radicalducati Page 90
Page 90
Liu Xiu calmly asked, "Then what do you know about the Duke of Cheng?"
Wang Feng smiled and said, "I heard that Uncle Wen's wife, Lady Yin, is currently in Kunyang City."
Liu Xiu immediately understood what Wang Feng wanted to do, and he immediately said, "I have not yet married Miss Yin."
Wang Feng shook his head, ignoring what Liu Xiu said, and laughed loudly:
"With Lady Yin here, the generals have nothing to worry about!"
Let me brainstorm some more plot ideas.
I originally planned to write it like Novoland: Eagle Flag, striking a balance between history and the dragon race. But it turned out to be like dancing in two shackles. I'll think about it some more; I won't write it today.
Chapter 153 I've Fallen for Your Husband
The room was quiet, with only the scent of ink in the air.
Yin Lihua knelt meticulously before the desk, her body ramrod straight, her demeanor restrained. One hand gripped the brush tightly, while the other rested lightly on the table. Beside her sat an inkstone, and the air was filled with the fresh scent of ink.
Beside her was a brazier, which contained no fuel, but the flames still burned invisibly.
The afterglow of the setting sun shone through the window lattice, along with the sounds of battle coming from the distant city walls, casting a slender shadow in front of her. The shadow fell into the brazier, revealing a strange aura.
A single door completely separated the shouts of battle outside from the tranquility inside.
Yin Lihua remained unmoved, showing no concern whatsoever for the fighting outside.
Her maids and her brother were all away from her at the moment. They were all outside Wancheng with Liu Bosheng besieging the city. Compared to Kunyang, Wancheng was already in the rear. Only one lonely city was holding out.
Yin Lihua held a wolf-hair brush and gently stroked the paper on the desk. Her handwriting was beautiful, and every stroke exuded a sharp and unyielding spirit.
She was lightly copying the eight characters "Now that I have seen my lord, how can I not be happy" on the paper. Beside her were other papers, all with the same handwriting.
After a while, she raised her head and looked out the window. The sounds of fighting in the distance gradually stopped.
Yin Lihua knew that the battle to defend the city was over for the day.
Immediately, she felt an eerie stillness all around her, her vision blurred, and everything before her seemed to be swallowed up by a point of light, with all things in the world covered in a radiant glow.
She looked out the window. The bamboo by the pond stood tall and straight as ever. The only thing that puzzled her was that the reflection on the water no longer showed the bamboo, but instead showed a pretty girl smiling.
The girl tilted her head slightly, seemingly looking at her with a mixture of curiosity and indifference in her eyes, like a human cub looking at a newborn kitten with a cruel kind of affection.
Yin Lihua lowered her eyes, looked at the paper she had written on, stood up, grabbed the stack of papers, and gently put them into the stove next to her.
As the flames burned, the entire day's work was wasted.
At this moment, only one piece of her work remained in front of her. Yin Lihua remained silent for a moment, then grabbed the last piece of paper and threw it into the fire.
"do not!"
At that moment, the girl outside the window interrupted her and snatched the papers from the table before she could finish.
Yin Lihua didn't even see clearly when the girl walked into the house from outside the courtyard before the papers in front of her were snatched away.
A chill ran through her, but she showed no sign of panic, calmly looking at the girl before her. "May I ask what brings you here, esteemed guest?"
The girl, without any hesitation, examined the calligraphy piece that Yin Lihua was most proud of in her hand and said:
"I just entered this small town and naturally sensed the mixed-race person with the highest bloodline in the town, so I came here."
Words of Power: Blood Ties
Yin Lihua immediately judged that this was the second-ranked Word of Power, whose function was to perceive and judge bloodlines.
She knew in her heart that the girl's Word of Power could not possibly be of such a low order.
She looked out the window; apart from the girl and her voice inside the house, everything remained quiet.
"I wonder why you took this piece of my calligraphy?" Yin Lihua asked again.
The girl remained relatively calm, appearing more like long-lost friends reunited. She said with a hint of regret:
"It's such a pity. I watched you write here all day, and I really don't want this last piece of your calligraphy to be burned."
She reached out and grabbed the paper in front of her, reading aloud:
"Now that I have seen you, how could I not be happy?"
Yin Lihua's face flushed crimson, but a sense of dread washed over her once more. She hadn't realized that the girl had been observing her in the courtyard until the girl took the initiative to cruelly observe her.
The girl didn't feel embarrassed at all. She looked at Yin Lihua with a smile, her long hair swaying in the air. Even though there was no wind blowing, her long hair was naturally flowing.
"How about giving me this calligraphy copybook?"
Yin Lihua took a step back, creating some distance between herself and the girl. "Since you like it, esteemed guest, then you may take it."
The girl didn't stand on ceremony and nodded slightly.
She glanced at Yin Lihua, who was looking at her with caution, and with a flick of her right hand, the paper in her hand disappeared.
Suddenly, thinking about Yin Lihua, she said abruptly, "Miss Yin, why are you looking at me so nervously?"
Yin Lihua said cautiously:
"Inner observation of the cave reveals a spiritual abode... the east window of the Pure Void, the partition of the Forest House... truly a fairy palace."
The girl nodded slightly again, praising, "Indeed, this is a blessed land." Then, after a moment's thought, she added with a touch of dissatisfaction:
"Speaking of which, I quite like this name. Unlike when I was in the west, people there called it Nibelungen, as if they didn't understand it at all."
Yin Lihua didn't care about "Nibelungen"; she had already confirmed the identity of the girl in front of her.
This is a dragon.
Only the legendary dragon race can freely create blessed lands and grottoes, or as the dragon girl in front of me calls them, "Nibelungen".
When Emperor Wu opened the Silk Road, some news came about mixed-race people from the West, which was their name for blessed lands.
Yin Lihua looked at the dragon girl in front of her, pondering carefully the information about the dragon race.
It is said that during times of chaos, a group of dragons rise up and bet against each other, while during times of prosperity, the dragons disappear as if they are asleep.
It is a time of chaos, but I wonder what brings this dragon maiden here.
Seeing Yin Lihua's wary demeanor, the Dragon Maiden was not particularly vigilant, her attitude extremely contemptuous. She then said:
"Little girl, you're very clever. Now, guess my identity again, shall we?"
Identity?
Yin Lihua was stunned. This Western dragon kept mentioning "Nibelungen". Did it have some name in history?
She then boldly looked over, and the dragon girl did not shy away. Instead, she straightened up, making her crimson dress stand out even more vividly.
Yin Lihua still didn't know how to answer. There were countless dragons in history, so how could she possibly know the identity of the girl in front of her?
"Could you perhaps offer me some guidance?"
The dragon girl tilted her head, looking somewhat displeased, as if she was unhappy that she hadn't been recognized at a glance. However, she quickly recovered from her anger, clapped her hands, and said:
"Yes, I do need to give you some hints."
The dragon girl frowned, wondering how to give the girl in front of her, whose bloodline was considered the pinnacle among mixed-bloods, a subtle and implicit hint so that she could recognize her reputation at a glance.
In an instant, the dragon girl's eyes lit up, "I've got it!"
Before Yin Lihua could figure out what the Dragon Girl wanted to do, she lightly stomped her foot. As a sound almost inaudible reached Yin Lihua's ears, before she could understand what it meant, the earth began to tremble.
After a brief earthquake, Yin Lihua looked at the girl with sparkling eyes with even more apprehension.
She tentatively said, "In the summer when the Earth King is in power, the monthly decree says: His emperor is the Yellow Emperor, his god is Houtu, his musical note is Gong, and the musical pitch is the Gong of Huangzhong."
The girl thought for a moment, a look of reminiscence crossing her face, as if she had remembered something, and her gaze dimmed slightly.
"That's right, I did have such a name in the past, Houtu."
Upon hearing the dragon girl's affirmative words, Yin Lihua's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally sank.
Houtu, a legendary goddess.
At the same time, it is also an alias for Earth and Mountain, one of the four great monarchs of the Dragon Clan.
It is located at the top of the dragon ladder.
However, according to Yin Lihua, the last time this Dragon King appeared was when the Shang Dynasty was destroyed, and then there were rumors that the Dragon King traveled westward back to his homeland.
For a thousand years since then, she has never appeared in Kyushu.
Before that, the Dragon King appeared to assist the legendary progenitor of humankind, the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan.
Yin Lihua breathed a soft sigh of relief. She knew that the Dragon King before her was absolutely not comparable to the mixed-blood dragons raised by families like the "Fanlong Clan".
It takes ten years to become a python, a hundred years to become a snake, a thousand years to become a dragon, and another thousand years to become a dragon. After that, there are the four great monarchs.
For ordinary hybrids, let alone "dragons," even "jiao" (a type of dragon-like creature) is an insurmountable barrier.
Looking at the girl in front of her who seemed inexplicably sad, Yin Lihua asked again, "When will you allow me to leave, esteemed guest?"
"You still want to leave?" The dragon girl looked somewhat surprised.
She said domineeringly, "Now that you're on my turf, you're mine. I won't allow you to leave."
Yin Lihua's heart sank again. She knew that what the dragon girl in front of her said was true, not to mention that with her current strength, she couldn't do anything to her.
Even with the blessing of Heaven, Yin Lihua put him to sleep, but the price was being trapped in this blessed land, neither alive nor dead, neither aging nor indestructible, like a living dead.
Even so, Yin Lihua could not give up. Just as she made up her mind, the Dragon Girl suddenly said:
"Your young master is coming back soon."
Young man?
Yin Lihua was taken aback, then remembered who the Dragon Girl was referring to, and said with a stern face:
"Does the honored guest intend to trap my husband here as well?"
"No, no, it's not that bad," the Dragon Girl turned around with a smile on her face. Through this temporary paradise she had built, she seemed to see something that excited her.
She muttered to herself, "Miss Yin, I'm more interested in your husband now than you are."
Yin Lihua was stunned, somewhat confused. She tried hard to recall what the Dragon Girl had just said, and looked at her flushed face and increasingly excited gaze.
Something feels wrong.