Chapter 20

Chapter 20

The little dragon cub had slept for a wholeday, so he was in particularly good spirits tonight, still upbeat even afterleaving the city bureau.

Bai Huo saw that it was still early, so hebrought him to the supermarket.

Since the little dragon cub fell ill, BaiHuo somehow suddenly found his conscience, and felt that he needed to learn howto cook. He pushed the little dragon cub around the fresh produce aisle.

“Cub, what do you think, is there anydifference between this fish and this fish?” Bai Huo held up two chilledfish and asked the little dragon cub.

The little dragon cub was sitting in the shoppingtrolley, he glanced between Bai Huo’s two hands, his saliva almost flowing out:“Both delicious.”

“Okay, then I’ll buy them both.” BaiHuo decisively threw the fishes into the cart, not forgetting to warn theuntrustworthy little dragon cub, “Don’t touch them, you can only eat them afterthey’re cooked.”

Wandering into the vegetable aisle, Bai Huoagain encountered a conundrum: “Is this carrot different from thatcarrot?”

Bai Huo and the little dragon cub looked ateach other.

“Forget it, I’ll buy both.”

Standing in front of the shelves in theseasoning aisle, Bai Huo was once again caught in a dilemma: “Is there adifference between this row of soy sauce and that row of soy sauce?”

The little dragon cub stared with roundeyes and shook his head.

Although Bai Huo was unreliable, he wasn’t crazyenough to buy all the soy sauce on the shelf. So, he randomly picked a fewbottles and stuffed them into the shopping cart, happily pushing his son to thecheckout counter.

Passing by the discount vegetable display,the shop assistant was stacking a new pile of vegetables on it. The littledragon cub smelled something interesting and reached out curiously.

“Don’t touch it.” Bai Huo quicklyblocked his hand.

“The fish mint roots are fresh, deliciousin a salad.” The assistant advertised.

Bai Huo nodded at him, waiting for him to walkfar away before pushing the little dragon cub to the side, warning him:“Baby, that vegetable is called fish mint. If you see it again, don’ttouch it, and definitely don’t eat it. It’s poisonous, understand? “

The little dragon cub tilted his head:“Poison?”

“Yes,” Bai Huo pinched his tail throughhis trousers and smiled. “Your tail will be revealed after eating toomuch.”

The little cub’s tail immediately rolled upin his pants.

Bai Huo grinned, pulling him out of thecart.

Dragon medicine grew in water, and so diddragon poison. Some poisons also grew by the shores, one of them being fishmint root. This plant was quite special. For dragons, its status was closer tothat of tobacco in human society. A small dosage could delight the brain andrelax the muscles, but a large amount could paralyze and cause hallucinations.In severe cases, it could cause the divine bone to fail, leading to anuncontrollable transformation into your true body.

Fish mint irrevocably damages the brains ofyoung cubs, so parents usually banned them from touching it. Predictably,adolescent dragons in their rebellious period sneakily use fish mint, althoughit wasn’t as big a deal at that age. At most, they’d be beaten by their parentsafter being caught. It was similar to human high school students pilfering andsmoking cigarettes.

Bai Huo stood in the checkout line, lickinghis teeth. He couldn’t help but ponder over the flavor of the fish mint teathat young police comrade at the city bureau had deliberately poured for him. Hehadn’t tasted fish mint since he became an adult, it brought back old memories.

Exiting the supermarket, Bai Huo carried alarge bag of groceries in his left hand, and his son in his right hand,strolling along the sidewalk. He didn’t have much strength at first, but sincehe’d adopted this child, he carried him all the time, so the muscles in hisupper arms had visibly become stronger.

“Cub ah, daddy trained his biceps justso he can carry you.” Bai Huo laughed.

The little dragon cub was leaning his headon Bai Huo’s shoulder. Hearing this, he straightened up and reached into theshopping bag, rummaging around for a few moments. Then he laboriously pulledout a big carrot and held it in his arms, looking at Bai Huo earnestly.

Bai Huo was puzzled: “What, you wantto eat it?”

“Help you hold it.” The littledragon explained.

Bai Huo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry:“Great, true filial piety.”

The two turned a corner and crossed thestreet, entering a quiet alley. The little dragon cub poked his head out sensitively,looking behind them, his expression sinking.

“Did you sense it?” Bai Huosmiled, shooting a glance at the shadow that flitted across the alley entrance,he whispered into the little dragon cub’s ear, “Let him follow, we have toignore him.”

The little dragon cub remained vigilant,glancing questioningly at Bai Huo.

“The convention stipulates that we can’ttake the initiative to harm a human being, even someone who’s malicious towardsus.” Bai Huo explained, feeling that the child might not understand, he re-worded,“They’re too weak, we can’t bully them, understand? “

The little dragon cub understood somewhat,he hugged the carrot in his arms for a few moments, then said solemnly,“Protect the fish.”

Sweet child, that person didn’t come hereto steal the fish.

Bai Huo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry:“Good, you protect the fish, Dad will protect you.”

As a level-10 klutz, Bai Huo was full of bigideas, but reality was very unforgiving. This he was taught by the kitchen firethat erupted when he tried to cook after returning home. After urgently callingthe cleaning lady to come clean up the mess, the whole family unanimously agreedthat for everyone’s safety, Bai Huo was banned from entering the kitchen.

“Don’t mope around, one of the mostimportant things about being a man is accepting your limitations.” Before leaving,the cleaning Auntie didn’t forget to leave behind a bowl of chicken soup, alongwith some wise advice.

Bai Huo crouched in front of the scorchedkitchen doorway, bowing his head to the site of his humiliation.

He just wanted to be a loving father, whywas it so difficult?!

The plight of the loving father didn’t stopthere. The next morning, it was once again time to send the little dragon cubto school. After getting up early to dress his son and stuffing his schoolbagwith dried fish, when it was time to leave, the little dragon cub suddenlywrapped his arms around his stomach and stood still.

“What’s wrong?” Bai Huo asked.

The little dragon cub didn’t speak, after amoment, he said in a small voice, “Tummy hurts.”

The pitiful loving father hadn’tencountered such a routine yet, thinking that the child’s indigestion hadn’tsubsided, he hurriedly rubbed his belly, asking worriedly, “What’s wrong,did you eat too much last night? Does it hurt here? “

The little dragon cub nodded.

“What about here?”

The little dragon cub nodded again.

Bai Huo was puzzled. Seeing the littledragon cub’s quiet voice and lack of energy, he understood a little, and rubbedthe child’s tail: “And here?”

The little dragon cub still nodded.

“That’s not your belly anymore.” BaiHuo reminded him.

The little dragon cub immediately blushedand shook his head. Seeing Bai Huo’s doubts, he hugged Bai Huo’s neck, hangingfrom his father’s body like a koala.

Bai Huo finally understood his meaning:“You don’t want to go to school?”

The little dragon cub didn’t respond atfirst, he just looked carefully at Bai Huo, the latter patiently waiting forhis answer. The little dragon cub knew that he couldn’t bluff his way out ofthis, and had no choice but to grievously confess: “You’re leaving me.”

Bai Huo crouched down to his eye-level:“We promised Uncle Ji to do this, we can’t break our promise.”

Seeing the little dragon cub’s eyes slowly reddening,Bai Huo smiled again: “But Dad also promised that he’ll stay with you, andthat promise can’t be broken either. So, how about you go to school, and Dadwaits outside for you, then we go home together at night?”

The little dragon cub’s tears instantly stopped,stars appearing in his eyes.

“It’s getting late, let’s go.” BaiHuo thought that the child’s expressions changed as quickly as flipping a pagein a book. He smiled and picked up the backpack, confirming with the littledragon cub before leaving the house. “Any more questions?”

The little cub shook his head, his tail wagging:“Go to school.”

Bai Huo made good on his promise and didn’tleave after sending his son off, finding a comfortable place to sleep on the treein front of the gate. The eyes of the child care workers bulged.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that,”Bai Huo folded his hands behind his head and crossed one leg over the other,half-reclining on the branch, a carefree smile on his face, “I’m not inside.”

The workers’ faces were flushed red withanger: “The headmaster said that you’re not welcome here, you … you alsocan’t sit there! You voyeur!”

“Little sister, your words aren’tmaking any sense,” Bai Huo beamed. “My son is inside. I came to look atmy own son, how can I be a voyeur?”

The childcare worker couldn’t refute him, stompingaway in a huff to go complain to a superior.

Bai Huo relaxed on the tree, looking up atthe clouds floating and drifting away, listening to the distant sound of children’slaughter, his lazy eyes narrowed slightly.

His child couldn’t live without him.Although it was inconvenient, the feeling of being depended on feltunexpectedly good.

*

After all, the child was still small, usingthe reason of not adapting to school life, Bai Huo proposed that the dragon cub’sschedule should be changed from weekly pick up to daily pick up. Theapplication was reasonable, so the headmaster directly approved it without afuss.

But, because there was no more evening tutoring,Bai Huo now had one more additional task-help the child with his homework.

Under normal circumstances, children wouldbe promoted together with their classmates. But because the dragon cub was atransfer student, he had a lot of homework to catch up on. Bai Huo looked at theassignment that was completely written in English, and felt very weird. Whatthe heck is this?

“Whatever, come here cub, Daddy willteach you how to write your name.”

Bai Huo pushed up his sleeves and pulled thedragon cub up onto his lap, spreading the workbook in front of him. He held thelittle dragon cub’s paw and wrote each character one by one.

“Li–Lin–Xi–“

Although Bai Huo was a klutz, his writingwas unexpectedly attractive, confident and elegant, besides it being unrecognizable,there was nothing wrong with it.

“Do you know this? This is yourname.”

The little dragon cub looked at the three exquisitelycursive Chinese characters on the paper, curiously tracing them with his finger:“Mine?”

“Yes, later, you can write your nameon your personal belongings, it’ll mark them as yours.”

Bai Huo was going to show him how to writeit again, but the little dragon cub picked up his pen and imitated Bai Huo’sprevious movements, writing the words out perfectly in one go. He’d even copiedthe words’ “unrecognizable”-ness.

My son is a genius. Although Bai Huo hadknown this for a long time, he still couldn’t help but feel amazed.

“What about yours?” The littledragon cub turned to look at him.

“Mine? Do you want to write myname?” Bai Huo was amused, he waved his hand. “Okay, Dad will writeit for you.”

The father and son didn’t do anything else that evening. They wrote Li Lin Xi’s name on all his books and stationery, an activity Bai Huo glorifyingly called the “Anti-theft Mission”.

The little dragon cub wrote until hisstomach complained. Bai Huo knew that he couldn’t eat his fill at school, so,remembering that the night market was still open, he snuck out while the fatbird wasn’t paying attention, taking the child out for a snack.

It was almost midnight, there were very fewpeople on the street. The two walked out of the alley, and a figure appeared behindthem, tailing them again.

Bai Huo frowned slightly. Although beingtracked by a human wasn’t a huge deal, if it was this relentless, he couldn’thelp but feel annoyed.

The little dragon cub obviously thought sotoo, nestled in Bai Huo’s arms, his little face wrinkled into a dumpling:“I want to change my tail.”

The child had to pretend to be a human inthe kindergarten all during the day, but he still couldn’t shake his tail at dinner.In Bai Huo’s view, this was undoubtedly child abuse.

Walking under a street lamp, Bai Huostopped.

*

Xiao Shu silently flashed into the darkness,a few seconds later, he probed his head out, but the figure under the streetlight had disappeared.

His heart thudded, but just as he was aboutto take a step out of the darkness, his shoulder was suddenly smacked.

“You’ve been following me for twodays. Even if you want to confess, should you be hesitating this long?”

Xiao Shu turned around sharply, fear flittingacross his eyes.

Bai Huo stood behind him with his arms crossed,a rogue smile on his face.

“You …” When all was said anddone, Xiao Shu was a police officer. Although his heart was beating violently,he still tried to appear calm, squeezing out a stiff smile. “Director …Director Bai.”

Bai Huo revealed a slightly surprisedexpression.

When Xiao Shu saw this, he hurriedly tookout a cigarette from his cigarette case and handed it to him: “We’ve metbefore. I’m an intern police officer at the city bureau. I brought you theinformation on Lin Nian’s case.”

Bai Huo had lived for more than a hundredyears. The amount of faces he’d seen in this life could rival the leaves in aforest. He remembered people not by face, but by breath, so after hearing theexplanation, he connected the series of events in his mind, responding vaguely.“Oh, it’s you.”

“Y-yeah, it’s me.” Xiao Shu wantedto light the cigarette for him.

Bai Huo waved his hand and refused, gesturingto the child lying on his shoulder: “Why are you following me?”

“No … no reason,” Xiao Shu’sforehead was damp with cold sweat, clenching and unclenching his fingers insidehis pants pocket, he stammered, “That, umm, I had a few doubts about theprevious case. I’ve been meaning to ask you about it, but I couldn’t find anopportunity. “

Bai Huo let out a prolonged ‘oh’, thenasked: “Since the case is already closed, shouldn’t you take your doubtsto your captain?”

“The captain’s kinda…” Xiao Shuforced a laugh. “You know how he is, he’s not a very goodcommunicator.”

Bai Huo thought that this man was a littlestrange. He didn’t know what there was to be so flustered about. His face wasso good that it wasn’t rare for him to be scouted by model agencies, if Bai Huohad to appraise himself, he’d say “highly approachable”. Why would this manfeel so nervous just talking to him?

The little dragon cub seemed to sensesomething. Lying on top of Bai Huo’s shoulders, he narrowed his eyes sharply atXiao Shu.

“My son wants a midnight snack, wouldyou like to come along?” Bai Huo shrugged indifferently and walked ahead, carryingthe child with him.

Xiao Shu hurriedly nodded: “Y-yeah,sure.”

The alley’s entrance was still a long wayfrom the night market, on the way, Bai Huo discussed snacks with the littledragon, ignoring Xiao Shu behind him.

“Director Bai.” When they steppedout of the alley, Xiao Shu suddenly called out.

“What?” Bai Huo turned around.

Everything happened in a split second-

A knife suddenly flew out of Xiao Shu’scuff, heading towards Bai Huo’s throat.

“Good throw.” This was Bai Huo’sfirst thought.

“Too slow” was his second.

The blade flashed a sharp light under thedim yellow street light, Bai Huo stood in place, only slightly adjusting the handholding the little dragon cub, putting him out of harm’s way.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion.Xiao Shu’s eyes widened, watching the sharp blade slice through the air, seeingits trajectory towards Bai Huo’s throat. The latter seemed completely unaware,still standing in place and staring blankly, like nothing had happened.

At this, Xiao Shu woke up like from adream, his pupils shrank, and his voice cracked as he shouted: “Watch out!”

However, it was already too late to dodge. BaiHuo only had enough time to tilt his head slightly. The blade streaked across hischin, blood flowing instantly. A painful expression flashed across Bai Huo’s faceand he crouched down, covering his chin.

“W-why didn’t you dodge it? You … youaren’t a…?” Xiao Shu said incoherently, his face pale. The fish mint hadno effect, and the reaction to the knife was completely human. Xiao Shu’s coldsweat rained down, and he hurried forward to help Bai Huo up, “Are youhurt, I … I’m sorry, I …”

Bai Huo covered his chin with one hand, andsecretly squeezed the little dragon cub with his other. The latter’s expressionwas bloodthirsty, like he couldn’t wait to tear Xiao Shu apart.

“It’s fine, it’s just a flesh wound.”Bai Huo took a few deep breaths and stood up, snarling, “What the hell iswrong with you? Are you mental?”

Xiao Shu trembled from head to toe, Bai Huocouldn’t tell if his eyes held more regret or shock. His voice was obviouslylacking energy. “I’m sorry, I’ll take you to the hospital …”

“What hospital? As a police officer, yourandomly attack citizens with knives, this won’t be settled with a hospitalvisit! I’m reporting you to your captain.” Bai Huo covered his chin, hisvoice fierce.

“I’m sorry…sorry……”

Xiao Shu eventually respectfully sent BaiHuo to the hospital, even using his own money to get Bai Huo the best doctor.He also bought a pile of snacks and toys for the little dragon cub, unfortunately,the little dragon cub despised him, and never stopped glaring at him.

By the time Bai Huo walked out of theconsulting room, well bandaged, Luo Wen Xu and Ji Bei had already rushed over.Luo Wen Xu stood in the entrance, loudly scolding the young officer, but Ji Beididn’t calm him down like usual. When he saw Bai Huo walk out, he immediately ranover to inquire about his injuries.

“I let you down today. I’ll certainlygive you an explanation for this.” Ji Bei said quietly, “This man won’tstay here, I’ll send him far away.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” BaiHuo smiled, stroking the wound on his chin, then he said in a voice that only thetwo people could hear, “It’s enough to just make him give up.”

Ji Bei looked at him doubtfully: “You letit happen?”

Bai Huo hid the wound under a surgical maskand picked up his son, who had been waiting for a long time, saying, “Idon’t like being tested by humans.”

Luo Wen Xu shoved Xiao Shu directly intothe back seat of the police cursor and locked the door, the only thing missingwas the handcuffs.

“Come, I’ll send you home.” LuoWen Xu was so full of anger that he couldn’t keep the volume of his voice down,causing a small crowd to form.

“Forget it, I don’t want to sit in thesame car with him, it’s bad luck.” Bai Huo said in disgust, walking awaywith his son.

“… I really didn’t do it onpurpose.” Xiao Shu whispered inside the car, not daring to lift his head.

Bai Huo paused, seemingly recallingsomething. He turned around and walked up to the car window.

“My son grew up very sheltered, he can’tstand the sight of blood.” Bai Huo smiled as he spoke, but the smiledidn’t reach his eyes at all. He tossed the knife back to Xiao Shu, “Here’syour knife, put it away properly.”

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T/N:

Attractive- Itsaid the hand writing was ‘good’, but good and unrecognizable writing can’t bein the same sentence. I’m guessing it’s the difference between short hand andcursive for English. It looks pretty, but not many people can read cursive anymore.