Chapter 1521 - 818: Lu Ying? (Double-Length Part 2)

"Ow!"

"The g-ground's shaking?!"

"Has the Dragon King manifested?!"

Hundreds of incense customers in the hall were struck pale with terror by the sudden tremor and strange sound.

The temple priest who had just lunged forward to snatch the three sticks of thick incense bore the brunt of it; that low growl and shaking scared him so badly his face went ghastly white, his legs turned to jelly, and he nearly collapsed to the floor.

Stumbling as he still tried to grab the three thick incense sticks from Chen Yi's hand, he kept bowing toward the Dragon King statue, his voice trembling: "Dragon King, quell your anger! Dragon King, quell your anger, please! It's this madman's ignorant offense, it's not my doing, not the temple's doing!!"

Cold sweat streamed down his forehead; the look he gave Chen Yi was full of shock, rage, and venomous resentment, as if this incense customer from who-knows-where had torn a hole in the heavens.

Chen Yi treated it as if he hadn't seen it at all, only giving the thick incense in his hand a chilly glance, then raising his eyes to the Dragon King statue, which, after that low growl, was slowly calming and gradually regaining its luster.

"Quell its anger?" Chen Yi said mildly. "What anger. The incense is jammed too tight—I'm helping it clear the jam. It ought to be delighted."

The temple priest turned back, shaking all over with rage, even more aghast, and shouted, "You… you profane the divine! You disturb the faithful! You're… utterly lawless! Someone! Seize this madman and drag him to the government! Beg the Dragon King to pronounce judgment…"

He was blustering with borrowed courage when a tall, powerfully built figure suddenly flashed out from the crowd. The next moment, that figure was standing before the temple priest like an iron tower, nearly nose to nose.

The priest's tirade cut off, because a dark wooden badge was almost jammed against the tip of his nose.

"Inspection Department"

Qiao Tumen's deep, cold voice sounded right beside the badge, smashing into the priest's ears:

"The Inspection Department is conducting an investigation. All unrelated persons will clear out."

Snap.

The temple priest flinched and slid back from Qiao Tumen's hand to the ground. Then Qiao Tumen lifted the badge and swept it in a circle; the crowd of incense customers jammed in the temple scattered like startled birds and beasts.

Qiao Tumen then walked up to Chen Yi, just in time to hear the latter say, "Underground."

He immediately beckoned with his hand, saying, "Move the Dragon King statue. The Crown Prince's incriminating evidence is right underneath it."

His voice wasn't loud; when those words fell, it was unclear how many people heard them, but a few richly dressed figures among the incense customers could be seen hurrying their steps all the more.

The accompanying guards set to work at the base; with a screeching drag, the Dragon King statue was shifted aside. One corner of the stone slab beneath was slightly raised; once pried up, a passageway appeared within. Chen Yi tapped the Dragon King statue—sure enough, even the pedestal was hollow.

The filth packed inside was likely not far away, just below this.

"We're going down."

The passage wasn't a branching maze, just a deep, long straight tunnel. As they descended, there were brackets along the way for torches.

A supervisor walked in front, Qiao Tumen close behind him with the fire, and the man and woman followed after. He was cautious at every step; today he could die, but he must protect that Han couple behind him.

For the dead, the Han King shows great favor; for cowards, the Han King deals only in savage executions.

Amid clustered lamplight, the front suddenly wavered. Qiao Tumen's brows knotted as he lifted his hand to steady forward—and touched the supervisor's trembling shoulder.

"What are you afraid of down here…"

Before he finished speaking, he too saw the corner illuminated by the fire.

It was a dragon's head… covered in compound eyes like those of flies.

A massive, misshapen body, nearly filling the end of the passage, was slowly squirming at the boundary of light and shadow.

The thing had a long, dragon-like body clad in dull, ragged scales, but where a dragon's head and torso should have been majestic, they were instead densely packed with grotesque eyeballs like flies' compound eyes—of all sizes, half-open, half-closed, gleaming murkily in the torchlight. These compound eyes had sprouted with no pattern, warping its original form into something monstrously absurd. And the part that should have been a well-proportioned Dragon Tail was grotesquely swollen and edematous, ballooning out to clog the entire stone wall behind it.

"Th-this is…" Qiao Tumen forced the words up from his throat, "…the Dragon King?"

The few supervisors from the Inspection Department behind him were breathing heavily, veins bulging on the hands gripping their blades. If not for strict discipline, they would have likely already fallen back.

"Not a dragon," Chen Yi's voice sounded at his side, "a Jiao Dragon."

This Dragon King Temple had already stood for three hundred years, its incense passed down three centuries. Without doubt, this Jiao Dragon had been granted incense at the Ba River's bank by imperial decree of the court, meant to be a True God safeguarding this region.

Yet now it had been tortured by an Evil Technique, its mind extinguished, its form twisted, fed with the incense of the common people, steeped in the stench of demonhood.

It seemed the Crown Prince was even bolder than he'd thought… to refine a True God into a demon, right under the Emperor's nose…

The Jiao Dragon seemed to sense the firelight. Its huge body shifted, letting out a low, hoarse throat sound.

"On guard!" Qiao Tumen barked, and the supervisors turned their blades in unison toward the front, their formation taut with tension.

But Chen Yi only shook his head, passed Qiao Tumen, and stepped forward a few paces, drawing closer to that horrifying mass.

"It's begging you—begging for release."

As his words fell, a sheet of Yellow Paper Talisman had somehow appeared between his fingers, its edges tinged with dry vermillion color. He did not chant a Spell; his fingertips merely rubbed lightly.

Fwoom.

A bright yellow flame suddenly flared up on the talisman paper. With a flick of Chen Yi's wrist, the talisman fluttered down toward the Jiao Dragon's compound-eye-covered head.

As if he had touched off cotton wadding soaked in oil, the bright flames surged, climbing quickly, devouring the Jiao Dragon's head, neck, and most of its twisted body. The fire burned with unnatural speed; the crackling of oil bursting was painfully sharp, and a stinking smoke poured out from where it burned.

"Cough—cough! Cough!" Qiao Tumen and the supervisors were choked into stumbling back, hacking uncontrollably.