The Amnesiac, Sickly Beauty Is Pregnant With My Dragon Cub - Chapter 8

With a conscience that was anything but clear yet an attitude that remained defiant, Yu Xuanji curled the corners of her lips, offering only a faint smile without a word of reply.

Cang Lan, however, could no longer restrain herself. Every time she spoke to Yu Xuanji, the woman always had an answer, but today she remained smiling and silent. Cang Lan couldn’t help but wonder if there was something suspicious going on.

A young dragon in her rut was not only physically sensitive but also exceptionally touchy in her thoughts. Whenever she encountered even the slightest discrepancy from the usual routine, she became paranoid. Cang Lan even began to suspect that the Yu Xuanji standing before her was an impostor.

Quickly, she reached out a hand and gently grasped Yu Xuanji’s wrist, carefully inspecting the scale she had left there. She breathed a sigh of relief.

Yu Xuanji asked, “What is it?”

Cang Lan shook her head. “Nothing. I’ve finished seeing you; I’ll be leaving in a moment.”

Despite saying she would leave, Cang Lan did not depart immediately. Instead, she paced around the cave for a while, leaving her scent in every nook and cranny. Her gaze fell upon the neatly written copybook on the table, and she curiously flipped it open with her hand.

The handwriting was excellent—prettier than even the Old Phoenix’s—but Cang Lan didn’t recognize many of the characters. She only recognized her own name, which was the only thing the Old Phoenix had taught her to write years ago.

Yu Xuanji walked over and said with a smile, “This is a copybook I wrote for you. These are all very basic characters; you can practice them when you have nothing else to do.”

Cang Lan felt a secret joy in her heart but kept her mouth stubborn. “Why would I need a copybook for my writing?”

She seemingly nonchalantly grabbed Yu Xuanji’s wrist, stroking her fingers, the back of her hand, and her palm, before asking awkwardly, “But after writing for so long, doesn’t your hand ache? Aren’t your eyes tired? Don’t you feel thirsty? Where did Hu Liu go? Didn’t I tell her to take good care of you? That weasel only knows how to slack off!”

Yu Xuanji laughed. “Huang Liu hasn’t been slacking. I don’t need monsters to serve me, so I let her go rest first.”

Just as she finished speaking, a weasel poked its head out from a small hole beneath the stone bed. Its two tiny eyes darted around, completely unaware that disaster was about to strike.

Cang Lan grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and tossed it right out of the cave entrance. Throwing it far away, she said with a look of disgust, “She stinks to high heaven!”

Huang Liu gave a few whimpering cries and fled the Dragon Pond with her head in her paws.

Standing at the cave entrance, Yu Xuanji watched the poor little thing flee in terror and said helplessly, “A-Lan, Huang Liu is quite timid. You mustn’t bully her anymore. Promise me, okay?”

Cang Lan bit her lower lip. Hearing Yu Xuanji plead for another monster made her feel quite unpleasant. She had only gently pinched the weasel’s neck and thrown it out very softly; she hadn’t even used a kick, nor had she used even a thousandth of her strength, yet Yu Xuanji was already this heartbroken over it.

“You feel for her, but don’t you feel for me? I was outside freezing for so long that I’ve almost lost sensation in my body. You don’t pity me, but instead, you pity a foreign monster? I am your wife!”

Cang Lan’s pitiful appearance, looking as if she were about to burst into tears, made Yu Xuanji’s heart throb. In the blink of an eye, Cang Lan’s beautiful eyes were filled with a misty haze, and a single crystal teardrop hung at the corner of her eye, refusing to fall.

Yu Xuanji’s heart skipped a beat. As if possessed, she reached out her finger and gently wiped away the tear from the corner of Cang Lan’s eye.

Cang Lan’s heart beat like a drum, yet she feigned composure. “I’ll leave the copybook for now; we’ll talk after I catch that Bone Demon. But you must go to sleep right now. You aren’t allowed to write anything else.”

Yu Xuanji was picked up horizontally by Cang Lan, had her shoes removed, and was swiftly “packaged” onto the bed. Cang Lan pressed down on the rising Yu Xuanji, placing a finger against her lips to silence her.

“No talking. Close your eyes.”

Yu Xuanji obediently closed her eyes. Cang Lan slowly curled her lips, staring at her pale red, soft lips, thinking to herself that they must be very good to kiss. However, she forcibly restrained the surging desire in her heart; she knew this was the rut at work, inducing her to do things beyond her control.

The moon was bright and the stars were few; all was silent.

After Cang Lan left, Yu Xuanji slowly opened her eyes. She stared at the damp, un-dried tear on her right index finger, opened her lips, and took the fingertip into her mouth.

So salty.

She tasted the saltiness of the tear. It didn’t taste good, but it felt real enough.

Yu Xuanji stared at her own hands, observing them repeatedly before her eyes. The scent of Cang Lan seemed to linger on her fingertips. She lay on the bed, placing both hands over her heart, and slowly closed her eyes, a faint smile gracing her lips.

Outside the cave, Cang Lan still couldn’t stop worrying about Yu Xuanji. She paced at the entrance for a while until Huang Liu rushed over in a panic to report: “Great King! Our trap caught that Bone Demon!”

At this moment, Cang Lan had little interest in the Bone Demon. Huang Liu led the way to another hilltop, where the Bone Demon was seen tightly entangled in a net glowing with blue light, unable to move. An Iron-Eating Beast and a Grey Wolf Demon stood on either side to restrain it, waiting for Cang Lan to pass judgment.

Cang Lan tilted her head, staring at the constantly struggling skeleton, only to discover that fresh red blood was continuously flowing from its dark, hollow eye sockets.

Sensing an anomaly, Cang Lan had originally intended to use her karmic fire to reduce it to ashes, but she hesitated at this moment.

The Grey Wolf Demon said, “Great King! Hurry! Kill it! Turn it into ashes!”

The weasel added, “Yes! It dared to bully us! We must make sure it dies without a place for burial!”

The Iron-Eating Beast caught the main point and said slowly, “But it seems it’s already dead, isn’t it?”

The Grey Wolf Demon said excitedly, “Then let it die again!”

Urged by her three subordinates, Cang Lan raised her right hand, her palm burning with a roaring karmic fire. However, in the end, the flame gradually died out. She picked up a ceramic water jar from the ground nearby, stuffed the white bones inside, and sealed the mouth of the jar with her magic.

The three great demons were stunned. The Grey Wolf Demon and the Iron-Eating Beast withdrew their power and stood behind Cang Lan in utter confusion. “Great King, are you making pickles? Why did you put it in a jar?”

Cang Lan said something nonsensical: “I think it looks quite cute. It might be nice to take it back, tie it up, and let my Xuanji play with it to relieve her boredom.”

The three demons looked at each other. They had heard of husbands giving their wives gold and jade treasures, but they had never heard of giving a skeleton. On second thought, however, their King truly had an eccentric imagination that commanded their respect. Perhaps the Lady liked the King precisely for this reason.

After parting ways, Cang Lan returned to the Dragon Pond holding the ceramic jar. She hovered outside the cave for a long time, not daring to enter. The jar in her arms remained quiet, with no strange noises coming from it.

Seeing that the Bone Demon was behaving itself, Cang Lan leaned her back against the cave wall and studied it carefully. If she hadn’t seen it wrongly at the time, this skeleton should have belonged to a young girl; the bones were slender, and her age shouldn’t have been great.

To die so young, turn into a pile of bones, and transform into a demon… and to shed tears of blood while fighting the Grey Wolf Demon… If she hadn’t died with grievances that kept her eyes from closing, then she must have had some unfulfilled obsession.

Cang Lan usually wouldn’t bother with such trifles, but for some reason today, she felt a spark of compassion. She glanced into the cave, transformed into a black dragon, and soared into the sky, clutching the jar tightly in her claws.

A lazy, raspy voice drifted from deep within the curtains: “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

Ming Huang, with her clothes disheveled, put on her shoes and came to the main hall. She supported her waist as she walked out, hurriedly tying her belt.

Seeing her drenched in sweat and her face flushed—not looking like someone who had just woken up, but rather like someone who had just finished an intimate encounter—Cang Lan noticed something else a second later. Dense, bright red bite marks covered the Old Phoenix’s neck.

The young dragon, who had never experienced the affairs of the world, had never even heard of such things. Her face turned red as she set down the ceramic jar, not daring to look the Old Phoenix in the eye.

A tall woman in black walked out of the bedroom. She wore only a thin inner robe with an outer coat draped over her arm. Her face was cold and stern like frost, and her narrow phoenix eyes shot a look at Cang Lan as if she wanted to swallow her alive.

Cang Lan rested her chin on her hand, observing the woman in black, and said with a smile, “A-Xuan, you’ve turned into a human again. I still prefer when you’re a cat; it’s more fun. But why do you always have such a ‘coffin face’? You should smile more so the Old Phoenix will like you.”

Lu Xuan stared coldly at Cang Lan and silently rolled her eyes before draping the outer coat over Ming Huang. When she spoke, however, her voice was surprisingly gentle, though it carried a hint of hoarseness: “It’s cold.”

Ming Huang stroked the ceramic jar with one hand and took a moment to pat Lu Xuan’s cold hand with the other. “You go back to sleep first.”

Lu Xuan nodded and replied “Okay,” but she didn’t move a single step away from Ming Huang.

The more Cang Lan watched, the more she felt something suspicious was going on. These two seemed to have an affair; she could tell from the tooth marks on the Old Phoenix’s neck—the cat must have bitten her. She pointed at the jar and said, “This is a Bone Demon I caught today. I specifically brought it over for you to see.”

Ming Huang smiled. “So it was for this. Just leave it here with me for now. However, I smell your scent becoming more and more intense. You couldn’t possibly be ignoring your first rut, could you?”

Cang Lan said guiltily, “It’s just a rut; I can endure it. Not long ago, I shed my skin and bones and endured nine hundred and ninety-nine lightning strikes; I still grit my teeth and held on.”

Ming Huang smiled without speaking, merely tapping the forehead of this naive little dragon with her fingertip.

After dropping off the jar, Cang Lan fled the Old Phoenix’s residence like a bolt of lightning. She circled in the sky for a full hour. A burning itch emanated from deep beneath her scales, as if thousands of insects and ants were biting her, seeping fitfully from the marrow of her dragon bones.

Cang Lan howled in agony, triggering bursts of purple-red lightning across the horizon.

An unprecedented heavy rain fell upon the Wilderness.

After an unknown amount of time, the sound of rain gradually ceased. Cang Lan was soaked from head to toe, her black clothes clinging to her body, making her curves appear even more pronounced and seductive than usual.

But Cang Lan didn’t know how sexy and alluring she looked with her wet hair and body. She stared at the sleeping Yu Xuanji, her breathing rapid and dry, her heart jumping into her throat. Her normally round pupils had turned into pale gold vertical slits.

Just before losing her sanity, Cang Lan bit her tongue hard. The pain made her brow furrow, but she became much clearer.

Yu Xuanji slept peacefully. Cang Lan stood by the bed for a long time. She didn’t get onto the bed; instead, she plunged with a splash into the bone-chilling waters of the Dragon Pond. Coiling around a massive black iron pillar, she prepared to make do for the night, waiting for the fire in her body to subside.