“Where is here?” Daming can’t see anything in the dark.
“Master!”
Daming is scared by the calling “Master”. He looks back and sees a beautiful girl in an ancient white palace suit standing behind him.
Not until today does Daming know what is a heavenly beauty that can launch a thousand ships in his life.
“You are?” Daming hesitates. Beautiful! She’s so beautiful that Daming suspects she’s not even human.
“You can call me Shijian. I’m the elf of the sword,” Shijian answers him kindly.
“Elf!”
“You’re not human?” Daming says, pointing to Shijian. She nods.
“So, I’m dead now,” Daming turns to himself. Shijian shakes her head negatively.
“What’s exactly going on here?” Daming scratches his head.
“Accurately speaking, we are in your consciousness now.”
“Hold on! Why do you call me master?” Daming yells.
“Do you remember pulling out a sword? Whoever pulls out Cangming and survives the lightening strike, is my master.”
“Eh?” Daming muses.
“Oh yes! Master, where is Jue? If it comes out again, many people will die.”
“Who is Jue?”
“The devil dragon sealed by the sword Cangming.”
“I’ve eaten it,” he blurts out.
“Are you kidding me,” Shijian is stunned, “It’s a dragon.”
“Why should I? Oh, yes, how can I get out?”
“Master, are you leaving? I have a lot to tell you.” Shijian looks sad.
“We’ll talk later.”
“Well! Master, please call my name when you need help. I’m gonna take you out.”
※※※
Daming really wakes up this time. He opens his eyes and sees only the white ceiling. He tries to turn around, but finds his neck cannot move. Not only the neck, but his body is also hard. “What happened?”
“You woke up.”
“Sister, what are you doing here? Where am I?” asks Daming. But even before he finishes, his sister Yijun Wang stuffs an apple in his mouth to stop him from speaking.
Then she takes another apple and continues to peel, saying slowly,
“This is hospital. A few days ago, you were sent here, looking so dire that everyone thought you would die. Mom was sad. It’s surprising you are stronger than cockroaches and survive finally.”
Daming is trying to chew the apple blocking his mouth, thinking, “Hospital? So funny. Although I’m fat, but I’m so healthy that I haven’t entered hospital more than five times in sixteen years. Unbelievable I’m in hospital now.”
“Sister, is it serious?” Daming is curious after finishing the apple. He doesn’t feel any discomfort.
“Seventy-six fractures, third-degree burns over the whole body, eighty percent of muscle necrosis. The following is worse, do you wanna me to continue?” Yijun Wang is embarrassed.
“Enough, it sounds that I’m all but dead.”
“Right, the doctors decide to enlist you into medical miracle. If they know that you wake up so early, they will be crazier.”
“Knock, knock,” there comes a knock at the door.
A beautiful girl in a pink and blue dress walks into the room, holding a bouquet of flowers.
“Campus queen, what are you doing here?”
“My god! How can you wake up so soon after being hurt so badly?” the campus queen is surprised.
“Yes. Why I’m still alive? Is it because of the dragon?” Daming thinks secretly to himself.
“Ah! I remember I was struck by lightning. What happened later?” Daming asks.
“We fell into the sea. A fishing boat just stopped by and saved us.”
“What about the island?”
“It disappeared,” the girl says simply.
“What island?” Yijun is curious.
“Nothing,” Daming doesn’t want to answer. Shall he tell his sister that they stayed on a fairy island for three days and ate a dragon?
“It’s good you wake up, so I feel better,” the girl seems relieved.
“You have something in my home, I’ll bring here someday,” the girl adds.
“Ok,” Daming just answers.
“Have a good rest, I’m leaving now. Oh yes, I’ve been meaning to ask you a question,” the girl says.
“What’s that?”
“Why do you keep calling me the campus queen these days? It makes you frivolous.”
Daming blushes slightly and says with a snigger,
“I don’t mean to. I’ve forgotten your name and can’t address you what I will.”
“Shihan, Shihan Lin, that’s my name. Remember it.”
※※※
Yes, Daming likes sleeping very much. But it doesn’t mean that he likes lying still in the bed, especially being wrapped up like a mummy. Are there mummies so fat?
With a strength he doesn’t know where he had possessed, he bursts out of the plaster cast and leaves the hospital under doctors and nurses’ astonished eyes, creating another medical miracle.
The day goes the same as before. Daming goes to school, has meals and goes to bed every day. It seems that he has forgotten what had happened.
Until one day,
“Dum…” the alarm clock begins its daily task. So annoying!
It’s already past 6 o’clock. Although he is reluctant, he still gets up. Missing the bus means being late for school, which is the pain in the heart of all students. Sigh! The bus is as lovely as hateful.
Daming is squeezing the toothpaste with sleepy eyes. Suddenly he is frightened by his face in the mirror.
Yeah, that’s him. But the boy has blue hairs and eyes, completely different.
“What is it? What a joke! If I go to school like this, I’ll be stopped by the instructor at the gate, let alone enter the school.”
Daming rushes back to the room and puzzles his brain, “What shall I do, what shall I do? That’s it!”
“Shijian, Shijian, are you there? Please answer me.” Daming whispers.
“Here!” Shijian appears suddenly with a loud voice. Frightened, Daming covers her mouth.
Shijian is different this time. It’s a mini version about 20cm tall. So lovely!
But it isn’t the time to be moved. Daming points at his hairs,
“Why?”
“Master, did you eat Jue’s internal core?” Shijian is serious.
Internal core? Is it the mass of strange object?
“Yes,” Daming has to be honest.
“That’s it. The internal core is the soul of the dragon, which is the essence and spirit of the dragon. You eat it and don’t know how to assimilate it, so it begins to have feedback damage.”
“Feedback damage? What do you mean?” Daming is puzzled.
“That is to say, if you don’t control it and let the dragon soul grows, you will…” Shijian can’t go on.
“What is gonna happen? Tell me!” Daming is anxious.
“You will turn into another Jue.”
Daming passes out.
※※※
Daming is absent from school today. In his six years of primary school and three years of middle school, he was a good student who went to school on time every day and got the Perfect Attendance when he graduated.
“Never thought I can’t keep the record in vocational school,” Daming is a little irritated, “but there’s something more important now.”
“Is there a workaround?” Daming asks.
“Yes, master, did you find an iron box beside Cangming?
Daming takes it out. “You mean this,” he shows Shijian the iron box.
“Yeah, you open it first.”
Since last time Shihan Lin gave these stuffs back to Daming (including two dragon horns, a spine, a couple of teeth, an iron box), he has checked the iron box many times. But the box doesn’t even have a seam. How to open it?
“How do I open it?” he turns to Shijian.
“You have to use Cangming.”
“Where is it?” Daming can’t find the sword.
“Right there!” Shijian points at Daming, “in your body.”
“That’s not funny. Sword swallowing is not my hobby.”
Looking at Daming’s suspicious face, Shijian says hurriedly, “It’s true. Cangming has merged into your body.”
“Shijian, don’t call me master please, and don’t use deferential words when talking to me. It makes my skin crawl.”
“But…” Shijian hesitates.
“Call me Ming. Everyone I know calls me so.”
“Ming…”
“That’s right!” Daming is satisfied.
“Well. You mean Cangming is in my body, so how can I take it out?”
“Just open your hand. I’ll do the rest.”
Daming follows and immediately feels the whole right hand numb, as if it doesn’t belong to him. A ball of lightning appears in the palm, but when the light disperses…
“Wow! Is this a sword? It’s even smaller than a nail clipper.”
There is a super mini sword about 5cm long floating on Daming’s palm.
“In terms of your cultivation base, you can only use a small part of the power of Cangming. The better you improve yourself, the more power you can master,” Shijian explains.
“Um, then what?” Daming asks.
“Cut the iron box open with the sword.”
Cangming is small, but it is really sharp. Daming gently slits on the box, the entire iron box is spread out, falling out of a book, a white jade box.
Daming opens the jade box, there is a golden pill.
“Swallow it.” Shijian says hurriedly.
“Are you serious?” Daming swallows it reluctantly. It doesn’t taste good. Then Daming feels a hot ball is burning like a fire in his stomach, but he can stand it.
“What’s this?” Daming asks with a straight face.
“Pneuma of my former master.” Shijian looks blue. Maybe she also has memories that she doesn’t want to recall.
Daming picks up the book and scans it. He doesn’t know what the book is made of. It’s very heavy and cold, like a piece of soft metal.
“Tian Di Scriptures (lit. Heaven and Earth Scriptures),” Daming reads the title out, a strange character.
“Why I can read it?” Daming asks.
“The manual is too strong, except for those who have taken the pneuma and me, no one can understand it.”
“Why is it preserved?”
“Originally, if Jue escapes, someone can subdue it with the help of the manual, but I don’t expect you to eat it.”
Daming is giggling.
“The first half of the manual is some physical moves of Kungfu. What we are gonna to practice, is the cultivation method.”
Daming turns to the cultivation method. There are a lot of names of acupoint. Gosh!
“What’s wrong?” Shijian wonders, looking at Daming’s dull face.
“I don’t major in Chinese medicine. Do you think a vocational school student who pisses away time every day will know where a crop of acupoints are?”
“That’s a question.” Shijian muses.
Daming is also bothered.
“Ah, I know what!” Shijian comes up with an idea.
“Huh?” Shijian enters into Daming’s body before he finishes.
“I’ll show you a few times. You try to memorize them.” Shijian’s voice comes into Daming’s mind.
Daming feels a cold stuff running around in his body.
“Oh no, it’s itchy. Don’t go there! Ha…Woo…, No!” Daming laughs and cries by turns.
Tossing around for a long time, Daming finally learns the cycle of the introduction in the first-stage, but he is so tired and falls asleep in bed.
A month goes by.
When…
The clock starts its daily task again with awful noise, but time shifts to 4 am.
According to Shijian, Daming has to spend at least 2 hours every morning to practice the method, only then can he eliminate the sign of converting into a dragon.
Daming doesn’t never think of quitting practice. He had been lazy once. As a result, he had grown scales and even the paws came out.
He was scared to death. From then on, Daming has practiced every day. However, since practicing the Tian Di Scriptures, he is better in spirit, even he doesn’t sleep.
Daming had asked Shijian the question, but she said,
“I have no idea.”
“Why?” Daming looks sadly.
“Because no one has ever eaten a dragon before, and also practiced the manual.”
“What will happen to me?”
“I don’t know.”
※※※
The first class in the afternoon is math. Some students are still sleepy. The teacher is sputtering on the dais, but students are slumbering, drooling at the corner of mouth.
It’s so hot in May, let alone June and July. Is it as hot as the oven?
Daming also wants to sleep very much, but he has been in good spirits recently. He can’t fall asleep nor listen to the teacher, so he has to be in a daze.
“You can enter the second-level cultivation method,” Shijian tells him. In order to prevent Shijian from wandering in his body, Daming buys a mannequin used in Chinese medicine, which is marked with acupoints, and he tries his best to study them.
However, many of the strange points in the book are not yet discovered in modern times, and are pointed out by Shijian.
“It’s so boring!” Sitting on the desk, Shijian is enjoying the lesson.
“Only the talents who attain perfect cultivation base can see deity like me. But that’s impossible,” concludes she after one month of observation. “You guys of this era are too weak.”
Daming just smiles wryly. He can’t figure out why Shijian is so interested in knowledge. Shijian answers,
“Live and Learn.”
Shijian is focused on the teacher, but Daming can’t find anything to do. “Well, I’m gonna practice method.”
Daming had to concentrate on practicing with all his heart before. When he closed eyes to meditate, he had no feeling to the external events and wouldn’t wake up until time is up.
This is the first time that Daming practices lazily at his desk.
For the “Qi deviation” often mentioned in Wuxia novel, Daming dares not force too much, and pushes slowly the Qi in his body. Nevertheless, the Qi is indeed flowing round the meridians.
“Great!” To his delight, he gets distracted and the Qi gathered disperses.
“I need more practice.”
The discovery makes him abandon his study and focus on method research. His school results were already average, and now fall back to the last.
His efforts are rewarded anyway. No matter in class and in PE lesson, Daming can play ball games and chat, practice method at the same time.
But it also costs Daming one month to be there. When he brings back to himself, an urgent problem is facing him.
That is,
finals.