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nEditor: SimoB

nShi Qing could only watch as the golden dragon in front of him literally yeeted his dragon pearl away.

nNot only that, the dragon was also trying very hard to hide his guilty conscience. While blocking off the direction he threw his pearl in with his huge body, he enticed Shi Qing to return to the deep sea.

n“I collected a lot of big pearls of all colours and sizes a long time ago. They’re all hidden in that trench down there. Why don’t we go take a look?”

nShi Qing: “……”

nThe little mermaid flicked his tail. One of his white and tender arms pointed in the direction the dragon’s pearl was sent flying. “Isn’t that yours?”

nThe golden dragon’s face stiffened again.

nThe mind of the shut in dragon, who had never communicated with anyone but the little mermaid, blanked out. He fidgeted, not knowing what to say.

nHe couldn’t possibly admit out loud that “yes that’s my pearl, but this means that you aren’t my baby”.

nNo. There was no way he was going to say that.

nThe golden dragon decided to deny reality to the very end. With guiltily floating whiskers and a stiff tail, his bright golden eyes stared earnestly at the little mermaid.

n“I don’t remember.”

nShi Qing wanted to laugh at the sight of this silly golden dragon. Wrapping his arms around the closest paw, he nuzzled his tender little face against it as he said in a petulant voice, “You’re so forgetful. It was in your mouth the first time I saw you!”

n“It must be something very important to you for you to sleep with it in your mouth.”

nThe golden dragon: “!!!”

nHe managed to squeeze out a sentence after racking his brains, “When I woke up, you were in my mouth.”

nSo, following that train of logic, the most important one should be you.

nThe golden dragon blushed after saying such an embarrassing thing for the first time in his life. His long tail unwounded and hit a nearby rock formation repeatedly out of shyness.

nThe sea creatures swimming by that rock had the shock of their lives when a huge dragon tail suddenly descended from the heavens and slammed into the rocks, disintegrating it into pathetic smithereens.

nThey all fought each other to get away without a moment’s hesitation.

nMommy, save me!

nThere’s monsters here!

nThe golden dragon above had no idea of all the trouble his nervous ‘tic’ had caused. His tail continued to swing up and down as he waited for the little mermaid’s response.

nWhen he looked up again, the little mermaid was gone.

nHe immediately turned to chase after that beautiful silver-white tail. However, he didn’t dare to move too violently, so his speed was quite slow.

nShi Qing swam over to that dragon pearl.

nIt was truly of a remarkable size and sheen. It was the size of the little mermaid, even when including his rather long tail.

nThe upper half of Shi Qing’s body was the same as a human’s, but his tail was two meters long if you measured from the fins on the end. This meant the lustrous dragon pearl was over a meter in diameter.

nAt the moment, it was lying motionless on the seafloor, radiating a soft luminescent light.

nShi Qing swam down and picked it up again before turning to look at the golden dragon, who looked quite wilted and pitiful despite his large size.

nThe little mermaid cutely asked the golden dragon while holding on to the big, big pearl, “What’s this used for?”

nThe golden dragon immediately brightened at the question. All his sadness from being left behind melted away as he answered sincerely, “It’s a lightbulb that you can play soccer with.”

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nShi Qing: “……”

nWith great difficulty, he swam up and dropped the large pearl in the dragon’s paws. He tilted his pretty little face up and asked again, “Can it be used for anything else?”

nThe little mermaid’s entire upper body was draped on the pearl. As he looked up, the crown in his beautiful silky locks shone even brighter under the pearl’s illumination.

n“I think there’s something inside.”

n“Is there?”

nThe golden dragon leaned in curiously for a closer look as well. Now that you mention it, after his eyes adjusted to the brightness, there did seem to be something hidden inside.

nBut the pearl was so bright that the golden dragon hadn’t looked too closely at it in his youth. Then, he didn’t look at it closely as an adult because it was too small, leading to him not discovering this for tens of thousands of years.

nHe curiously blinked his big dragon eyes, “What is it?”

nShi Qing drifted up to one of his whiskers and started to play with it while teasing him. “Hasn’t this big pearl been with you this whole time?”

nYeah, but he really had no idea that there was something in it.

nEvery dragon in his inherited memories had their own pearl, and they all kept a tight grasp on it in their claws or held it in their mouths when they slept.

nThey did this because they were afraid of other dragons stealing their pearl.

nEspecially those younglings that took advantage of their youth to push the adults around. Each of them was naughtier than the last.

nOf course, although they were afraid that their pearl would be taken away, they didn’t know why.

nEvery dragon knew that their pearl was very important, but no dragon knew the exact reason. Most of them assumed it was just due to their possessive natures.

nEvery dragon was born with the same thoughts in mind.

nNo one is allowed to touch that which belongs to me.

nIf I pass by an underwater region, it now belongs to me.

nIf I ate a jumbo arctic shrimp, the entire iceberg would be mine.

nIf you follow that logic to the logical conclusion, my claws were in the sea, so the entire sea is mine!

nTo summarize, they were all unreasonable and selfish brutes.

nThe problem was that there was an entire race of unreasonable and selfish brutes

n100,000 years ago, when there were still many dragons, their possessiveness could still be curtailed by internal conflict with other members of their race.

nBut now the golden dragon was the only dragon left. There were no creatures in the deep sea powerful enough to steal from him.

nTherefore, the golden dragon wasn’t entirely wrong in believing that the entire ocean belonged to him.

nThe little mermaid lived in the ocean, so he too belonged to the golden dragon, right?

nThe golden dragon shook off his guilt once again. He tried his best to get a good look at the pearl, even shaking it with his paws.

nShi Qing sat on his whiskers and watched the golden dragon curiously shake the big, big pearl.

nHe leaned in and hugged the pearl, nuzzling it with his pretty little nose. “It smells like you.”

nIt wasn’t strange for the pearl to have his scent.

nAfter all, it’s spent quite some time in his mouth.

nThe golden dragon lost interest when nothing happened after he shook it a few times.

nHe just pretended the events of the past few minutes didn’t happen as he said Shi Qing again, “Let’s go see my pearl collection.”

nBut the little mermaid shook his head. His hair softly framed his fair face that was filled with anticipation.

n“I want to go see my human friends.”

nThe golden dragon: “……”

nHe forgot all about them.

nNot at all happy with his little mermaid running off to find other creatures, the golden dragon pouted. “What’s so fun about humans? Tell me what you want to do and I’ll play with you.”

nWith that, his claw blurred as it quickly snatched a large jellyfish passing nearby. He raised it to show off to Shi Qing.

n“Baby look, this little fishy is lots of fun too.”

nThe poor jellyfish tried its best to escape from the dragon’s demonic clutches, but the unrelenting claws held it in a death grip as it was presented to the siren.

nThe golden dragon looked at the jellyfish waving its feelers everywhere in a last ditch effort to escape. He exclaimed to the little mermaid, “Look how good it is at dancing.”

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nHe poked the jelly fish with his claws as he spoke, imitating how dragons from 100,000 years ago had threatened deep sea creatures.

n“Keep dancing or I’ll eat you.”

nThe jellyfish: …Ahhh his claw punctured me…I’m dead dead…

nShi Qing took one look at the poor jellyfish before he plopped down on the dragon pearl and hugged the huge dragon’s claw. His voice was both beseeching and pitiful.

n“I don’t want to see it dance, I want to go see my human friends.”

nThe golden dragon immediately threw the jellyfish away, his tail swaying uneasily. He tried to dissuade the little mermaid by bringing up everything bad about humans.

n“They…”

n…Well that’s what he would do if he knew what was so bad about them.

nIt couldn’t be helped since he’d been sleeping for tens of thousands of years, only waking briefly to eat.

nThe golden dragon muttered quietly, “You’re so small… What if they bully you?”

nApparently he decided to simply ignore the face that humans were even smaller than the little mermaid.

nThe little mermaid kept acting spoiled as he held onto the dragon’s claw. “But I wanna go have a look!”

n“I wanna go…”

n“Please?”

nIn this world, no dragon could resist Shi Qing’s pleading.

nThere was only one dragon in the world, though.

nDefeated, the golden dragon reluctantly accompanied his little mermaid to the surface.

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