Chapter 280: Do You Want My Blood?
Under the dim, rainy night, the girl leaped without hesitation.
The large bird that had discovered her whereabouts immediately let out an extremely anxious and sharp cry. However, it would take time for the pursuers behind to arrive, and it did not possess the ability to enter the sea. Thus, it could only watch helplessly as the girl sank into the seabed together with the man.
The rain fell heavily, stirring up rolling waves. Accompanied by the last earth-shattering clap of thunder, the Li River quickly swallowed their figures.
Their fate remained uncertain.
…
…
Do dragons swim?
Before today, Long Li had never seriously considered this question. This was because, since birth, she had lived on land. Occasionally seeing her father’s true form or the clan elders, they were always soaring in the boundless sky, not entering rivers. She only vaguely remembered her father mentioning that a long, long time ago, their dragon clan did not exclusively live on land…
Holding the man tightly, the girl gathered her spirits. As usual, she picked a random direction and swam with all her might.
The surging river water engulfed everything. Immersed in such a vast ocean, all she saw was darkness. A sense of inexplicable loneliness lingered in her heart. She dared not reveal her true form, as that would make her too large a target, essentially making her a sitting duck. She could only consider it after completely escaping the line of sight of the surveillance from above. More concerning than this was the man’s condition. Fortunately, even after entering the water, his breathing had not stopped; he maintained that precarious state of being neither dead nor alive, with only a faint breath. This put Long Li somewhat at ease, and her speed increased. Under the cover of the night and the torrential rain, she quietly moved away.
The experience of entering the water was quite different from what she had imagined. Although the waves were fierce, coming one after another, she felt as if she had returned to an old homeland. Each rising wave seemed to be clearing a path for her and bidding her farewell. In fact, she even faintly sensed a subtle call from the depths of her bloodline. This call seemed very distant; it should have been quite strong, but due to the vast distance and the barrier of the river water, it had become so faint. Coincidentally, Long Li was terrible with directions and didn’t know north from south. Thus, she followed this call, swimming day and night.
Finally, after an unknown amount of time, the dim night sky welcomed a new dawn. When she looked up again, the horizon was already tinged with a fish-belly white, signaling the end of the long night. Long Li gritted her teeth, feeling the icy, bone-chilling river water completely envelop her. As of now, she had not been injured, so she could still bear it. But what about Prime Minister Father? Prolonged immersion in this river water would be unbearable even for a normal person, let alone Prime Minister Father who was so severely injured. The numerous small and large wounds soaked in the water, visibly turning red, then festering and oozing pus. Every time Long Li mustered the courage to look, her heart couldn’t help but tremble.
Suddenly, she saw the man’s pale, thin lips move slightly. His voice was too weak for Long Li to hear clearly. She hurriedly adjusted her posture and brought her face closer. As her face touched his thin lips, she truly felt how ice-cold his skin was at this moment.
“Cold…”
She still couldn’t hear his voice clearly, but based on the man’s lip movements, Long Li guessed that this was the word. He had already fainted, and only his body’s instinct was driving him. Long Li felt a pang of sorrow. Disregarding whether there were still pursuers watching from the sky, she pulled him and surfaced.
The torrential rain that had fallen all night had stopped at some point. The clear, azure sky above displayed the freshness of the post-rain world. However, the little warmth from the sun was insignificant, far from enough to make a difference; everything still felt ice-cold. Long Li looked around. Apart from the boundless river surface, she could not see any trace of anything else. The thought of finding a place to go ashore nearby naturally dissolved into nothing. She immediately gritted her teeth and, without further hesitation, drew her cold sword across her wrist, creating a small cut. Hot blood flowed from her wrist, dripping, not one drop falling to waste, into the corner of the man’s lips. The blood exuded an innate spiritual energy, a brilliant golden color that shimmered slightly in the sunlight. However, unlike the anomaly caused by Long Yintian’s death, if one looked closely, within this brilliant gold, there was a nobler crimson.
Drawing her sword and looking around in confusion, Long Li found nothing that could bring warmth to the man. Except for herself. Although she didn’t know if this would truly alleviate his condition of being cold, just as Prime Minister Father often said, one had to try.
The molten gold-like dragon blood flowed along his lips into his throat. Whether it was her imagination or not, Long Li clearly felt the man’s body subtly warming up. With this discovery, Long Li’s spirits lifted. While feeding him blood, she vigilantly scanned her surroundings. In just this short while, the spiritual energy emanating from her dragon blood had attracted many aquatic creatures, circling around her. They had not yet developed sentience and did not cultivate, but the instinct to pursue creatures with higher-level bloodlines drove them here. Seeing this, Long Li frowned, sensing that things were becoming somewhat unfavorable. The Li River was vast, running through the entire north and south. Even humans revered it as a sacred mother river, so the water spirits nurtured within it must not be few.
As expected, within half an hour, a massive and terrifying dark shadow rapidly swam over from the river surface and appeared within Long Li’s line of sight. Her heart tightened. She stopped feeding Prime Minister Father blood and instead repositioned the man, carrying him on her back. Then, with her hands free, she gripped “Bu Gong” and gazed at the dark shadow. Below the river surface, the dark shadow seemed to sense her hostility and stopped, making no further moves.
They remained in a stalemate for a moment. As more and more creatures were drawn by the scent, and as the wound on Long Li’s wrist began to scab and heal, the dark shadow finally grew impatient.
“Hiss, hiss!”
Slightly piercing growls emanated from the dark shadow’s body. Long Li watched it coldly, her long sword emitting a piercing chill, causing it to only hiss and screech in exasperation, yet not daring to approach. After a while, Long Li thought of something, her eyes moved, and she suddenly spoke.
“Do you want my blood?”
Upon hearing this, it was unclear whether the dark shadow understood. It only continued to growl relentlessly, emitting those unpleasant, piercing sounds. Following this, the dark shadow made a new move. The massive body beneath the river surface slowly emerged as it moved.
It was an immeasurably large ‘strange fish’. It was entirely black, with cloudy eyes. On its broad back, covered in barnacles and weeds, was a row of peculiar spines.
