“Tell me the truth, Aunt. Where did the black-scaled cloud flood dragon come from?”
Shen Tinglan was about to pull her head back, but her movements paused.
“Well, that...”
She stammered twice, her gaze drifting out the cabin window.
“A-Ci, think about it. This is your first time officially appearing in public as the successor of the Shen family. As your aunt, I have to make sure you have enough presence.”
No longer trying to dodge the question, Shen Tinglan leaned against the window frame with her arms crossed. “Those old fogies in the Gu family care about nothing but prestige and grand displays.”
“If you attend the banquet with a Soul Transformation spirit beast, you won't even need to say a word. They'll weigh the implications themselves.”
Shen Qingci stared at her, not saying a word.
Stare...
Stared down by her young niece, Shen Tinglan didn't last long before her tone softened. “Alright, alright. I'll tell you the truth.”
“I squatted at the cold pool for half a year and beat them into submission using array plates.”
“What kind of array plates?”
“Prefabricated array plates. Forty-eight of them in total... I went there once a day, spending two hours each time.”
“How long did you pelt them for?”
“About half a year.”
Shen Qingci silently offered a moment of silence for the flood dragon, then asked again, “Aunt, what grade were the array plates?”
Shen Tinglan's gaze drifted around. “...Earth-grade Low-rank. No, wait, probably Earth-grade Mid-rank.”
Hearing this, Shen Qingci quickly ran the numbers in her mind.
Forty-eight prefabricated Earth-grade array plates?
Day after day, for two hours without interruption???
Shen Qingci sucked in a breath of cold air. “In other words, Aunt, you went to find the flood dragon every day with forty-eight Earth-grade array plates, bombarded them continuously for two hours, and did this for half a year until you literally wore down a Soul Transformation flood dragon into submission?”
Shen Tinglan gave a vague reply. “Roughly. That's pretty much how it went.”
“They didn't think of escaping?”
“They did run! In the first two months, they slipped away seven or eight times. Every time, they dove into the deep pool's silt to play dead, but I fished them right out and continued the thrashing.”
Shen Qingci was temporarily speechless.
The clouds suddenly billowed. The two massive, imposing dragon heads from earlier slowly lowered, their four vertical pupils locking onto Shen Qingci.
In an instant, the massive body that blotted out the sun rapidly shrank, and the clouds gathered.
The flood dragon shrank to the thickness of an arm and darted down from midair.
Shen Qingci raised her hand to catch them.
Dark green scales brushed against her sleeve as the slender body of the flood dragon wrapped around her forearm several times.
The two heads rested on the back of her hand, one on the left and one on the right, their whiskers drooping limply.
The head on the left was the first to complain.
“Waaah X﹏X, Eldest Young Lady!” she wailed, warm tears splashing onto the back of Shen Qingci's hand.
“I knew you would come! Any later, and we would have been tortured into dead dragons by this wicked woman sooner or later.”
As she cried, she rubbed her head against the web of Shen Qingci's thumb, her whiskers sweeping around wildly and leaving a wet trail of moisture on her hand.
Shen Qingci felt a bit of aversion in her heart, but she forced herself to suppress it.
Shen Tinglan raised her hand and tapped the window frame. “Let's make things clear. Who is torturing you? You only lost three scales, and I compensated you with more than a basket of spirit stones.”
“Three scales are still scales!” The left head immediately reared up half its body, its small vertical pupils widening into round circles.
“Do you know how agonizing it is for a flood dragon to shed its scales?”
“It takes a full three hundred years to grow a complete set of new scales! Yingyingying~ This wicked woman just came at us and blasted us with array plates right off the bat...”
Shen Qingci's finger stroked the flood dragon's chin, touching the few scales that were lighter in color.
The flood dragon's body instantly froze. Then, she buried her entire face into the Eldest Young Lady's palm, whimpering in a muffled voice, “Right here. This is the old wound left behind, and the scar still hasn't faded even now.”
Shen Qingci looked down. Indeed, there was a faint white mark on the flesh.
Her fingertip brushed over the scar, then touched the base of the horns.
Mhm, a warm, living flood dragon figurine.
It just so happens that Senior Sister is short of high-grade artifact-refining materials for her sword practice. I should find an opportunity to pluck a few more scales later.
As for the complaints against her aunt—sorry, but they were family.
The head on the right had remained silent, quietly resting on her wrist. Its scales were slightly darker than the one on the left, and its whiskers didn't swing wildly.
Only the tip of its tail brushed against the inside of Shen Qingci's thumb from time to time.
Shen Qingci looked at her.
She raised her dragon eyes, met Shen Qingci's gaze, and then looked away guiltily.
“Eldest Young Lady... the wicked woman also snatched the shed skin we cast off,” the right head grumbled in a low voice. “All the shed skins from our last two molts were taken by her.”
“She claimed that flood dragon shed skin is suitable for artifact refining and that it would be a pity to waste it. But those things were ours to begin with; she should have at least asked.”
Shen Tinglan retorted on the spot, “You two were clearly present when I took the skin, and you nodded in tacit consent.”
The right head turned away. “She was standing right there clutching her array plates! How could we dare to refuse?!”
The left head quickly chimed in, “Exactly, exactly! That's her tactic every single time. First, she beats us up with her array plates, and only then does she bring up her conditions. Who would dare to say a single 'no'?”
“She even pulled my tooth,” the right head continued to complain.
“During my teething period, there was a loose fang. She said it would fall out on its own sooner or later anyway, so she was just lending a hand.”
“We clearly didn't want her to, but she turned around and accused us of being stingy flood dragons.”
Shen Qingci turned to look at her aunt beside her.
Shen Tinglan's face remained perfectly calm. “That tooth was about to fall out anyway. I only helped her bypass the long and painful teething period so she wouldn't suffer while eating.”
“This Ancestor was being kind.”
The right head stopped arguing and buried its face back into Shen Qingci's palm, its whiskers drooping.
“She also complained that we eat too much,” the left head chimed in to complain again. “We eat eight hundred high-grade spirit stones of hers every month. But we are Soul Transformation flood dragons after all; what does eight hundred spirit stones even amount to?”
“Back when we stayed in the cold pool, any random Nascent Soul spiritual fish we swallowed would cost more than that.”
“And she won't even let us sleep!” The flood dragon's body wriggled free from her arm, its tiny body twisting back and forth in the air.
“She deliberately chose to come during the Hai hour! The Hai hour! Don't flood dragons need to rest? Just as we closed our eyes, the light of the arrays would blast right over.”
“After the blast, she would act as if nothing happened and say, 'Oh, you're awake? Perfect. Trade a few more blows with this Ancestor. I didn't have time during the day.'’
Leaning against the window with her arms crossed, Shen Tinglan spoke in a relaxed, leisurely tone. “This Ancestor was giving you special training. You slept in the cold pool for a thousand years; your skills had long rusted away.”
“If I didn't polish you up a bit, how would you have such energy and spirit today?”
“We would rather continue to rust!” The left head cried even harder. “Who cares about energy and spirit? Spirit beasts need to sleep too... okay?”
The tip of the right head's tail nudged her companion, shaking her head slightly to signal her to restrain herself, lest they invite another severe thrashing.
The left head sobbed a few times, wrapped itself back around Shen Qingci's forearm, and buried its face in her sleeve, leaving only a section of its tail wagging back and forth.
Once they finished their tearful complaints, Shen Qingci said, “My aunt wouldn't go to the cold pool to trouble you every day for no reason.”
“Presumably, did you two start trouble first?”
The two dragon heads reared up in unison, their eyes widening in shock.
The preferential treatment and increased rations they had anticipated were nowhere to be found.
Wait, this isn't how it goes in the storybooks!
Rate on N.U.
