Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)

This was the highest life form out of all three thousand worlds. This was the coldest existence in this world. Its aura or pressure was unspeakable – aside from great xiuxingists who were out of this world, how could fragile humans stand before this giant black dragon?

Even though Chen Chang Sheng had a strong mind, he still couldn’t stand this pressure. He tightly closed up his mouth to prevent the sound of his teeth bumping to come out, yet he could not stop his body from trembling as if every single bone was crying.

Pa! He did not kneel in front of the black dragon, but he could not stand up either. He fell on the cold and hard ground. He felt absent-minded. He did not think about pain, but kept repeating few sentences in his heart.

“The legend is real!”

“There’s a dragon inside the royal palace!”

“A noblest Frost Dragon!”

Before he opened up that heavy door, he had thought of many possibilities.

He had thought that the being behind the door was the old guest who was at saint stage and had xiuxing for over a hundred years in the royal palace mentioned by Luo Luo. It could also be the central battle array of the royal palace, or even be the corpse of a dragon. He could never imagine that…

There’s an alive dragon behind the door!

After the ancient past, people could barely find any traces of dragons on the continent. These noble but strong creatures were gradually becoming holy beings that only existed in books. No one had seen it. Chen Chang Sheng had tried to picture a dragon many times. He wanted to see it.

Tonight he finally saw it, but now he wished he never did.

The dragon was floating in air, looking down at him.

The lights emitted from the thousands of Nightly Pearls at the roof were absorbed by his black scales. The black dragon was as scary as a living abyss, but what really caused fear was its pair of eyes. The eyes were filled with coldness and brutality.

Chen Chang Sheng understood the meaning of its look. It was that of a human child looking at ants under the tree.

They were extraordinarily pure, cold and violent for no known reason or explanation.

Kids could stare at ants for half an hour and then stepped on all of them to death.

This was the attitude of high level creatures to subordinates.

Chen Chang Sheng eventually understood the sentences Mo Yu said before she left.

Yes, no one could leave from the Tong Palace because the living exit of Tong Gong was under the cold pond.

The cold pond was the real dragon pond. A black dragon lived here and any human who met it would meet death.

Yet Mo Yu never thought that he actually had the bravery or stupidity to walk in front of the black dragon.

The frost on Chen Chang Sheng’s eyelashes fell down like the snow on the a Chimonanthus (some plant) blown off by wind.

A tiny wind was blown up in the underground dimension.

The black dragon was preparing to breathe.

Chen Chang Sheng knew that he would die at the next moment.

The moment he pushed the door, he prepared many plans. Even if he really met the old guest who was at saint stage, he did not think he would definitely die because he believed that as long as he could communicate, then he could change his fate.

But behind the door was a black dragon.

In legends, the dragon was noble, strong but never kind.

Dragon wouldn’t communicate with humans. They disdained to communicate with humans or at least they felt that it was shameful to communicate with a common human like him.

To this, he didn’t have any preparation.

He had prepared for death for many years but when death truly came, he realized that he wasn’t prepared well enough for it.

He realized that death was something that one couldn’t prepare for.

The underground dimension was deadly silent. The lights of the Nightly Pearls, like snow, fell on his body.

He felt a bit cold and suddenly, he felt very tired. He knew whatever he was going to do was simply a waste of time, so he stopped trying to stand up, and even stopped thinking what would happen next. He raised his head, looked at the terrifying mountain-like dragon’s head with a calm and relieved composure.

“It seems that my master is right, I am truly unfortunate.”

He did not know if this black dragon could understand the human language or not but he thought, such a noble creature, even if it could understand, it would feel shameful to listen. Because of this, Chen Chang Sheng spoke the words that he never told anyone before to the black dragon.

“I have an incurable disease.”

“I can’t live past twenty.”

“Master is the best doctor in the continent and my medical skill is not bad but, we both can’t cure it.”

“This disease is more fatal than any fatal disease. It’s not a disease, but fate.”

“I am unfortunate.”

“After arriving at the capital, I spent a lot of effort. I finally got into the Tradition Academy, acquired the right to participate in the Great Trial and although I am still very far away from Ling Yan Pavilion, after taking the first step towards it and encountering Luo Luo, I thought my fortune was gradually getting better.”

“Surprisingly, I encounter you tonight.”

“My fortune is actually still so bad.”

Chen Chang Sheng’s face was a little pale not because of fear but because of the frost and snow.

Now that he was fearless, he could face a legendary brutal black dragon.

He no longer cared if this black dragon could understand him or not, or if it wanted to hear his words or not.

He knew that he would die soon, so if he didn’t speak these words now, he won’t have any chance to say them.

“Everyone says that life is fated and that no matter how terrible it is, it’s unchangeable. However, I don’t want to give up.”

A power came from nowhere and supported him to stand up. He raised his head and looked at the beautiful Nightly Pearls on the roof. He narrowed his eyes a bit, like a pitiful joey looking at the first sunshine in the morning, he was happy and hopeful.

“I want to stay alive. I want to live past twenty, then one hundred, even five hundred, eight hundred. I want to live longer and longer. The best would be if I could live forever and never die….but first, I must live past twenty, so I live very carefully.”

“Everyday I sleep early and wake up early. Everyday I exercise. I was never picky and never overate. It’s not my personality, so I only can have a healthy diet. According to the medical books, I use a little balance to measure meats and veggies to eat and even so, I never felt tired of it. Until after twelve, I turned all of these into instincts.”

“I care about time. I use all my time to study xiuxing, I want to interact with all of these fantastic knowledges before twenty and even more, I want to change my fate through xiuxing. This way, I can have the opportunity to see more beautiful landscapes after twenty.”

He looked at black dragon said, “Yes, all I did, all of the rules I set for myself are for staying alive. The most important thing in life is to stay alive. For this, I am willing to pay any price. I am trying my best to stay alive.”

The black dragon’s look at the youngster was still cold and brutal — probably because it didn’t understand the human language or more likely because it didn’t care. It was like an ant sadly waving its foreleg towards a tree branch and the child observing it only finding it interesting or funny.

Chen Chang Sheng already didn’t care about the black dragon’s reaction. He only wanted to get it off his chest in the last moments of his life.

“Changing fate is really too hard. The years I lived were truly too tiring, but no matter how tired I was, I still want to live because the pork dipped with oil and salt in Xi Ning was truly tasty, because there are really so many interesting knowledge shared in books and because life is really beautiful.”

“I don’t want to die, but I can’t promise I will live to twenty, more accurately, I don’t have any confidence at all. I don’t want the little girl delivered by my bamboo dragonfly to become a widow so I came to the capital to cancel the engagement, but then?”

“Everyone who knows me thinks I am too precocious. Unlike a fourteen year old youngster, all say I am mature but they never think….I am only five years away from death, I am still young, but I am already half buried in soil. How can’t I be mature!?”

These past years, Chen Chang Sheng was highly concerned on controlling his emotion, because being emotional isn’t good for his health, but now everything was not necessary so he was no longer calm. He looked at the black dragon or this world and shouted angrily.

“I don’t want to die.”

“But I am about to die now.”

“I feel so sad.”

Chen Chang Sheng felt very sad and his eye sockets were a little red. He thought he would cry, but he discovered that ever since he controlled emotion and was unwilling to die, he forgot how to cry. With this, he felt even more sad. Then he unimaginably calmed down.

“I appreciate that you didn’t eat me right away. Although this may not be your true intent, you let me finish these words, so I want to thank you. I really want to live, so even though it’s very funny, but please allow me to fight you at last.”

After speaking the last sentence, he raised the little sword in his hand and faced the black dragon.

He thought silently in his mind: death, come!

Let’s fight.

Like the past years.

The black dragon slowly came to him and a cold hurricane echoed in the vast underground dimension. Its body was way too huge, so a slight move would cause the world to change.

Unimaginable coldness came to Chen Chang Sheng’s body.

His eyelashes were frosted again, and he felt like the blood in his body was about to be frozen.

Death was before his eyes.

Yet he felt a calmness that he never had before, even relief.

After ten, the shadow of death and terrifying pressure that always followed him disappeared.

He felt light and comfortable. Being without pressure was such a nice feeling.

He finally understood how to defeat the fear carried by death. The solution was only death itself.

He laughed as the frost on his eyelashes spreaded out like a white flower.

Master, do you see that?

I am about to change my fate.

You said I will die at twenty.

Now, even though I am not fifteen yet, I am about to die.

Fate is actually not undefeatable.