The Older Sister

Chapter 677: The Older Sister

"Pain." That was the only sensation Yang Xiaohai could feel. As those sharp bone needles pierced deeper into his skin, the pain cut to the marrow, yet he couldn't even manage to pass out.

Under this torment—where each day felt like a year—Yang Xiaohai's will began to grow hazy.

In that haze, Yang Xiaohai seemed to see the Dragon King on the mural slowly begin to move.

And as the wall painting shifted, Yang Xiaohai suddenly understood: the black serpent was not the Dragon King. The black serpent on the wall was merely the Dragon King's shadow. The true Dragon King lay on the other side of that shadow!

As the shadow danced faster and faster, countless dragon whiskers, like the legs of a centipede, spread out from all around the shadow's edge.

Yang Xiaohai thought they were dragon whiskers. He thought this was the Dragon King, and the root-like things on the Dragon King had to be dragon whiskers. But in truth, they looked more like a dense growth of dark, elongated tendrils, or perhaps some kind of immature filament.

As the dragon whiskers trembled slightly, the incense smoke floating in the air began to swirl with them.

Yang Xiaohai's eyes grew wider and wider. A powerful suffocation pressed against his chest. No matter how he gasped, it was useless.

Amidst the gently swaying dragon whiskers, the suffocating Yang Xiaohai caught a glimpse of a corner of the Dragon King—a corner covered in brilliant dragon scales.

These scales seemed to slide backward through water, revealing the gray, murky dragon eye within, an eye that seemed capable of obscuring everything.

When Yang Xiaohai saw his own reflection in that dragon eye, his will dissolved instantly, swallowed whole by a vast, unfathomable abyss of darkness.

He did not know how much time had passed. A hoarse voice jolted him back to his senses. "Kowtow~~"

Yang Xiaohai shuddered violently and whipped his head toward the mural. He saw that the black Dragon King on the wall was still the same as before. He wasn't suffocating. Nothing had changed at all.

As he looked around, still shaken, he saw his parents nearby, gesturing frantically for him to kowtow.

When he saw the bloody dragon-scale tattoo on his own body, Yang Xiaohai finally snapped out of it. That had only been part of the process for entering the Dragon-Household. It wasn't that his relatives and elders were trying to harm him.

Once he understood, he quickly followed their instructions, kowtowing again to the mural of Ao Wu Zhi.

After a flurry of activities following the adults in their fish-skin clothing, two sticks of incense later, Yang Xiaohai finally emerged from the Dragon King Temple, thick with the smell of incense.

"Mom, how come you didn't tell me that's what entering the Dragon-Household would be like? That really hurt," Yang Xiaohai said, wincing as he reached out to touch the tattoo that was still seeping blood.

Thinking back on what had just happened, he wanted to tell his parents, but at that moment, he couldn't find the words.

"You're really worthless. A big kid like you, afraid of a little pain!" Chi Baishui shot a look of disdain at Yang Xiaohai, then turned and walked away with his hands behind his back.

Seeing his own father's reaction, Yang Xiaohai felt a pang of resentment for no reason.

It wasn't that he was afraid of the pain. It was that the man hadn't even mentioned this kind of thing to him.

Sure, this was his biological father. But on the road, he had seen how Lyu Zhuangyuan was as a father, and he could never do things the same way.

Just then, Yang Xiaohai felt a cool touch on his arm. He looked down and saw his mother taking a bag of incense ash, carefully blowing it onto his wound.

"Wuwazi, don't cry. Rub some ash on it, it'll stop the bleeding. When we get back, I'll boil two eggs for you to help you recover."

Hearing her words, Yang Xiaohai felt a warmth spread through his body. Sure, his father was no good, but his mother was exactly the kind of mother he had always imagined as a child.

"Mom, it doesn't hurt," Yang Xiaohai said softly, shaking his head. He took her arm and helped her out.

The process had been a bit rough, but thinking that he had finally entered the family, he didn't feel so bad anymore.

When he got back to the Chi family boat, Yang Xiaohai saw his father stripped to the waist in the water. Before he could react, Chi Baishui reached out, grabbed his ankle, and pulled him straight into the water.

Yang Xiaohai struggled to climb back up, but Chi Baishui forced him down, holding him under.

He struggled in the water for a long time. Only after he had exhausted himself did he realize he still wasn't short of breath.

Yang Xiaohai seemed to understand something. He moved his hands slightly underwater, glanced at his father in the water, and began to swim swiftly.

In that moment, Yang Xiaohai finally understood what the scholar at Niuxin Village had meant by "like a fish in water."

He felt as if he had truly become a fish, swimming freely under the water without a hint of awkwardness.

After playing in the water for a while, he started to feel a little out of breath, so he burst through the surface, gasping for air.

Kicking his feet to stay afloat, Yang Xiaohai looked down at his tattoo in shock and delight. He could swim so fast now; it definitely had to do with the tattoo he had just gotten.

"Hmph! Look at you. Do you think your old man would harm his own son?" Chi Baishui said smugly, hauling himself up by his hands on the edge of the boat.

"Dad, once we're in the Dragon-Household, we can swim fast like this?" Yang Xiaohai swam to the boat and copied his father's movements.

"Of course. This is a blessing from Granddaddy Dragon King. Outsiders can't know about it—it's only for family."

Yang Xiaohai touched the still-swollen tattoo on his body and didn't know what to say. Still, he felt his father ought to have told him first before doing things.

"Dad! Dad!" A shout made both Yang Xiaohai and Chi Baishui turn. Yang Xiaohai saw it was his little sister; her face was full of excitement and joy. "Dad! Guess who's back!"

Just as she was about to blurt it out with anticipation, a woman with bound feet pushed her aside from behind. "Dad, I'm home. Still in good health?"

This outspoken, bound-foot woman looked a bit like Yang Xiaohai's mother. Based on her age, this should be his oldest sister.

But Yang Xiaohai felt no joy at meeting his eldest sister for the first time. Instead, his face was full of terror as he stared at the black strip of cloth pinned to her sleeve!

Fa Sect! Yang Xiaohai remembered them—the ones who had once besieged Niuxin Mountain! These people were worse than bandits and mountain thieves, and he had never expected his own sister to be one of them!

While Yang Xiaohai was still dumbfounded, he saw his father walk over and inspect the black cloth on his eldest sister's shoulder.

He didn't look upset at all. On the contrary, he seemed absolutely delighted. "Oh? You weren't lying in your letter? You really got a job in the court? They're even taking women with bound feet now?"

"Dad, I greased a few palms. Never mind bound-foot women. Old men with no teeth left, little kids who haven't grown any hair—anyone who wants to eat imperial grain can get in!"

The father and daughter chatted and laughed as they walked toward the boat's cabin.