“If it's really a dragon……then, what will you do?” (1)
“What’s the matter……”
Zhuo Fu, who was wearing a baggy white coat, hurriedly came out of the laboratory, rubbing his eyes. His sleep-deprived face looked gloomy and grumpy. “For heaven’s sake, do you people know what time it is……”
Zhuo Fu’s remaining words got stuck in his throat when he opened the door. Mu Heng.
The night chill wrapped around Mu Heng’s coat and his pair of silver-blue eyes, calm and cold, silently looked over at him.
Holy shit! Zhuo Fu jolted into full awakeness, all his sleepiness thrown out of his mind. He looked down to confirm the time—Wait, it’s not working hours. Then why did this boogeyman suddenly appear?
Mu Heng slowly removed his gloves and entered the laboratory without an invitation.
“……” Staring at the empty corridor, Zhuo Fu’s mouth twitched and said dryly, “Come on in. You’re welcome.”
After that, Zhuo Fu closed the door, took a deep breath and turned to look at the uninvited guest behind him. “What can I do for you?”
A blunt sound echoed when Mu Heng placed something wrapped with cloth on the table.
Zhuo Fu was surprised.
Mu Heng silently uncovered the cloth layer by layer, revealing a shiny metallic surface.
It was a western-style longsword with a silvery-white blade as bright as mercury. A roaring dragon coiled around the hilt of the longsword. The dragon’s huge wings were spread out and its barbed scaly long tail coiled around the sword.
Zhuo Fu sucked in a breath. “My God, is this…..?”
“Yes.” Mu Heng nodded. His eyes, which looked darker than before, like deep undercurrents beneath the dark sea, glided intently over the longsword.
“So beautiful……” Zhuo Fu complimented, then raised his eyes to look at the man in front of him and frowned in confusion. “But why did you bring it here?”
Shouldn’t this kind of thing be hidden deep in some kind of a safe, so that it can be passed on to the future descendants or something like that?
“Just now, it moved,” Mu Heng said.
“……Huh?” What the hell did he mean by “it moved”?! A few seconds later, Zhuo Fu blinked. “Erm, you know this is a sword, right?”
Mu Heng stroked the pattern on the hilt of the longsword, lifted his eyes, and said something completely different. “Earlier you said that the fantastical species this time might be dragons.”
As colleagues who work together for so many years, Zhuo Fu immediately understood what Mu Heng meant with just that sentence. “Wait, wait! That’s not what I said earlier!” He exclaimed and hurriedly explained: “It’s been ten thousand years since the fantastical species appeared! This time, most likely, is also a false alarm. This type of thing has happened before……”
“But there is a possibility,” Mu Heng interrupted.
“……” After a long silence, Zhuo Fu replied dryly, “Yes”.
“Excellent.” Mu Heng put on his gloves. “I’ll leave this here for the time being for you to figure out what’s going on.”
Zhuo Fu stared at the precious hot potato① for a long time without uttering a word. He had never regretted so much about what he said a few days ago until now—Why must I be so mouthy that time!
Mu Heng turned to leave but Zhuo Fu, who finally returned to reality, stopped him. “Eh, wait……”
Mu Heng looked back.
①hot potato: a controversial issue or situation which is awkward to deal with.
“If……I mean if!” Zhuo Fu hesitated a little but continued, “If it’s really the fantastical species, of course, this possibility is small. But if it’s real-really dragons……then, what will you do?”
“Dragons?” Mu Heng repeated this word and lifted the corner of his mouth. He rarely smiled, but smiling did not soften his icy facial lines. Rather, they looked like an unsheathed blade with visible sharpness. “Extinction is the only outcome.”
With that, Mu Heng left the laboratory. The laboratory was silent once again. Zhuo Fu stood frozen in the room, staring blankly at the doorway. He recalled the time he first met Mu Heng. That time, Mu Heng was not known as the strongest human being yet and he was not as ruthless as now. The most appropriate description of him at that time was……battle maniac.
*
After that day, Shi Rui sent a few people to search the place inside out, but they did not find any marks. The most reasonable explanation would be that the monsters escaped after they were put in the stimulation room. However, he still felt that uneasy.
But is it possible that Shi An killed those monsters and destroyed their corpses? Shi Rui thought for a moment, then scoffed and dismissed that idea. Impossible. Even if Shi An miraculously possessed magic power, there’s no way he could have dealt with five savage monsters. Let alone destroying their corpses.
However, that faint uneasiness did not disappear. So, during this period, Shi Rui quietened down and did not bother Shi An.
For Shi An, however, it was not smooth-sailing for him lately. He confirmed with the insect many times, but the insect was adamant that when they came back that night, it saw solid scales emerge from Shi An’s body.
Yet, no matter how much Shi An tried, his scales would not emerge when he was awake. He sat cross-legged on the floor and stared at his empty hands in frustration.
Still no good.
Shi An’s human palm looked fragile, his five fingers long and slender with no scales and talons; the entire hand felt strange and his skin was pale—the kind that has not seen the sun for a long time.
No matter how I look at it, it’s unpleasant!
Shi An got angrier the more he stared at his hands. He clenched them into a fist and hit the floor beside him. “……”
Seeing the young man’s expression turn darker, the insect cautiously moved closer to comfort him. “My Lord, there’s no need to hurry. Tomorrow, when school starts, we’ll be able to sneak into the Academy and find the rift. We should be able to quickly…….”
Shi An’s dark expression cracked a little and turned teary. He sniffed and rubbed the hand that hit the floor earlier. “Painful.”
When he was still a dragon, there were scales to protect him, so he rarely got hurt, let alone feel pain. But now that he lost that impenetrable armor, Shi An realized—I am super scared of pain!
“……” Looking at the teary young man rubbing his hand, the insect fell into a long silence. It’s impossible for me to connect this scared-of-pain-and-over-coddled human being with the killing machine that day!
That day, in the blink of an eye, Shi An burned three monsters to death and left two alive. However, the insect could not bear to recall the scene afterward—legs were torn off, blood drained out, stomachs cut open and heads wrung off.
