Chapter 2: The First Star – Azure Dragon’s Price

*Shanghai, Two Days After the Archive*

Morning.

Apparently, Yuyuan Garden was behind the shop where he found Old Wei. It was also the place where he woke up from his slumber the last night.

"Should I ask him...?"

The Huangpu River glittered under the midday sun, its surface fractured by cargo ships and tourist ferries. Li Chen stood on the Bund's promenade, the jade pendant burning against his chest like a branding iron.

He glanced at Xia Ling, who leaned against a lamppost, slurping bubble tea through a straw. As she mentioned, she'd shown up at Yuyuan Garden wearing a cropped leather jacket, fingerless gloves, and a smirk that made him question his every life choice. He didn't like her smile.

"You're sure this isn't a trap?" he asked her, unsure if he should even trust the Old Wei after what he did to him the previous day.

"Totally a trap," she said, popping a tapioca pearl. "But you've got that 'chosen one' vibe, you will fair well. And I am here to help you. I also need the Azure Dragon's power to crack my brother's curse. Win-win for both of us!"

Xia Ling hit him with a 'I got this!' look.

Li Chen scowled. "And if I die later on?"

Xia Ling tossed her cup into a bin. "Then I loot your corpse. Let's go."

She hopped towards Old Wei's tea shop, the Iron Chrysanthemum, and Li Chen quietly followed behind.

The previous night, he had promised Auntie Mei that he will make everything fine. He had then dropped her to their house and left after making sure that she was safe.

After that, he had decided to follow the words of the girl Xia Ling and had found the Yuyuan Garden and spent the whole night thinking about what he had to do. Old Wei had saw him wander around his shop but he did nothing except looking to see if hee was around every once in a while.

Finally morning came, Xia Ling arrived and she took away the last of his change to go buy bubble tea.

He felt like he was being toyed by her.

"What are you waiting for? The end of the world. Hurry!"

Xia Ling voice echoed. She was screaming from across the place.

"Does she possess no tact?"

He mumbled under his breath while going towards the shop.

"I heard that."

...

The Iron Chrysanthemum smelled of aged pu'er and gun oil. Behind the counter, Old Wei polished a World War II-era Mauser with the same care he used to brew tea. His dragon tattoo rippled as he poured steaming water into cracked Yixing clay pots.

"The preparations are ready. We will strike at midnight."

Old Wei gestured him to seat. No apology was given for his previous actions.

"But first,"

"You'll need three things to survive the Altar," he growled, sliding a tray of walnut-shaped 'mantou' toward Li Chen.

"A jade coin for the river spirits, a lock of your own hair tied with red thread, and this." He placed a rusted key on the table—its bow shaped like a dragon swallowing its tail.

Xia Ling snatched a bun, her combat boots propped on the table. It was as if she was at home.

"What's the key for?"

"Not your concern, thief." Old Wei's eyes never left Li Chen.

"The Azure Dragon doesn't just take memories. It *eats time itself* from around them. You'll walk out of that river knowing how to command storms… but forgetting why you ever feared rain."

The old man knelt at a low table, his dragon tattoo visible as he poured tea with military precision. "The Altar's entrance is in the river tunnel," he said, sliding Li Chen a cup of bitter tea. "But the Syndicate's watching the docks. You'll need a distraction, I will create it."

Xia Ling twirled a lockpick between her fingers. "I'll handle that. But first—" she leaned forward, "—why help us? You're no Cartographer."

Old Wei's jaw tightened. He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a scarred sigil on his forearm—a star crossed out by a blade. "I was Jiang Zian's disciple. Until the Syndicate's corruption cost me… my everything. The stars aren't gifts, girl. They are the curses that our ancestors had caused upon us."

"You should know this better."

"Hsssss. Your information source is quite good."

Li Chen's pendant flared, casting azure shadows on the walls. Old Wei gripped his shoulder.

"It has sensed your presence. It knows you are coming for it."

Old Wei slid the jade coin across the wooden counter, its surface etched with celestial symbols. "This belonged to the first Cartographer," he said, voice rough as gravel. "Use this as a leverage and you will lose less."

Li Chen looked at the Jade coin for a moment before pocketing the coin, its weight cold against his palm.

"Anything else left Old Man?"

Xia Ling asked.

Li Chen looked at her nonchalant attitude. In nervousness, his fingers traced the fresh dragon sigil on his wrist—the skin there tingled, like static from an old TV.

"Don't trust the stars. Be ready to die if things go wrong."

Old Wei sneered at Xia Ling's words.

"That's concerning. I don't plan to die. Neither will I let him die. If he dies, we are all gone, right?"

"If he failed, then affirmative."

"Rest here for now, don't stress out."

Old Wei said and got up to leave.

"Can I borrow some money?"

"I will deal with your foster mother's debt. Rest now, you haven't slept the past night."

"Umm... you said that I can choose what to sacrifice."

"Can he?"

"You suck at bargaining. How is that my fault?"

"True. He was indeed begging some goons the previous night."

Old Wei took the empty clay cups and went inside the deeper end of his store.

Xia Ling took out her phone to browse the net.

And Li Chen.

Li Chen blankly sat there before deciding to ignore their hurtful words. He decided to do as he was told and sleep.

"Sleep here. Use my bag as a pillow. Old scoot didn't even gave you a blanket."

Xia Ling scooted away from her place while making space for him.

"Thanks."

Li Chen looked at her and thought that she did possess some kindness.

"No worries. Go to sleep so you won't be a burden later on."

He decided to retract his previous thoughts. He really didn't like her smile.

....

Midnight

Bang!

An explosion occured on the highway pass! Old Wei just committed terrorism.

On the other side of the bund.

"Oh! They are actually leaving. Let's go. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry! How are you so slow? You were running quite good yesterday."

Xia Ling saw the syndicate guards leave their position and immediately leapt through the action, each step of hers taking her ten of metres away. She reached the post before she could finish her sentence and looked behind to find no signs of Li Chen.

"Tsk."

She came back.

"I don't know whatever you are doing! I just got this yesterday!"

Li Chen spoke while running at full speed.

"I should have done this instead."

He heard her voice beside his ears and the next moment, she carried him and sped to the post.

The entrance was a maintenance hatch near the Waibaidu Bridge, rusted shut.

Xia Ling crouched by a rusted hatch, her lockpick clicking.

"Stay sharp," she muttered.

"This place reeks of Syndicate."

Xia Ling quickly hacked the maintenance hatch lock with a hairpin while Li Chen watched the river's black surface. Strange lights moved beneath—not reflections, but *things* with too many fins, their silhouettes warping like ink in water.

"River ghouls," Xia Ling muttered, tossing the broken lock aside. "They follow star energy. Try not to piss yourself when you see how they actually look."

"You can pick locks."

Li Chen asked, more perturbed by the fact that she was able to open that rusty of a lock with a breath or two.

"I can. You first."

She opened the hatch, revealing a path below. Li Chen didn't understand what she saw but her tone grew somber

"Someone was here before us. Let's hurry up and get done with this. The syndicate will be breathing down own necks soon."

"Okay."

The staircase down was slick with algae and decades of condensed breath from the city above. The walls wept rust-colored water that smelled of iron and rotting lilies. It took Li Chen's breath away. It was that disgusting of a stench.

"Lovely ambiance," Xia Ling said, clicking on a flashlight.

Despite her words, she walked ahead, Li Chen quietly followed, all his attention on her and nothing else.

"You even brought a flashlight!"

"I did. Why are you getting surprised at these mundane things. Look at the walls, the ceiling. Don't you find that surprising?"

On her words, he looked at his surroundings. Graffiti coated the tunnel—spray-painted dragons, occult symbols, and warnings in Mandarin: *TURN BACK*.

"No, I don't feel like admiring these things. My mind feels hazy whenever I look at them."

"Oh. You are quite fragile."

The tunnel opened into a cavern, its ceiling strung with bioluminescent moss glowing faintly blue. At the center stood the Azure Dragon Altar—a circular platform carved with celestial script, encircled by nine stone pillars, its surface humming at a frequency that made their teeth ache. Each pillar bore a dragon coiled around a star, their eyes flickering like live coals.

"Showtime," Xia Ling whispered while gesturing him to come forward.

Li Chen stepped onto the altar. The pendant blazed, and the cavern *shifted*. The walls dissolved into a starfield, the pillars twisting into living dragons of water and wind. A voice boomed, resonant as a tidal wave:

"Li Chen of the Lin Bloodline. You seek my power. What will you give in return?"

"Shh. Don't be hasty. Remember the Old Man's warning. Say absolutely nothing."

"Ok. If I die, please deliver my body to my Aunt."

"Don't say ominous things. Go now. Be brave. Don't forget that you are here because you will get the Azure Dragon's power. You will not ask but get. Understood."

She looked at Li Chen who was getting nervous by the second. This wasn't good for her or anyone.

"If you get out alive and fine, I will give you a million. How does that sound as a goal?"

"I do."

Li Chen innocently shook his head and disappeared.

"I should have done this from the beginning. He is just a child with needs."

She mumbled while walking around the Altar. Her flashlight beam caught the murals on both the sides of the walls.

One depicted a painting of the Veil Sect's Grandmaster binding the Azure Dragon into a sobbing child's chest.

The other wall was the same child as an old man, his body unraveling into storm clouds.

Xia Ling grimaced. "Charming family history." But her knuckles were white around her dagger.

It all began with them.

....

When Li Chen stepped onto the altar, the world dissolved. He opened his eyes and found himself in a dream like state.

*Rain. His mother's perfume (gardenias and nicotine) as she turned to smile at him. The headlights through the windshield—too bright, too fast. The world flipping, his father's wedding ring clattering across glass. Then—silence.*

The Dragon's Voice: The regret anchors you. Relinquish it.

Li Chen choked. "No. This is all I have left of my mother."

Drowned in his past, Li Chen began to bargain. The Dragon smiled as the sceneries changed, hundreds upon hundreds, thousands upon ten thousands. He 'witnessed' it all. The future that was to come.

Shanghai was in ruins. Auntie Mei's corpse half-buried under noodle shop debris. Xia Ling impaled on Kai's blade, her blood black with star corruption.

"You failed us," she gasped.

Keep your past, and this becomes truth.

You cling to pain like a child to a blanket. Let. It. Go. Let it ALL go.

Relinquish the regrets, and I shall grant you dominion over storm and sea.

Tears mixed with river water on Li Chen's face, he faced the torment of hundreds of thousands of failed future. He had let the Dragon inside his mind.

"Take it. Just… stop this."

The memory of his parents' death *shattered* like stained glass. The pain was beyond physical—it was the universe erasing a fundamental truth.

"Fool"

And it didn't end at that. He began to lose all the memories of the things that he had ever regretted. The Dragon's voiced echoed before distorting into groans. The Jade coin rose from his pockets and Dragon whimpered and backed away, spitting out the memories.

A second later, reality snapped back. Li Chen knelt on the altar, gasping. His veins glowed azure, and the river answered his shuddering breath—water spiraled up in fractal patterns, wind howling through the cavern.

He got up. A blink of an eye and winds surged around him, disintegrating all the nine pillars to dust.

Li Chen now commanded the celestial storms!

"Will I get the money? I think I failed."

Xia Ling stared. "Holy shit. You didn't fail, you succeeded. Forget a million, I will give you two."

She immediately ran towards him and lifted him in the air like a child.

"Really?"

Li Chen asked with glee, a smile adorning his face.

"Absolutely! Heal my brother and I will buy a house for your next seven generations."

"Hahahaha, you are actually good."

In her celebration and happiness, she didn't notice a drone that was spying on them until it was too late.

A black orb the size of a fist zipped from the shadows, its lens flashing red. She immediately put Li Chen behind her and cursed, drawing her butterfly knife, "Syndicate scout! Run! I will create the way."

She darted forward, slicing the drone in a flash and taking the stone embedded in it. Li Chen followed behind her, his speed still lacking.

Despite not understanding the situation or knowing what the danger was, he decided to trust Xia Ling because... he trusted Xia Ling with his life.

They sprinted through the tunnel, more drone attacking them and yet not a single one could bypass Xia Ling's blades.

They reached the exit in but a minute as Xia Ling stopped at her tracks.

At the exit, Kai calmly stood with six Syndicate operatives around him and hundreds more to come.

"That was clever boy," Kai said, his scarred face lit by crackling black energy. "But the Dragon's power belongs to the Syndicate."

"Not on my watch."

Xia Ling lunged, knife glinting. Kai sidestepped, backhanding her into a wall. It was quite clear that the difference between their combat capabilities were quite large.

Li Chen unleashed a torrent of wind, but Kai *absorbed* it, his corrupted star flaring.

"You're a child playing with fire."

"Well, I am not."

Xia Ling got up from the ground and crackled the gems that she had taken from the drones.

On the other hand, the operatives attacked Li Chen as Xia Ling let them.

"Hold on for a second there."

Xia Ling said to Li Chen without looking back but most of her attention was towards his situation.

"I will try."

"Don't try. Just let it go. Feel the strength, don't control it yet. Remember last night. Do that. Go wild, arghh."

"You think I will let you speak as you wish."

Kai lunged forward, pushing her head into the wall and then dragging it accross the cavern.

"That hurt."

Xia Ling said near the exit, one of her arms bruised and injured.

Kai looked at the 'Xia Ling' that was in his grasp and couldn't help but mutter,"interesting. I wonder how many times you can do that?"

On the other hand, Li Chen was surrounded and being beaten up by the syndicate members. Following her advice, he willed his powers to protect him and a mass of water came from the outside and froze the syndicate members. He crawled from beneath the ice and tried to calm his breathing.

"It was that easy?"

He looked towards Xia Ling and there were four of them, but only one had injuries while the other three where fighting with Kai.

Though even against three to one, Kai was unstoppable—his blows ruptured concrete, his laughter unhinged. He seem to relish in her pain.

"Use your powers to leave this place, I will stop him."

"But you?"

"Don't argue. Have I ever been wrong? I have a plan. Escape now!"

She growled at him in pain, but didn't stop to crush the crystals.

"Pathetic," Kai snarled, disappearing from the clutches of the three Xia Ling and pinning Li Chen against a wall. "The stars deserve a true vessel."

A gunshot rang out. Kai staggered, blood blooming on his shoulder. Old Wei stood at the tunnel's mouth, a smoking pistol in hand. "Go!" he barked.

"You took your pleasant time."

One of the new Xia Ling's clone formed behind Li Chen and immediately threw him towards the exit at great force.

"As if"

Kai hollered.

Bang.

Another gunshot and he now had a hole in his chest.

"As if I would let you do that." [Old Wei]

Old Wei calmly finished Kai words against him as he watched Xia Ling fled with Li Chen.

"Old bones, Stop him for a while, Leave when I give the signal."

Xia Ling shouted out loud while gritting her teeth in pain. She was gone from the entrance and out to the world.

"You heard what she said. Entertain me for a few rounds."

"You think too much of yourself."

Old Wei dueled Kai, their clash echoing like thunder, destroying the cave and collapsed the ground and the riverbed above it.

.....

"I am sorry."

Li Chen slowly whispered while being carried by an injured Xia Ling.

"Don't be... a burden next time."

She said, fleeting speedily on the river, as if it was the same as the ground.

"I won't. Are you fine though?"

"These are just flesh wounds. They would heal by tomorrow."

"Would Old Wei be fine?"

"I don't know. But I am going to murder that disgusting charcoal faced man and all those shadow people that are coming here tonight."

She muttered while looking at the hundreds of figure that were following them. If not for them, she would have taken Li Chen to Old Wei tea shop that was just a few breaths away.

Now she had to lure them somewhere else.

"His name is Kai."

"And I don't care. It's time."

"Time for what?"

"For them to hunt."

Xia Ling crushed the final gem, absorbing it's essence. She raised her palm and aimed at the river and the next moment, blinding light was released from her palms, igniting the area river as if it were day.

The river water began to churn and twist as the things floating in them were in a chaos as they began to soar beyond the waters, revealing their actual forms made up of innumerable corpses all screeching and screaming in pain.

The Floating ghouls attacked the syndicate, devouring them like a flock of piranhas.

"Told you. I killed them all."

"What did you do?"

Li Chen asked in horror. From the peripheral of his vision, he could see the Floating ghouls coming towards them next. Li Chen was sure that they wouldn't be friendly towards them.

"She give them what they want."

Old Wei appeared by their side, answering Li Chen's question.

"Did you get him?"

Xia Ling questioned, her eyes having a murderous glint to them.

"He escaped the moment he realised your plan."

Old Wei answered while Li Chen's face became visibly pale as the floating ghouls neared them.

"Coward. Give me a few months and I will ragdoll him to the ground."

"You do have rhe potential."

Xia Ling nonchalantly spoke. Old Wei followed shoot. Xia Ling sidestepped to avoid a ghoul.

"You are pretty calm. I thought you would be screaming."

She asked the silent Li Chen.

"He has passed out."

Old Wei sighed.

"I see. At least he didn't piss himself. You carry him next."

"Ok."

With Li Chen in tow, they fled into Shanghai's dawn, the dragon's power humming in his bones.

.....

Afternoon.

Li Chen woke up. As promised, Old Wei got the shop back and Xia Ling gave him a million in cash. Happiness filled his day until he discovered the cost.

He tried to sketch Auntie Mei's face from memory. His hands moved, but the features blurred—her laugh lines, the scar above her eyebrow from a wok accident… gone.

"Looks like the Dragon got you. The coin has lost its brilliance. Do you remember anything that happened in there?"

Old Wei said from his seat, Li Chen shook his head and tried to draw a few more things. He failed. He can't recall the face of Auntie Mei anymore.

"You should be glad that the jade coin was there, otherwise you might have even forgotten to breathe and died right there."

"Heh?"

"Fortunately, the others are different from the Azure Dragon and with the aspects that I have seen in you, you will have an easy time getting them."

"... really?"

Li Chen asked in a small voice.

"Yeah."

"I see."

Xia Ling, covered in bandages stood silently, then slid a stolen phone across the table. Onscreen was a picture of a hospital bed with her brother Jin convulsing, his veins black under the fluorescent lights.

"Once all this ends, I am going to create new memories with my brother. Memories that his curse took away. I am going to be happy. The cataclysm is not going to stop that."

"This one didn't work, we're getting the next star," she said. Not a request.

Outside, it began to rain. Li Chen raised a hand—the droplets froze midair, forming a perfect constellation.

"I will help Auntie Mei with her shop."

"Exactly! Let's get her a new shop and newer equipments."

Xia Ling cheered at his words, her smile blossoming a small bit of hope for a beautiful future.

At that moment, symbol on his wrist shone again.

Li Chen looked at Old Wei, who instead smiled.

"The Azure Dragon is now in complete lockdown. The progression of the other stars will slow down considerably."

"Child, you just brought the world a few months of life."

"Can I be happy about this?"

"If you are not going to, I will. I will celebrate this as the day we pushed back the wrath of the Heavens. From now on, this day shall be rebranded as Xia grand celebration day!"

Li Chen looked at the cheery attitude of Xia Ling and internally shook his head. Sometimes she really made him wonder how can a person be so easily happy.