Chapter 26

Seventeen Dragons (1)

Lan’er was very happy that Mu Wanwan was giving them two silver coins. Feng just gave her a serious look and stretched out his pale and thin palms, as if he was about to receive some treasure. He received the silver coins and squeezed them tightly in his palm when Mu Wanwan wasn’t noticing

“Let’s go,” said Feng flatly as turned around, leaning on his crutch with one hand.

Mu Wanwan nodded, met Lan’er’s happy smile, and trailed after the pair of siblings.

Because of Feng’s leg, their pace was very slow. During this period, they inevitably brushed against many people. Humans were still fine; they would just glance at the siblings before looking away, but when they occasionally bumped into the beautiful elves from the elven clan, they would roll their eyes at them scornfully. 

When they passed a store selling rouge, a cute little black-haired elf girl even called out to Lan’er directly, “Oh, isn’t this Lan’er? Did you manage to sell you vegetables today, hmm?”

Mu Wanwan noticed that Lan’er’s little fists had clenched for an instant. Lan’er bit her lip, then said loudly after a long while, “Why should I tell you!” 

“Heh.” The little girl rolled her pretty eyes. “I don’t want to know anyway. In any case, it looks like you won’t be able to pay the rent that’s due soon. When the time comes, all the vegetables you’ve worked so hard to grow will be mine!”

“You!” Lan’er was furious. Her face turned crimson, and she couldn’t speak for a long time.

Feng turned around mutely. A pair of ice-blue eyes swept that little girl who was babbling away a mild look, and that girl was suddenly like a chick that was squeezed by its neck; she gave a humph and stopped talking.

Mu Wanwan watched as Feng restrained himself and rubbed the teary-eyed Lan’er’s head. While her heart swelled with sympathy, she thought of her own Mister Long——

Because they were born with birthmarks, they were discriminated against by their own clan like this. Would Mister Long have also experienced something like this? Even amongst the elves where discrimination did not result in physical violence, one would receive such sarcastic remarks just because one’s face was not entirely perfect. 

Then, amongst the dragons, where the weak were always easy prey to the strong, and discrimination was much more severe, how miserable had Mister Long’s life been for being born with five claws, in addition to not being able to perfectly transform into a human when he was young?

Dragon meat was a great tonic for the cultivators of some other races, and the dragons discriminated against dragons who were different. Because of his five claws, Mister Long had been unable to perfectly take on a human form and disguise himself as a cub from another clan, so, what kind of childhood had he lived through?

This was only briefly mentioned in the book, but now that she was thinking about it, Mister Long had been an orphan, and the dragons had no orphanages, so where had the weak little Mister Long lived?

As Mu Wanwan followed behind Feng, her mind was filled with scenes of Mister Long lying on the bloodied jade bed with his rotten tail, and her heart felt like it was being lightly pricked by something. When she came back to her senses, she had already followed the siblings across almost half of the shops and had reached the edge of the market.

The traffic here was significantly less; only a few would come over once in a while. Mu Wanwan noticed that there are very few elves here. Looking around, they were mainly all humans.

“It’s here.” Feng pointed to a somewhat dilapidated shop in the corner and headed in.

“Senior,” Lan’er tugged on Mu Wanwan’s sleeves and said with a small voice, “The owner is a lion beastman. His temper isn’t very good.”

“Nonsense, my temper is as good as can be!”

Before Mu Wanwan could react, a rough voice rang out from the front. She raised her head and was met with a face with clearly defined angles. He was a man of some age, and had some complicated patterns on his forehead. They were red, with three layers. According to the original owner’s memories, this was the beastman’s beast pattern.

This man was probably the shopkeeper Lan’er had spoken of. Going by his beast pattern, he should be a fire-based Rank 3 beastman warrior.

“Greetings, Senior.” Mu Wanwan greeted the shopkeeper, who was very forthright. 

“Did Lan’er and Feng bring you here to buy seeds or sell spiritual plants?”　　

While talking, the group entered the shop. The shop was unexpectedly clean and tidy. As soon as they entered, they could see a cloth curtain; it seems like the shopkeeper lived there too.

Beyond the counter, there were two large wooden shelving units. One had a number of small boxes, each of which were marked with symbols; these were for storing seeds. The other wooden shelving unit was filled with some transparent apparatus that contained either dried or fresh spiritual plants. Mu Wanwan’s sharp eyes spotted the burning grass at the bottommost shelf of the second wooden shelving unit.　　

She immediately became a little excited, and felt even more grateful towards Feng and Lan’er. It seemed like this shop was not only a place to sell seeds, but highly likely accepted spiritual plants as well.

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