The fire alarm blared loudly, and water sprayed down from the roof.
Shen Zhaomu urged Long Shiyu, “Hurry up and create some rain.”
Regular water wouldn’t be able to put out Long Shiyu’s fire breath. The most effective method was to summon ice rain using the Dragon language.
The problem was, even though Long Shiyu was called ” ”Shiyu”,” he couldn’t make it rain.
More precisely, he could only breathe fire.
Shen Zhaomu, upon seeing his expression, realized: this house was doomed to burn down.
After years of training in his clan, Shen Zhaomu had a strong psychic suppression ability over Long Shiyu’s breath, but it still took time.
Golden light spread through the room, and the once-vibrant flames immediately receded and gradually shrank. He focused on extinguishing the fire, and, with his great effort, only a few scattered flames remained, leaving the room in a pitiful state of disarray.
Suddenly, his left ankle was entangled by Long Shiyu’s tail tip.
Long Shiyu started nudging him with it, fervently trying to curry up to him while carefully observing his expression.
Shen Zhaomu: “…”
He sighed and said, “It’s not like I’m gonna eat you.”
Long Shiyu still had a teary expression, “I… I will compensate you with money.”
“Where would you get the money?” Shen Zhaomu found it amusing. “The Association will cover most of the house repair costs.”
He didn’t really care about this. After all, Young Master Shen had never experienced the feeling of being broke ever since he was born.
Backed by the Shen family and competing for the seat of the chief hunter, he had plenty of people trying to please him, so why would he ever worry about such things?
He sent a message to the Association’s logistics department, and they quickly replied that they would arrive at the scene within ten minutes.
Long Shiyu had already returned to his room and came out with a small box after a while. It was an old brown leather box that looked quite worn.
He opened the box and said with some reluctance, “These are all I have.”
Shen Zhaomu saw various items inside the box. Each of them glinted and shined.
From cheap trinkets to dazzling gemstones, small pendants, rings, scattered jewelry, interstellar coins of different batches and models — all sorts of things lined the bottom of the box, like a collection gathered over a long period of time.
…But when added up, it probably wasn’t worth much money.
The silly dragon was truly poor.
But an evil dragon could never resist shiny treasures, and Long Shiyu was no exception. Every night when he slept alone, he would carefully count these items, arrange them on the bed, and secure them with his tail before having a contented sleep.
Although they weren’t a fortune, they were enough.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
For a dragon, being willing to share wealth was simply unimaginable.
Obcu Vtlse gfiemajcais tjcvfv atf ybz ab Vtfc Itjbwe. “Ktfrf jgf obg sbe…”
Lf kjr fnlvfcais tfrlajca ab qjga klat tlr agfjregf. Coafg ajxlcu bcf ijra uijcmf ja tlr agfjregf, tf ibbxfv ja atf mtjbalm gbbw yfobgf olcjiis qertlcu atf ybz lcab Vtfc Itjbwe’r tjcvr.
Vtfc Itjbwe tfiv atf ifjatfg mtfra, cba xcbklcu ktfatfg ab ijeut bg ab mgs. “Tbe gfjiis vbc’a tjnf ab.”
Long Shiyu: “Sob.” QAQ
He started rubbing Shen Zhaomu again with the tip of his tail and said, “Is this too little…? I… I used to have a lot of treasures, but I don’t have them now.”
Shen Zhaomu couldn’t resist pinching his cheek and asked, “How much money did you have before?”
“A lot, a lot. At least… I had at least half the treasure in the universe.”
Shen Zhaomu didn’t take it seriously at all, smiled, and handed the box back to Long Shiyu, “Then let’s talk about it when you find your treasures.”
Long Shiyu took the box back hesitantly, “You really don’t want them…?”
“Yep.”
Only then did Long Shiyu take back the leather box.
The maintenance team was experienced and not surprised to see the mess when they arrived. After all, these hunters were full of vitality and many would feel uneasy if they didn’t kick up a ruckus. It was common for them to break things, blow up a room, or even set houses on fire.
Before midnight, the room was completely renovated, and all the furniture had been replaced.
As soon as the maintenance team left, Shen Zhaomu’s ankle was once again entangled by Long Shiyu’s tail.
Lu Shanhuai had just finished organizing the latest information. Other hunter squads had discovered materials believed to be left by the Blood Worshiping Church in various locations around the capital, such as the northern warehouse, the old air raid shelter in the civilian district, the abandoned starport, and other scattered places. Most of these materials were syringes with traces of alien blood.
Now it appeared that this batch of goods mostly contained siren blood, but the source was still uncertain.
However, more and more clues pointed to a city 600 kilometers away from the capital called Kassand.
Today, Shen Zhaomu had to stay up late to review documents from 11pm to 2 or 3am, and Long Shiyu’s tail hadn’t let go the entire time. He sat at his desk, and Long Shiyu spread himself out on the plush rug as he played games with his tail still wrapped around Shen Zhaomu’s ankle.
A bit later, Long Shiyu yawned and fell asleep directly on the rug.
And still, that silver tail remained wrapped around Shen Zhaomu’s ankle, refusing to let go.
When Shen Zhaomu finally finished reviewing the documents and stood up, Long Shiyu woke up. He rubbed his eyes, yawned, and asked, “What time is it?”
“It’s almost four o’clock,” Shen Zhaomu replied. “You can continue sleeping; I’m going out in a while. You can stay here by yourself. If you need anything, you can find Yang Zhiming. You should know him by now, right?”
“Yeah,” Long Shiyu recalled the one-legged mechanic. “But where are you going?”
“Kassand.”
“Because of the church?”
“Yeah.”
Long Shiyu said, “I want to go too.”
“Why do you want to go?” Shen Zhaomu asked as he took a sip of coffee.
“You’re leaving again, and I don’t know when you’ll be back. I don’t want to stay here alone,” Long Shiyu said. “Are you still mad at me for burning the house?”
“I’m not angry,” Shen Zhaomu found it amusing. “You’re talking like you’ve seen me angry before.”
His only recent emotional instability was at the underground boxing arena, but Long Shiyu hadn’t seen that.
He said, “Most of the people in the church are crazy. It’s better for you not to follow me. Stay home and be good.”
“I want to go…”
“No.”
So, for the next few hours, Shen Zhaomu gained a dragon mop. Long Shiyu’s tail clung to him tightly, and he lay on the ground motionless, forcing Shen Zhaomu to limp around everywhere he went — after all, there was a Long Shiyu clinging to his leg.
“It’s really dangerous there.”
“Sob.”
“I’ll be back soon. It won’t take more than a week.”
“Sob.”
“I’ll bring you some good food when I return.”
“Sob.”
The sky was getting light, and Shen Zhaomu, having finished his coffee, struggled to his feet once again to get ready. Long Shiyu was still dejectedly flopping on the floor, allowing Shen Zhaomu to drag him everywhere he went.
He was a truly despondent dragon.
Shen Zhaomu finally managed to sit back down in his room after great effort, reorganized the documents once more, and checked the time, realizing it was almost time to leave.
However, his dragon mop still remained motionless on the floor.
Seemingly noticing Shen Zhaomu’s gaze, Long Shiyu finally turned over, staring at him with an extremely aggrieved look. “You once said you would take me to all sorts of places.”
Shen Zhaomu stacked up the documents. “When did I say that?”
Long Shiyu said, “See, you don’t even remember.” He was even sadder now.
Shen Zhaomu: “…”
He wasn’t convinced that he would ever say such words, but looking at Long Shiyu’s sad eyes, he felt strangely guilty.
He looked at his planned itinerary.
Kassand was chaotic, but the crime rate had decreased in recent years, reaching its historic low of… 77%.
The people there were exceptionally law-abiding.
The local Star Police were diligent and worked hard every day at the forefront of fighting corruption. It was like an amplified version of the capital’s slums, where criminals gathered. Like a chemical reaction, their congregation led to surprising results.
If in bustling the capital they were a lump of mud, in Kassand, these lumps of mud came together and turned into a swamp. Darkness lurked beneath those hidden currents, picking out prey to devour. The poor went mad, and the wicked became more wicked.
This was the kind of place few dared to go to alone, but Shen Zhaomu was one of them.
His first stop was the upper city of Kassand, the most chaotic and also the most extravagant area. There was a well-known small inn there, protected by the local forces, and it provided services specifically for travelers to Kassand.
Shen Zhaomu hesitated for a moment.
He had an old friend in a remote area of the upper city who had opened an inn. If he changed the inn in his itinerary, and Long Shiyu stayed quietly in the room, it wouldn’t be a problem.
He looked down at Long Shiyu.
The dragon mop still stared at him with longing in his eyes, and his tail tightened around Shen Zhaomu’s ankle.
This time, there were other hunter squads heading to Kassand, but Shen Zhaomu never traveled with others.
In that case… he could change the itinerary, Shen Zhaomu thought.
After all, he wasn’t traveling with other hunters, so there was no problem.
An hour later, Long Shiyu excitedly followed Shen Zhaomu onto the aircraft.
As usual, Shen Zhaomu disengaged the aircraft’s speed control system, and it sped toward its destination at high speed.
After about half an hour, Long Shiyu woke up from his slumber. In the distance, a huge city appeared at the edge of the horizon.
Kassand was divided into the Upper City and the Lower City. The Lower City was just like any other ordinary interstellar city, save for the massive and twisted vine that grew at its center.
The vine reached into the sky, so people had built a new city district at the very top of it, which was called Kassand Upper City.
A statue of a young boy was erected near the bottom of the vine. It was rumored that he was the one who had planted the vine, and he had left behind a famous saying that everyone in Kassand knew to this day:
“Oh, hell, it’s growing even bigger now.”
Author’s Note:
It’s actually Jack and the Beanstalk, lol.
One cutesy sob a day: 4/1.
Today, our dragon mop whined lots and lots!
The cutest ever!
Plus, I’m thinking the treasures in the old leather box are a lot more than what they seem
Lemme guess, Shiyu’s the one who irresponsibly planted the vine XD?
I suddenly see why “moping” and “mopping” are so similar.
Shiyus treasure box habits are so cute
When shen zhaomu thought he has to protect his dear wifey dragon but it’s long shiyu is the one protecting his dearest princess instead XD
That last line LMAO
Number one hunter is weak to dragon mops 🤭.