Dragon Clan: I'm too lazy to talk to you, you're not worthy to listen!

With a loud bang, a dull metallic sound.

The water bell still struck Ying Zheng's chest. Despite all his efforts, he was unable to stop the water bell from hitting him!

Blood bloomed on the window in an instant!

The two-headed dragon corpse roared!

The blood splattered on the window decorations was not Ying Zheng's blood, but that of the two-headed dragon corpse.

The water clock was now shattered into dust, except for the bronze tree branch inside, which remained intact, piercing the lizard's claws covered in bluish-gray scales.

"That's it?" Ying Zheng didn't even take a step back, silently withdrawing the nameless weapon. "What are you pretending for?"

At this moment, that strange domain seemed to have dissipated, or perhaps the two-headed dragon corpse could no longer maintain that domain.

Ying Zheng pressed forward directly, his fists swinging with tremendous force, like two dragons exploring the sea!

The black vortexes in his eyes never stopped, constantly attacking the two-headed dragon corpse!

Just like a martial arts master practicing on a wooden dummy!

The dragon scales were shattered and sent flying!

Dragon's blood gushed out by the window!

The two-headed dragon corpse was forced to retreat step by step, unable to withstand Ying Zheng's elbow strikes in the slightest.

Ying Zheng seemed to see it from within the pool of blood:

In the torrential rain of the Battle of Muye.

Jiang Ziya inserted half of the bronze divine tree into the black king's eggshell.

In the tomb of King You.

Bao Si used her hairpin to carve "the 59th year of King Nan of Zhou" on the chessboard.

Finally, the image freezes on Old Tang wiping his folding knife—

Blood beads were seeping from the two characters "Duke of Zhou" on the hilt of the knife, and the color of that blood was exactly the same as the silvery-white blood flowing outside Jiang Cheng at that moment.

Ying Zheng's inner monologue: "Jiang Cheng is a member of the Jiang family, so I can understand why he has silvery-white blood."

Why would the Duke of Zhou have such blood?

Did they steal the Jiang family's secret techniques?

Did they steal Jiang Ziya's achievements?

Did the Jiang family offer it up voluntarily?

With a single breath, the two-headed dragon corpse collapsed to the ground, barely alive.

This remnant of the old era, clinging to life in its coffin, was ultimately no match for Ying Zheng's elbow strike.

Ying Zheng leaned against the window, looking at the blood droplets that had condensed on the paper-cut window.

The blood droplets hovered in the moonlight, as if reflecting the rain curtain of three thousand years ago.

As Ying Zheng gazed at the two-headed dragon corpse, the silvery-white blood seeping from its claws, he seemed to hear, by chance, the sound of bronze tree branches growing in the void.

The patterns on the remains of the Jianmu tree resonated with the jade scepter at Jiang Cheng's waist, each groove flowing with the hexagrams of the *Lianshan Yi* (a classic Chinese divination text).

This is a secret older than the Book of Changes, a code etched on the bronze city wall deep in Shennongjia.

Ying was carefully experiencing this resonant rhythm.

"I see."

Ying Zheng tapped the hilt of the nameless sword with his finger, and the Netherfire coiled into a double helix along the blade. He raised his hand and touched his chin. "The immortal wine that Zhou Gongdan drank probably contained some of Jiang Ziya's blood."

The two-headed dragon corpse suddenly opened its mouth and let out a dragon roar.

The dragon's roar shattered the unfinished words.

Suddenly, the eastern dragon head of the two-headed dragon corpse cracked open, spewing out a viscous bronze solution.

The solution condensed in the air into oracle bones, and the burn marks that appeared at the cracks were exactly the same as those on the oracle bones unearthed at Sanxingdui.

When the first drop of solution falls onto the Twenty-Eight Mansions constellation.

Ying Zheng could smell the bloody stench of the Battle of Muye—the scent of the broken yarrow stalks from when King Wen was imprisoned and wrote the Book of Changes.

At this time, in the yard.

Jiang Cheng's golden eyes suddenly turned dark purple.

The snake-like markings on his wrist cracked open, revealing translucent mercury tentacles.

Those tentacles entangled the suspended blood beads, etching the Big Dipper Nine Star Array on the surface of the Hetu Luoshu—the ninth "Hidden Star" missing from the Ziwei Enclosure in legend is the key to unlocking the Black King's Egg.

"Don't touch that mercury!" A voice from the depths of the Fate Line suddenly became as sharp as tearing silk. "That's what Jiang Ziya brought back from Kunlun..."

Before he could finish speaking, the dragon servants on Zhou Zhenyang's back suddenly opened their eyes at the same time.

Nine pairs of golden eyes reflected the murals deep within the Bronze City:

King Wen, with disheveled hair and bare feet, knelt and worshipped the black egg.

Duke Zhou used a carving knife to carve the eight trigrams on the eggshell.

Meanwhile, Jiang Ziya was injecting mercury into the cracks in the tortoise shell.

The moonlight from three thousand years ago seemed to seep out from the cracks, imprinting the shadows of the three people onto the bronze wall, forming an eternal seal.

"Ding-dong chicken! Ding-dong chicken!"

The phone suddenly vibrated in his pocket; Chen Motong's text message pierced through the turbulent flow of time:

"The underground chamber's coffin is open, and Norton's folding knife is stuck in the center position of the chessboard—wait, your name is engraved on the chessboard!"

Ying Zheng: "Isn't he an alchemist? Why is he doing this fortune-telling thing?"

As Ying Zheng spoke, he swung his sword to sever the fateful threads binding the Jianmu tree, but the Netherfire turned silver-white the instant it touched the bronze branches.

Emerging from those flames was an image of Old Tang wiping the hilt of his knife in his "villa" in Beiping:

When he cut his finger for the thirteenth time, the blood did not fall to the ground, but flowed along the engraving of the two characters "Duke of Zhou" on the blade and into the forehead of a corpse from the Battle of Muye.

It is as if the blood of the Dragon King in reality flowed into a vessel in the fantasy world.

"Is Norton really that great? I remember him as just a lousy blacksmith."

Ying asked in confusion, slightly crushing the back cover of the phone, letting the flood of memories burst through the valve of consciousness.

The White King's mark burned a scorch mark on his forehead, and the cause and effect that had been altered by the little devils, Odin, the half-blood families... was being reorganized:

The bronze chessboard in King You's tomb suddenly flipped over.

The back of the document, inscribed with oracle bone script, reveals the "Blood Appointment Letter."

Bao Si's hairpin pierced through the chessboard, pinning Mu Ye's bloody rain to Nidhogg's eggshell.

At last.

It's the scene where Norton forges a folding knife in the Bronze City—the jade fragments inlaid on the hilt clearly come from the jade pendant at Jiang Cheng's waist!

Ying Zheng's inner monologue: "Norton and Jiang Ziya are definitely related, and their relationship is quite close!"

No wonder Jiang Cheng was able to use the Word of Power of the King of Bronze and Fire: Heaven and Earth as a Furnace!

The wailing of the two-headed dragon corpse pulled Ying Zheng's thoughts from his inner world back to the present.

The remains of the Jianmu tree, resembling the claws of a western dragon, are melting. Where the bronze liquid drips, patterns resembling the roots of the World Tree emerge on the bluestone slabs.

When the ninth drop of solution seeped into the center of the root system, the entire Zhou family courtyard suddenly tilted at a forty-five-degree angle—

It's not that the ground is tilted, but that the spacetime in which everyone is currently located has been folded into the bronze sundial!

"careful!"

Jiang Cheng suddenly lunged towards Ying Zheng.

His back was torn open with three bloody gashes by the dragon servant's sharp claws, and the silvery blood splattered on the star map, which actually ignited the hidden radiance that was missing from the Purple Palace Enclosure.

The Twenty-Eight Mansions constellation collapsed with a roar, forming a bronze divine tree phantom in the void—the very projection of the towering divine tree from Sanxingdui!

The moment the divine tree branch pierced through the two-headed dragon corpse, Ying Zheng faintly heard the sound of a mirror shattering coming from the villa in Beiping.

Chen Motong's exclamation came through the causal thread:

"The Norton relief in the coffin has come to life! He's carving with a folding knife... carving two words..."

Ying Zheng pressed, "Which two words? Finish your sentence!"

Chen Motong: "Jiang... Jiang Cheng..."

From the depths of the Destiny Line, the booming sound of chime bells suddenly rang out!

The sound sometimes resembled the roar of a dragon from the Bronze City in the Three Gorges.

Sometimes it sounds like the wailing of ghosts in the tomb of King You.

Finally, it became the jade chime of Jiang Ziya, used for divination in Qishan.

As the bell tolled for the seventh time, Zhou Zhenyang's nine vertebrae simultaneously shattered.

The flying bronze fragments formed an armillary sphere in the air—

It is the "Covering Heaven Diagram" recorded in the "Zhoubi Suanjing"!

"So you're reenacting the Hun Tian Theory!" Jiang Cheng said slowly, drawing the equator and ecliptic in the air with his God-Slaying Whip as a brush.

The Book of Shi states that the four directions, both above and below, are called the universe.

From ancient times to the present, it is called the universe.

Using the black king's egg as the cosmic pivot and dragons as the four constellations?

That's truly a brilliant tactic!

Upon hearing Jiang Cheng's words, Ying Zheng looked in that direction!

The Netherfire, following Ying Zheng's gaze, spread towards the star map, burning the bronze fragments to a dark red.

As those fragments fell, each one reflected a scene from a different time and space:

The battlefield of Muye, the tomb of King You, the bottom of the Three Gorges... and finally, the moment when Jiang Cheng picks up the jade scepter in the Sanxingdui underground palace.

Jiang Cheng suddenly let out a roar that sounded inhuman.

His veins bulged like the patterns of molten gold in bronze, and he gripped the God-Slaying Whip tightly in his palm, which had been forged into a measuring ruler for measuring the heavens.

The instant the ruler struck the illusory image of the World Tree, Ying Zheng witnessed the most terrifying truth—

That bronze divine tree was not a sacrificial ritual object at all, but rather a tool for drawing power from the black king's eggshell!

The black luster flowed along the roots of the bronze tree, up the veins of the bark, and filled the emerald green leaves of the paulownia tree!

"The Blood Sacrifice is complete!" A scream from the phone suddenly burst out. "Old Tang rushed into your bedroom, gripping his folding knife tightly, and was trying to pierce the black egg's shell to absorb it..."

As if in response to her call, the two-headed dragon corpse knelt down with a thud.

Both heads turned eastward simultaneously, and the dragon kissed Zhang Kaifa as he sang his final hymn.

Those obscure dragon scripts condensed in the air into blood-red oracle bones, each character burning—

It is the eulogy for Nidhogg's resurrection!

Ying Zheng did not blame anyone. He trampled on the two-headed dragon corpse and bent down to reach out.

He reached out towards the bronze sundial at the dragon corpse's neck, but the moment he touched it, he was sucked into a spacetime vortex.

Countless fragments of memory meshed together like bronze gears, and Ying Zheng saw:

Jiang Ziya injected mercury into his own veins.

King Wen used yarrow stalks to weave a thread of destiny.

Meanwhile, the Duke of Zhou was placing a bronze coffin over the black king's egg—

The scheme of three thousand years overlaps at this moment, and all the threads of cause and effect are tied to that folding knife engraved with "Duke of Zhou," the blade in Norton's hand.

Ying Zheng wielded the Nameless Sword, piercing through the dragon-patterned oracle bones floating in the air.

When the nameless sword pierced the last oracle bone, the entire Zhou family mansion suddenly fell silent.

The moonlight became clear again, and the bronze sundial shattered into ice crystals scattered all over the ground.

Only Jiang Cheng, dressed in white, knelt beneath the illusory shadow of the World Tree, his figure exceptionally clear—

The measuring ruler in his hand was pointing directly at Ying Zheng's brow, and the sound of chains breaking came from deep within the White King's mark.

The moment the cold light of the Measuring Ruler touched the White King's mark, Ying Zheng heard it—the sound of bronze chains snapping echoed in his veins.

Those memories, bound deep within our genes, suddenly awaken, like a bronze city rising from the bottom of the Three Gorges.

Moonlight pierced through his pupils, casting a star map of the Battle of Muye onto his retina—it turned out that what broke under the chariot back then was not yarrow stalks, but the bronze wedge that King Wen had pierced into the black king's egg!

Jiang Cheng's roar suddenly turned into the clear and melodious sound of a jade chime.

Oracle bone script tattoos appeared on his skin, each character devouring the halo of the World Tree's phantom.

When the measuring ruler struck the void for the ninth time, Ying Zheng witnessed the most absurd scene:

Old Tang, in his "villa" in Beiping, was cutting open his own chest with a folding knife, and on his beating heart, the same oracle bone script that Jiang Cheng was writing on his face was clearly engraved!

From the character Li Wuyue, who is suspected to be the Dragon King in the Summer Mourning storyline, we know that the Dragon King's human form has two dragon hearts.

Even if a heart is removed, it can quickly regenerate from the right to the left, or vice versa.

"This is the true blood sacrifice..." A voice from the depths of destiny suddenly trembled with tears, "Forging the key with three thousand years of karma..."

Before he could finish speaking, the ground in the Zhou family courtyard suddenly collapsed.

The bluestone slabs turned into quicksand, revealing the bronze city hanging upside down below—

Those entangled among the bronze branches are not the remains of merfolk, but the golden eyes of the Jiang family members from generation to generation!

Mercury vines grew in their eye sockets, their roots all connected to the central, empty black eggshell.

Ying Zheng swung his sword to strike the Heavenly Ruler, but the Netherfire turned into silver threads the moment it touched Jiang Cheng.

Those threads pierce through time and space, stitching together the torrential rain of the Battle of Muye with the moonlight of this moment.

When the first drop of blood mixed with oracle bone script fell on the black king's eggshell, the entire bronze city began to tremble, and the hexagrams of the sixty-four hexagrams of the Book of Changes appeared on the surface of the eggshell—each line was seeping blood.

"Stop Old Tang!"

Chen Motong's scream came from underground.

Through the cracks in the bronze sarcophagus, her golden eyes reflected the eerie smile of the Norton relief—the folding knife was now stuck in the "Qian" position of the eggshell, and the two characters "Zhou Gong" on the hilt were sucking blood rain!

Jiang Cheng suddenly turned to look at Ying Zheng.

His left eye was a dark purple-gold pupil, and in the pupil of his right eye appeared a bronze sundial, its needle rotating along the dragon patterns on the black king's eggshell:

"Sorry for what happened earlier, I got a little out of control."

"Sir, we've all been tricked!"

"Look, this is what the Investiture of the Gods truly looks like."

As the measuring ruler swept across the void, the suspended blood beads suddenly arranged themselves into the Investiture of the Gods register—

Every name is burning, and emerging from the ashes are all the faces of the Jiang family!

Ying Zheng suddenly took half a step back, his lower back slamming into the cold bronze branches.

The remains of the Jianmu tree suddenly came to life, its bark cracking open with countless tiny fissures, each containing a rotating golden eye.

When the ninety-ninth pupil opened, spacetime was suddenly shattered into fragments—

Ying Zheng saw Bao Si smiling in the tomb of King You.

The hairpin in her hand was not a jade artifact at all, but rather half a bronze wedge, with the word "Nidhogg" engraved on the head in cuneiform script.

Ying Zheng saw that Norton was not forging the Seven Deadly Sins in the Bronze City, but was forging dragon bones into carving knives;

Finally, during the night in the Sanxingdui underground palace, Jiang Cheng did not find the jade scepter at all, but rather pulled it out from his own rib. Or perhaps Jiang Ziya refined his own rib into the jade scepter!

Jiang Cheng suddenly pierced his own shoulder blade with the measuring rod, barely managing to maintain his sanity.

Amidst the excruciating pain, the sweet, metallic scent of evaporating mercury filled Jiang Cheng's eyes. His face cracked as if under the moonlight, revealing a bronze mask beneath his waist—

The mask clearly showed the pained expression on King Wen's face as he deduced the Eight Trigrams!

"Why do we strive so hard to learn more when we know that the more we know, the more pain we will experience?"