Chapter 120: CH 119

The Road to Collecting the Soul, The Dragon Realm – Part Two

The Dragon Realm matriarch's residence was an eight-storey courtyard, with two imposing stone statues of blue dragons at the entrance, one on the left and one on the right, and a vermillion gate inlaid with dark gold bronze rings.

Yan Yuan had just come out of the last realm of soul awareness when he was drawn here by the soul gathering box. Xuan Long didn't tell him much about his family, only mentioning that his mother didn't like him very much.

If she could ruthlessly cut off one of her own son's horns and then expel him from the Dragon Realm, that was more than dislike, it must have been a blood feud.

He had never asked Xuan Long why, but now he had to find out why his mother had treated him so cruelly. Had the young dragon really made some unforgivable mistake when he was young?

Without stopping outside, Yan Yuan raised his hand and cast a spell on himself, and in a few moments he entered the realm of soul consciousness.

After passing through the closed doorway, he saw a small bridge and a harmonious scene of flowers and birds in the courtyard. After passing through some stone arches, he reached the backyard.

Inside the hall, the family was gathered around the table, having their meal.

The beautiful woman at the main seat must be Xuan Long's mother, dressed in a red silk dress with two thick and slender dragon horns extending from her hair, smiling gently as she brought chopsticks up to feed the children and said a few trivial homely words, telling them not to play around and to practise well.

The oldest of them looked close to eighteen years old, while the youngest looked like a human of seven or eight years old.

Yan Yuan had seen him as a child in Xuan Long's nightmares. He should have been the youngest child in the family, and when he was expelled he looked about the same as a human at four or five years old, very skinny and small.

Among the six children at the table, Xuan Long was the only one missing.

The family was eating happily together, and it should have been easy to notice that someone was missing, but no one at the dinner table mentioned Xuan Long, as if his presence in the family was equivalent to air.

As Yan Yuan was lost in thought, soft, almost cautious footsteps came from behind him, as well as a tender young child's voice.

"... Mother."

Yan Yuan reflexively turned to look and saw the young Xuan Long standing outside the doorway, his icy turquoise eyes gazing silently at the woman in the middle of the main table. Even though his face was expressionless, Yan Yuan could see the longing in his heart, the longing for his mother to allow him to eat with his family, or to hug him and smile at him.

Yet there was neither.

The woman's originally loving expression turned icy cold the moment her gaze touched the young dragon's appearance, and she threw the chopsticks in her hand at him in a fury.

"Get lost, don't call me mother, I don't have a son like you!"

The chopsticks struck Xiao Long's cheek with spiritual energy embedded in them. Xiao Long ducked his head to the side but failed to avoid it, the tip of the chopsticks leaving a deep and long bloody slash on his cheek.

He seemed to be used to being treated like this, he didn't make a fuss when he was hurt, he didn't even raise his hand to wipe the blood dripping from the wound, he just stood there with his head to the side, seemingly frozen in time.

"Get lost, you ugly bastard."

"Don't interfere with our meal."

"Lonely Heavenly Star."

"The sight of you makes me sick to my stomach."

Words of rejection from the siblings clamoured out of their mouths.

As if he hadn't heard, Xiao Long stared at the ground and said, "Mother, I'm hungry."

The woman sneered, "Go find your own food if you are hungry."

"It is already a great gift to give birth to you and to allow you to live. It is better for evil creatures like you to starve to death."

The people closest to him were expecting him to die.

Xiao Long obviously didn't understand what he had done wrong. No matter how strong he was, he was still just a child. He stood there, his knees not yet as high as the threshold, and whispered with his head bowed, “Mother... I know I was wrong."

The woman's face was grim: "What did you do wrong?"

"The mistake was that you should not have been born."

"Get out!"

The woman was so disgusted with him that she slammed the bowl in front of her, shattering it with a crash on the floor. If he didn't leave, the woman would probably have tipped the table over.

Yan Yuan clenched his fists, almost wanting to rush over and clutch the woman's collar and question her about why she was treating Xuan Long like this. He was so young, what mistake could he have made? Are the rest of the children heavenly gifts, while he was born lowly?

Yet no one present could see him.

Knowing full well that his family would not accept him, Xiao Long slowly turned and left the spot. Yan Yuan followed behind him quietly, watching him walk through the long corridor and through the round archway to a huge lake not far from his home.

It was a harsh winter and the lake was thick with ice. Xiao Long tried, with little skill, to cut through the ice, but failed every time.

With no one to teach him how to cultivate, there was no way to cut through the ice with his weak self-taught power, so he could not catch the fish underneath to satisfy his hunger.

Most of the animals on the mountain hibernated and there was not even a shadow to be found, so he was hungry for days before he went to beg his mother.

It didn't take long to exhaust his spiritual energy and he sat down exhausted on the shore, bending his legs and resting his chin. He looked at the sun meeting the horizon in the distance, its golden rays reflecting beautifully on the ice in sparkling waves...

It was lunchtime, and the dragon children who had been playing outside earlier were called back by their parents to eat.

Every little dragon had a home that belonged to them, and parents who loved them and would do anything to defend their young if they were wronged outside.

Why was he the only one who didn't have a home...

His mother had said that it was not his home, and that the reason she was willing to give him a utility room to sleep in was because it was where he was born. But being born here did not mean that it was his home, nor did it mean that his brothers and sisters were his kin.

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So where were his relatives... and where was his home...

Xiao Long couldn't figure it out.

From a very young age, he didn't cry much. A child who falls and cries in pain and is picked up anxiously by his family to comfort him will have the ability to express his grief, and a child who falls and bleeds without anyone looking at him will gradually lose the ability to shed tears.

No one will care if he cries as loudly as he can, so it would be a waste of the little energy he had.

He just sat there quietly on the shore. The blood on his face had already dried, the wound was two inches long and the flesh was hideously turned out, but he didn't know how to treat it himself.

How could such a young child dress his own wounds? He probably just endured the pain all the time, and as he endured it, it healed.

Yan Yuan knew that Xuan Long had had a hard time as a child, but he never expected him to suffer to such an extent.

No wonder... no wonder he was so easily deceived. A few sweet words and intimate intercourse tricked him into handing over his inner elixir and paying with his life.

Because no one has ever treated him well.

Thinking about his former self, he treated Xuan Long worse than his family did. His A'Po, who had never had a good life, thought he had finally found someone to rely on, but actually had a foot in hell...

Yan Yuan's heart ached beyond his control. He adjusted his complexion and was about to show himself in front of the young Xuan Long when he suddenly heard several sharp dragon roars in the distance and five or six small dragons of different colours rushed down from the sky, landing in the blink of an eye and taking human form.

A group of dragons walked towards Xiao Long who was sitting on the ground. One of them, a white dragon boy who looked about ten years old in human age, put his hands together on his lips and shouted at Xiao Long in mock surprise.

"Yo, the little bastard has come out to make a fool of himself again!"

The green dragon boy next to him scoffed as he walked away, "He must have been kicked out by his mother again, he's always sleeping outside his house in the middle of the night."

"It's so pitiful, not having a father is not enough, but even his mother doesn't love him, hahaha."

The silver dragon boy: "He deserves it, who told him to kill his father?"

The white dragon looked at him in surprise, "Who did you hear that from?"

The silver dragon lowered his voice: "My mother said that a hundred years ago, when the matriarch had a difficult birth, the matriarch's husband went to Meimeng Mountain to find the Heavenly Fruit to save her, and was bitten to death by the divine beast guarding the Heavenly Fruit, and there was not even a corpse remaining. It was this ugly monster that killed his father."

"If this ugly monster hadn't existed, his father would still be in good health with the matriarch's family. He is a disaster."

This matter has always been a taboo in the dragon clan, an eternal pain in the matriarch's heart, and no dragon is allowed to mention it. The silver dragon boy, who had overheard his parents, didn't dare to make too much noise and told his playmate to keep it a secret, so he continued to bully the young Xiao Long, going over to him and kicking him in the back with his foot.

"Hear that, ugly, you're a disaster."

A dusty footprint was left on his young back, which stood out on his black linen tunic. They were more than a year older than Xiao Long, who was no match for them, so he stood up silently and tried to leave, but these dragons saw that he was unprotected and pushed him back to the ground.

"Did we let you leave?!"

His small body rolled on the ground, his back hitting a sharp stone and cutting a hole in his tunic, and he was in too much pain to speak. The more silent he was, the harder the onlookers bullied him, teasing him by lifting their legs and running over him like monkeys, and Xiao Long curled up his body to protect his head.

"Ugly, ugly, slightly slightly slightly~"

"Cut the icy lake open and throw him in."

A black dragon boy suddenly appeared in the sight of the dragons.

The dragons froze.

"This... is not good."

Dragons like to play in the water, but if the water temperature is too low, it is very uncomfortable. In past years, there were young dragons who froze to death while playing in the lake. The lake suddenly froze over and the little dragons couldn't break through the ice, so they froze to death over time and the parents cried so hard.

"If he lives, sooner or later he will kill the whole clan." The black dragon boy stared at Xiao Long on the ground with an expressionless face, as if he were looking at a dead thing.

"This is your own brother...” The silver dragon who was gloating earlier was afraid.

The black dragon boy swept his eyes across the knife, and the silver dragon restrained his voice.

In the end, however bold they were, they did not dare to kill the dragon openly, and left Xiao Long on the ground.

When Xiao Long got up from the ground with difficulty, Yan Yuan wanted to hug him... A heavy rain suddenly fell from the sky, the sky became darker to the naked eye, and the originally frozen lake turned into a lush forest.

Yan Yuan understood that it was Xuan Long's nightmare that had transformed the scene.

As he walked in the pouring rain, he heard the sound of a whip cracking in the distance...

The woman in red was soaked to the skin, her hair plastered woefully to her face, and she carried a long whip in her hand, whipping viciously at Xiao Long who had fallen limp in the mud.

"You god-damned lone star..."

"It's not enough that you killed my husband! Now you want to kill my son!! I'll beat you to death, I'll beat you to death!!!"

Xiao Long was whipped to the bone, blood and muddy water mixed together in dark streams as he struggled to crawl over and grab the hem of the woman's coat.

"Mother... I know I was wrong."

"I was wrong..."

Where had he been wrong?

If his birth had been a mistake, if he had been born to bear all this pain, then he would rather never have lived.

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