Translator: Noodletown Translated Editor: Noodletown Translated
When Hao Ren got home, Grandma and the girls were eating steaming dumplings in the living room.
“Grandma! I’m back!” Hao Ren called out.
“Bad boy! You went out early morning and came back at this late hour!” Grandma pointed at the kitchen with a long face. “Go and get yourself a bowl of dumplings!”
“Ok!” Hao Ren heaved a sigh of relief, thinking he was lucky that he could return. Otherwise, Grandma would never see her beloved grandson again.
“Why is there a tear in your clothes?” Seeing the tear in his shirt on the shoulder, Grandma looked concerned and asked.
“I slipped and fell; the road is too slippery,” Hao Ren said.
“You’re too careless!” Grandma walked over immediately and checked Hao Ren’s shoulder. She only relaxed when she saw no wound beneath the tear.
Zhao Yanzi and Xie Yujia looked at Hao Ren, wondering where he had been. If they knew Hao Ren had ventured into the center of the Demon Sea, they would be astonished.
“Where are my mom and dad?” Hao Ren asked.
“Your dad went out immediately after eating the dumplings. Your mom went to the meteorological station to see the data or something,” Grandma said.
With only the Lu sisters, Zhao Yanzi, and Xie Yujia keeping Grandma company, it was quieter than yesterday.
It began to drizzle, and Hao Ren saw a pale rainbow-like light outside of the small garden of the house. He thought it was the array formation built by Zhen Congming.
“Where’s Congming?” Hao Ren asked Grandma.
“Little Xue’s family returned from their trip, and they picked up Congming in the morning to take him to the amusement park,” Grandma said.
It seemed that Zhen Congming was doing well in his love life.
Hao Ren filled a bowl with dumplings, still feeling unsettled when he thought about his experience in the Demon Sea.
Rumble… Little White devoured the dumplings with meat filling from a china bowl at Hao Ren’s feet.
The lazy and food-loving Little White lived a comfortable life with Hao Ren on land. If it lived in the Demon Sea, it would have died hundreds of times with its weak strength.
“Ruff! Ruff!”
After devouring ten dumplings, Little White raised its head and barked at Grandma. It didn’t like the usual food but seemed to like the newly-made dumplings with meat filling.
“Little White’s appetite has grown!” Grandma moved the last six dumplings in her bowl into Little White’s pan.
“Bad dog!” Seeing Little White’s shameless look with its tongue sticking out, Hao Ren patted it on the head.
“I risked my life in the Demon Sea, and you stayed home enjoying the comforts,” he thought.
Little White looked at Hao Ren with innocent eyes as if it were saying, “What? Can’t I eat a bit more than usual?”
“Linlin, Lili, do you still have the rice paper and ink brush left from last time?” Hao Ren asked.
“We do! Gongzi!” Lu Linlin and Lu Lili jumped up and took out everything from the drawers below the TV.
“Hehe! Ren, have you begun practicing calligraphy?” Grandma asked while helping the Lu sisters spread the rice paper.
“I’m doing it for fun…” Hao Ren said. Tomorrow would be the first activity hosted by the Calligraphy Club, and it would be a good chance for the dragon cultivators to bond with each other. However, he wondered if Xu Ke would come and make trouble.
Xie Yujia brought over a glass of water to soak the ink brush.
Lu Linlin and Lu Lili ground the ink for Hao Ren, and the black ink began to accumulate on the inkstone quickly.
“Grandma, you say the words, and I’ll write them,” Hao Ren said to Grandma.
“Well…” Grandma’s face wrinkled with a smile. “Then, I’ll say something simple. ‘The bright sun is setting behind the mountain; the yellow river is running into the ocean. If you want to see one thousand miles further, you need to climb one story higher.’ Ren, I want you to get better and better.”
Hao Ren remembered that this was the first Tang Dynasty poem which Grandma taught him. Having just fled from the Demon Sea full of demon beasts, he felt like his morale was boosted after hearing this poem.
The ink flowed from the tip of the ink brush, and the neatly styled characters appeared on the paper.
“Ren, your calligraphy is quite good!” Grandma said happily when she saw the characters.
“This is just a warm-up; I’ll do them properly in a minute.” With a smile, Hao Ren stared at the white rice paper, writing the characters on his mind. Then, focusing his attention on the ink brush, he wrote down the characters smoothly.
Hao Ren used the Mystic Water Sword Techniques when he was writing, and each of the 20 characters was elegant. As a whole, they looked grave.
[Hao Ren]
He signed his name, and the two characters were elegant. After the name, he wrote the date with ‘mid-autumn’ behind them.
Looking at the poem, Grandma was amazed. Ink brush writing was difficult since the pen was soft. However, Hao Ren’s wrist moved with such skill as if he had complete control of each ink drop on the Xuan paper.
The 20 characters were impressive.
“Excellent!” Staring at the paper for a few seconds, Grandma finally found her voice.
She was surprised that her grandson was so skilled in calligraphy.
“Gongzi, this is wonderful!” Lu Linlin and Lu Lili said immediately.
Studying the characters, Xie Yujia felt like each of them was perfect; neither too full nor too thin. She felt like the characters formed a picture together.
Zhao Yanzi looked at the rice paper and then at Hao Ren, wondering how Hao Ren could write such awesome calligraphies.
In fact, Hao Ren had used the Mystic Water Sword Techniques in his writing, in which each stroke of the characters contained sword spirits, full of ambitious aspirations.
The elegant sword spirits in the characters were obvious even to the people who didn’t understand calligraphy.
“Well…” Hao Ren exhaled. “I still have an errand to run. Linlin, Lili, frame the writings, and I’ll take it to school.”
“Ok, Gongzi!” Lu Linlin and Lu Lili puffed their pink cheeks and blew at the rice paper before rolling it up carefully. “We’ll frame it for you.”
“You’re going out again? You must spend some time with the girls,” Grandma complained when she saw that Hao Ren was about to leave.
Hao Ren smiled and said, “Tomorrow, the school has a club event. Grandma, come and visit with Mom and Dad.”
“Ok. Are you a member of the club, Ren?” Grandma asked.
“It’s the Calligraphy Club that I created, Grandma,” Hao Ren answered.
“Ren, you established a club! Is the club something like an interest group?” Grandma asked happily.
“Yeah, like that,” Hao Ren smiled. Since they were all going to school tomorrow, Grandma would be left at home alone. It would be better if she went to school and saw the event.
“An interest group. Then, there won’t be a lot of people. Good, I’ll take the opportunity to visit Little Su,” Grandma said. She had never been to Hao Ren’s school and missed Su Han as well.
Seeing Grandma in high spirit, Hao Ren gave a kick to Little White who had been hiding under the table.
Now that he had delivered the elixir pills to Penglai Island, he wanted to trade the contribution points for things in the Dragon God Shrine and get some rest.
After his narrow escape from the Demon Sea, he hoped that he could trade for some good stuff that would make his dangerous adventure worthwhile.
Little White rolled out from under the table and trotted to the door with Hao Ren.
Bang! After walking a few steps, Hao Ren created an array formation, and Little White changed into its snow lion form.
He thought it would be better not to use the purple gold hairpin to travel to the Dragon God Shrine. Besides, he wanted Little White to get some exercise since the latter was getting lazy.
After reaching level 4, Little White had grown bigger, and its speed was faster. Hao Ren hit its rump with a sword energy, urging it to fly faster.
“Wu…” Little White grumbled, sounding like its feeling got hurt.
“Don’t fake it! You’re a level 4 demon beast now, but you’re still so lazy! Here, I got you a gift.” Hao Ren bumped its head with a fist. Then, when it began to fly earnestly, he took out a red bead from his necklace.
The fist-sized bead looked like a crystal ball with dark red light and intense demonic essence!
It was the demonic core of a level 10 demon beast!
In the narrow escape from the Demon Sea, Hao Ren was not without any rewards. When the big demon kings fought with each other, they had killed many level 10 demons, and Hao Ren had collected several demonic cores that floated on the sea!
These were the demonic cores of level 10 demon beasts and thus were beneath the notice of the big demon kings. However, to ordinary cultivators, they were super precious materials!
Hao Ren felt pity that he didn’t have the chance to collect the demonic cores of the small demon kings who had died in the battles.
When that small demon king with the golden fan got killed by Hao Ren’s realm-breaking note and the lightning bolts, the demonic core had fallen into the sea. If Hao Ren had been quick, he could have picked it up with his sword energies. However, with another two small demon kings chasing after him, Hao Ren didn’t have the time to collect this demonic core, leaving this precious core to the level 10 demon beasts under the sea. Of course, they must have fought for it fiercely.
However, when the four big demon kings fought in the high sky, Hao Ren had taken the opportunity to collect six demonic cores!
A demonic core of a level 10 demon beast could sell for at least 100,000 spirit stones in the black markets on Fifth Heaven!
Hao Ren had collected six of them!
Due to his dangerous situation, Hao Ren had only picked up the demonic cores of the dead demon beasts near the golden boat. In fact, at least hundreds of level 10 demon beasts were killed!
When Little White saw this demonic core, its eyes lit up.
