Chapter 1501 - 810: Brother Yi (Double Chapter)

"…Why have you turned into a child?!"

Chen Yi was startled and instinctively looked down at himself.

What caught his eye was a pair of noticeably smaller hands, and he found himself wearing a slightly oversized silk childhood robe, with a small Jade Pendant tied at his waist. He raised his hand to touch his face, finding the texture youthful and his chin smooth, contrasting entirely with the contour of an adult male.

Raising his head a little, he looked at the black marble pillar under the corridor, as shiny as a mirror, where the blurred reflection showed a boy around eight or nine years old with a face full of astonishment.

Chen Yi stood there in a daze, his mouth opened for quite a while before closing. The first moment he calmed down, he glanced at Yin Weiyin.

Yin Weiyin was still the same, but he turned into a child...

Before Chen Yi could voice his question, the female crown came to her senses and immediately said, "It has nothing to do with me."

"Nothing to do with you?" Chen Yi asked suspiciously.

"Naturally, it has nothing to do with me… why are you so suspicious of me? You should try to check if your Cultivation is still there. If it really had anything to do with me, you definitely would not have a trace of Cultivation."

Yin Weiyin felt a little guilty towards the end, but on second thought, if Chen Yi really lacked Cultivation, then even if related, he would have to obey her completely, wouldn't he?

Both paths led to winning.

Thinking of this, Yin Weiyin's gaze became somewhat expectant.

Chen Yi didn't know what was on the female crown's mind, only looking down at himself. When he tried to circulate True Qi around his body, he found it flowing smoothly, Sword Intent circulating with every gesture, not losing a bit of Cultivation, just as Yin Weiyin said, with her temperament, she would not leave him a bit of Cultivation, just like in the World of Ignorance.

He turned his head to look at the somewhat juvenile silhouette on the pillar, which instead made him wonder how he had become this way...

"Whose dream is this?"

Seeing his reaction, Yin Weiyin let out a breath, unclear whether it was disappointment or relaxation. She surveyed the foggy surroundings, tried to divine, then put down her hand after a while,

"Can't figure it out.

However, from what I've seen in books, this is probably not a single person's dream, but a shared dream among many. Such situations are especially common among communal dwellers. When people sleep, Yin Yang Qi naturally dissipates, intertwining with each other, dreams and souls coming and going, thus entering the shared dream state. This leads to the strange tales of someone having a peculiar dream and telling the family, only to hear that the family also had the same dream.

The change on your body is likely brought by the dream's owner. As the saying goes, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.'"

Hearing this, Chen Yi seemed thoughtful, then glanced at Yin Weiyin,

"Why are you unaffected?"

With this logic, it should be Yin Weiyin who is odd, yet the female crown remains in a snow-white Daoist robe, with a Peach Wood Sword at her waist and a horsetail whisk in her hand.

"Me?"

Yin Weiyin pondered for a moment, suddenly thought of something, and then exhaled one energy, causing a blue shadow to slowly drift out. As the shadow drifted away from her, her figure somehow shrunk in the haze.

The female crown then regained control, retrieving the blue shadow back into her abdomen, and Chen Yi suddenly understood.

Nascent Soul.

The Nascent Soul anchored Yin Weiyin's appearance, keeping it unaffected by the changes in this dream.

The female crown lightly brushed her sleeve, her mouth slightly raised, casting a proud glance at Chen Yi. Chen Yi immediately adjusted his demeanor, coughed twice, and put on a face to seem less shocked, yet this made him appear particularly childlike, especially when he pursed his lips without speaking, making him look... like a precociously mature little brother.

"Brother Yi …" she said with a slight upward curve at her mouth.

Chen Yi instantly got goosebumps, the term "Brother Yi" hardly differing from "Elder Brother," a vast difference of meaning, often used by elders for calling young boys in the family.

"Yin Weiyin, are you trying to disgust me?"

Yin Weiyin involuntarily shivered, but seeing his current state, even addressing him directly wasn't intimidating, so she said:

"Just addressing you for fun, do you have to be so petty?"

"Stop fooling around, there's serious business to be done."

"Well, let's listen to Brother Yi's idea then."

Chen Yi took a deep breath, choosing not to quarrel over Yin Weiyin's playful tone, besides, now truly wasn't the time to quibble.

Surveying the surroundings again, the priority now was finding a higher place for investigation. As per Zhou Yitang's account, the Dream Sea in Chang'an City is interconnected, with dreamscapes resembling islands on the sea. It seemed that to investigate the Dragon Vein's direction, one should approach the Dream Sea near the Imperial Palace.

With his Cultivation intact, Chen Yi leaped from the corridor onto the rooftop, looking around from a higher vantage point.

Chen Yi didn't speak further, even in a child's body, his Cultivation was undiminished. With a thought, he tapped lightly, Vigorous True Qi flowed naturally, and his figure glided upwards like a light feather from the corridor, landing silently on the roof tiles of a nearby building. The movement remained deft, though paired with the small stature and oversized clothes, it appeared peculiar.

He steadied himself on the rooftop ridge, preparing to gaze into the distance.

Suddenly!

An inexplicable chill streaked from the tailbone up to the nape of his neck, causing his skin to erupt in goosebumps, while at the same time, a shadow vast enough to cover his entire view silently loomed from behind, obscuring the dim sky.

A heavy, foul-smelling breath sprayed on the back of his head, warm, yet nauseating.

Chen Yi, inch by inch, turned his neck around.

What he saw was a beast's face so terrifying it defied description. Its eyes were blood-red, staring fixedly at him. Its broad muzzle was slightly open, revealing dagger-like white fangs, and thick saliva was slowly dripping from between its teeth onto the tiles, making a faint "sizzle" sound...

For some unknown reason, Chen Yi felt a tingling sensation on his scalp, a primal fear almost from the instinct for survival.

Many images of exotic beasts flashed through his mind, but none matched this one. He didn't know when this fierce beast had appeared, and there was no clue of its presence. Surprised, Chen Yi controlled his breath, confronting it. He then noticed, even more astonishingly, that the fierce beast was looking down at him from above, without moving, just drooling.

Below the rooftop, seeing Chen Yi not reacting for a while, Yin Weiyin doubtfully called out, "Brother Yi, what's wrong?"

Suddenly, the sound startled the fierce beast, causing it to pounce downward, its front claws crushing the tiles as it looked at the source of the sound.

Chen Yi suddenly sensed danger and said, "Run!"

Almost as he spoke, the beast's claw, carrying a bloody wind, had already slammed towards the white-clad female crown.

The animal hadn't reacted to Chen Yi, but the sight of Yin Weiyin instantly enraged it.

Yin Weiyin had no time to react, watching as a claw came down, accompanied by a fierce wind sound.

"Boom!"

Tiles flew, the roof collapsed in a large section, and pillars shattered with a sound, erupting with billowing smoke and dust.

Opening her eyes, Yin Weiyin found herself not far from the ground, thinking she was still standing. But when she stretched out her foot and nearly slipped, she realized she was being carried in the arms of the eight-year-old Chen Yi.

"This beast..."

Hearing this, Yin Weiyin turned her head. Through the drifting smoke and dust, she saw the beast's face, part lion, part dog, with a head as large as a bucket, covered in coarse, rock-like dark green scales. Its massive eyes burned like embers.

"Year, Year Beast?! Exactly the same!"

Yin Weiyin exclaimed.

The Year Beast, known for coming out at night to eat people, had countless depictions in folklore, though its image was never consistent.

This might be because firecrackers had long been widespread; with firecrackers to drive it away, the Year Beast dared not come close.

Yet the appearance of the beast before her was exactly as she had seen in the Exotic Beast Album.

Chen Yi, upon hearing Yin Weiyin's words, was also surprised.

Dreaming of a Year Beast was not unusual, but to encounter one that looked exactly the same? One must know, a person could not describe something never seen before, as with the rhinoceroses that disappeared after the Western Han; thus, every rhino statue and horn resembled ox horns.

"Something's strange, we shouldn't stay long."

Such anomalies showed that the master of this dream was no ordinary person.

Moreover, having just entered and not figured anything out, Chen Yi wasn't reckless and could not stay and tangle with the Year Beast. If it was just a bait, something else could show up and cause trouble.

Being held by Chen Yi, Yin Weiyin was just about to struggle to the ground when she felt the arms around her, though slender, were as tight as an iron hoop. A child's voice whispered in her ear, "Don't move, go!"

Before his words fell, Chen Yi had already formed an incantation, the Wind Control Skill rising at his will. Holding Yin Weiyin, his small body erupted with amazing strength. His toes tapped the shattered rooftop, shooting into the depths of the mansion like an arrow, his wide silk robe flaring in the fierce wind.

Behind him, the Year Beast let out an earth-shattering roar, clearly infuriated by its prey's escape. Its massive body crushed the tiles, terrifyingly fast, bulldozing through whatever obstructed it, relentlessly pursuing, almost overtaking the two's backs.

Chen Yi knew that relying on Wind Control alone wasn't enough to completely elude it. Without looking back, he pointed his right hand like a sword, drawing an arc towards the direction of the pursuit behind him.

A highly condensed Peiran Sword Energy burst out from his fingertips, ruthlessly slashing.

Wherever the Sword Qi passed, grass, trees, flowers, rocks, pavilion carvings, and even successive walls and pillars were crushed by an invisible force, breaking apart into rolling chaotic air streams. This strike hit the Year Beast solidly.

"Aow!"

The Year Beast emitted a shrill, agonized howl like no other beast's roar, hair-raising.

Its forward momentum was forcibly halted, its rocky-scaled body blasted with a bloody light, staggering back and unable to immediately pursue again.

Chen Yi didn't even look at the result. In this brief interval, he pushed the Peak Cloud Stepping Body Technique to the limit, his form flickering rapidly until only a vague afterimage remained.

He leapt out of the dream, into the Dream Sea.

......

The morning light crept in, a sliver of fish-belly white seeping through the window paper, falling onto the bed.

Donggong Ruoshu lay sprawled, the brocade quilt kicked to her feet. She unconsciously furrowed her brows, smacked her lips, mumbling some unintelligible dream talk.

Seemingly waking up a bit...

Miss Donggong turned over, wrinkled her brow again, snored heavily, shifted to a more comfortable position, and pressed her heavy bosom into the bed.

...Might as well continue sleeping.