Suo Ningbing’s beautiful eyes were filled with apology as she said, “I am sorry, little Ling. Suo Lun was so useless and made things so difficult for you.”
Lan Ling said with difficulty, “I… I will do my best. What do these women roughly look like? If I run into them later and fail to recognise them, it will be troublesome.”
Suo Ningbing said, “Suo Lun was useless in every way except one thing he was truly good at: painting. Every woman he truly liked, he would leave behind a portrait. I will bring them for you to see.”
A moment later, Suo Ningbing brought over a box. When she opened it, there were dozens of rolled-up paintings inside.
When they were unrolled, every single one was a portrait of a beauty. Plump or slender, each one was breathtakingly lovely. This scoundrel led such a chaotic private life, yet every woman he had harmed was more beautiful than the last. On Earth, each of them would have been considered goddess-level.
And this bastard’s skill at painting beauties was genuinely outstanding. The painting style in this world had no realistic sketches or photographs; it was similar to ancient Chinese guohua portraits of beauties. It was truly remarkable that he could capture the distinctive features of these women with such simple lines.
Lan Ling carefully examined the portraits of Princess Zhi Ning, Gui Qinshao, and Yan Nai’er. Even from the paintings alone, they were already stunningly beautiful. He could not imagine how peerlessly enchanting they must be in person. Especially Yan Nai’er—her figure was like a explosive bomb, incredibly voluptuous, with curves so devilishly exaggerated they were almost unreal. She was truly a supreme seductress.
This scoundrel’s romantic fortune really was extraordinary.
“Little Ling, Suo Lun was hopeless in both civil and martial studies. Only his painting was truly outstanding,” Suo Ningbing said. “So during this period, I want to teach you some painting techniques, in case you need to draw at a critical moment and cannot do it.”
Lan Ling originally wanted to say there was no need—he could paint, and his skill was very high. But when he opened his mouth, what came out was, “Alright, elder sister.”
Lan Ling had majored in fine arts at a top university, so his level was quite high. Moreover, from childhood he had painted portraits of his sister Lan Kou no fewer than a thousand times. His skill in figure sketching had reached a masterful level, comparable to real photographs.
However, letting Suo Ningbing teach him painting would inevitably involve close proximity and intimate contact. It was truly a perfect opportunity to build affection.
…
For the first two days, elder sister taught Lan Ling all of Suo Lun’s interpersonal relationships—or more precisely, she gave him a rough introduction to the dozens of former lovers in the portraits. She also briefly introduced the teachers and classmates at the Royal Capital Academy.
Next, it was time to make up for knowledge of this world’s history and basic common sense.
Thus, for the first time, Lan Ling saw books from this new world, and he was immediately greatly astonished.
Because the script in them was one he had studied—it was exactly the same as Chinese on Earth. Not only that, some of the passages and sentences were also ones he had learned before.
Because this world also had something similar to the Four Books and Five Classics, basic mathematics, and related philosophy. And all of this knowledge stemmed from ancient Chinese classics, with some slight influences from Western philosophical theories.
Not only that, in music, both staff notation and the traditional Chinese pentatonic scale of gong, shang, jiao, zhi, and yu coexisted.
So he quickly flipped open a history book of this world and finally solved the greatest mystery since his transmigration.
The reason this world used Chinese script was no coincidence. The cause was one person: the Dragon Emperor!
The Dragon Emperor, the most powerful person in this world, a superhuman who single-handedly created the entire civilisation of the Central Plains.
Three thousand years ago, this world was chaotic and disordered. Most regions were primitive tribes, with only a few villages and towns. The civilisation of the entire world was still at a very primitive stage. There were dozens or even hundreds of different scripts, and thousands upon thousands of languages.
The humans of this world were called descendants of the dragon. Every person carried more or less dragon bloodline within them. The higher the bloodline talent, the stronger the martial power.
Thus, for tens of thousands of years, martial power had been the eternal theme of this world, and with martial power came eternal war.
The entire world was forever caught in slaughter—human against human, human against beast. There was almost no civilisation, no order. There were no strong national organisations. The only powerful organisation was the Divine Dragon Temple.
The Divine Dragon Temple was the most powerful and transcendent organisation in this world. From the beginning of recorded history, it had existed. It was the faith of the entire world, the representative of the divine dragon in the mortal realm.
But the Divine Dragon Temple stood above worldly affairs. It did not concern itself with human rights and wrongs, nor did it interfere in worldly wars.
Thus, the entire Central Plains remained barbaric. Bloodshed and warfare occurred every year, on every inch of land. Every day countless people died. For every child to grow up safely was already a stroke of heaven’s luck.
This chaos and disorder was ended three thousand years ago.
Because the most powerful human in history was born. No one knew where he came from, nor who his parents were. It was as if heaven and earth themselves had nurtured him.
In less than forty years, he became the absolute number one expert under heaven.
Then, over the next twenty years, he defeated all the great tribes and clans of the world, nearly unified the entire Central Plains, and established the incomparably powerful Flame Dragon Empire. For the first time, the Flame Dragon Continent moved from chaos to order. He became the first emperor of this world.
To commend his achievements, the Divine Dragon Temple canonised him as the Dragon Emperor.
However, this was merely the beginning of his accomplishments. In the following thirty years, he paused his campaigns of conquest and instead, with his own power alone, eradicated all other scripts and languages of this world, creating Dragon Language as the sole language and script of the world.
Next, he created philosophy, art, mathematics, literature, music, and more. He almost single-handedly founded the entire civilisation.
Of course, even the greatest sage must one day die. At the age of one hundred and twenty-nine, the Dragon Emperor passed away.
…
After the Dragon Emperor’s death, the Flame Empire continued to follow in his footsteps, further developing and glorifying civilisation. A great number of literati and philosophers emerged, writing brilliant chapters and composing countless musical pieces. The world entered an era of a hundred schools of thought contending, a golden age of civilisation.
However, no empire, no matter how great, can avoid eventual disintegration.
Three hundred years after the Dragon Emperor’s death, the Flame Empire had already fragmented. Over the next two or three thousand years, wars continued without end, much like the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods of ancient China.
To this day, the entire Central Plains has split into dozens or even hundreds of large and small countries. Among them, four great kingdoms and one empire stand as the five hegemons of this world.
The four great kingdoms are: the Eastern Li Kingdom to the east, the Fury Wave Kingdom to the south, the Western Liang Kingdom to the west, and the Northern Wind Kingdom to the north.
The one empire is the Central Flame Empire, the foremost hegemon of the Central Plains world and the leader of all nations under heaven.
Of course, the Flame Empire nominally inherits the Flame Dragon Empire founded by the Dragon Emperor three thousand years ago. In reality, however, there is little connection between the two. The relationship between them is even more distant than that between the Later Tang of the Shatuo clan and the Li Tang dynasty in ancient China.
It is only because the Flame Empire is currently the strongest and has received recognition from the Divine Dragon Temple that it has become the central empire of the Central Plains. Even so, the current ruler of the Flame Empire only dares to call himself a king and not an emperor.
Although the Dragon Emperor has been dead for nearly three thousand years, he remains the totem of the entire world, holding a status close to that of a god.
No one in this world knows the Dragon Emperor’s origins, but Lan Ling could see it clearly.
This most powerful and greatest Dragon Emperor in history was, like Lan Ling, a transmigrator. Only he was far more formidable. He unified most of the world, established an empire, and created a civilisation.
Moreover, Lan Ling faintly sensed that the previous host of the demon star within his body… might possibly have been the Dragon Emperor. But that did not seem quite right. The demon star had said that his mission in coming to this world was to destroy it.
Yet the civilisation of this world had been painstakingly built by the Dragon Emperor. How could he possibly be tasked with destroying it?
No matter what, Lan Ling felt that his own transmigration had a mysterious connection to this Dragon Emperor.
Then Lan Ling recalled what the demon star had said about his mission in coming to this world.
To destroy this world?
The moment he thought of this mission, Lan Ling shook his head vigorously. He would never pay attention to such nonsense. All he wanted was to protect his elder sister and safeguard her family. That was all.
“Little Ling? What is wrong?” Suo Ningbing asked.
Lan Ling said, “Nothing, elder sister. I have already studied much of the content in these books, so I do not need to start from zero. Perhaps after studying with you for a while, except for the martial dao portion, I should be able to pass the other three subjects smoothly in the Royal Capital Academy’s graduation examination.”
Lan Ling was being modest. He was a top student in the fine arts department of a key university. Although the philosophy and literature of this world had undergone some changes, they still stemmed from knowledge on Earth. He had read countless famous works and classics from both ancient and modern times, Chinese and foreign. Many he could recite backwards from memory.
So as long as he slightly familiarised himself with the article formats of this world, his attainments in this area would already surpass many people.
“Really?” Suo Ningbing asked in delighted surprise.
Lan Ling nodded. “Really.”
Over the next ten days or so, Lan Ling’s learning progress indeed advanced by leaps and bounds. In many areas of knowledge, his attainments even left Suo Ningbing sighing in admiration.
“Little Ling, you really are far, far superior to Suo Lun,” Suo Ningbing said. “You truly make me see you in a new light. You are astonishing.”
From the looks of it, the greatest obstacle to Lan Ling passing the Royal Capital Academy’s graduation examination was martial dao.
In this world, martial cultivation depended crucially on the level of one’s dragon vein.
Ye Jingyu, as a high-tier warrior, would personally teach Lan Ling martial dao.
Thus, the key suspense now was whether Lan Ling’s dragon vein talent was high or low.