Ji Zhaoxi’s mood wasn’t great. The cave was pitch black, and a chilling draft came from somewhere.
Celeste calmly hung a lit candle on the wall and started a fire inside the cave, finally bringing some warmth to the place.
He wrapped a wool blanket around Ji Zhaoxi’s soaked hair and gently pressed through the fabric to absorb the moisture little by little.
“If it were Lorian, she wouldn’t be in such a mess,” Ji Zhaoxi said gloomily.
Celeste paused. “Even Lorian wouldn’t have escaped easily from that.”
That elite squad had been specifically trained to fight dragons.
Dragons were powerful, but that didn’t mean humans were completely helpless.
Frowning, Celeste looked at Ji Zhaoxi’s pale face. He didn’t understand why she was so set on doing something she wasn’t good at.
She wasn’t suited for fighting, but she had strong water-control abilities and was skilled at communicating with forest creatures. He didn’t get why the dragon clan excluded her just because she wasn’t good at combat.
Ji Zhaoxi remained listless. Her hair and clothes were already dry, and she was curled up deep in the bedding.
Just as she was thinking about how to catch the prince next time, a chest of gems suddenly appeared before her eyes.
“Gems!”
Her eyes lit up, and she immediately sat up in bed.
Celeste placed the gems down and retreated to his own corner. The cave was spacious, and he was tall, but he was confined to the smallest nook by a certain domineering dragon.
Ji Zhaoxi glanced at Celeste, cleared her throat, and tossed two gems over to him.
“Thanks.”
Using the gems he’d given her to thank him—she didn’t find anything strange about that.
Celeste was long used to it. “Thank you, Miss Dragon.”
Ji Zhaoxi was delighted and began polishing the gems one by one, very meticulously. The first pass was dry, the second with water, the third dry again, and only then did she put them back into the chest.
Staring at the gems and pearls in the chest, she grew more and more restless.
She looked at Celeste with a hint of guilt.
“Servants always have to find jewels for their dragon masters. Celeste, you need to find some for me too.”
Celeste was silent for a moment, then nodded.
The cave suddenly brightened. The rain in the forest had stopped, and the grass, which had learned to breathe underwater, sighed in relief. This time, Miss Dragon’s bad mood had passed quickly.
It seemed she really had matured.
Back then, when she lost a fight, she would cry for an entire day, and for years the forest had nearly been flooded by rain.
The palace grounds were heavily guarded lately—anyone who got close was interrogated. So Celeste decided to go find jewels for Ji Zhaoxi first.
The first thing that came to mind was the mermaid in the sea.
Gems were hard to find, but pearls were readily available.
On the endless ocean, a mermaid sat on a reef, singing with a sweet, melodious voice.
She was waiting for her prince. Hundreds of men had fallen into the sea from ships here, but she still hadn’t found him.
Just then, she saw a tall man walking toward her. The mermaid hesitated—she remembered her prince being gentle, not so cold and stern.
Before she could speak, the man pointed his sword at her and said, “Cry.”
The mermaid: …
She recalled that the last time someone forced her to cry, it was a dragon.
Singing a mournful song, the mermaid wept, pearls falling steadily to the ground. Celeste quietly picked them up.
She didn’t know how long she sang, but Celeste finally filled his wooden crate. The mermaid glared at it gloomily. That dragon had come with a crate too—several of them, in fact. When she couldn’t cry anymore, that scrawny dragon would tell her tragic love stories to squeeze out more tears. What a black-hearted dragon.
Celeste carried the crate back. Ji Zhaoxi was overjoyed when she saw it, so much so that she started calling him by name instead of “my servant.”
“Pearls.”
She was about to celebrate, but when she sensed the aura on them, she fell silent for a moment.
“Celeste, are these mermaid pearls?”
Celeste nodded.
Ji Zhaoxi let out a deep sigh. “Don’t get mermaid pearls next time. I got beaten up for that before.”
Celeste frowned deeply. “Why? They’re just tears.”
Ji Zhaoxi said dejectedly, “Actually, I’m sort of related to mermaids.”
That time, she had bullied a mermaid into crying because she was big in her dragon form. But the mermaid went and told her father, who went to complain to Ji Zhaoxi’s mother dragon. Her mother gave her a serious scolding.
Celeste: …
From that day on, Ji Zhaoxi kept to herself for a while. She didn’t know what Celeste did every day when he went out, but since he returned with gems and meat, she forgave him for leaving his post.
Today, the sun was nice, and she sat by the river washing her gems. The basketful almost blinded the fish in the water.
As she was polishing, a swan swam over and watched her from the side.
Ji Zhaoxi ignored it. In her mind, ducks and swans were no different.
Then the swan suddenly spoke: “Miss Dragon, do you remember me?”
Ji Zhaoxi stared blankly at it and shook her head.
Of course she didn’t—all ducks looked alike.
The swan seemed a little hurt but still spoke gently: “Miss Dragon, I’m the ugly duckling that came to see you last time.”
“Turns out I really am a swan. You showed me the right direction. Thank you.”
The swan’s neck was long and elegant.
Ji Zhaoxi: …
She hated ducks.
To show its gratitude, the swan gave Ji Zhaoxi a feather from its body.
Ji Zhaoxi didn’t want it.
“That’s not worth anything.”
The air grew still for a moment. Ji Zhaoxi looked at its reddened eyes in confusion—what? Was she wrong?
Swan feathers were worthless anyway. Sometimes, just by flapping in the water, they’d shed plenty.
The swan was furious. It snatched the feather back and swam off, not forgetting to toss over its shoulder,
“Dragons really are as mercenary as the rumors say!”
Ji Zhaoxi: …
Couldn’t it have given her something that could be traded in the market?
