CH 112 (end)

The color scheme of the haunted house was green and black, and the surroundings were out of place, and it had very few doors, so no one went in to play. Ning Chu followed Wuuth’s line of sight and looked over, his expression lingered 1, and finally couldn’t resist asking, “Do you know what you can do there?”

Wuuth shook his head, frankly admitting, “No.”

He chose that attraction for another reason, since he was never interested in the amusement park itself, and now that the other dragons were gone, who would play with Ning Chu? Wuuth was afraid that he would spoil Ning Chu’s fun, so he chose the easiest and least troublesome place to play at. Because of the crossover, Wuuth could understand the words “haunted house” but didn’t understand the real meaning.

Was it a place where you could rest like a dragon’s nest? Wouldn’t that be boring?

Judging from Ning Chu’s expression and mood, he didn’t seem to want to go, so Wuuth looked hesitant. Ning Chu looked at Wuuth to make sure he really didn’t know what a haunted house was and smiled at him, “Sure, let’s go.”

He dragged Wuuth to the entrance of the haunted house, where a staff member pulled open the heavy door for them. Inside the darkness, the only thing vaguely visible in the faint light was a narrow passage, which made Wuuth feel a little suspicious.

This “haunted house” made him feel a hint of danger and something amiss. However, without the help of magic, he couldn’t use his magic element to investigate as usual.

Wuuth gripped Ning Chu’s wrist, and hesitantly said, “Why don’t we…”

Ning Chu turned his head to him and smiled, “It’s okay, don’t be afraid.”

He pulled Wuuth in further without saying a word, and once he stepped into the narrow passage, the door behind them closed with a thud. The sound of the door closing was loud, so Wuuth alertly looked back, but Ning Chu pulled him toward the path.

It seemed like they were the only ones here, the surroundings were very quiet, and the arrangement of the passage made it look like a cave, while a pale blue light was shining from somewhere. After just a short walk, a cool white fog started rising from their feet, blurring their vision even more, while a strange, eerie laugh rang out, making Wuuth immediately shield Ning Chu behind him. He was tense, looking for the source of the lugh, while saying, “Let’s get out of here!”

He heard a “pfft” from behind him, and when Wuuth looked down, he found that Ning Chu was holding back a laugh, and his shoulders were trembling lightly.

“This is just the beginning,” Ning Chu finished laughing, raising his hand to rub Wuuth’s cold ears, like he was coaxing a child, “Cubbie doesn’t have to be afraid, I will protect you…”

After saying that, he tiptoed for a kiss. Wuuth was confused, but Ning Chu didn’t seem to be worried or scared. Under Ning Chu’s reassurance, Wuuth’s tense spine gradually relaxed, before he asked, “What’s a haunted house?”

Ning Chu deliberately lowered his voice as he replied, “A place to be scared at.”

He didn’t explain more, holding Wuuth as they continued on. The passage was winding and bumpy, and just when they passed a corner, a skeleton suddenly fell in front of them, its eyes replaced with dark red light bulbs, flickering with red light. The skeleton’s jaw dropped down and let out a “hee-hee-hee” laugh.

Wuuth’s expression tightened, then he reached over and tried to pull the thing off.

Ning Chu hurried to hold his hand, and the two huddled together in the narrow passage, while he explained: “It’s just a toy! A toy!”

Wuuth exhaled a deep breath, “I see.”

Sure enough after a while, the skeleton slowly rose to hide back into the ceiling.

“If someone passes it, it will fall again,” Ning Chu explained as he held Wuuth and continued on, “and that’s called scaring.”

Scared… by toys.

Wuuth felt conflicted, he had never thought that there was a place for “fun” in this world. But he now finally understood that this place wasn’t really dangerous, and all the arrangements were intentional, apart from the “scare,” it wouldn’t cause other harm internally.

Wuuth wasn’t quite able to adapt, but Ning Chu looked quite excited, and even moved to touch the surrounding ornaments to see if he could trigger the mechanism. The overall area of the haunted house wasn’t large, so it soon ended around the corner. Wuuth was nervous and felt tense from beginning to end, but when they encountered something scary, he still subconsciously protected Ning Chu. 

The two left the haunted houses through the door at the end and went to a confectionary store in the amusement park.

“Was the haunted house fun just now?” Ning Chu took a sip of the frozen freshly squeezed juice and put a straw in Wuuth’s, “Wasn’t it exciting?”

Wuuth was silent for a moment, “Not bad.”

He guessed that the other dragons would like the haunted house, but unfortunately they weren’t here.

Ning Chu ordered a small piece of mousse cake and shared it with Wuuth.

Later that day they went to try out the Ferris wheel. It wasn’t appropriate for them to ride something else as adults, because they had just eaten and didn’t want to go back to the roller coaster and other such attractions. Wuuth apparently more comfortable with only the two of them alone in the small compartment of the Ferris wheel, as he was looking out the glass wall at the distant scenery, holding a half cup of unfinished juice.

Ning Chu finished his own and came closer to drink from Wuuth’s, joining him in gazing, “Do you like it here?”

It was hard for Wuuth to decide whether he liked it or not, as all his emotions seem to come from Ning Chu. He thought hard about it before replying, “Yes.”

“We still have one more month to go anywhere we want,” Ning Chu then continued with a slight tone of regret, “but it’s a pity that the cooling-off period is so long that it will take a year before we can come back.”

When the Ferris wheel reached the top and started to descend slowly, Wuuth hugged Ning Chu and sat him on his lap, stroking his soft hair, “After we return, we can also travel to other places.”

He knew that Ning Chu’s magic artifact could help him to look after all the Dragon Islands. As the only legendary dragon in the world, Wuuth himself wasn’t sure how long he would live, but they had enough time to go anywhere they wanted.

It wasn’t even noon yet when the two left the amusement park, wandering aimlessly in the vicinity, and then finding a pleasant-looking restaurant to eat at.

They did the same for the following days, with no mention of a specific plan, nor a specific goal. It wasn’t at all like they were on a honeymoon, but rather like they had changed places to experience living there. Ning Chu bought a phone in the end, but when he searched for it himself, he really couldn’t find the game Dragon Island.

Searching for any information about it on the net didn’t yield any results either, so he had to give up, giving the phone to Wuuth. They probably wouldn’t be able to bring the phone back when they returned, which made Ning Chu a little sad.

He pointed at another parenting game and told Wuuth, “I… was raising dragons on my phone.” 

Wuuth frowned, seemingly not quite able to understand, but he was urged by Ning Chu to click somewhere on the phone screen to add cat food to one of the cats in the game.

“When I was playing, I thought you were all fake, and were just a string of data in the phone’s storage,” Ning Chu said while poking a cat on the screen, “But only after meeting you did I discover…”

The kitten tilted its head and rubbed Ning Chu’s fingertips across the screen, making Wuuth immediately drop the phone. His tone was hard, “No touching allowed.”

“It’s not really…” Ning Chu said, his voice getting smaller and smaller, then he touched Wuuth’s face, “Okay, okay, I won’t touch it. I uninstalled it just now.”

What happened to him was so inconceivable, that it was difficult to tell whether every game was real, and whether the objects inside existed in another unknown time and space. The more Ning Chu thought about it, the more serious his expression became, picking up the smartphone to delete all the games from it.

The one passed quickly. Ning Chu and Wuuth changed hotels five times and walked through every street near the hotels. They climbed a mountain, visited a local museum, and went to the zoo to see elephants and lions. Ning Chu also took Wuuth to a movie theater, where they picked a less-frequented venue and the most out-of-the-way seats, it didn’t even matter what they watched.

At first Wuuth liked the environment of the cinema, especially after the lights went out. But Ning Chu told him that there were surveillance cameras in the cinema, so they could observe everything they were doing, so Wuuth said he didn’t want to go anymore.

They watched the days in the countdown dwindle until it became “23:59:59.”

“We’re going home,” Ning Chu counted how much cash was left on him, “I wonder if this can still be converted back into currency…”

The little dragons at home must miss them very much, although even with the managing assistant in place and unable to check the situation on Dragon Island, Ning Chu still couldn’t help but worry.

Were they at home and eating and sleeping properly? Second Cub wouldn’t take Seventh Cub again to fool around, right? Ning Chu was more anxious than ever, now that they could finally take the return journey. They checked out of the room and went hiking for the last time, waiting for the portal to open again in a corner at the top of the mountain.

When the countdown reached zero, the familiar door appeared, with an additional spherical object.

The spherical object was floating in the air, scanning Ning Chu’s and Wuuth’s bodies, then turning into a trash can, speaking to them in a mechanical voice, “Please put the items that can not be taken away for concentrated destruction.”

Ning Chu threw his phone in, and a moment later the voice repeated itself. He had to continue to throw things away, since he bought a lot in this one month: clothes, food specialties, even the backpack he bought in the game, and finally the remaining little cash he had on him.

They were left with only their clothes and their empty hands.

Ning Chu felt it was very heartbreaking. If he had known that clothes and specialties couldn’t be brought over, he wouldn’t have bought that much.

The trash can-like machine seemed to sense his thoughts and said, “Please rest assured that the destroyed items have been converted to partial currency recharge to your account according to their value. Please check your receipt after your return trip.”

Hearing this, Ning Chu felt slightly better. After the machine left, he could finally open the door and return, arriving at Dragon Island.

After another burst of white light, the scene changed completely. Dragon Island hadn’t changed in any way, as if they had left only yesterday, even the arc of the hanging branches on the nearest tree was exactly the same.

The first to notice Ning Chu and Wuuth was Fifth Cub, who froze for a second before darting over, “Aowu! Aowu! Aowu!”

Ning Chu smiled as he caught her, “Did Little Five miss me?”

“Awooo!” Of course I did! But didn’t Ning Chu say they were going to be away for a month? Why did they return in less than a week?

“Less than a week?” Ning Chu froze for a moment, then realized that the flow of time in the two worlds was different.

They had been in the other world for one month, and only five or six days had actually passed on Dragon Island.

It was too complicated to explain, so Ning Chu simply said, “Because I missed you guys, I came back earlier.”

Wuuth didn’t refute his words, just went back to his room to take off his clothes and changed back to his original black clothes. Ning Chu also changed and opened the door, where a squad of small dragon cubs were squatting in a row. Ning Chu picked up and petted them one by one, “From now on we will stay together… I won’t travel far for a while.”

He wasn’t worried about being found, he would just return to Dragon Island and then transfer coordinates, so no one could find where they were hiding.

After the dragon’s happy and excited voices died down, Wuuth light voice rang out, “You can only come if you’re well-behaved”

He pointed out, as his eyes fell on Second Cub. Second Cub felt guilty and quietly used his tail to wipe off a bit of mud from the back of Seventh Cub beside him.