novelraw Chapter 263
Chapter 263
Chapter 263: Thought it was a Limit One-for-One, Didn’t Expect it to be ‘I Want it All’
“Thump, thump, thump.”
Qingcheng City, Wanniu District.
Inside the residential building of Shangdong Chaoyang Residential Complex.
Zhao Qin, who had just returned home from grocery shopping, heard noises coming from upstairs and went up to check the situation with her groceries in hand.
These long-unoccupied houses were easy targets for thieves, so as a neighbor, she usually helped keep an eye on them to prevent them from being targeted by those with ill intentions.
When Zhao Qin arrived on the third floor and saw the open door, she was stunned.
“Eh?”
“Xiao Xia?”
A fashionably dressed middle-aged woman was standing in the living room. A basin of water was placed by her feet, and she was wiping the various ornaments on the TV cabinet with a rag in her hand.
Seeing the person inside, Zhao Qin breathed a sigh of relief.
“Are your son and daughter-in-law back?”
She asked, looking around curiously.
“Oh, not yet…”
Seeing a guest, Fang Xia turned around and smiled, then continued to wash the rag in the basin. The originally clean and clear basin of water was quickly dyed dirty gray.
“I’m just here to check on their house and clean up a bit. Look, the table is covered in dust.”
“Our floor is low, and there’s construction going on all around, so there’s a lot of dust…”
Zhao Qin stepped forward to help: “Your son has been out for more than half a month, hasn’t he come back yet?”
“Yeah!”
Fang Xia also sighed with emotion: “He said he was going to visit several countries, no rush. He also sent me a lot of travel photos recently, let me show you!”
Fang Xia couldn’t stop talking when it came to her son.
She hurriedly wiped the water from her hands and showed her old friend the photos sent by her son.
Although the photos did not show the faces of her son and daughter-in-law, the scenery was quite pleasant.
Sunrise, sea, beach, coconut trees…
The kind of standard landscape photos that you could find a bunch of online just by entering keywords.
“Xia Li’s photography skills are so good?”
Zhao Qin’s eyes were wide open.
Although their generation used the internet, they were not very good at identifying online pictures. Coupled with their natural trust in the younger generation, no one would think in a bad way.
“That’s right, haha!” Fang Xia laughed happily.
After showing off her son’s travel photos to her old friend, she carefully put away her phone.
It was still morning, and it was still a while before noon. Zhao Qin estimated that she was not in a hurry to go home and cook, so she rolled up her sleeves and helped Fang Xia with a thorough cleaning.
The two old friends didn’t stand on ceremony and discussed what to eat after cleaning and going to the street for a long-overdue haircut in the afternoon.
“Should we clean this room?”
After almost finishing their work, Zhao Qin stood at the door of the master bedroom with a mop in hand, hesitating whether to go in.
Fang Xia walked over with a feather duster, with two spots of dust on her nose.
Without thinking much, Fang Xia waved her hand.
“Don’t bother with this room, let those two little rascals clean it themselves.”
“Okay.” Zhao Qin nodded.
After all, Xia Li was not young anymore. To put it nicely, the cohabiting young couple was like a small married couple.
A young couple should have their own private space, and too much disturbance would be bad.
“Thud!”
“Huh?”
Just as Fang Xia and Zhao Qin were packing up their cleaning tools and preparing to leave, a rustling sound came from under the master bedroom bed.
It sounded like someone’s head had hit the bed board.
“Is someone there?”
Fang Xia stood curiously at the door, squatted down, and looked under the bed in the master bedroom.
There was nothing under the bed.
“It’s probably a rat,” Zhao Qin said, “Our old community is most prone to cockroaches and rats.”
“Are rats so rampant now? In broad daylight.”
Fang Xia looked around but didn’t see anything unusual, so she took her things and left with Zhao Qin.
“Yeah. Didn’t your son raise a cat some time ago? He left the cat with me before he went on a trip. My house used to have a lot of rats. Don’t tell me, since I adopted your son’s cat, the rats have disappeared…”
“When he comes back, I’ll return the cat to him and get another one myself.”
“Don’t you have a dog at home? Dogs have a good sense of smell, let your dog catch a rat too.”
“Hey, the dog I raise is very timid, the kind that hides when it sees a rat, how can I count on it…”
The sound of their conversation faded away.
Accompanied by the creaking sound of the iron door.
The door closed gently.
“Phew…”
After a long time, a girl’s relieved voice came from under the wooden bed.
The girl’s well-proportioned body crawled in the darkness under the bed, her two legs stepped on the wooden board at the head of the bed and pushed hard.
With a ‘swoosh’.
Lucia poked her head out.
“Confirmed safe, you can come out!”
Looking around the familiar environment, Lucia turned her head and said excitedly to the person behind her.
Her dragon tail had not yet been retracted, and it slapped Xia Li’s face with a ‘patter’.
Just half an hour ago, Xia Li and Lucia returned to Earth together.
The landing position of the two was not much different from when they left.
When they left, they were in the living room, and when they came back, they were in the room.
It was a good thing it was in the room.
Otherwise, if they bumped into Mrs. Fang cleaning the living room, it would be difficult to explain.
In Mrs. Fang’s eyes, the two of them were on a sweet trip, and if they suddenly appeared at home, it would probably scare Mrs. Fang.
Later, in order to avoid Mrs. Fang’s sight, Xia Li took the evil dragon and hid under the bed.
Fortunately, after the bed collapsed last time, they replaced it with square tube legs, and the space under the bed was large enough to barely accommodate the two of them.
The two were stuck under the bed in a delicate posture for a long time before they finally managed to get Mrs. Fang to leave.
“You’re crushing my hair.”
Lucia got out from under the bed and brushed her smooth long hair.
Her hair had been crushed by Xia Li and two strands fell out, but she covered her mouth and didn’t make any strange noises.
Xia Li followed closely behind and got out from under the bed.
He patted his trousers and said calmly in the face of the evil dragon’s accusation.
“I’ll crush it many more times in the future, get used to it.”
“…”
Lucia’s lips moved slightly, but she didn’t utter a single word.
“Shh!”
Dragons always pretended to be busy when they were embarrassed.
Lucia remembered this and lifted her long skirt and went straight to the bathroom.
She took off her panties, lifted the toilet lid, and sat down.
Hearing footsteps outside the door, Lucia endured for a while and scolded the bad Brave Hero outside.
“You can’t eavesdrop!”
“I’m just passing by!”
Xia Li was driven away by the evil dragon and went to the living room alone with his backpack to start counting the spoils of this trip.
The things he brought with him before departure were basically completely emptied. All the food and supplies were consumed, and the outdoor tools that Fang Xia prepared for them, the things that could be used to fool the merchants of the other world into exchanging for gold coins, were all exchanged for gold coins.
Except for some clothes and Lucia’s dirty sheep plush toy, the things in the bag were all from the other world.
Twenty pure crystals, two two-way teleportation scrolls.
And the remaining thirty gold coins and five silver coins.
Silver coins were worthless on Earth, so Xia Li decisively threw them into the piggy bank.
The crystals and teleportation scrolls were also stored in a suitable box and hidden under the bed.
As for the remaining thirty gold coins, Xia Li was estimating how to spend them.
The gold coins of the Lyon Empire were not as good as the gold coin of the Orca Empire that Xia Li sold in the gold shop last time in terms of weight and craftsmanship.
However, it was conservatively estimated that these gold coins were worth at least 10,000 yuan each.
In other words, this trip to the other world made a net profit of 300,000 yuan.
Whether for ordinary people or a recent college graduate, 300,000 yuan was definitely a considerable sum.
And don’t forget, Xia Li brought back enough pure crystals this time.
Not only did he have pure crystals that stored a lot of magic power, Xia Li also brought back the ability of plane teleportation.
So, as long as they wanted, they could go back to Azure Continent at any time.
It could be said that the rest of their lives were worry-free.
However… using reselling to get rich was not a good way out, and it was easy to be targeted by the authorities.
This matter still had to be done in moderation.
Moreover, the current goal was to solve Lucia’s identity problem.
“I plan to sell all these gold coins.”
Xia Li sat on the sofa and saw the evil dragon come out of the bathroom, shaking her dragon claws.
Lucia performed a dragon collision and lay down beside Xia Li.
“Oh… I have no objection.”
Lucia lay down like a salted fish, indicating that she didn’t care about this matter.
Although she liked shiny gold, she preferred dry red banknotes to circulating currency that could be traded.
Lucia found that she had changed in this regard.
She didn’t like gold, she just loved money.
“Did you wash your hands? Let me smell them.”
Xia Li was splashed in the face by the dragon claws, so he simply pulled the dragon claws over and sniffed them.
“Hmm, sour and smelly.”
“Impossible!”
Lucia’s face changed, and then immediately flushed red, her silver dragon tail slapping the ground with a ‘slap, slap, slap’.
“It’s obviously fragrant!”
Lucia retorted loudly with a blushing face.
Whether in human form or dragon form, she was fragrant, only the smelly Brave Hero was smelly.
Lucia didn’t bother arguing with the Brave Hero.
She skillfully took out her mobile phone from her backpack and quickly plugged in the charger.
◈◈◈
Her golden-brown eyes stared intently at the phone screen, expecting the familiar charging sound.
During the time she was away from Earth, Lucia could endure the unpalatable food, the hard bed, and the terrible environment of not being able to take a bath or wash her hair in the other world.
But there was one thing she couldn’t stand…
That was, there was no internet in the other world.
Every time she picked up her mobile phone, it was either a camera or a photo album, or she opened the text message interface and looked at those spam messages over and over again.
She had seen enough of it.
She held up her mobile phone and waited quietly for a while, the black screen of the mobile phone reflecting Lucia’s expectant face.
After waiting for two minutes, the mobile phone still didn’t light up, and Lucia’s delicate eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“I’ll go turn on the circuit breaker for you.”
Xia Li couldn’t stand it anymore, so he got up and went to turn on the switch in the electrical box.
“Beep—”
The air conditioner and refrigerator in the house made a starting sound at the same time, and there was an exclamation from the evil dragon on the sofa.
“The power of technology!”
“This is what it feels like to be home!”
After waiting for the home WiFi to connect, the evil dragon started high-speed internet surfing.
Xia Li ignored her and went back to his room to tidy up.
Actually, Fang Xia had already done all the cleaning in the house. Xia Li wandered around and carefully took out a few small pieces from his pocket.
durex
003
Ultra Thin, Bold Love.
After all, it was his mother’s kindness, so he had to accept it.
Afraid of being seen by Lucia, Xia Li stuffed the things into the bedside table and quickly left the scene of the crime.
Back in the living room, the evil dragon was lying there playing with her mobile phone.
Xia Li also charged his mobile phone and reinserted the SIM card.
The moment he logged in to WeChat, Qin Chuan received a message that he had been squeezed offline, and he quickly sent a message to Xia Li.
Qin Chuan: You’re back??
Summer Dawn: Yeah, just got home.
Qin Chuan: So fast? No, so slow??
Qin Chuan: You’ve been there… for seven years, right?
Summer Dawn: No, just two weeks. It’s a long story, let’s talk when we meet.
Xia Li held his phone and thought for a while.
He felt that this matter really couldn’t be explained in a short while.
And, in all aspects, he had to thank Qin Chuan.
If it weren’t for his appearance, Xia Li and Lucia might never have met in this life.
They were each other’s salvation.
After typing a few words, Xia Li made an appointment with Qin Chuan to meet after work in the evening.
After briefly flipping through the chat records between his account and Fang Xia’s, and finding nothing wrong, Xia Li immediately opened the ticket booking software.
He started checking flights from Qingcheng City to all over the world.
As a new first-tier city, there were many flights from Qingcheng City to all over the world every day.
Buying a plane ticket was not difficult for Xia Li’s current financial situation.
The difficulty was finding a small country suitable for Lucia that openly sold citizenship.
Since Xia Li had chosen to take the most complicated ‘legal’ route, those crooked ways were not within his consideration at all.
The key was that Xia Li himself was very picky.
“Tanbang Town, Old Myanmar, the cost of applying for an immigrant ID card is 50,000 yuan… This won’t work, Lucia’s appearance doesn’t look like someone from there at all, Mrs. Fang won’t be able to pass that.”
“Xitao Country 210,000 yuan… This won’t work either, this country is not friendly with us, it’s too difficult to immigrate from there to our country.”
“Xila 180,000 yuan… Not niche enough, keep looking.”
Xia Li was never an impatient person, but when it came to Lucia’s identity, he wished he could solve it immediately.
The matter had finally made progress, and now was the time to strike while the iron was hot.
Anyway, Xia Li couldn’t bear it anymore.
He swiped his phone, quickly browsing the strategy posts online.
There were a few areas that he had his eye on before.
However, when it came time to make a decision, Xia Li was a little hesitant.
This was a major event that could affect the next sixty or seventy years.
Whether they could successfully become a legal couple on Earth depended on this crucial step.
“Xia Li, I’m done.”
The midday sun climbed in from the window and onto the balcony.
The evil dragon Lucia rolled over on the sofa, rubbed her empty stomach, and broke the silence.
They had agreed to cook noodles, but they ended up playing around after they came back.
If she didn’t eat soon, the evil dragon would become a hungry dragon.
“Are you done watching?”
Xia Li put down what he was doing and glanced at her.
The ending song was playing on Lucia’s mobile phone, it seemed that she had caught up with all the anime she needed to catch up on in the past two weeks.
“Yes! I’m done! Let’s go to the supermarket, I still need to buy noodles to cook for you!”
The three joys of returning to Earth: surfing the internet, eating, and playing with Xia Li.
“We can’t go to the supermarket today.”
Xia Li put his mobile phone into his trouser pocket, went to the balcony to get a pair of clean shoes for Lucia to change into, and by the way, he took the mop and cleaned the dirty floor.
He was now clearing the traces of his return home.
In Fang Xia’s eyes, Xia Li was still on a trip.
It was still early. Xia Li had originally promised Fang Xia that he would be back after playing for more than a month, and now there was more than half a month left. It was rare to ‘go abroad’ once, so he planned to finish everything before going home.
Xia Li simply cleaned the living room, and Lucia followed behind him.
“Then where are we going?” the evil dragon asked, poking her head out.
“We can’t let my mom know that we’re back yet, and we can’t pile things up at home, so we’ll stay outside for a few days.”
Xia Li was rinsing the mop in the mop pool, and the sound flowed into Lucia’s ears along with the rushing water.
He washed the mop and turned to give the evil dragon a task.
“Hide your dirty sheep, put it under the bed.”
“Oh…”
Lucia pouted.
She was a little disappointed that she couldn’t go to the supermarket, but when she thought about staying outside with Xia Li… enjoying a different Earth experience, she became excited again.
After living in your house and my house for half a year, are we finally going to Home Inn!
The evil dragon was always good at finding excuses for her emotions.
Swinging her big and thick silver dragon tail, Lucia happily went to hide her things under the bed.
Xia Li cleaned the footprints on the ground and turned around but didn’t see Lucia coming out of the room, so he called out to her.
“What are you doing?”
“Xia Li!”
Lucia’s voice was even more excited than before.
She trotted all the way over, her face with three points of joy, three points of excitement, and four points of fear.
“Old friend!”
Lucia said loudly.
She raised her elbows, the heavy weight making her slender arms sink a little, but even so, she still tried hard to lift the thing in her hands for Xia Li to see.
Azure light shone on her excited face.
A long blue sword with gold edges lay quietly in Lucia’s hands.
Lucia struggled to lift the sword, and coupled with her fear of the sword, she was so timid that even her tail curled up.
“Old friend is back!”
She emphasized again.
“…”
Looking at the Demon Repelling Sword lying in the evil dragon’s palm, Xia Li’s heart was in turmoil.
The Demon Repelling Sword…
It came back with him??
It had only been a short time since he had said goodbye to this old comrade-in-arms, but when he saw it again, Xia Li was inexplicably excited.
He hurriedly took the Demon Repelling Sword.
The familiar weight, the familiar feel…
It was his weapon, no mistake.
However, the state of the Demon Repelling Sword was different from when they had just parted.
The Demon Repelling Sword was in a quiet slumber before.
And now this Demon Repelling Sword was highly active…
And, one more thing.
The two summoning magics that Xia Li had hidden inside the Demon Repelling Sword had disappeared.
To be precise, they had been used.
In other words, the sword in Xia Li’s hand now was the Demon Repelling Sword after using the two summoning magics.
It was the sword that Xia Li brought back from Azure Continent in the correct time and space.
Time returned to its normal track at this moment…
The Demon Repelling Sword of the previous moment belonged to the ‘past’, and the Demon Repelling Sword at this moment belonged to the ‘present’.
“You are also destined to be with me.”
Xia Li was a little touched, he drew out the Demon Repelling Sword in his hand and sheathed it again.
After thinking for a while, he carried this old friend on his back again, just like when he first got it.
“Hehe…”
Lucia was also happy for Xia Li.
Although she was really afraid of the Demon Repelling Sword, the power it possessed could instantly turn her into a useless dragon.
But she was used to the existence of the Demon Repelling Sword.
Not to mention, it looked quite beautiful when it glowed at night, and it was as convenient as a night light when placed in the corner…
Lucia was happy for Xia Li.
She hugged Xia Li’s arm, and the two of them went out after discussing.
“Hee hee, I felt sorry for you for nothing just now!”
“I thought it was a limit one-for-one, but I didn’t expect it to be ‘I want it all’!”