After the spiritual energy was restored: Goddess girlfriends came knocking.

Ao Tianxin glanced at him in surprise; she hadn't expected Lin Chu to know this.

"You want to ask about Cang Yao, right?"

Lin Chu did not deny it.

Ao Tianxin sat down again, moved the teacup to the side, and lightly tapped the stone table with her fingertip.

A pot of wine and two jade cups appeared out of nowhere on the table.

"Drinking tea is boring. Since we're going to talk about serious matters, let's drink this."

She poured herself a glass and then poured Lin Chu a glass.

Lin Chu picked up her wine glass and obediently took a sip.

Ao Tianxin held her wine glass but didn't rush to drink.

"A fish leaping over the dragon gate cannot be achieved through mere cultivation."

"It requires the right timing, the right location, and the right people; none of these can be lacking."

"Cang Yao possesses the essence of a true dragon, and her bloodline is gradually awakening."

Ao Tianxin swirled the wine in her glass. "So she's faster than everyone else. Ever since the True Dragon's essence blood recognized her as its master, her cultivation has had almost no bottlenecks. Her cultivation level just keeps rising. What others take decades or even centuries to complete, she finishes in a few years."

"But this also means—" Ao Tianxin put down his wine glass and looked at Lin Chu, "The true dragon blood essence in her body is a more precious prey than any rare and precious treasure to those cultivators. Taking a drop of her blood essence is equivalent to decades of hard cultivation. You should know what this means to you humans with short lifespans."

Lin Chu gripped the wine glass tightly.

"She is the safest place in the Dragon Court." Ao Tianxin's voice was very calm. "The Dragon Court has a barrier, and outsiders cannot get in. She cultivates in the Abyss Pavilion, where she has teachers to guide her and fellow disciples to protect her. So when I discovered that she was frequently coming ashore, I did have the idea of ​​locking her up in the Dragon Court."

She paused, her gaze lingering on Lin Chu's face for a moment.

"But I didn't, do you know why?"

Lin Chu shook her head.

"Because every time she came back from the shore, there was a light in her eyes. That kind of light is the most precious thing to us. Cultivators talk about the 'Tao,' but what is the 'Tao'? It's not a technique, it's not a spiritual object, it's something that makes you willing to move forward."

Ao Tianxin picked up her wine glass and took a sip.

"You cannot cultivate, so your lifespan is no more than a hundred years. To me, a hundred years is just a blink of an eye."

"If we confine her in the Dragon Court and sever this bond with her, she will naturally be able to break through and even go further, but that light will be gone."

Lin Chu remained silent, her fingers tracing the rim of the glass.

"Actually, she shouldn't be here," he said, his voice low. "I locked her up."

Ao Tianxin glanced at him and suddenly smiled.

"What do you think a lock is?" She placed her wine glass on the stone table.

"She stayed by your side willingly. If she wanted to leave one day, could you stop her? You're just a mortal without any spiritual power. She could blast you across the stream with a single water arrow."

Lin Chu paused for a moment, then smiled.

"That's true."

"So don't take yourself too seriously." Ao Tianxin's tone softened.

"Whether human or demon, everyone has their own destiny. Since she chose to stay by your side, you may be her 'path' to her. If it is the 'path,' what is there to talk about as a constraint?"

Lin Chu remained silent for a moment, then drank the rest of the wine in her glass in one gulp.

Thank you.

Ao Tianxin didn't reply, but instead sighed and said something.

"Unfortunately, the tides of heaven and earth are approaching."

Lin Chu didn't quite understand and was about to ask.

Ao Tianxin waved his hand, poured himself a cup, and then spoke.

"The most crucial step in leaping over the dragon gate is called 'walking the river.' Only by truly passing this test can one be considered to have truly crossed the dragon gate."

"River crossings usually occur during periods of torrential rain, flash floods, and swollen rivers. The goal is to take advantage of the overwhelming force of the floodwaters to travel downstream and head straight for the sea."

"This road is fraught with peril, with a nine-out-of-ten chance of death."

"What's more, there are also man-made barriers." Ao Tianxin's voice deepened. "Those things have no effect on ordinary people, but they are specifically designed to kill the demons who travel along the river."

"When traveling along the river, there will be torrential rain and thunderclouds following."

"Finally, upon entering the sea, one must undergo a tribulation of lightning. It is a test of the Heavenly Dao, which cannot be avoided and can only be endured. Countless demons have failed to withstand this tribulation of lightning and have been shattered to pieces."

Lin Chu's brows furrowed more and more tightly.

"After passing the tribulation of lightning, one can be called a hidden dragon. Continue to cultivate, and when enough is accumulated, the final step is to transform into a true dragon."

"For a creature born after birth to become a true dragon is to defy the heavens. When a hidden dragon cultivates to a certain level, it will inevitably suffer a backlash from the heavens. If it fails, its body will perish and its soul will be scattered; only if it succeeds can it transform into a true dragon."

Ao Tianxin paused for a moment after saying this.

She picked up her glass, but didn't drink it; she just watched the wine swaying slightly in the glass.

"However, no true dragon has appeared in the Dragon Clan for tens of thousands of years."

Do you know why?

Lin Chu raised his glass, indicating his willingness to hear more details.

"Ten thousand years ago, there was a great war between the human race and the demon race." Ao Tianxin's voice lowered. "The demon race was defeated and retreated to the Myriad Demon Domain. Although the human race also won a pyrrhic victory, they occupied three domains. As the leader of the demon race at that time, the dragon race naturally had to be purged. After the war, the saint of the Haoran Domain, the Dao Ancestor of the Shangqing Domain, and the Buddha of the Brahma Domain joined forces to seal the dragon race's Great Dao."

"Any demon who chooses the path of dragon transformation will be subject to heavenly tribulation lightning brought down by a human saint."

"This is not an ordinary tribulation of lightning. It is a grand formation jointly set up by the three religions of the human race. It incorporates the laws of heaven, and each bolt of lightning carries the power to restrain the dragon race."

"That kind of lightning tribulation almost guarantees death."

Lin Chu tightened her grip on the wine glass.

"Therefore, over the past ten thousand years, countless young talents in the Dragon Court have either given up and remained hidden, or they have taken other paths. Some have become members of a branch of the aquatic race, while others have simply given up on evolution and focused solely on cultivating their realm. Not a single one of them has been able to reach the final step."

Ao Tianxin downed the wine in his glass in one gulp, then gave a self-deprecating laugh.

"Including myself, I am one of those who dare not take the final step."

She put down her wine glass and looked at Lin Chu.

Her eyes were beautiful phoenix eyes, but at this moment they did not contain the majesty of the Dragon Court's ruler, but rather something deep and long suppressed.

"Back then, I was among the most talented in the Hidden Abyss Pavilion, and I had a smooth journey all the way. But when it came to the final step, I stood at the last hurdle, looked around for a long time, and then I withdrew."

"I'm afraid of death." She toyed with the empty jade cup. "There's nothing wrong with admitting it. Who isn't afraid of a situation where there's no chance of survival? Of the three of us who were in the same cohort, two went and never came back. The remaining one stopped at the Hidden Dragon stage and later couldn't withstand the human hunt, so he also perished."

The courtyard remained quiet for a long time.

The wind rustled through the branches of the locust tree, and the tender buds of early spring trembled slightly in the breeze.

The croaking of frogs from the distant stream drifted over intermittently, making the silence seem even deeper.

Lin Chu remained silent for a long time before finally picking up her wine glass.

He knew that transforming into a dragon was a very difficult thing, but after listening to what Ao Tianxin said, he still felt a deep sense of despair.

"Is there no way to avoid it?"

"Avoid it?" Ao Tianxin chuckled. "The seal that even the entire Dragon Clan couldn't break back then, what can a mere mortal scholar like you do?"

As Lin Chu listened to Ao Tianxin's words, her brows gradually furrowed.

"I know what you're worried about." Ao Tianxin looked at him calmly. "You're thinking that the Dragon Transformation is so dangerous, if she stays by your side, she'll only be held back by you. It's better to let her come back to the Dragon Court with me, at least she'll have someone to protect her. You're even thinking that even if Cang Yao is unwilling, you can slowly persuade her and change her mind."

Lin Chu tacitly agreed.

Ao Tianxin gently shook her head: "In this world, everyone has their own destiny. You think that if she returns to the Dragon Court with me to cultivate in seclusion, her path to becoming a dragon will be more secure; you think you will only hinder her path. But is that really the case?"

She looked up and remembered the divination she had performed.

He sighed.