Chapter 1: The Golden Door, the Starting Point of Fate (Revised)
At three in the afternoon, the flow of people on Mingzhu Road was pitifully sparse.
A slender young woman walked under the newly lush green shade.
The owners of the tobacco and liquor sundry shop, the barbershop, and the lottery ticket stand all poked their heads out, their knowing glances falling upon the plainly dressed woman.
The woman’s face had a touch of baby fat, making her look round and adorable. Even without a smile, she still had a pleasant appearance.
“Shen Jiang, is your grandmother okay?” the proprietress of the sundry shop was the first to speak, her tone laced with concern.
Shen Jiang turned back. Remembering that the woman had helped call the ambulance that day, she mustered up her energy and said vaguely, “She’s doing okay.”
Seeing her stop, the others began to ask questions all at once. “Did they catch that person from last week? Causing such a huge scene, it was terrifying.”
“You don’t get it. That was a medical dispute. Someone must have been jealous of Mingxin Hall’s good business and sent him to stir up trouble. Right, Shen Jiang?”
“Not necessarily, that’s not what they’re saying online…” The person speaking had a loud voice, but when they saw the unfriendly glares from the others, they immediately fell silent.
The coldness on Shen Jiang’s face was almost imperceptible. She didn’t listen any further, instead walking forward until she took out a key and opened the door to her family’s clinic. Golden dust motes in the air danced about as the door opened and closed. A shadow fell, blocking out the probing and judgmental gazes from outside.
Unlike the flourishing greenery outside, the clinic was cold and desolate. The only thing that greeted Shen Jiang was a complete mess. Medicinal herbs mixed with shards of broken glass were scattered all over the floor, and not far away, there was a dark bloodstain.
It wasn’t someone else’s blood. It was Shen Jiang’s grandmother’s.
Shen Jiang quite agreed with what one of the neighbors had just said. She also believed that this medical dispute was orchestrated by a competitor, jealous of their good business.
In an era dominated by Western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine had long fallen out of favor.
Mingxin Hall’s capacity to see 50 patients a day was clearly a source of envy for their peers.
As the heir to traditional Chinese medicine, personally trained by her grandmother, Shen Jiang knew her grandmother’s medical skills better than anyone. How could she possibly harm a patient?
The current environment was difficult. The quality of Chinese medicinal herbs was declining, no longer comparable to what it once was. The medicinal effect that 10g of herbs used to have might now require 30g to achieve.
Among all the clinics, large and small, in Nanze City, their Mingxin Hall had the best quality medicinal herbs. They were all authentic herbs that her grandmother had painstakingly sourced from various places. Besides themselves, perhaps no one knew the effort her grandmother had poured into procuring these herbs.
But on that day, no one had anticipated that things would spiral so completely out of control. When her grandmother was pushed by that man, her head struck the ground directly.
For an elderly person, any fall can be serious, let alone a traumatic brain injury that could be fatal.
Shen Jiang spent all their savings at the hospital, barely managing to snatch her grandmother back from the hands of King Yama.
Shen Jiang bent down and took a broom and dustpan from the storage room, beginning to clean meticulously.
Starting tomorrow, this place would no longer be open for business.
She was preparing to sell it.
Ten days had passed, and the police still hadn’t found the man who caused the trouble. Naturally, there was no sign of compensation, and Shen Jiang had no intention of crowdfunding from netizens. Firstly, they still had the clinic, so they weren’t desperate enough to beg. Secondly, the public opinion fermenting online was entirely skewed in favor of the troublemaker. Unlike the familiar neighbors who still showed concern, Mingxin Hall had been torn to shreds online.
These past few days, her and her grandmother’s phones had been flooded with a deluge of harassing calls and abusive messages.
At first, Shen Jiang had no mind to deal with it. She had been keeping vigil day and night outside the ICU at the hospital and hadn’t even looked at her phone. Later… later, someone found out which hospital they were at, and the online harassment turned into offline harassment.
Only then did Shen Jiang belatedly realize that her grandmother, the victim, had been turned into a quack doctor condemned by all, thanks to the power of cyberbullying.
As dusk settled, the aroma of cooking fires rose from the surrounding area.
Shen Jiang, holding the broom, went to the corner to turn on the lights. After a round of cleaning, she was covered in dust.
Click.
With the sound, light arrived as expected, but it wasn’t the familiar incandescent bulb.
A golden door, shimmering with flowing light, suddenly appeared before her.
It hung suspended in mid-air, so abrupt it felt utterly unreal.
Shen Jiang was frozen by the sight that defied comprehension. She raised the broom and threw it at the door.
The golden door seemed to have some kind of ward triggered. The broom was forcefully flung away by an unseen force, and then a flowing light, like water, wrapped around Shen Jiang’s legs, spreading upward to the top of her head, irresistibly sucking her entire body into the door.
*
So hot.
Feeling a massive wave of heat wash over her, with almost no moisture in the air, Shen Jiang subconsciously licked her lips.
Her feet finally touched solid ground. Shen Jiang accepted the bizarre event that had befallen her with a sense of disbelief and resignation—she had transmigrated.
But when she got a clear look at her surroundings and the creature not far away, all her composure turned into stunned silence.
In that instant, all the blood in her body seemed to rush backward, straight to her brain.
The light in the vast, craggy space was dim, but the body as massive as a small hill was still incredibly conspicuous. As its breathing rose and fell, its hard, black scales reflected a mysterious, fragmented light. The tooth-like protrusions on its spine were razor-sharp, and its enormous wings were folded behind its back, only a small corner visible.
Every detail reminded Shen Jiang that the giant creature before her was an absolute killing machine.
The only thing that gave Shen Jiang a sliver of comfort was that it was currently closing its eyes, likely in a deep sleep.
But even though the creature was still slumbering, Shen Jiang was pinned to the spot by the oppressive feeling its sheer size exuded.
Shen Jiang: …
I want to go home.
The pressure from the black, hill-like behemoth was simply too intense. Crushing her would be as easy as crushing an ant.
She couldn’t imagine what would happen if it opened its eyes and saw a person suddenly appear in its bedroom…
Without hesitation, Shen Jiang tiptoed and began to move with light, careful steps.
She stealthily approached the nearest rock wall, doing her utmost to minimize her presence, before heading toward the source of light at the cave’s entrance.
Like a very slow-moving sloth, she cautiously inched her way toward the light filtering in from the other side.
Shen Jiang couldn’t help but feel grateful that she was wearing cloth shoes today. The soft soles made almost no sound as they stepped on the rock, which made Shen Jiang feel that the situation wasn’t entirely hopeless.
As she moved, she drew closer to the cave entrance, which inevitably also brought her closer to the massive black beast.
As the light changed, sunlight somehow began to pour in from a fissure high above, brightening the cave considerably. The densely packed things piled beneath the giant beast were revealed in their true form. A dazzling light flashed in Shen Jiang’s eyes. She squinted to see, and her vision was filled with glittering, brilliant, golden gems that nearly blinded her.
In this highly tense environment, Shen Jiang’s mind was unusually active. Legend had it that evil dragons were incredibly powerful and loved shiny treasures.
Could this big fellow be a dragon?
Without a second glance at the magnificent yet terrifying fantasy combination, Shen Jiang lowered her head.
She recalled a magazine article she had once read, which said that a person’s gaze carries an energy field. If one stares for a long time, the subject can sense the corresponding heat of being watched.
The mere shadow of the mountain-like body was already overwhelmingly oppressive. Shen Jiang could even hear her own heart, which felt like it had leaped into her throat.
Thump. Thump.
Under such high mental and physical stress, a person’s stamina drains at an astonishing rate. The further Shen Jiang walked, the more difficult it became.
For some reason, she felt the temperature in the cave was getting higher and higher, boiling away the moisture in the air and burning up what little oxygen there was.
Sweat had long since soaked the clothes on Shen Jiang’s back.
The string of tension in Shen Jiang’s mind grew tighter and tighter. Fortunately, she had made it through most of this path without incident. Just a few more steps, and she would be able to breathe fresh air outside.
The beam of Tyndall light not far away held all of Shen Jiang’s hopes.
Soon, that hope was dashed.
After rounding a protruding rock wall, the cave entrance appeared before her eyes.
Shen Jiang was stunned to discover that the exit was not on the ground, but a wide opening several meters high on the ceiling. The cave walls were smooth, offering no possibility of climbing out.
Bright sunlight poured down from the opening, illuminating the ghastly white bones on the ground below.
Suddenly, the faint, almost imperceptible smell of blood became omnipresent.
Despite having worked with cadavers countless times in her classes, Shen Jiang had never once frowned or backed away. But now, seeing this pile of bones that resembled human tibias, a chill ran down her spine and the hair on her back stood on end.
Don’t panic. There must be another way out.
Shen Jiang looked up and estimated the distance from the opening to the ground. It was at least four or five meters.
This must be the entrance the giant beast had prepared for itself, allowing it to take flight and soar into the sky directly.
Shen Jiang looked around for anything she could use, but even if she included this pile of bones, there clearly wasn’t enough time to build a staircase.
If she could move that huge pile of jewels from under the beast to below the opening, it might be possible to climb out using the height.
Shen Jiang’s eyes lit up.
Perhaps when the beast went out to hunt, she could try that method. For now, she had to find a suitable place to hide.
As Shen Jiang was tiptoeing back, she failed to notice that the black dragon had long since opened its eyes. The black dragon’s golden, vertical pupils were like translucent, radiant gems, looking down from on high at the uninvited human. Its cold gaze was like that of a person looking at a corpse.
An overconfident ant, daring to walk into his home as if it owned the place.
Godwin Caesar’s golden draconic eyes followed the human’s slow movements, but his expression grew increasingly strange.
This was an extremely young human female. Her skin, like pale pink rose petals, was delicate and tender. Her slender frame possessed none of the powerful aesthetic that dragons appreciated, not at all meeting the standard of a mature human knight.
There was no fluctuation of magic on her body, which was why Godwin Caesar hadn’t noticed her presence at first. After all, he had always been too lazy to bother with the foolish insects that wandered into his cave.
And look at the clothes she was wearing—a single, incredibly soft, thin layer. He knew that humans were extremely fragile; a dragon’s hard, sharp claws could easily disembowel them.
This was the first time Godwin Caesar had ever seen a human not wearing armor.
Godwin Caesar was slightly taken aback. Everything about this ordinary human conveyed a single message: she was acting with impunity.
As long as she had normal reasoning abilities and wasn’t a fool, then she must possess some extraordinary confidence to dare to wander into his dragon’s lair in such a state.
How did she enter his lair so silently?
Before Godwin could figure it out, the human cast a greedy glance—one he was all too familiar with—at the treasure beneath him.
Godwin’s fists clenched.
A gust of wind suddenly rose in the cave.
Caught off guard and thrown to the ground by an extraordinary, absolute force, Shen Jiang couldn’t help but gasp. She hadn’t even seen how she was knocked over.
The dragon’s massive, triangular claw pressed down firmly on her slender body, leaving no room to breathe. The intimate contact between her back and the ground was swift and brutal. Pain shot through her from every limb, and a muffled groan escaped Shen Jiang’s throat.
In a daze, Shen Jiang looked up at the giant beast pinning her to the ground. At that sight, her heart seemed to stop for several beats.
Seeing it up close like this, the visual impact was even more intense. Not to mention, its claw was harder than the rock beneath her. The feeling of absolute power crushing down on her was so immense that the fact Shen Jiang didn’t faint on the spot was a testament to her last shred of stubbornness.
She remembered news stories about tourists who accidentally fell into the tiger enclosure at a zoo, torn to bloody shreds… A bitter sense of despair gradually filled her heart.
She had been just one step away from getting out.
*
One dragon, one human, stared at each other, wide-eyed.
Neither moved.
Shen Jiang was completely unable to move. Her body was held fast, the rough, uneven texture of the ground pressing against her back. The huge black claw on her chest was incredibly sharp, emitting a cold, chilling glint.
The giant beast before her leaned down, its lantern-sized eyes staring straight at her, cold, fierce, indifferent, and brutal, filled with a condescending scrutiny.
Though her entire body ached as if it had been broken apart, the surge of adrenaline made Shen Jiang forget the pain in an instant.
The black beast stared at her with unfriendly eyes, yet it didn’t strike. This couldn’t help but raise a question in Shen Jiang’s mind.
Did this big guy just freeze up?
Shen Jiang didn’t care what its problem was. Since it hadn’t dealt her a fatal blow, there was room for negotiation.
Shen Jiang forced the most harmless, friendly smile she could muster, trying to send a friendly signal to a wild beast. Her eyes were fixed on it, not daring to relax for a second.
Godwin Caesar had rarely seen a human give him such a fawning smile. Although he didn’t want to admit it, he had to say, this human’s smile was uglier than her crying.
The originally cute and pleasant human face twisted into an extremely awkward expression. Her eyes were full of unease, yet the corners of her mouth were turned up without any emotion. The muscle lines on her entire face were simply hideous to the extreme.
This sight was a direct challenge to the bottom line of the dragon with the best aesthetic taste in the world.
Godwin couldn’t bear to look at such a distressing scene, yet he was helpless against the fearless human under his claw.
Yes, he was helpless.
This was the first time Godwin Caesar had encountered such a situation. A hint of astonishment couldn’t help but appear in his eyes, his probing gaze sweeping back and forth over the frail human beneath his claw.
This human was truly bizarre.
Just a moment ago, he had personally confirmed that she had stopped breathing, that there were no signs of life.
But after a few breaths, the human, who had been as lifeless as a rag doll, her crushed chest would gradually fill out and begin to rise and fall again. The specks of blood that had splattered on her vanished into thin air, and her rosy-pink face was as delicate and white as before.
And those doe-like black eyes remained just as they were, looking at him in terror, exactly as they had in their first encounter, with no difference whatsoever.
After the initial test, Godwin had eventually developed a killing intent, making every move fatal.
Once, twice… in the end, he himself lost count, left with only numb, mechanical actions.
He, Godwin Caesar, the greatest and most outstanding fire dragon in the world.
And he couldn’t kill a mere human?
As the strongest among the dragon race, Godwin Caesar had never known defeat. But this time, a momentary bewilderment finally appeared in his translucent, golden eyes.
There was something very wrong with this human.
She was clearly powerless, yet she was the most difficult opponent he had ever encountered in his life.
He could easily kill her with any kind of magic, but this human would always return to her original state after dying, looking at him with those damp, black eyes, terrified and helpless.
He couldn’t kill her at all, so why did she bother feigning fear?
What kind of evil black magic was this?
The human before him was simply too weak. With his power, a single strike could kill her instantly, making it impossible to inflict only a light injury.
He really didn’t understand the point of cultivating such magic. To wait to be killed and then revive?
The best defense is a good offense. Godwin Caesar looked down on this kind of bizarre black magic from the bottom of his heart.
Only pure, immense power like his was the goal every magical creature should pursue throughout their life.
This human had no combat ability. Although he couldn’t kill her, she couldn’t escape from his grasp either. A flash of mockery crossed the black dragon’s eyes.
“You tiny, despicable human. Did you think that by mastering such a bizarre, unseemly trick, you could dare to dream of slaying a dragon and seizing its treasure?” A cold snort suddenly escaped Godwin Caesar’s throat.
The majestic, deep voice exploded above her head like thunder, its tone filled with obvious contempt. Despite the sweltering heat, Shen Jiang could still feel the bone-chilling cold in his voice.
Shen Jiang had long suspected this black beast was a dragon, and it turned out to be true.
And a talking dragon at that!
Without time to process her worldview shattering once again, Shen Jiang had no time to ponder the principle behind her ability to understand the draconic language. A thrill of joy from the depths of her soul made her tremble. Shen Jiang knew that her sliver of a chance to live had appeared!
Shen Jiang’s brain went into overdrive. In a flash, inspiration struck.
Ignoring her disheveled state, Shen Jiang spoke with the utmost sincerity, “Honorable Lord Dragon, I am no dragon slayer! In fact, I am your admirer! I have traveled a great distance just to witness your unparalleled, heroic grace!”
The black dragon, Godwin Caesar, looked at those incredibly beautiful, innocent black eyes and was suddenly at a loss for words. “…”
He was, after all, an incomparably powerful being on this continent. How could he possibly have such a shameless, despicable admirer?