That day’s sparring session ended as rain suddenly began to fall.
It wasn’t the kind of heavy downpour common in the Western Dragon Domain, but rather the fine, relentless drizzle described in books about the Eastern Jiangnan lands—falling silently from the clouds, shrouding the entire academy in a thin veil of mist.
Xuan Xi stood under the eaves by the training ground, staring blankly at the rain.
SigrdrÃfa also walked out of the training ground and stopped beside her.
The two of them stood in silence, watching the raindrops fall.
“You know, Sig,” Xuan Xi suddenly spoke.
“When I was in the Border Town, my favorite weather was rainy days.”
SigrdrÃfa turned her head to glance at her.
“Why?”
“Because when it rains, everyone hides inside their homes.” Xuan Xi reached out her hand to catch a raindrop dripping from the eaves.
“There’s no one on the streets. No one sees me. No one calls me a monster.”
Her tone was very calm as she said this, as if she were talking about something trivial—something so small that her heart no longer reacted to it.
SigrdrÃfa didn’t respond, but she took a step closer to Xuan Xi.
Just one small step, but the space under the eaves wasn’t large to begin with.
This step left less than a fist’s width between their shoulders, and it allowed Xuan Xi to feel the warmth radiating from SigrdrÃfa’s body.
And the faint fragrance that wafted from her silver-white hair—a scent she had already grown familiar with.
The rain continued to fall.
“Before the class placement battle,” SigrdrÃfa’s voice sounded somewhat muffled in the rain, “I’m going to teach you something new.”
“What?”
“The basic breathing technique of the Eastern Dragon.”
Xuan Xi turned her head and looked at her with some surprise.
“You know the Eastern Dragon breathing technique?”
“It was recorded in my great-great-grandfather’s diary.” SigrdrÃfa stared at the rain, not looking at her.
“He called it ‘Qi Induction.’ He said it was the first and most fundamental step in Eastern Dragon cultivation.”
“Have you practiced it?”
“No.” SigrdrÃfa said, “I am a Western Dragon. My internal energy system is different from the Eastern Dragons’.
Forcing myself to cultivate the breathing technique would cause conflict between my elements and my Dragon Core.”
“Then why are you teaching it to me?”
SigrdrÃfa gave her a sidelong glance.
“Because you can’t keep training the Western way forever,” she said.
“You are an Eastern Dragon. Your body needs Eastern training methods.”
The sound of rain filled the moment of her silence.
Xuan Xi lowered her head, watching the small puddle of rainwater that had gathered in her upturned palm.
“Sig,” she said.
“Hm.”
“Why are you so good to me?”
She had asked this question more than once.
The previous times, SigrdrÃfa hadn’t answered—it was like the question had been tossed into a trash can with no echo.
But this time, the trash can echoed.
“Because you are the only dragon who came to me without any other motive.”
Xuan Xi didn’t understand.
“What?”
SigrdrÃfa turned around to face her. Her amethyst eyes gleamed especially bright against the backdrop of the rain.
“You are the first person to speak to me on your own initiative,” SigrdrÃfa said.
“Not because of my bloodline, not because of my family, not for any reason—just because we are roommates and you wanted to be my friend.”
The sound of the rain suddenly grew very loud, so loud that Xuan Xi could barely hear her own heartbeat.
“So.” SigrdrÃfa withdrew her gaze and looked back at the rain.
“You are not just anyone. You are my closest friend.”
“Closest friend.” When SigrdrÃfa said that word, it carried a strange weight.
Not because her tone was particularly solemn—on the contrary, she said it as if it were something trivial.
But Xuan Xi knew that for this S-rank young lady, who had been called a “monster” since childhood, the weight of the term “closest friend” was different from what it meant for others.
Just like the two words “passing by.”
“You too,” Xuan Xi said.
SigrdrÃfa looked at her.
“I’m what, too?”
“You are my closest friend too.” Xuan Xi smiled.
“The first one in my dragon life.”
SigrdrÃfa stared at her for two seconds, then averted her gaze.
“Hm.”
The rain gradually lessened.
A crack opened in the distant clouds, and golden sunlight spilled through the gap, casting a huge pillar of light on the Floating Peak.
“The rain has stopped,” SigrdrÃfa said.
“Hm.”
“Tomorrow at two o’clock. Don’t be late.”
With that, she turned and walked into the fresh air after the rain.
Her silhouette was bathed in a warm hue by the setting sun. Xuan Xi stood in place, watching that figure gradually walk away.
She suddenly remembered the words on that handkerchief.
“Within the Four Seas, There Are Bosom Friends. Far Apart Yet Near as Neighbors.”
At this moment, watching that silver-white figure in the sunset, she suddenly had a vague feeling.
Maybe she had truly found a bosom friend.
She reached into her pocket, her fingertips touching the edge of the moon-white handkerchief. Then she too walked into the sunset.
The next day at two o’clock, Xuan Xi arrived at Training Ground No.3 on time, only to find that SigrdrÃfa was already waiting for her.
She stood in the center of the training ground, her silver-white hair tied up high, revealing a slender neckline and sharp jawline.
She wore a form-fitting training uniform, with the dark gray cloth bag embroidered with the Edelstein family crest tied around her waist.
“No fighting today,” SigrdrÃfa said.
“Good.” Xuan Xi flexed her wrist, which still felt somewhat sore from the Thunder Light shock the day before.
“That move yesterday—my arm is still hurting a bit.”
“That’s because your method of redirecting force was wrong.” SigrdrÃfa said expressionlessly.
“I’ll teach you later. Today, we learn the breathing technique.”
She walked to the edge of the training ground and pulled something out of her cloth bag—a book, a very old one.
The cover was dark blue fabric, and the gold-stamped lettering on the spine had faded to the point of being nearly illegible.
The entire book was wrapped in an indescribable aura, carrying that ancient, musty smell of ink and time that only old library books had.
“This is my great-great-grandfather’s diary.” SigrdrÃfa handed the book to Xuan Xi.
“One volume of it. I’ve marked the parts about the Eastern Dragon.”
Xuan Xi took the book with both hands—not out of politeness, but because it was much heavier than she had expected.
She opened the cover.
The first page was a hand-drawn map, depicting the sea region between the Eastern and Western Dragon Domains, densely annotated with place names and shipping routes.
The drawer’s strokes were very fine—every island, every ocean current was drawn meticulously.
Xuan Xi’s fingertips paused on those drawings for a moment, then she turned to the pages SigrdrÃfa had marked.
It was a chapter describing the Eastern Dragon breathing technique.
The passage wasn’t long, but it was very detailed.
From how to perceive the “spiritual energy” between heaven and earth, to how to guide that energy into the body, to how to let it circulate along specific meridians—each step was described in text, accompanied by hand-drawn diagrams of the human body’s meridian system.
Xuan Xi read page by page, growing more engrossed. These words weren’t entirely foreign to her.
Back in the Border Town, her body had occasionally felt a strange sensation—as if something were flowing slowly inside her, warm and gentle, yet elusive.
She had never paid it any mind, assuming it was a normal reaction of a dragon’s body.
Now she knew: that was the so-called spiritual energy, the energy that had always existed within her but had never been awakened.
“Have you finished reading?” SigrdrÃfa’s voice came from beside her.
Xuan Xi snapped out of it, realizing she had been staring at the same page for nearly ten minutes.
“Finished… this page.” She closed the book somewhat sheepishly and handed it back to SigrdrÃfa.
“Don’t return it to me.” SigrdrÃfa didn’t take it.
“It’s yours now.”
Xuan Xi was stunned.
“But this is your great-great-grandfather’s diary…”
“My great-great-grandfather brought this book back from the East, but not so it could gather dust on the shelves of the family library.” SigrdrÃfa’s tone was flat.
“He wrote on the last page of his diary—’This book should be passed on to a fated person.'”
She took the book from Xuan Xi, flipped to the last page, and pointed to it.
The line of text was very small, nearly requiring one to bring it right up to their eyes to read.
“If you encounter an Eastern Dragon who is a fated person, by all means gift this book to him.”
Below that was the signature and date of SigrdrÃfa’s great-great-grandfather.
“Then how do you know I am that ‘fated person’?”
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