Binding the Dragon for the Empress Chapter 158

Not Seen for Over A Hundred Thousand Years

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The seas and oceans have changed, the stars have shifted, dynasties have changed, mortals have reincarnated over countless lifetimes, world events have changed, the only thing that has remained the same is the small courtyard in the bamboo forest by the East Sea.

Xuan Long lived here alone for a hundred thousand years.

After the demons were sealed, the Heavenly Realm was at peace, and the Nine Heavens were guarded by Yan Huo Heng, so there was no need for Xuan Long. However, the evil spirits in the mortal world have been on the rise for a hundred thousand years and have never stopped. Xuan Long lived here in seclusion, spying on the world through the Mirror of Mortal Dust, and if there were evil spirits, he would go out to dispel them himself.

He lived in the mortal world and had to find something to do. When Yan Yuan was around, he stood in front of him as his divine general, guarding the people of the Heavenly Realm, but now that Yan Yuan is not here, he protected the mortal world for him, sheltering the smallest of the living.

This time it took three days to remove the evil spirit.

It was a nightmare demon conjured up from a mortal's nightmare, which was greedy by nature and fed on nightmares. The more painful the nightmare is, the more delicious it tastes and the more powerful the magic it gains from it.

If the nightmare demons only ate the nightmares of mortals and did nothing else, they would be considered good. However, once they find a mortal's nightmare, they will intensify it, and most vulnerable mortals will die suddenly from the horror their bodies suffer in their dreams. If they can't find any nightmares, the demons will deliberately create them, and the weak will often die on the spot, while the lucky ones, even if they wake up, will become insane because their souls are scattered and missing.

In just one month, more than a hundred people in Luoyang City had been victimised. The nightmare demon had swallowed the nightmares forged from human lives and its magical power had increased dramatically, and it was so cunning in nature that it hid in the dreams of mortals, causing Xuan Long to take three days to find and get rid of it.

When he returned to his courtyard by the East Sea, it was already sunset, and the afterglow of dusk enveloped the lush bamboo forest, falling on the courtyard, with the sound of bamboo leaves echoing in the air.

There was a boundary here, so no mortal could see or enter this place. Xuan Long pushed aside the half-human-high bamboo fence and was about to walk inside the courtyard when he looked up, and froze on the spot.

There was a man sitting at a stone table in the courtyard, his face somewhere between that of a teenager and a young man, with a tea bowl twirling between his long fingers, sitting in a straight posture. Despite his young age, his temperament was rare in the world.

The young man's expression was somewhat complicated, and after looking at each other for a while, the young man suddenly changed his expression and put down his tea bowl: "You're injured?!" Then he hurriedly walked towards Xuan Long.

Looking at the face of the other party that resembled his lover, Xuan Long was rather dazed, his throat pulsed and his mouth was surprisingly hoarse.

"You... how did you come?"

The heavy smell of rust in the air made the boy too anxious to answer Xuan Long's words. He frowned and his eyes fell on Xuan Long's heart. There was a hole in his clothes, and because he was wearing basalt clothes, it was not easy to tell that something was wrong, but the colour around the hole was obviously much darker than the other places. The young man reached out to touch it, and sure enough, his hand was stained with blood.

The teenager looked up sharply.

"How did you get hurt so badly?! Who did this?!"

"It's nothing, just a small injury." Xuan Long smiled.

He was already not good at smiling, and it had been so long since he had had anything to be happy about, so even making such a simple expression was very awkward.

"I will summon the Healing Immortal to heal your wounds." Seeing that he wouldn't say anything, the young man didn't ask any more questions and raised his hand with a fierce face to summon the Healing Immortal.

Xuan Long clasped his wrist: "... No need, I'll just take care of it myself."

The most important thing was that this was his and Yan Yuan's home, and he did not want anyone else to set foot in it, despite the fact that he was the only one in the house for many years.

There are many types of techniques that the gods practice; some are good at attacking, some are good at defending, some are good at divination, and the healers are good at healing, each with their own roots and abilities. Xuan Long, a god of war, is best at attacking, while the art of healing was rightly his weakest ability. If he handled it on his own, it would just be a haphazard bandage.

The young man frowned: "How can you treat it yourself? This wound will take at least a month or two to heal if you don't seek the help of a healer."

The loss of blood caused Xuan Long's mouth to feel dry, and his throat moved involuntarily: "It's nothing, don't worry..."

The young man blurted out, "I won't worry about you..."

The air instantly fell silent.

The young man regretted his words and looked up to observe Xuan Long's face. The latter did not react much, only his eyelashes twitched as he gave a low "mhmm" to indicate that he had heard.

The young man tightened his hand and looked chagrined: "I..."

He looked like he wanted to explain, but didn't know what to say, so Xuan Long offered him a step down at the right time.

"You... can stay for dinner."

The young man was startled and replied with an affirmative.

Xuan Long asked him what he wanted to eat, and the young man said that anything was fine. Xuan Long told him to sit down in the courtyard, and then went inside.

The bamboo building was divided into two floors. It was not very spacious, but it was built deep in the lush green bamboo forest and was very elegant and charming. The ground floor should be the dining room and the second floor should be the bedroom.

The young man sat at the stone table for a while, and couldn't resist looking into the house, but it was getting dark and he couldn't really see from the courtyard. He wanted to see what the place where Xuan Long lived looked like, and when he had finished the tea in his hand, he finally couldn't refrain from putting it down and got up to enter the house.

The door was left open.

The interior was not as dark as it looked from the outside and you could mostly make out what was inside. The interior was simply furnished, with a cooking stove on the east wall and opposite the stove was an antique, one-person high cupboard with three tiers, the middle and bottom of which were hollowed out and held some black porcelain jars, presumably for spices. 

Apart from these, the only other items were a round porcelain jar with water next to the cupboard and a carved square wooden table in the middle of the dining room that matched the cupboard.

Surprisingly, Xuan Long was not in the room.

The young man used his spiritual energy to sense the presence of the other man, and found that there was no sign of Xuan Long for a hundred miles. He was suddenly at a loss.

What was the meaning of this?

He didn't want to see him, so he left without saying a word, leaving him to wait here alone?

But if he wanted to leave, shouldn't he be the one to leave? This was the place where Xuan Long had lived for a hundred thousand years. Wouldn't it be much easier and less hassle to just drive him away?

Distraught, the young man walked back and forth between the house and the courtyard several times, then returned to the square table inside and sat down. He waited for an incense stick before he couldn't sit any longer and suddenly got up, wanting to leave in anger.

At that moment, Xuan Long came out of the void and met the young man, and they were both stunned.

The young man's expression of annoyance had not yet been put away when he saw that Xuan Long was carrying a lot of food in his hands, wrapped in various colours of paper, yellow, pink, blue and green, tied up with ropes. Looking at it, there must be ten bundles full of food.

"You must have been impatient." Xuan Long lifted the food in his hand and handed it to the young man. "I went to the marketplace to buy some snacks... You can have some first if you're hungry."

The smell of fragrant pastries spilled out through the packaging. The young man didn't take it, so Xuan Long kept holding it up. His face was very pale, he was so badly injured and hadn't been bandaged up till now, yet instead of lying down properly to recuperate, he ran to the mortal world to buy something, how could his face look good?

After a few moments of stalemate, Xuan Long reckoned that the young man did not want to touch what he had bought, and silently dropped his hand slowly.

The young man practically snatched the things out of Xuan Long's hands, his eyes dropping as he looked at what was in his hands, and with a little bit of fierceness, he spoke in a husky voice:

"Don't run around if you're injured, you're such an old god, can't you even take care of yourself?"

Xuan Long did not make a sound, but he unfolded his right hand, and two beautifully coloured sugar gourds appeared in his palm. He handed them to the young man and smiled with lowered eyebrows, "When you were young... you liked these the most."

When A'Zhi was born, he had only been able to see Xuan Long for a short time, before he left for five years. When they met again, he could already run and jump. He was a soft ball, nestling in his arms, calling out to his mother and asking for candy gourds, so cute.

Now, more than a hundred thousand years have passed, and father and son have not seen each other for more than a hundred thousand years. To be precise, it was A'Zhi's one-sided reluctance to see him. In the years after Yan Yuan's departure, Xuan Long would always attend A'Zhi's birthdays, but the young man cried and made him leave, throwing away the gifts he sent him. After a few times, Xuan Long stopped appearing in front of him and only occasionally checked on him from the shadows.

A'Zhi had been very well behaved since he was a child, and Ye Ling Shenjun had raised him well, teaching him to read and write, to draw bows and shoot arrows, and to perform spiritual arts and magic. Xuan Long didn't have to worry about him having a hard life.

As he could see, his child was doing very well. More than a hundred thousand years had passed, and A'Zhi had grown from the little doll who had hugged his lap and called out to his mother in a milky voice to the young man he was today, who vaguely surpassed him in size.

He told himself that it was fine if A'Zhi was well and it didn't matter if he wanted to see him or not, but when he really came looking for him, Xuan Long was so happy that he couldn't contain himself and wanted to give him all the best things he could think of.

But A'Zhi was the prince of the Heavenly Realm, and the prince of the Heavenly Realm did not lack anything, so the only thing Xuan Long could think of was the sweet snacks of the mortal world. A'Zhi, who has lived in the Heavenly Realm for a long time and has not eaten for a long time, should be pleased to see this.

"But I'm an adult now, and I've long since stopped liking these sweet and greasy things."

‿︵‿︵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: February 21, 2023