Chapter Sixty-Three: No Longer Wanting to Be the Good Child

Wu You was unable to return directly to his real-world home, instead finding himself back in the Myriad Beasts Mountain space. After one more transition, he finally appeared in his own house.

At the sound of his arrival, the Wu family all rushed over, their faces full of concern as they took in Wu You’s peculiar attire. No longer clad in coarse linen, he now wore a scholar’s robe made by the Silk Workshop in Leping City, the finest silk from head to toe. Yet no matter how beautiful, it was still ancient garb.

Zhang Guihua hurried up to Wu You, inspecting him from head to toe and feeling his arms and legs. Only after confirming he was unharmed did she finally breathe a sigh of relief.

“Xiao You, you’ve been off in ‘that place’ these past few days, haven’t you? We were worried sick, nearly called the police.”

“Huh?” Wu You looked a little bewildered. Hadn’t only a moment passed in the real world? Why did his family act like he’d been missing for ages?

“How many days was I gone?”

“Child, don’t you ever keep track of the time? Exactly six days,” Wu Jianguo interjected.

“That morning, when we were clearing your dishes, we found you’d vanished. If we hadn’t seen that you’d taken all your things and even Garuru was helping with chores as usual, we’d have thought you’d been kidnapped.”

Wu You was stunned for a moment. Calculating in his head, he realized he’d spent about seven days in the Eastern Domain—one day more than had passed here. Clearly, the flow of time in the Eastern Domain and the Myriad Beasts Mountain was no longer synchronized: time inside was no longer just a fleeting instant outside. Though, even now, it wasn’t quite one-to-one.

He was quietly relieved he’d never mentioned the time flow difference in Myriad Beasts Mountain before; otherwise, his parents would have been even more worried.

“Oh, yes, I was in ‘that place.’ It was fine. I didn’t expect to be gone so long this time—next time I’ll let you know beforehand. Look at this outfit, isn’t it stylish? Mom, I’m telling you, if you ever want beautiful clothes…”

With a few words, Wu You deftly shifted the conversation to topics that interested his family.

...

He had returned in the afternoon, and by the time dinner was done and he lay in bed, Wu You had already slipped into observation mode.

Waiting for a visa, waiting for the interview, waiting for approval? I used to be far too “well-behaved.”

Meanwhile, the Azure Dragon River had grown turbid once more, its riverbed trembling as a terrifying beast surged swiftly along. This time, there was no deliberate slowing down for the sake of theatrics.

The Azure Flood Dragon was shrouded in a thin layer of water membrane, completely isolating its true form from the river, its mastery of water reducing friction to the barest minimum. Beneath the surface, Ao Guang raced like a blue torrent, outpacing any fish or modern vessel with ease.

In less than two minutes, he shot past the confluence of the Azure Dragon River and the Qiantang.

Half the river still roiled in his wake, as if the Monkey King himself were stirring it with his golden cudgel. Fortunately, few people ventured out to the river at night, and the section leading into the mountains was privately contracted land. Otherwise, a superstitious person witnessing such turmoil might suspect a monster was causing mischief.

Upon reaching the Qiantang, the water’s depth and scale instantly dwarfed the Azure Dragon River. Here, Ao Guang had much more room to maneuver.

His speed leapt to another level, not much slower than a high-speed train. Thanks to the water membrane, most of the river simply parted along his sides, so the waves above weren’t too conspicuous. The earlier chaos on the Azure Dragon was simply due to the shallower waters.

This sensation of speed was utterly exhilarating, especially as Wu You observed through a first-person, omniscient perspective.

The Azure Flood Dragon’s underwater vision was extraordinary—night or not, and despite the Qiantang’s murky currents, he could still see a kilometer or two ahead.

At this pace, Ao Guang would reach the sea from the Qiantang in another twenty minutes or so.

...

Alright, Ao Guang, the target is Okinawa.

Wu You was prepared to resort to force, striking directly at the US military base in Okinawa.

Of course, even with confidence in the Azure Flood Dragon, there was no way he could match a whole base’s military might.

But this operation was only a probe.

What prompted this seemingly reckless decision was a news video he’d seen earlier: an international report about multiple explosions at a US military base in Kanagawa, Japan. The footage clearly showed the munitions depot was just a warehouse-like factory building. Such a roof—one tornado from Ao Guang could rip it off and sweep away a good portion of its contents.

He could take advantage of the chaos, lift the roof, and withdraw under the cover of a storm. If all went well, they might not even realize what happened.

Ao Guang would be hidden, while the US and Japanese forces were exposed. Surely they’d never consider the possibility of a flood dragon launching a storm attack. Radar was useless against the Azure Flood Dragon; even Wu You, in his demon-god state, could sense and nullify radar wavelengths—let alone Ao Guang himself. Especially in the midst of a storm.

As for sonar, that water membrane alone made Ao Guang nearly invisible to it. In other words, the only way the military could target Ao Guang was visually.

Well, that would be awkward in the dark of a violent storm.

...

Twenty minutes later, Ao Guang entered the open sea.

Now at the ocean floor, he could move without restraint. Electric filaments began to arc from between his azure scales, and after traveling dozens more kilometers—

Suddenly, somewhere out on the night sea, a column of waves exploded skyward. A monstrous serpent burst from the water and soared high into the air, its body enveloped in clouds and mist.

...

An hour and a half later, at the meteorological observation station off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, the air was already heavy and oppressive, and the nighttime waves had grown unusually still. Far on the horizon, a dense bank of clouds had blotted out the stars. The ocean’s calm was not a sign that wind would not come, but rather a typical precursor to a coastal storm. When the wind rose again, it would be a tempest.

As the observation station issued a storm warning to local residents, the US military base simultaneously detected the situation at sea. Such sudden, unpredictable storms weren’t common, but not unheard of. The base responded as usual, issuing warnings and instructing personnel not to venture out during the storm. That was the end of it.

...

High within the storm clouds over the sea, Ao Guang’s power was at full throttle, even consuming a point of alchemical energy every five minutes to sustain a storm of considerable size and ferocity. At his current strength, maintaining such a tempest was just barely within his abilities.

It was almost comical—Japanese pop culture loved to concoct stories of their country being attacked by monsters, making endless dramas, films, and cartoons about it. The most famous, of course, were Ultraman and Godzilla—both classics Wu You enjoyed.

Today’s protagonist wasn’t Japanese, but at last, a real monster attack was about to occur.

Why did he feel such a reckless urge to have Ao Guang be discovered by the Japanese?