Binding the Dragon for the Empress Chapter 52

In This Life Too

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The sky was pouring rain.

Chen Yan and the remaining guards crouched down beside Yan Yuan and cried quietly. When they raised their heads again, Yan Yuan had disappeared from the ground in front of them, leaving only a puddle of blood diluted by the rain.

"Your Majesty."

Chen Yan's eyes widened as he called out briefly, drawing the attention of several guards, all of whom stared in horror at the scene before them and stood up to look around in an attempt to find Yan Yuan in the rain and mist.

In fact, it was only Xuan Long who used a shield, a barrier that blocked the sound and mortal eyes.

Yan Yuan stopped breathing as Xuan Long watched. He was born to be the supreme ruler of the Nine Heavens, yet he willingly abdicated his position for the sake of a dragon and fell into the mortal world. How can Heaven tolerate this?

He had been in the mortal world for ten thousand years and had not come to the end of his life.

His destiny is to return to the Heavenly Palace and become an emperor without love or desire. If he goes against the will of Heaven, he will not end up in a good place.

The rain swept over Yan Yuan's pale face, wetting his hair and his feather-like eyelashes. He looked as peaceful as if he were asleep, but there is a difference between a living person and a dead person after all. The living have shiny skin, while the dead lay there lifelessly.

Xuan Long lifted his sleeve and gently wiped the blood from the corners of Yan Yuan's mouth and chin with the cuff of his sleeve, remembering that Yan Yuan wanted to be clean, and he did not like this kind of unkempt appearance.

The blue iris in his palm emitted an ethereal light that gradually went out as Yan Yuan died, leaving a scorch mark from the blazing fire that Xuan Long could not feel the pain of.

From the moment he hurried here and saw Yan Yuan fall down after being struck by an arrow, his mind and body went numb. When one is extremely sad, one cannot feel pain, and the same is true of demons.

Xuan Long's hands went across Yan Yuan's back and knee hollows, slowly holding him in his arms as he staggered to his feet.

Dragon realm.

The wooden barred door of the small bamboo courtyard was pushed open, and when he heard the movement, the old man took a leisurely sip of his tea and turned back to look, surprised.

"It's you." Sizing up Xuan Long for a moment before his eyes moved to the person in his arms, he immediately frowned, "I don't take human beings here."

"Senior... please help me." Xuan Long stopped not far from him with Yan Yuan in his arms, his hoarse voice muffled in the rain.

With a face full of dismay, the old man put down his cup of tea and said, "Why do you get wet every time you come back to my place? I won't let you in the house if you're like this."

"Besides, this old man made a rule a hundred thousand years ago to save gods, save ghosts, save demons, and save charmers, just not people, it's useless for you to beg me, go away, go away." He said, impatiently waving his hand to drive him away.

Xuan Long's eyes were downcast, the rain washed over his steely face, and he remained motionless.

The old man was so angry that he stomped his foot, "It's useless even if you beg me, this person is dead through and through, it's hopeless."

Other people might not be able to save Yan Yuan, but Xuan Long knew that this senior could. He was known in the demon world for his ability to revive dead demons and rebuild their flesh and bones, and he could even recreate the flesh of dead souls.

All this was something he had overheard his clanmates talk about when he was a child, not having seen exactly how, only knowing that he was so skilled in healing that even fallen gods would seek him out.

"Will you get up?"

Xuan Long only repeated the words in a low voice: "Please senior, help..."

"Fine, if you don't go, I'll go." The old man gave him an exasperated laugh, "You can just kneel here, kneel until tomorrow I don't care."

With a wave of his hand, the tea set on the stone table disappeared and the old man went into the bamboo building, and the door was shut with force.

He was a keen chess player, and when he entered the room, he took out his treasured jade chessboard and sat down at the coffee table to ponder it alone.

Darkness comes very early in the dragon realm, and today it was raining, so it became completely dark just after noon. The old man ate two salted fish biscuits with pleasure and opened the window to take a look outside, and his mood suddenly became bad.

The rain was getting heavier and heavier, and there is a tendency for the trees in the dragon realm to be washed away, but the trees are mostly ten-thousand-year-old trees that have become refined, so they are not so easily destroyed, but this is not necessarily the case for pregnant dragons.

Xuan Long knelt outside for more than an hour without changing his posture, his back straight, his face no better than that of the dead human being he was holding in his arms.

The old man couldn't stand it and opened the door to go out.

"You want to save him that badly?"

"Please, senior, help..." The rain did not make Xuan Long feel cold, it was just that the overdrawn spiritual energy he had used in rushing to the dragon realm with Yan Yuan had made him weak, and when he had knelt for a long time, his low, mute voice became a little shaky.

"This man is the father of the foetus in your womb, right?" The old man stared at Yan Yuan's face and murmured, "What do you want from him? He looks quite dog-like, but there should be quite a few dragons matching his appearance, right? If he dies, he dies, just find another one, why do you have to hang yourself from a crooked tree?"

Xuan Long was silent, letting him criticise him.

There might be many people in this world who were better than Yan Yuan, but the only person who had touched his horn ten thousand years ago, who had told him not to be afraid, who had saved his life and who had left him an umbrella to shelter him from the wind and rain, was Yan Yuan.

The only person who had spent more than a month with him in the ancient pond and had made a promise to him that they would live together forever was Yan Yuan.

Even though his love was like an illusion, even though he had lied to him and used him, he could not stand by and do nothing because of the kindness that saved his life ten thousand years ago.

No matter how you calculate it, Yan Yuan is one of the few people in this world who has treated him well.

He could not let him die...

The old man no longer bothered to say more, the irony faded from his eyes and his face was expressionless as he saw that Xuan Long had already made up his mind.

"This old man never saves people, so if I have to make an exception today, I will use that remaining dragon horn of yours in exchange."

Xuan Long froze and did not hesitate: "Okay..."

"Come in with me." The old man turned around and walked inside the house.

Xuan Long got up with Yan Yuan in his arms, his knees that had been kneeling for so long tingled with pain when he put pressure on them, his lips were pursed, and he followed the old man into the house with his legs a little shaky.

Yan Yuan was placed on the bed in the inner room.

The old man put his fingers together and probed Yan Yuan's brow, pausing for a few moments before withdrawing his hand.

"Life and death have a destiny. He is already a man of the underworld, if he tries to change his fate against the Heavens, it will surely backlash against him, have you really thought about it?"

Xuan Long stared at Yan Yuan's face and asked softly, "What backlash?"

"I don't know. Perhaps the heavenly tribulation will come early, or the heavenly tribulation will be aggravated, or there will be many misfortunes and fates. In short, if you forcefully save him, you will destroy your qi, and there will be no good results. Furthermore, there is only one way to save him."

As Xuan Long watched, the old man slowly spat out the words: "One life for one life."

"One life for one life..." Xuan Long muttered under his breath, as if he was pondering his words.

"It's not just one life for one life." The old man sneered, "There is only one thing in this world that can save a dead person – the internal elixir of a demon. This 10,000 years of Tao energy of yours, after fusing into his body, will not only save him, but also make him strong and healthy and live a long life. But if you don't have your inner elixir, you will dissipate your ten thousand years of Tao energy and become as weak as a mortal. When the heavenly tribulation comes and you are pregnant... how can you stop it?"

"You will definitely die."

"Regardless of when the heavenly tribulation will come, the foetus in your belly now draws on your spiritual energy for nourishment, and without the spiritual core, it will eat away at your soul power to grow. Once you lose your inner elixir, you will live at most three years, and the foetus may fall at any time."

"You were originally a demon that could grow with the heavens and the earth, and after cultivating the path of goodness, you might have been able to become an immortal after this tribulation, but now you don't even care about your life for the sake of a mere mortal."

"This old man will ask you one last time, have you thought it through?..."

Xuan Long had prepared himself psychologically before he came, he knew from the start that going against the Heavens and changing one's fate would not end well, and he also knew that to save a dead person, one must pay a huge price, so he was not really surprised.

He had lived for ten thousand years, which was long enough, and had tasted loneliness for ten thousand years; death had never been a terrible thing for him; endless loneliness was more terrible.

It was only more frightening when the person he cared about died in front of him.

When he heard the old man say those words, Xuan Long's first thought was not about how long he would live, but about the child in his belly. His bony hand stiffly touched his flat abdomen and spoke with difficulty, "The foetus, might not be able to be kept..."

"You still don't even have full assurance that you can deliver the foetus safely, let alone if your Tao is dispersed. It's a very unlikely scenario."

The palm of Xuan Long's hand pressed against his abdomen tightened slightly, and a pained look swept across the bottom of his eyes.

After losing Yan Yuan, the child was all he had left; his hope for the future. No one knew how much he rejoiced at the presence of this child, no one knew how much joy this child, which had not even grown in size, had brought to his depleted life.

He could have just turned around and left, as the old man had said. Was it really worth it to dissipate ten thousand years of painstakingly cultivated Tao for a mere mortal?

Is it really worth putting your life at risk for someone who doesn't love you?

But who knows, in a relationship, there is no such thing as worth it or not, only willingness and reluctance to give up.

And he didn't want to.

Xuan Long slowly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the only thing left in his eyes was unshakable determination.

"... I've thought it over."

"I beg Senior… please help."

The old man let out a long sigh and finally said, "Spit out your inner elixir."

Xuan Long condensed his spiritual breath, and an inner elixir glowing with dark green flames slowly emerged from his eyebrows. The old man reached towards his forehead and grabbed the inner elixir, placing it in front of his eyes and shaking his head with a grave expression.

"Ten thousand years of Taoism, ah..."

"One day, you will regret it..."

He had already said this, and so had Hu Le. Who could know if he would regret it afterwards? If he did not save him, he would regret it right then and there.

Since he had accepted Yan Yuan's favour, he would have to return it. A life for a life, that was good too.

As the inner elixir left his body, Xuan Long instantly felt as if his strength had been drained from his body. He watched as the old man melted the entire inner elixir into his hand, and the slightest hint of green gushed into Yan Yuan's eyebrows little by little.

The deadly aura on Yan Yuan's face gradually faded away and he was reborn, while Xuan Long's life, with the speed of a blazing fire, was about to burn out.

He loved him like a moth to a flame, and never cared for himself.

In his last life, and in his current life.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: July 4, 2022