Chapter 63: The Yellow Sign

"We mermen take refuge in the Dragon Lord, thus we can believe and accept the distinguishing teachings.
The Dragon Lord is the embodiment of wholesome karma, bestowing great compassion to bring universal joy.
Eliminating all bonds and afflictions, universally granting joy to hearts and minds.
Mortal beings have their allotted lifespans, how could they ever compare to us mermen?
You hairless primates worship old demons, sealing our Supreme Dragon Lord King.
I urge you to abandon the old demons, and join us in communion with the Yinglong Lord.
Cast off your mortal frames to attain spiritual freedom, living as long as the universe and matching the age of heaven.
Worship the path of eternal life of your true ancestors, for universal grace and joy should be thus."

As time ticked away second by second, Lu Mingfei chanted the final incantation:
"Su-lu su-lu ha-su-lu mi-ta-heng!
Within the eternal and supreme R'lyeh, may the eternally slumbering Lord Yinglong guide you into your dreams!"

Absolute silence followed.

After waiting quietly for a moment, Lu Mingfei retrieved a piece of white paper and a pencil, closed his eyes, and allowed his instincts and intuition to guide his fingers, forearms, and body muscles to scribble and scrawl randomly across the page.

The people inside the Norton館 stared blankly at Lu Mingfei's performance. Eventually, Finger scratched his head and whispered in an almost imperceptible voice:
"Junior brother, you..."

There were only disorderly lines on the white paper, devoid of any frenzied or evil rhythm.

"Humph!"

Lu Mingfei knitted his brows with an expression of displeasure, then bowed deeply to the ground and devoutly chanted:

"The mind and spirit manifest as images, formless and bodiless.
The phantom is like the Dragon Father, materializing to reflect the mortal dust.
The Dragon Father is trapped by Xuanyuan, his thoughts breaking free to give birth to the voice of heaven.
He appears often in illusory dreams, but descends rarely into the mortal realm.
Humbly I beseech the holy manifestation of Lord Yinglong, the supreme divine ruler of the mind, spirit, and voice of heaven."

A wisp of faint white smoke rose from the top of the ignited incense, twisting and dissolving into the darkness, emitting a faint sweetness and medicinal scent.

After Lu Mingfei maintained his bowing posture for quite some time...
Still, absolute silence.

The communion ritual had failed.

Unlike Hastur, the Lord in Yellow who was sealed far away in Aldebaran and remained willing to contact him even without offerings or arrays, Cthulhu—a Great Old One sealed right in the Pacific Ocean—was actually unwilling to cast His gaze upon him even after he had prepared the spellcasting environment, incantations, and blood sacrifice?

Could it be that even altering the incantation to summon His most active ego—Kracine, the supreme divine ruler of the mind, spirit, and voice of heaven—still didn't work?

Or was it because the divine power belonging to the Lord in Yellow still lingered here, causing the Yinglong High Supreme Divine Ruler, who was at odds with Him, to be unwilling to descend?

Normally, if a Great Old One encountered the summons of a worshipper of His mortal enemy, He would respond even more actively and bring down destruction.

Could He really sleep that soundly?

Lu Mingfei shook his head helplessly. If he could not acquire dream-related abilities from the Yinglong High Supreme Divine Ruler who held dominion over dreams, the danger level of the Three Gorges operation would increase significantly.

Did he perhaps need to make some even more dangerous attempts?

"Junior brother? Junior brother?"

Seeing Lu Mingfei standing frozen in a daze without reacting to his calls, Finger quietly stepped forward and gently tapped Lu Mingfei on the shoulder.

"Junior brother, you've been standing here in a daze for ages. What's the next step?"

"Huh?"

Lu Mingfei snapped back to reality as if waking from a dream.

He had already exited his state of sudden inspiration, and the ethereal, floating sensation brought on by his severe cold had transformed into a sickening dizziness.

"Today's knowledge sharing is over. You can pack up and leave."

Some veteran members of the Longevity Society, such as Lily and Chilan, wore expressions of disappointment:
"Ah? It seemed like we didn't understand a single thing today? Are we just leaving like this?"

Naturally, it was impossible for these foreigners to understand anything unless the Great Old One cast His gaze. Feeling weak and listless, Lu Mingfei draped an arm over Finger's shoulder.

"Of course we're not leaving right this second."

Expectation returned to Lily and the others' faces.

"You still need to clean this place up. If it won't air out, you can turn on the air conditioning. The next gathering will be in three days."

"Then Nali..."

"The human sacrifice—oh, I mean, classmate Nali will wake up in a moment."

...

A chaotic and tedious web of useless thoughts occupied every corner of Lu Mingfei's mind.

It was like struggling with a difficult math problem, trying over and over again without ever finding the correct answer, only for the problem to suddenly change right when success seemed within reach.

It was like setting up a ritual, slaughtering a human sacrifice, and carving arrays, yet never being able to align all of this with the correct astral and celestial phenomena, only for the ritual to inexplicably fail to react once everything was finally ready.

He did not know how long this disheartening and tedious process had lasted before Lu Mingfei laboriously opened his eyes.

Early autumn at Cassel College was breathtakingly beautiful, with golden sunlight and slightly reddish leaves gently hanging from the tree branches, while wisps of cool breeze blew away the annoying mugginess inside the room.

Lu Mingfei and Finger shared a bunk bed, with Finger on the top bunk. Amidst the spinning world, Lu Mingfei seemed to spot something on the underside of Finger's bedboard.

A yellow circular mark.

It was carved into the middle-front section of Finger's bedboard, appearing quietly before Lu Mingfei's eyes, right in view the moment he opened his eyes.

The fine-line strokes of the mark were simple, resembling the casual doodling of a young child.

At a first glance, three tentacles of varying lengths and shapes writhed and stretched in a bizarre fashion, while right in the middle of the three tentacles was something resembling a flower or perhaps an eye.

If one fixed their gaze upon it, they would find that the three crudely drawn tentacles began to rotate and wriggle, while the flower-or-eye-like object in the center opened and closed at a completely different rhythm.

It moved incessantly in an intensely aggressive and nauseating manner, evoking sickness and dread in any sane mind.

Fortunately, Lu Mingfei was not one of them.

His pupils contracted as he reached out a trembling hand in disbelief and stroked Finger's bedboard.

"The... the Yellow Sign!"

It was the direct symbol of the Lord in Yellow, representing His peerless divine power, a sacred object in the eyes of all fanatics pursuing supernatural power.

Under normal circumstances, this could only be obtained after preparing for months, completing the complex and dangerous "Enfeoffment" ritual, petitioning the Lord in Yellow to send down His most powerful King in Yellow avatar, and earning His praise and recognition.

This practically meant Lu Mingfei had completed his first "Enfeoffment"!

With the aid of the Yellow Sign, aside from an increase in mental strength and a massive enhancement in the magic belonging to Him, Lu Mingfei could also directly summon and command the mi-go, the眷族 (眷属) of the Lord in Yellow.

How could it have appeared so suddenly?

The deep, chaotic sea of Lu Mingfei's memory churned up ripples that had previously been ignored.

When was it?

During his daily moments between slumber and wakefulness.
After the first gathering at the Norton館.
It had been there on Finger's bedboard all along, right before his eyes.

Lu Mingfei let out a slow breath. Alongside his pleasant surprise came an indescribable anxiety.

The attitude of the Lord in Yellow toward him was a bit too proactive...

One could believe in the mighty power of deities, but their mercy and favor?
Heh.

Red long hair gently brushed against Lu Mingfei's cheek, followed by a vivid, expressive, and pretty face.

Nono stood at the head of the bed, her eyes meeting Lu Mingfei's as her long red hair draped downward:
"You're awake? The surgery was a complete success. From now on, we are sisters."