Bailu suddenly felt a wave of dizziness rush through her head. She lowered the small hands that had been tightly covering her eyes and opened them—only to discover in shock that she was no longer inside the Curio Trash Cans Shop.
She asked, lonely and full of unease, "Where… is this?"
As far as her eyes could see stretched an endless, icebound wasteland. On the distant horizon stood towering bronze pillars that pierced the clouds. Cities had been built encircling these pillars, and atop the sky-reaching towers within those cities rose grand temples. Vast roads connected these far-flung cities together.
Understanding dawned abruptly in Bailu's mind. Those bronze colossi and the network that bound the planet like a cage were symbols of some existence imposing its authority upon all directions.
And right before her—no, beneath her—stood one such pillar, even more magnificent than the loftiest mountains. It did not surround her, but instead lay beneath her feet, forming the foundation of a black throne.
"Your Majesty, this is naturally your throne."
A long, resounding voice echoed by her ear—the reverent tone of a most devout priest addressing an emperor.
Yet for some reason, Bailu felt that what the voice truly revered was not her as an individual, but the supreme authority and power entrusted to her.
"Y-Your Majesty?" Startled that someone else was nearby, Bailu whipped her head around and immediately saw the being who had spoken.
It was a giant dragon.
And one with membranous wings—a lineage exceedingly rare among the Xianzhou.
Its scales were whiter than falling snow, reflecting sunlight with a brilliance surpassing polished silver mirrors.
Its colossal body was large enough to rival an entire city.
Yet, facing such a magnificent form, Bailu realized that her bean-sized body could somehow meet it at eye level.
No—this isn't me!
Bailu jolted awake in terror and raised her hands, only to find that they were no longer her tender, childish hands, but a pair of jet-black scaled claws.
And she herself had become a ferocious black dragon.
Its breath raged like a volcano, its body solid as the earth itself. It coiled atop the isolated, towering throne, gazing down upon everything on the planet.
Red fire, blue water, black earth, and white sky were kneaded and crushed at its whim.
With its uncanny vision, she could clearly see every ant crushed beneath dragonkind on the far side of the planet's continents—and with violence and authority, she watched over and controlled everything within her sight.
What is going on?! I want to go back to the Xianzhou Luofu! I'll never sneak out again!
Just as panic drove her to scream, she realized her throat felt choked, utterly unable to make a sound.
But the black dragon unleashed a shrill, furious roar:
"ROAR!!!"
Bailu saw the once-reverent priest suddenly tear into her scales with razor claws, attempting to crush her heart, while she herself grasped a golden scepter and answered the traitor's betrayal with a brutally violent strike!
All dragonkind and humanity across every continent took the clash of the two great dragons as their signal, igniting a horrifying war that swept the entire planet.
"Ah!!"
At last—after countless ages, amid boundless piles of corpses—Bailu finally managed to scream.
As her ability to speak returned, everything before her eyes blurred, until it was as if she had lost her sight entirely, leaving behind only pitch-black darkness.
"Miss Bailu? Are you alright?" A voice reached her ears.
Remembering the scene of being attacked by the white dragon moments before, Bailu shuddered violently in a PTSD-like reaction to the sudden voice.
She instinctively clutched at her chest where her heart lay, cold sweat soaking her hair and then streaming down her forehead.
Then, her vision brightened once more.
Looking around, the familiar interior of the Curio Trash Cans Shop came back into view—Sylvester, Miss Qingque, and the kind golden-haired gentleman appearing one after another before her eyes.
"So? How does it feel to be a fully realized High Elder? Pretty exhilarating, huh?"
Behind the counter, Sylvester lifted his teacup and joked with a smile. "Although that world's tier is several levels below the Xianzhou, the sense of domination that comes from power and authority isn't any weaker."
With that, he calmly took a sip of tea.
"Not exhilarating at all! It hurt so much, and it was terrifying!"
Bailu shook her head like a rattle-drum, both little hands waving frantically.
Even though what she had seen was only an illusion, she had shared the black dragon's sensations throughout. The searing pain of having her scales shattered still left her shaken.
The sight of living beings surging in like tides, only to melt away like snow and leave behind a sea of thick, crimson blood filled her with overwhelming fear.
At this point, let alone fully exercising the authority of a High Elder—she wanted to throw the whole thing away and quit.
"I want to abdicate! I want to find the Vidyadhara Elders and give the High Elder position to Mister Dan Heng!"
What Bailu herself didn't realize, but Aventurine and the others clearly saw, was that she had unmistakably opened a gold-tier Curio—and that a black, dragon-shaped radiance had entered her body.
Everything became clear. Bailu had directly witnessed the origin of her Curio and had even obtained memories belonging to the Curio's original owner!
And the power of a gold-tier Curio was absolutely extraordinary.
"Miss Bailu, may I ask what you just saw?" Aventurine asked in as gentle a tone as he could manage. But when faced with a gold-tier Curio, his anticipation was impossible to hide.
Seeing Bailu so flustered, Qingque also joined in. "Yeah, Dragon Lady, tell us first. Once we know the specifics, we can help you."
When it came to recording Curios, the long-absent Qingque finally displayed her professional competence.
Bailu steadied herself and tried hard to recall that "hard-to-bear" memory, speaking haltingly. "I… I'm not really sure either. I just saw a…"
She described most of what she had witnessed, but Aventurine and Qingque listened in a haze of confusion.
"Black dragon, white dragon, bronze pillars, rebellion?" Aventurine picked out the key terms, yet still couldn't make sense of it.
The elements were far too jumbled to deduce what the Curio's effect actually was.
Qingque, on the other hand, listened with rapt interest. Her pen flew across the page, and in the blink of an eye, dense writing filled the record sheet, even spilling beyond the printed grid as if she were using it as blank paper.
But she wasn't writing a Curio report at all—looking closely, one would see that the title she added midway read plainly:
"Reincarnated as a Black Dragon Emperor: A Love-Hate Saga with a Little White Dragon"
"Do the Vidyadhara even transform into forms like that?" Aventurine murmured. The more he thought about it, the more troubled he felt, and he could only press on. "Is there any other information?"
"Um…" Bailu sucked on her finger, scrunching up her little face as she tried to think, but couldn't come up with a single additional word.
Seeing how distressed she was, Sylvester set down his teacup and took over. "Alright, I'll explain instead."
"Phew…" Bailu relaxed when someone stepped in to take over, and she looked toward Sylvester.
Because she also wanted to know exactly what kind of change this Curio had brought her—she wouldn't actually turn into a black dragon, right?
Absolutely not! That form was way too ugly!
===BREAK===
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