed elder appeared at the half-ruined stall next door. He had brought his own pot of wine and seated himself in front of someone else’s shopfront. Then he poured out a cup and scattered it toward the direction Yun Heng had flown — in the manner of one mourning the dead.

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