Chapter 334: Is It the Heaven and Earth Stone?
Yu An frowned. "Did it really say that?"
Da Hu nodded. "Yes. My little brothers and I all heard it."
The Task Platform.
The Divine Stone.
The Heaven and Earth Stone.
Of the three, the Task Platform had never been able to speak or move, much less do anything to make her angry.
The Divine Stone had appeared suddenly, and she’d had almost no interaction with it since.
Only she and the Heaven and Earth Stone... well, how should I put it? They had a little bit of a history.
’What if... all three are the same person? Wait, no, the same stone?’
After a moment of thought, Yu An said to Da Hu, "Zaizai, go get your Beast Father Ao Wu."
She wasn’t sure if Han Li would recognize the Heaven and Earth Stone, but Ao Wu definitely would. She wanted him to come identify the stone.
"An’an, you were looking for me?"
"Yes. Come into the space with me. There’s something I need to tell you."
Yu An told Da Hu to play by himself in the kitchen, then brought Ao Wu into the space with her.
She briefly explained her suspicion to Ao Wu, then led him to the place where the Divine Stone could usually be found.
Ao Wu had only just returned and hadn’t spent much time in the space. The Divine Stone, for its part, was elusive and rarely showed itself, so the two had never met.
"Don’t worry, An’an," Ao Wu said, cracking his knuckles. "I’ll be sure to keep my eyes wide open and get a good look!"
’If it really is the Heaven and Earth Stone... Hmph. I’ll have to make it restore An’an’s memories. Then, as her childhood sweetheart, my status in the family will go up another notch.’
Filled with secret anticipation, the two of them found the Divine Stone.
It was sleeping under the Nirvana Fruit Tree, looking completely at ease.
Yu An and Ao Wu hid behind a large tree. Ao Wu examined the stone from every angle, but no matter how he looked at it, he felt this dusty gray rock had nothing to do with the Heaven and Earth Stone.
The Heaven and Earth Stone was a brilliant, dazzling gold—the kind you could barely look at directly. This little stone, however, was the type that if you tossed it on the side of the road, no passerby would give it a second glance.
Seeing Ao Wu’s perplexed expression, Yu An pulled him a little farther away before asking, "A Wu, so... is it the one?"
"It doesn’t look like it," Ao Wu said, his brow deeply furrowed. "It doesn’t look like it at all."
"An’an, I’m telling you, the Heaven and Earth Stone is massive and pure, glittering gold. That gray stone is only a tenth of its size."
"Wait a minute," he smacked his forehead. "An’an, I almost forgot. When the Heaven and Earth Stone brought me and Fuzai to the Upper Realm, it said it was in your space."
"So even if it’s not that gray stone, it has to be somewhere else in the space."
Yu An mused for a moment. "In that case, the Divine Stone is highly suspicious. Just because the Heaven and Earth Stone is golden doesn’t mean it can’t change color."
"A Wu, have you ever seen the Heaven and Earth Stone change to a different color?"
"That I don’t know," Ao Wu said, shaking his head. "It was always closest to you. Around me, it was always just a stubborn, nasty piece of rock."
He got angry just thinking about it. He and An’an were childhood sweethearts and should have married as soon as they came of age, but that Heaven and Earth Stone always found some excuse to prevent it.
One moment it was that they were too young, the next it was that there were no auspicious days that month. It was one excuse after another.
In the end, An’an was stolen away by someone else.
That’s right. Those shameless people from the temple.
Yu An placed the Divine Stone on her watch list and specifically instructed a few Cloud Beasts to keep an eye on it.
As she and Ao Wu were about to leave, Jelly, who had been thoroughly tormented by the naughty children, wanted to go out too.
Babysitting them was enough to drive anyone crazy. Jelly had only played with the Zaizai for a few days before it started refusing to leave the space at all.
Yu An poked it. "What’s this? Miss the Zaizai already?"
Jelly rubbed against her finger and flattened itself into a small, transparent pancake. ’I don’t miss the Zaizai, I miss An’an!’
In a couple of hops, it landed on Yu An’s head and transformed into a translucent, pearl-like flower.
’There. This way, the Zaizai won’t notice me.’
...
Fuzai didn’t know the way. As luck would have it, Shen Zi and Mo Feng had no sense of direction either. After wandering in circles for a long time, they finally managed to find a small village.
"You’re trying to get to Earth Geography City? Wrong way, wrong way! You’re going in the completely opposite direction!"
The three of them fell silent after asking for directions.
Fuzai, lying listlessly on Mo Feng’s back, asked, "Grandmother, so... we went the wrong way?"
"I’m afraid so," Shen Zi sighed. "But it’s okay, don’t worry. We’ll just turn back now."
’There was no use saying anything else. They might as well turn around and head back right away.’
’Oh well. The journey back wasn’t that long for them. It would only take, let’s see... seven or eight days!’
"That’s so, so long," Fuzai said dispiritedly. "Grandmother, Grandfather, I miss my Female Mother."
’I miss her so, so much.’ She hadn’t seen her Female Mother in such a long time.
’My Female Mother hasn’t forgotten about me, has she?’
For the first time, the tough little female dragon began to cry. Shen Zi and Mo Feng had never had to comfort a child before and were thrown into a flustered panic.
"Don’t cry, Zaizai. Grandmother and Grandfather will travel faster. We’ll get to Earth Geography City in no time, and then you can look for your Female Mother with your little friends, okay?"
Mo Feng chimed in, "That’s right, that’s right! Grandfather is a fast traveler. We won’t rest on the way. We’ll travel day and night. We can make it in five... no, four days!"
Mo Yan had been a precocious child and never needed their comforting. Besides, male cubs weren’t raised so delicately, and the couple had been laid-back, raising him in an almost free-range style.
But a female cub was different. At the sight of a single tear, both their hearts felt like they were about to shatter.
Seeing how anxious they were, Fuzai felt a little embarrassed. "Grandmother, Grandfather, I just miss my Female Mother a tiny bit. You don’t have to rush. You’ll get too tired."
"We can go at the same pace as before. We can just walk slowly. Sister Tongtong said she would help me find my Female Mother, but she doesn’t know where she went either. Maybe she hasn’t found her yet."
Shen Zi and Mo Feng were deeply moved. Only after Fuzai repeatedly insisted that they didn’t need to speed up on her account did they finally relent.
Meanwhile, after Yu An learned that the Zaizai had created a schedule to take turns spending a day with her, she went along with their rotation.
The next day was Xiao Yu’s turn. As soon as it got dark, he pulled her into the house.
"Female Mother, Female Mother, guess what I prepared for you?"
With an air of mystery, Xiao Yu brought out a tray covered with a cloth, concealing what was underneath.
But as he walked, a soft clinking and tinkling sound came from beneath it.
Yu An had a vague idea of what it was, but she didn’t let on. Instead, she pretended to be stumped, furrowing her brow in thought.
"What could it be? Let me think... Hmm, I can’t guess."
Yu An said with a frustrated look, "Xiao Yu, this cloth is hiding it too well. How about you give your Female Mother a little hint?"
"Okayyy," Xiao Yu thought for a moment. "It’s round, and you can make pretty jewelry with it."
’That’s hardly a small hint. He basically gave the whole thing away.’
"Well, that makes it easy to guess," Yu An said with a grin. "It’s jewelry that Xiao Yu made for his Female Mother using pearls, right?"
"Female Mother guessed right!"
Xiao Yu cheered and whisked away the cloth, revealing the glittering pearl jewelry underneath.
There were necklaces, hairpins, stud earrings, and rings.
There were pearls of every color, as well as some with unusual shapes. The little guy had a wonderful sense of aesthetics; each piece was like a work of art.