Chapter 478: The Most Familiar Stranger

Ao Quan was startled. "Forgotten what?"

"You forgot I'm still here," Zu An sighed.

Ao Quan chuckled, "It's precisely because of you that this woman can't defeat me. With her cultivation, she could have fought or left as she pleased, but now, to protect you, she's needlessly sacrificing her life."

"Don't even think about sowing discord between us. An old impotent dragon like you wouldn't understand our love, which has faced life and death together," Zu An scoffed.

Yun Yuqing's beautiful face flushed. This man really dared to say anything. Is what we have love? I'm still someone else's wife.

Then again, she wasn't entirely sure what she was thinking. The moment she heard he was in danger, she had rushed back.

"Impotent?" Ao Quan's eyes turned red at the word, and he roared furiously, "When I catch you, I won't kill you immediately. I'll chop that thing of yours into little pieces first. We'll see what you're so proud of then!"

Rage value from Ao Quan: 1024!

This rage wasn't due to mere verbal abuse; he was genuinely infuriated by this man to the extreme.

"I'm just afraid you'll develop a deep inferiority complex when you see it," Zu An said, while trying to find a weakness in his opponent. Although Ao Quan's body was affected by the Eye of the Heavenly Demon, his movements had only slowed; he wasn't completely immobilized.

Yun Yuqing's heart pounded. She knew exactly why this man was so confident; she had experienced it firsthand not long ago, and the sheer impact of it still resonated with her when she recalled it.

But the creature before them was a giant dragon, with a body hundreds of feet long. How could it possibly be intimidated by him?

To their surprise, Ao Quan was deeply provoked. His massive body twisted continually, trying to shake off the Eye of the Heavenly Demon's influence, while he roared incessantly, "I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

Rage value from Ao Quan: 999,999,999...

Yun Yuqing immediately felt immense pressure, as if she was about to lose control of the dragon at any moment. She quickly said, "Stop provoking him, I..."

Before she could finish, Zu An's eyes lit up. "Now!"

The moment he spoke, his body blurred into an afterimage, darting towards the dragon's toes, which were resting on the ground.

Ao Quan instantly saw through his intention and burst into laughter. "What are you trying to do? With the cultivation of an ant like you, can you possibly harm me?"

"No, wait. With your small stature, even if you jump as high as you can, you might not even reach my knee. And you think you can hurt me?"

His ego had just been deeply wounded by the other's taunts, and he had been waiting for a chance to retort. Now he finally had it.

In that moment, he felt utterly vindicated, an indescribable satisfaction.

Zu An scoffed, and suddenly a jet-black dagger appeared in his hand.

Ao Quan saw it and chuckled. Such a tiny dagger was like a toothpick against his enormous body; he could poke him for a lifetime and never inflict a fatal wound.

Zu An aimed to exploit the dragon's arrogance. Seeing that Ao Quan neither dodged nor avoided, he stabbed directly at his claw.

Learning from his previous experience, he didn't stab directly at the dragon scales this time. Instead, he slipped the blade into the gap between two scales, piercing directly into the dragon's flesh.

A slight stinging pain shot through his toe. Ao Quan was somewhat surprised by the dagger's sharpness, knowing that a dragon's skin, let alone its scales, could not usually be harmed by ordinary weapons.

Yet, he didn't seem to care, laughing heartily. "Is that all? Is that all? Uh..."

His smile abruptly vanished as he felt an extreme terror. His massive dragon body became covered in black runes, so obscure and profound that even he, with all his vast knowledge, couldn't recognize them.

"How is this possible!"

That was his last thought. Then, his entire consciousness plunged into endless darkness. Immediately afterward, his massive body plummeted from mid-air, crashing heavily to the ground and kicking up a colossal cloud of dust.

"That's what you get for showing off!" Zu An retrieved the fatal dagger and spat at the old dragon's corpse.

I can't believe I have two dragon corpses so quickly. People say dragons are treasures from head to tail; I'll have to find a chance to study them properly.

But I wonder if eating this old dragon would make me impotent...

As he mused, he used the Glazed Pearl to store the massive dragon's corpse.

Yun Yuqing, who had been struggling to control the rampaging dragon, was left dumbfounded. In the blink of an eye, the creature was dead.

Zu An ran to her side and waved a hand in front of her eyes. "Well, how about that? Isn't your man amazing?"

"Amazing..." Yun Yuqing instinctively nodded, then immediately realized, "You're not my man."

Zu An was amused. This woman was willing to be intimate with him, and even willing to bear his children, yet she was hung up on such trivial details.

"By the way, how are your injuries? I have a healing elixir here," Zu An asked with concern, remembering that she had been hit hard by Ao Quan's dragon tail.

"It's just a minor injury, nothing serious," Yun Yuqing shook her head. With her cultivation, she would recover after a short period of rest. She was more concerned about something else now. "How did you do that?"

That dragon's strength surpassed hers; if it could use spirit words, even an ordinary Grandmaster might not have been able to handle it. Yet, he had resolved it with a single strike so effortlessly.

"My weapon is a bit special; it can kill as long as it draws blood," Zu An explained. She had just seen it, and with her discerning eye, there was no point trying to conceal it, so it was better to simply tell the truth.

"There's such a miraculous weapon?" Yun Yuqing was astonished. That was a giant dragon, yet it died from a single poke. Was there a potent poison on the blade? But what kind of poison could be that powerful? "By the way, do you have some kind of spatial artifact on you?"

Zu An nodded. "Yes, I just stored the giant dragon's corpse inside."

"Is there really a spatial artifact with such a vast capacity in this world?" Yun Yuqing's delicate body swayed slightly. She felt her mind was struggling to keep up; she had witnessed too many unbelievable things today, each one harder to process than the last.

Zu An chuckled, reaching out to embrace her incredibly soft waist. "Well, do you know how formidable I am now?"

Not knowing what thought crossed her mind, Yun Yuqing's small face instantly flushed red. She scoffed, "As the saying goes, 'don't show your wealth.' With so many miraculous items on you, aren't you afraid I'll get greedy and kill you for them?"

Zu An put on a feigned expression of fear. "Do you want to rob me of my wealth or my virtue? If it's wealth, I don't mind. If it's my virtue, I can take the initiative myself."

"Bah!" Yun Yuqing's heart pounded as she scoffed. "You're always so improper."

Zu An laughed heartily, pulling her back into his embrace. Her body was fragrant and soft, incredibly comfortable to hold. "By the way, why are you here? I thought I wouldn't see you for a long time."

Yun Yuqing sighed softly. "Two days ago, I inadvertently learned that King Wu was apparently planning to have someone kill you. Since this matter started because of me, I couldn't bear to see anything happen to you, so I came to check."

Zu An stared blankly at her after she finished speaking. It wasn't surprising that King Wu wanted him dead; after all, given what happened that night, whether for revenge or to silence him, King Wu wouldn't likely allow him to live.

What surprised him was that Yun Yuqing had actually come to stop it.

After all, the relationship between them could best be described as familiar strangers.

When it came down to it, they had only met a handful of times, and they belonged to two entirely different social strata. Normally, their paths would never have crossed.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Yun Yuqing shyly averted her gaze. "Don't overthink it. I didn't... I didn't come for you specifically. I just didn't want you to be implicated because of me."

Zu An smiled faintly and said nothing. He simply lifted the light veil from her face, then gently raised her smooth, jade-like chin and kissed her.