HDFFIL Chapter 1

After the Dragon-Phoenix great calamity, the three clans suffered a crushing defeat. The Phoenix Clan stood guard over the Undying Volcano, the Dragon Clan retreated to the Eastern Sea, and the Qilin withdrew from the world entirely. From that point on, only legends of the three clans remained in the primordial wilderness — never again was their former glory to be seen.

The defeated Dragon Clan placed all their hopes upon the dragon egg left behind by the Ancestor Dragon. If the heavenly signs were not mistaken, this egg was the hope of the Dragon Clan’s revival.

And so, after the Ancestor Dragon’s soul had perished and his Dao had faded, the elders of the Dragon Clan carefully placed the egg deep within the Dragon Palace, hoping that the Crown Prince would hatch soon and lead the Dragon Clan to prosperity once more.

At that moment, Fang Cangwu — who had been sleeping within the shell all along — suddenly awakened.

“So… I’ve transmigrated into the biological son of the Ancestor Dragon, conceived out of divine inspiration?” In a world of swirling chaos, a beautiful young man furrowed his brow and muttered, “I couldn’t have picked a worse time.”

Fang Cangwu sat down cross-legged, carelessly bunching his white robes beneath him, his expression tinged with distress. As he recalled the fate that awaited the Dragon Clan, he couldn’t help but heave a long, heavy sigh. Being seized by various gods and Buddhas to serve as a beast of burden would have been the good outcome — far worse was being butchered by the Queen Mother of the West, who would make dragon liver and phoenix gallbladder into delicacies to serve her guests.

The moment that image crossed his mind, Fang Cangwu’s eyes turned cold. No one would ever willingly allow their own clansmen to be slaughtered at another’s whim.

A moment later, the corners of Fang Cangwu’s mouth curled into a smile — part resignation, part iron-willed resolve.

“Fine. Who told me to be the Crown Prince of the Dragon Clan.”

With those words, Fang Cangwu added the Queen Mother of the West — the one who would one day treat the Dragon Clan most outrageously — to his list of targets marked for death. He then, as an aside, went over the broader events of the primordial world in his mind.

In the primordial wilderness, all fates were arranged by the Heavenly Dao, and the Human Clan was the race upon which the Heavenly Dao bestowed its favoritism. After turning this over carefully, Fang Cangwu arrived at a conclusion: the Dragon Clan’s revival could not be separated from the Human Clan.

Having settled his thoughts, Fang Cangwu prepared to close his eyes and enter meditation again, hoping to hasten the day he could break out of his shell.

But before he could even shut his eyes, a pair of hands pressed against the surface of his eggshell. A faintly cool sensation transmitted through from outside, and Fang Cangwu — every inch of him — couldn’t help but shiver, his whole body tingling.

“How beautiful!” A voice of admiration accompanied those hands.

“It was well worth the great effort I spent calculating your location.” The newcomer seemed to remember something and smiled, then added, “Come along with me back to my cultivation grounds.”

The words had barely fallen when Fang Cangwu felt the whole world spinning around him, and then he was carried away by the stranger.

……

This time, Tongtian had slipped out of the house behind his two elder brothers’ backs. He had been deeply fascinated by the Dragon-Phoenix Great Calamity, and when he learned that the Ancestor Dragon had, in the midst of that great battle, conceived a dragon egg through divine inspiration, his curiosity reached its peak.

And so he had gone to the trouble of calculating the egg’s location at great cost, then snuck into the Dragon Palace like a thief and stolen it away, intending to bring it back to Kunlun Mountain to examine at his leisure.

Yet the moment Tongtian arrived at Kunlun Mountain, he was caught red-handed by his second elder brother, Yuanshi.

“Second Brother is also out for a stroll?” Tongtian asked with a grin, his expression a picture of perfect innocence.

“A stroll?” Yuanshi — white-haired and white-browed — raised an eyebrow and regarded Tongtian.

“That’s right, a stroll,” Tongtian said offhandedly, his gaze already drifting sideways, looking for a chance to slip away.

This second brother of his was insufferably rigid. If he noticed the dragon egg, Tongtian didn’t know how long he would be lectured.

Yuanshi let out a cold snort at those words, flicked his sleeve, and reached into Tongtian’s sleeve — and out came a dragon egg nearly half a person’s height, appearing in full view before both of them.

“On your stroll, you happened to pick up a dragon egg?” Yuanshi continued, his eyes narrowing.

Yuanshi’s tone was perfectly calm. Yet Tongtian noticed that the hand gripping the white jade ruyi scepter was quietly tightening.

“That’s right, I picked it up on my stroll,” Tongtian replied, still grinning shamelessly.

Then he reached out and patted the dragon egg in front of him, saying, “It’s quite a beauty, isn’t it.”

Yuanshi’s expression instantly frosted over. He snapped at Tongtian, “Instead of devoting yourself to cultivation, you spend your days dragging all manner of scaled and horned creatures back to Kunlun — what kind of conduct is this?! Even if you want to take a disciple, you should choose one with a proper foundation. “

Yuanshi had never had any fondness for such creatures — he had always felt their roots were impure, unworthy of the dignity befitting the Three Pure Ones. With Tongtian’s attention fixed on such things, there was no telling when he would ever attain the Great Dao.

(TL: 三清 literally means “Three Pure Ones,” the highest deities in Daoist cosmology.)

Tongtian, having been scolded by Yuanshi, couldn’t resist arguing back. “He is the Ancestor Dragon’s own son, born in accordance with the Heavenly Dao — as for his roots, he would not fall short even as our cultivation partner!”

Though the Ancestor Dragon was not of such noble origin as the great Pangu, he was still an innate demon god, and this egg had been born of his resonance with the Heavenly Dao itself. By that lineage, taking this egg as a disciple or a cultivation partner both seemed fitting to Tongtian.

Inside the egg, Fang Cangwu listened to the quarrelling outside and couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out which great personage would be audacious enough to steal a dragon egg from the Dragon Palace. The most pressing matter was to hatch as fast as possible and avoid being claimed by someone as a cultivation partner.

After firing back at Yuanshi, Tongtian couldn’t help but give the eggshell a slap to emphasize his point.

Just as Yuanshi was so furious with Tongtian that he nearly blacked out — before he could even open his mouth to reprimand him again — both he and Tongtian heard it: a soft crack. Looking down, they found that the dragon egg had developed fractures.

Fine lines appeared across the pristine white shell, spreading and multiplying until they formed a strange pattern.

Yuanshi’s eyelid twitched. Realizing the young dragon inside was about to hatch, he silently cursed his misfortune.

Tongtian froze, then pointed at the egg with a somewhat nervous expression. “Is he — is he actually being born right now?”

Yuanshi gave a cold laugh. “Indeed. Your cultivation partner is about to be born.”

Yuanshi placed particular emphasis on the words cultivation partner, making Tongtian’s scalp prickle and a chill run down his spine.

In no time at all, the shell shattered completely. A burst of golden radiance blazed so brightly that Tongtian couldn’t keep his eyes open.

The next instant, a sharp spear tip pressed against Tongtian’s throat. The cold sensation made him involuntarily open his eyes. Before him stood a young man in white robes, with ink-black hair and dragon horns growing from his brow, leveling at him a dragon-bone spear that gleamed like white jade.

“Who did you say was your cultivation partner?” Fang Cangwu’s voice carried an edge of fury, the corners of his eyes slightly flushed red with anger — as though he’d just been wronged.

Fang Cangwu fixed his gaze on the blue-robed Daoist before him, his expression icy cold. It seemed that if the man said one wrong word, he would lift the dragon-bone spear and beat him soundly with it. After all, who would want to inexplicably become someone else’s cultivation partner against their own will?

Tongtian looked at the Dragon Crown Prince in front of him, feeling an irresistible urge to provoke him a little further — and, incidentally, to irritate Yuanshi — so he immediately replied, “You are my cultivation partner.”

He even winked at Fang Cangwu afterward, insufferably smug.

Fang Cangwu blinked, momentarily stunned — he hadn’t expected this blue-robed Daoist to actually dare say it.

Beside them, Yuanshi was equally stunned. Recovering his senses, he felt the urge to thrash Tongtian on the spot. Were those words something to say so carelessly? If the Heavenly Dao ratified the oath, the Three Pure Ones and the Dragon Clan would be bound together by an inextricable karmic tie. Given that the Dragon Clan had been cast aside by the Heavenly Dao, Yuanshi had absolutely no desire for any entanglement with them.

But just as Yuanshi was about to berate Tongtian, a stream of golden merit came flying in from the horizon, bringing with it a myriad of auspicious signs.

“What is the meaning of this?” Yuanshi stared at the merit drifting down from the sky and murmured to himself, his instincts telling him something was very wrong.

Fang Cangwu — still holding the dragon-bone spear at Tongtian’s throat — also found his gaze drawn to that swirling mass of merit, unable to fathom who in all of Kunlun Mountain could have done something worthy enough for the Heavenly Dao to bestow such a reward.

“This is bad!” Yuanshi suddenly cried out.

Before his words had even faded, the merit split into two halves with startling speed and descended upon Tongtian and Fang Cangwu alike.

The hand Yuanshi had raised to push Tongtian away froze in midair. He felt as though he himself were splitting apart. The Heavenly Dao — the Heavenly Dao had actually ratified the oath!

The moment the merit descended, all of the primordial wilderness knew: the first bond of marriage under Heaven and Earth had been forged.

“Tongtian!” The sight of it sent Yuanshi into an instant rage. How could the Three Pure Ones be bound to the Dragon Clan by karma?! The Dragon Clan had committed offenses against the karmic order of Heaven and Earth and been forsaken by the Heavenly Dao. If Tongtian and the Dragon Crown Prince were now cultivation partners, would that not mean Tongtian was equally forsaken by the Heavenly Dao?

The mere thought of it made Yuanshi’s hands tremble. He could have gladly struck Tongtian dead on the spot. That insufferable wretch — not an ounce of sense — barely out the door and he’d already caused this monumental disaster.

Fang Cangwu’s mood was not much better than Yuanshi’s. He felt as though he himself were splitting apart. He couldn’t fathom why Tongtian had gone out of his way to steal the dragon egg from the Dragon Palace — and then, of all things, answered “cultivation partner” when he’d asked.

Of the three of them, only Tongtian took it in stride, as though being bound as cultivation partners to a Dragon Crown Prince likewise forsaken by the Heavenly Dao was nothing of any great consequence.

Tongtian even nudged the spear tip away from his throat by a fraction, then smiled at Fang Cangwu and said, “You see — even the Heavenly Dao has acknowledged that we are cultivation partners.”

And so Tongtian got exactly what he wanted: the corners of Fang Cangwu’s eyes grew even redder than before. Satisfied that he had successfully gotten a rise out of someone, Tongtian’s smile grew all the brighter.

In the end, Fang Cangwu — who felt entirely as though he were splitting apart — gave a slight tilt of his dragon-bone spear. While the blue-robed Daoist before him was off guard, he brought it down hard on the man’s head.

“Tongtian!” Yuanshi bellowed at the sight.

For a moment, Yuanshi genuinely couldn’t decide whether he should simply strangle this disaster of a younger brother then and there, or fish him back to consciousness first.

Meanwhile, Fang Cangwu — only after the deed was done — came belatedly to the realization that he had just knocked out a rather terrifyingly important figure.

But then Fang Cangwu thought of this great personage’s wretched fate after the Heavenly Court’s Investiture of the Gods, and then of his own clan’s poor dragon brothers — and he couldn’t help but want to ask the Heavenly Dao: could they get a divorce?