Volume One, Chapter Ninety-Four: Crocodile Tears

While Fox Third Madam was feeling sorry for herself, a flash of light suddenly burst before her eyes, and in the next instant there was a child, three beautiful women, and a crowd of men standing around her.

Fox Third Madam rubbed her eyes and cried out that the enemy had attacked. She sprang up at once, ready to fight for her life.

But all she heard was the child piping up, "Auntie, how are my dad and Aunt Dog?"

Hm?

That did not sound like an enemy raid. No one on an enemy raid would be calling anyone auntie, would they?

Fox Third Madam froze for a moment, then looked at the little gourd boy in confusion. "You... where did you come from? And what are you to this man and this dog?"

At that point, Dragon Two stepped forward and cupped his hands. "Miss, did you save our master? I am Dragon Two, chief of the Dragon Guard of the young celestial lord of Mount Sumeru in the Western Heaven. The man lying here is my master."

Oh, so they were aliens.

Fox Third Madam let out a sigh of relief, though her curiosity about these outsiders was piqued. After all, extraterrestrial visitors were not something one saw every day.

As they talked back and forth, everyone quickly pieced together what had happened.

Dragon Two and the others were relieved that although they had come under attack, they had at least made it to the Polar Star domain.

While they were talking, the gourd boy had no time to join in.

He immediately sent out his divine sense to check Tu Zhe and the dog's injuries again, then shouted, "Oh no, what kind of medicine is this? It has some nasty grit in it. That's bad for people. Wash it off, wash it off!"

Before Fox Third Madam could even respond, he casually worked a little spell, drawing a stream of pure water out of the void and washing away every trace of the medicine that had just been applied to Tu Zhe and the dog.

Fox Third Madam's teeth nearly hurt from frustration.

This brat thought her medicine was no good? These were things they normally could not bear to use.

But as the saying goes, poverty weakens one's ambition and thin horses shed long coats. Third Madam knew very well that her medicine was indeed not much to boast about. Though she felt displeased, she could hardly quarrel with a little child over it, could she?

The gourd boy cleaned Tu Zhe and the dog in a few quick motions, then took out two pills of ox-head sandalwood elixir, crushed them between his hands into fine powder, and with a little flick of his wrist spread the powder evenly over Tu Zhe's back and the dog's wounds.

Then he called out for everyone to stand back, saying he was going to save his dad and Aunt Dog, so keep their distance and don't get hurt.

Everyone obediently withdrew far away, staring wide-eyed at the child's actions.

With a flip of his hand, the gourd boy produced an eight-colored divine Brahma crystal. He seemed to think nothing of it, but Dragon Two, the rest of the Dragon King, and Fox Third Madam were stunned into silence.

What in the world was that?

A divine-grade Brahma crystal, that was what. Back then, when they followed the great Dragon King, they had scarcely ever seen a few of those. And this little one just took one out casually to heal someone? Wasteful. Ridiculously extravagant. A real rich man's move.

Fox Third Madam was practically drooling.

Good heavens, what was that?

A divine-grade immortal stone. A child this small was so lavish? It looked like these two were fat sheep indeed.

Should they strip the rich and share the land?

The gourd boy paid them no mind. He simply punched the divine Brahma crystal once. With a sharp crack, the crystal exploded into powder. The instant it turned to dust, divine light surged from the child all over, and with a sweep of both hands he confined every speck of the crystal powder within a fixed range so it could not escape.

Then he opened his small mouth and sucked the powder in at once. After closing his eyes to refine it for a moment, he opened his mouth again and spat it toward Tu Zhe and the dog.

At once, eight-colored Brahma qi flooded over their bodies like a tide.

In a dazed, half-dreaming haze, Tu Zhe felt his body bathed in boundless eight-colored radiance. His mangled back, which had been so ruined it was almost like mud, was suddenly soothed by a cool medicinal power seeping into the cells that had not yet fully lost sensation. It was the power of the ox-head sandalwood elixir, dissolving into his flesh and blood and beginning to heal the wounds.

Then the eight-colored radiance seemed ready to pierce every one of his cells. Boundless light, carrying limitless vitality and warmth, was nourishing and repairing each injured cell at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Where the hell was this? Why was there divine light everywhere? Had he reached the Western Paradise?

The problem was that all he could see was that blinding radiance, which was starting to mess with his vision, so that nothing looked clear.

The divine light flowed like water, and Tu Zhe felt as though he were immersed in an ocean of it, extraordinarily comfortable and at ease, like a man so exhausted he falls into bed and sleeps in an instant.

As the drowsiness gradually receded, his consciousness slowly returned. He suddenly remembered the dog and became anxious, tightening his arms at once. Only then did he discover that the dog was still in his embrace, and he finally settled down.

Just as Tu Zhe was sighing and about to sleep again, he suddenly remembered that he had been ambushed, that the teleportation passage had been shattered, and that because Trishina had not managed to hold the dog back, the dog had been blasted away by the fragments of space.

He seemed to have chased after it.

But he also seemed not to have been able to catch up.

He vaguely recalled thinking of using an instant time-reversal technique to freeze the moment, but the enemy's overwhelming force and the energy from the collapse of the spatial passage were simply too great, equivalent to thirty great emperors joining hands at full strength. That was power enough to destroy an entire heaven of the three realms. His time arts were not yet formidable enough to stop such a tremendous explosion and bring it to a halt.

Then if the power of thirty small worlds did not explode, could time arts stop it?

Tu Zhe weighed it over and decided that probably not. However powerful he might be, having once thrown twenty-three great sages back into the past, could that be compared with a great emperor's power?

Even a hundred great sages would have no hope of escaping with their lives under a great emperor's hand. If he did not have his heaven-defying Manas Blade and time arts, going up against a great emperor like Head-Holding Raizha would be no different from courting death.

He also seemed to remember blowing up an imperial-grade Brahma crystal.

At this point, Tu Zhe was almost fully awake. Yes.

He had completely recalled what had happened and how it had happened. He remembered now that he had been holding the dog in his arms.

Could he really have been injured that badly? And what about the dog? How was the dog doing?

In his agitation, he inevitably moved a little, and the pain flared several times more intensely, as though his back had been pierced through.

He tried sensing the dog in his arms with his consciousness and learned that the dog's condition was also rapidly improving. Although still unconscious, its displaced organs were already shifting swiftly back into place, and the wounds on its body were gradually closing.

Tu Zhe began to understand: someone was saving them.

Who was it? And where was he?

But in his current state, it was still very difficult to break through the boundless Brahma light and divine radiance to perceive the outside world.

So he could only steady himself and carefully inspect his own flesh and cells from within.

He saw his cells being nourished and repaired one by one, each bursting with tremendous vitality. Every injured cell, once it could do so on its own, would automatically draw in vast amounts of Brahma qi, until each one seemed like a tiny round world of its own, not only absorbing but storing the power, becoming plump and full, alive with endless vigor.

By the time nearly all the cells had been repaired, and the enormous amount of Brahma qi still showed no sign of diminishing, Tu Zhe finally gained the ability to release his divine sense.

He condensed his divine sense into a single strand, drilled through the ocean of Brahma light, and saw everything outside.

There was his precious son, the gourd boy, puffing out his little backside as he worked hard to blow great clouds of Brahma qi toward him and the dog. His cheeks were bulging so much it looked as though he had two iron pellets in his mouth that he could not chew.

Tu Zhe smiled.

Damn it, this kid had not been spoiled for nothing. He knew how to save his old man, huh.

And those were... the Dragon King? The three demon women?

How had they gotten out?

Oh, the gourd boy had gotten them out.

Hm? Trishina?

Standing off in the distance, Trishina wore an anxious expression, tiptoeing as she looked this way. Were there tear tracks on her face?

Damn it—

So she knew how to worry? She knew how to cry?

Crocodile tears.