The Dragon Keeper - Chapter 3

3

After crying herself out, Dong Rao felt considerably better.

Gengchen came to see her early the next morning and found a sign outside the door.

NO LONG BLACK CREATURES ALLOWED. NOT EVEN IN HUMAN FORM!

He fell silent.

So did Jimao, who had come with her cousin Dong Jun. After a while, the white dragon let out a great sigh of relief. “Whew! Good thing I’m a fat white one.”

Then he happily carried his little pastries past Gengchen and went inside.

Jimao was the white dragon Dong Jun raised. More precisely, he was a fat white dragon. He loved food too much.

Ever since that night, Dong Rao had been waging a one-sided, childish sulk against Gengchen for reasons she could not quite name.

He did not complain. Quietly, he brewed her medicine, bought her the newest sweets, and read travelogues to her.

On the night she drank her final dose of medicine, the candle suddenly went out. Fireflies floated into the curtains around her bed, scattering tiny points of light.

Unafraid of her, they settled on her outstretched fingertips and loose hair. They blinked like stars whispering secrets to her.

When she had played enough, they flew out in a line. But they did not leave. They seemed to be waiting for her.

“Hmph. Dragon tricks.”

Dragons were lords of all living things. Of course a few little fireflies would obey him.

Dong Rao stepped outside, and the fireflies scattered. Beneath the pale moon, the boy in black stood alone, like a proud, sharp-edged sword.

She deliberately avoided looking at him. Taking two steps forward, she sat on the wooden railing beneath the eaves.

Then a clean, slender hand appeared before her. On its palm lay… a scale?

She looked up, puzzled.

Gengchen knelt on one knee before her, took her hand, gently opened it, and laid the scale upon it.

“This is the scale over my heart. Whenever you want to find me, just call. I’ll hear you.”

Her eyes widened. She had read the Dragon Keeper’s Handbook. A dragon shed its scales several times during its life, but never the scale over its heart. That scale mattered enormously.

“No—”

Before she could refuse, he closed her hand around it, as if he had expected her answer.

“Even if you don’t want it, it won’t grow back.”

He tipped his face up and looked straight into her eyes. A trace of deep black lay within his golden irises.

“So, do you want it?”

Dong Rao’s heart pounded.

Something secret unfolded in the quiet night, unseen by anyone else. An exalted dragon knelt in submission before a girl, laying bare his deepest vulnerability and cautiously begging for a little mercy.

She even felt that, if she showed the slightest hesitation, he would immediately crush the scale that everyone else would consider a priceless treasure.

Under the moonlight, his upturned face was extraordinarily beautiful. His gaze was ardent and intent, but he did not hurry her. Like a gentle, enormous dog, he waited for his mistress to call.

Her heart felt squeezed tight, then lightly scratched and stroked by a small paw.

Her days of sulking, the words left unfinished, the thorn lodged in her heart—he had understood them all. And he had answered with his most solemn promise.

He would not disappear again. Whenever she wished, she would be able to find him.