Xie Ning collapsed on Echidna, sweating all over, feeling tired and refreshed.
Alas, after becoming a god, the physical limitations were removed, but there was no restraint...
Echidna stroked his wet hair lovingly, and felt even more distressed when she saw that his hair, which used to be black and shiny, had now turned pale.
"Doros," he said, "now can you tell me in detail what happened to you after I left, and how you became a god?"
Xie Ning turned his head lazily and contentedly, but his neck felt uncomfortable because he always kept the same posture.
"If I tell you, you can't move. You just have to stay here obediently, understand?" He gave the order in a muffled voice. If Echidna got furious and rushed to Mount Olympus to seek revenge, he really wouldn't have the energy to make trouble anymore.
Echidna said indulgently: "Well, whatever you say is what I will always obey your wishes."
After getting the promise, Xie Ning took a long breath, exhaled it, and began to recall the original events.
"In short, you already know that the oath was made to deceive you. After you left, the Olympian gods immediately fed me the wine of immortality, making your sentence endless..." Xie Ning said slowly, "I didn't know about this at first. I just wanted to find you, but I couldn't go to Tartarus alone, so I provoked Apollo and made him make a bet with me."
Echidna asked nervously, "What bet?"
"Thinking about it now, it's nothing." Xie Ning smiled, "It was just a competition. He and I saw who could draw better. Best of three. If I won, he would escort me for eighteen years and let me reunite with you. If I lost, he would turn me into a dandelion and stick me next to the river of fire, so I could only watch you forever..."
Echidna did not move, but a huge rage had begun to boil in his chest, his fangs were growing, and the surging venom was eager to find a breakthrough.
"I agreed!" Xie Ning said briskly, "Anyway, I had no other choice at the time, so I started playing against him. Aphrodite helped me in the first game, and he didn't take me seriously, so I won my first victory. By the way, I drew you in the first game."
Recalling the throbbing he felt when he was in Tartarus, Echidna softened his expression, gently extended his snake tongue, and licked Xie Ning's cheek.
"I know."
Xie Ning hummed happily and continued, "In the second round, he started to get serious. The topic of our competition was 'Grapes'. I worked hard but only drew a grape plantation. He, on the other hand, drew a picture within a picture, a living being reflected in a glass of wine, and drew their birth and death in the wine, an ultimate cycle. How can I win?"
"I'm not a genius, but he is the god who controls geniuses. Just imagine the difference. Anyway, I collapsed at that time. After I went back, I cried for a long time..." At this point, Xie Ning was silent for a long time before continuing, "I felt that I couldn't win. Even if I spent a hundred or two hundred years, I was afraid I couldn't beat the god of art. In the third game, I gave up and just painted a picture at random. At that time, I thought, at worst, he would really turn into a dandelion and look at you across the river. What would that matter?"