Dragon Vein Storyteller

Chapter 40 Zhou Tian

We continued walking forward.

The glazed path beneath my feet was still so smooth, so smooth it didn't seem like something for humans to walk on. With each step, there was only a thin layer of cloth between the sole of my shoe and the glazed surface. That cloth was taken from a dead person, soaked in blood, sweat, and corpse fluids of who knows how many years. It was laid stiffly on the transparent path, and each step made a very faint crisp sound, like crushing a dried-out leaf.

I brought the cloth back, laid it forward, stepped on it, and then brought it back again. Over and over again. This work was incredibly tedious, but no one dared to skip it.

Sanjin walked in front, carrying the cripple's corpse on his shoulder. The cripple's head swayed gently behind his shoulder, as if whispering something to him. Baldy Liao followed behind me, one hand on the Tang sword at his waist, the other supporting Little Chick's shoulder. Little Chick didn't need support; his steps were steady, but he would look down at his feet every few steps, muttering to himself, probably still counting the stars.

After walking for about twenty minutes, I stopped to lay out the cloth and glanced at the ground out of the corner of my eye.

The earthworms were still down there, still crawling forward. They were much slower than us; we walked for over twenty minutes, while they had only moved forward less than two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters). But their posture had changed.

Previously, they lay prone on the ground, bellies pressed against the earth, their limbs twisting and inching forward beneath them in a way that almost defied the angles of their joints, like a group of snakes with their spines crushed, each inch of incline exhausting all their strength. But now it was different. Their bellies lifted off the ground, their limbs braced beneath them, their knees no longer pointing outwards, but beginning to retract, pulling themselves downwards. They arched their bodies, the scales on their backs sliding down their spines one by one, until they suddenly flipped up at their waists, revealing a layer of finer, thinner scales. These scales were not rusty, but silvery-gray, gleaming with a moist sheen as if they had just hatched from an egg.

They raised their heads and looked around.

Those faces peeked out from the gaps in the scales, their features still there—nose, eyes. Cheekbones protruded, eye sockets sunken, mouths stretched wider than a human face, the corners almost reaching their ears. Their pupils weren't vertical pupils; they were round, black, like two obsidian stones just dug from the mud, rolling around in a silvery-gray shimmer, looking left, looking right, looking at the crystalline path spanning heaven and earth above them, looking at their fellow beings, also hunched over.

That look in his eyes was like that of a newborn baby opening his eyes for the first time and seeing the world.

It wasn't ferocity, it wasn't hunger, it was curiosity.

I crouched on the glass-like path, looking down through the transparent glass, and my eyes met those of one of the earth dragons. It tilted its head back, its black eyes fixed on me, its mouth half-open, a row of fine, sharp teeth peeking out from a gaping crevice that stretched to its ears. But it didn't bare its teeth; it just opened its mouth, as if trying to identify what I was. I crouched there motionless, and it crouched there motionless too. We stared at each other across the void and the transparent glass, separated by several dozen feet, for several breaths.

Then it tilted its head, like a dog that doesn't recognize strangers.

"A fortune teller?" The little chick tugged at my sleeve. "What are they looking at?"

"Look at us," I said.

Don't they bite?

"Don't bite now."

I pulled Bula back, stood up, and urged them to keep going.

After walking for another ten minutes or so, the chick suddenly stopped.

"Look, they've stood up!"

I bent down to look. The earth dragons were now fully upright. They weren't crouching, but standing straight. Their hind legs were completely straight, the scales flipping down from their thighs, narrowing abruptly below their knees to reveal two extremely thin and long shinbones. The scales covering these shinbones were as small as grains of rice, arranged tightly together, gleaming with a cold, steely gleam in the starlight. Their hind legs were longer and thinner than human legs, their knees bent backward. Every inch they straightened was accompanied by a creaking, grinding sound from their bones, like two rusty iron rods scraping against each other.

Their bodies were still hunched over. Their backs were arched at an obtuse angle, their shoulders hunched forward, their chests concave, and their two forelimbs hung down from their shoulders, their six-fingered claws opening and closing repeatedly. The nails at the tips of those claws were black, more than twice the length of a human finger, and the tips were slightly upturned, forming an arc capable of tearing through stone. Their necks had also changed, becoming longer and thinner than before, rising from the middle of their collarbones in an extremely unnatural arc, allowing their heads to stretch far forward, beyond the vertical line of their shoulders, reaching far ahead.

They stood there, their hunched bodies leaning forward, necks stretched out, claws slightly open, as if they were about to tear everything in front of them apart at any moment.

But they didn't move. They just stood there, on that flat ground covered in starlight, one after another, stretching from left to right, from nearby into the unseen depths of darkness. Dozens of earth dragons, dozens of pairs of obsidian-like eyes, all looked up, gazing at the crystal road that stretched across the sky above them.

They were looking at us.

"This is impossible!" I blurted out, my voice so loud it startled even myself, and I slammed back and forth between the cliffs several times.

"What's wrong?" Sanjin turned around.

"They seem to be evolving." I squatted by the glass-covered road, pointing through the glass at the earthen dragon standing upright below. "Look... first they were lying down, then they learned to crawl, then they squatted with their bodies arched, and now they're standing up completely. This isn't walking, this is evolution. From the moment we stepped onto this road, they've been changing. First they lay down, then crawled, then squatted, and now they're standing. Every step we take forward, they change one step forward."

"Pfft pfft pfft..."

The sound came up again from the depths of the starry river beneath their feet.

This time I heard it clearly. Not because the sound was louder, but because I was counting. Just like the chicks, I was counting.

One sound. Two sounds. Three sounds. Four sounds.

Puff. Puff. Puff. Puff.

The sound came every three breaths, with the exact same frequency, the same crispness, the same clean and crispness as before. But as I listened, the hairs on the back of my head stood on end, because I had already counted to a number in my mind that made my scalp tingle.

Twenty-four tones.

I squatted there, one hand supporting myself on the cold, glassy surface, the other clutching the jade pendant in my arms. It was so hot it hurt my palm.

Twenty-four. Beginning of Spring, Rain Water, Awakening of Insects, Spring Equinox… Grain Buds, Grain in Ear… White Dew, Autumn Equinox… Heavy Snow, Winter Solstice. Twenty-four tones, twenty-four solar terms, a whole year.

Each "plop" sound beneath the Milky Way isn't from some stone, nor from some mechanism; it's a year. Each sound marks the passing of a year. Twenty-four sounds complete a full cycle.

How many cycles of reincarnation have occurred down here?

I dare not think about it.

"Master, Master, what's wrong with you?" The little chick shook my arm. His hand was small, but he was strong, and I was shaking all over.

"Little chick," I looked down at him, my throat dry as if it were stuffed with dirt, "how many stars were you counting just now?"

"Seventy-two. I've counted several times, and it's always seventy-two."

How often do they complete a full rotation when they move?

The little chick tilted its head and thought for a moment, then gestured with its fingers a few times. "I'm not quite sure... it's like they float over there and then float back, from the beginning to when they return to their original positions, it's... it's when all seventy-two have completed a full circle..."

He gestured for a long time but couldn't explain it clearly, but I already understood.

Seventy-two. Thirty-six Heavenly Spirits, thirty-six Earthly Fiends. These seventy-two points of light in the Milky Way are not scattered silver fragments, but seventy-two stars. Each complete cycle of their orbits marks a sixty-year period.