novelraw Chapter 270
Chapter 270
Chapter 270: New Friends, Delicious
The evil dragon was playing in the sea, while Xia Li sat idly on the shore.
He found a large rock to sit on and picked up a foam swimming ring from beside a small pavilion.
Just in case, if there was any danger, he could put on the swimming ring and jump in.
Of course, with Xia Li’s swimming skills, it was highly likely that jumping in wouldn’t be of much use.
It was normal for someone from inland to be a landlubber.
Fang Xia had enrolled Xia Li in swimming lessons before. He had learned for two weeks and barely mastered the correct freestyle stroke, becoming the first person in his small group who could swim.
But after so many years without being in the water, he had long forgotten any swimming strokes, let alone swimming in the sea.
The sea was full of undercurrents, which could be very dangerous.
“Don’t go too far!” Xia Li shouted at the top of his lungs toward the dark sea.
“I know!”
From afar, he heard the girl’s sweet response.
He didn’t know how far she had gone, but judging by the sound, it must have been several hundred meters.
Xia Li quickly added, “Don’t turn into a dragon!”
He deliberately lowered his voice because he was afraid of being overheard, but he was also worried that Lucia wouldn’t be able to hear him clearly amidst the roaring waves, so he raised his voice a little.
It felt like whispering loudly.
“Roar! Roar!”
Lucia roared twice in response.
The girl’s sweet and cheerful voice deliberately imitated the roar of a dragon, mixed with playful laughter.
“…”
Xia Li sighed and sat back down on the rock.
With nothing to do, Xia Li browsed through the comments section of his Record of Experiences.
His last update had been twenty days ago, and the content was a chapter asking for leave, saying that he was going out to collect material.
The comments section was quite gentle at first, with some telling the author to come back soon and others telling him to pay attention to personal hygiene and not get anyone pregnant.
But as time went on, after more than half a month, the readers lost their patience.
Xia Li opened the backend and it was simply unbearable to look at.
He had been scolded from head to toe, and some even started holding a mock funeral for him in the comments section.
Xia Li chose not to reply or explain.
The only way to win back the hearts of his readers was to update with a vengeance after the matter was over.
He had indeed collected a lot of material during this time, and he would be able to bury himself in writing and update 20,000 words a day when he got back.
Closing the comments section.
Xia Li turned to the qualification exam system and logged into his account.
The results had not been released yet.
According to the time written on the admission ticket, it would be next month at the earliest.
Xia Li was not in a hurry.
These things were secondary to him. The key was to get Lucia’s identity sorted out first.
Excluding the money spent by the travel agency during this time, plus his previous savings and the money frozen in the bank, Xia Li had 200,000 yuan left.
Buying an ID was estimated to cost 200,000 yuan.
If there were any policy fluctuations, he would need to prepare even more money.
If the difference wasn’t too much, Xia Li planned to borrow some from his friends and pay them back when he returned to China and unfroze his money.
If the difference was too big, he would probably have to go to the other world again and get some gold coins.
But that was the last resort.
It all depended on tomorrow’s situation.
“Huh?”
Apart from the changes in climate and environment, what impressed Xia Li the most after going abroad was the network latency.
The network infrastructure on the island was indeed not as good as in China, and the internet speed of the data card was so slow that it made people want to pull their hair out.
After Xia Li closed the web page that had loaded with difficulty, two messages popped up.
Looking at the time the messages were sent, it had been an hour ago.
Xia Li looked closely and found that they were sent by Zhou Anqi.
Qi: Xia Ge, have you met with Lu Mei? She suddenly said she wanted to leave this morning. I don’t know if she’s left yet. Her phone is off and she’s not replying to messages. I’m so worried.
Qi: Where are you? Why is your phone off too???
Qi: What are you two doing?
The three messages were sent over an hour apart.
It could be seen from the lines that Xia Li and Lucia’s sudden disappearance had made Zhou Anqi very anxious.
Xia Li then remembered that he hadn’t inserted the data card he had prepared for Lucia into her phone, so it was normal that she couldn’t receive messages.
Summer Dawn: We just met. I asked her to come find me. We’re abroad.
This time he wasn’t lying. They really were abroad.
Xia Li casually took a picture of the seaside at night and sent it over.
Three minutes later, Zhou Anqi replied.
Qi: Oh, that’s good. I was scared to death.
Qi: How could you let Lu Mei come to you alone… Forget it, I guess you won’t tell me even if I ask. You two are too tight-lipped, I can’t pry anything out of you.
Looking at these words, Xia Li felt a little helpless.
It wasn’t that he deliberately kept his family and friends in the dark.
The main thing was that he couldn’t explain his and Lucia’s whereabouts even if he wanted to.
Seeing that the phone still showed “Typing…”, Xia Li waited for a while, and Zhou Anqi sent another message.
Qi: Lu Mei seems to have a bit of a cold these past two days. You should pay attention.
This message really stunned Xia Li.
It felt like his perception had been refreshed.
Lucia, a dragon, having a cold?
Could a silver dragon, whose true form weighed thousands of tons, actually get sick?
Unheard of.
However, after all, she was his girlfriend, Xia Li’s heart still skipped a beat when he learned this news.
Looking up at the dark sky in the distance, Xia Li typed quickly.
Summer Dawn: What’s wrong with her?
Summer Dawn: She’s with me now. I haven’t noticed any signs of her being sick or having a cold. Was she feeling unwell the other day? Did she have an upset stomach?
Judging from the daily photos Lucia had sent Xia Li, it was very likely that she had eaten something bad and had an upset stomach.
Qi: No, she just had a few sneezes. I made her some Banlangen to drink.
Qi: Your Lu Mei is really… She’s never even had Banlangen before. She said this sweet drink was delicious and asked me to make her more.
Qi: Anyway, you should pay attention. It’s the changing season, and the flu is rampant.
Summer Dawn: Okay, I got it.
After finishing his chat with Zhou Anqi, Xia Li turned off his phone, feeling that it was about time.
He turned on his phone’s flashlight, put his arm around the foam swimming ring, and walked to the seaside.
The sand here was unexpectedly soft. When he stepped on it barefoot, it reminded Xia Li of mud that wouldn’t stick to his feet, moist and comfortable.
As he reached the wet boundary of the shallows, white waves rolled in from the dark depths.
The seawater brushed against the back of Xia Li’s feet, and the cold touch startled him.
The water temperature in the shallow sea at night was very low.
Xia Li thought of Zhou Anqi’s reminder and quickly shouted towards the sea.
“Come back!”
On the quiet coast, waves rolled over each other.
Listening to the sound of the waves, Xia Li stood for a while.
After waiting for about two minutes, there was still no movement from the dark water. He raised his hand and shook it a few times.
“Lucia!”
At Xia Li’s urgent call, a pair of light bulbs the size of coins slowly swam over from the depths of the shallow sea.
Looking around to make sure there was no one, Lucia suddenly stood up from the water.
“Splash!”
Emerging!
Shaking the water droplets from her hair, Lucia dragged her wet dress ashore.
The glowing golden-red dragon pupils quickly retracted, and the girl blinked her beautiful almond eyes, waving at Xia Li, showing him what was in her hands.
“Look!”
Lucia stretched out her hands as if asking for praise.
Her white and tender little claws were full of things.
In her right hand, she was holding a large pomfret the length of her arm, and in her palm, she was clutching a whisker. Looking closely, the other end of the whisker was connected to a plump spiny lobster.
In her other hand, Lucia was holding a large pink conch.
This conch was especially beautiful, with a milky white back and an alluring bright pink belly.
Xia Li didn’t recognize this kind of conch. He took a picture with his phone and searched for it, finding that it was called a “Queen Conch”.
This species was banned from fishing in China, but it was a common food in the Caribbean.
Not only was it edible, but if it produced a pink pearl, it could also make a small profit.
This dragon probably picked it up because it looked pretty.
It was quite heavy in her hand.
“Put on your clothes.”
Without dwelling too much on the “prey” Lucia had caught, Xia Li quickly took out a clean jacket and put it on Lucia.
After thinking about it, he simply wrapped both jackets he had brought around her.
Then, Xia Li stuffed all these messy sea creatures into Lucia’s arms, while he bent down and picked Lucia up horizontally in a princess carry.
The beach here was not far from their accommodation.
Xia Li carried Lucia, stepping over the sand with one deep step and one shallow step, picking up the flip-flops on the ground and putting them on her feet.
Only then did he quickly return to the hotel apartment.
The first thing he did when he got back was to throw this dragon into the bathroom to wash up.
The blue plaid dress she was wearing today was already soaked through with seawater. Considering the corrosive nature of seawater, in order to save this beautiful little dress, Xia Li washed Lucia’s dress with fresh water overnight.
“Splash…”
Hot water was running in the bathroom.
Lucia lifted the bathroom curtain and poked her head out to look at Xia Li at the sink.
Blushing, she stretched out her hand and opened it.
“Give me my panties… I’ll wash this myself.”
Xia Li: “…”
At a time like this, she was still talking about “yours” and “mine”.
He was seriously hand-washing them, he wouldn’t do anything bad with them.
After hesitating for a moment, Xia Li didn’t argue and threw the pink Strawberry Bear panties into Lucia’s hand with a “slap”.
Here you go!
By the time the evil dragon came out of the bath clean and fresh, the dress in Xia Li’s hand was also washed.
He had just hung the dress up to dry at the vent when he saw Lucia squatting on the ground fiddling with the prey she had caught.
◈◈◈
The pomfret was already dead, the Queen Conch was tightly closed, and the spiny lobster was barely alive.
It was impossible to release them back into the sea now.
The evil dragon had her own way of dealing with things.
“New friends!” she said excitedly.
“How do we eat new friends?”
Xia Li rolled up his sleeves and walked over.
He knew what this dragon was thinking.
As it happened, he was thinking the same thing.
There was an induction cooker in the apartment hotel, so they could consider boiling the seafood.
Steaming was out of the question, and they didn’t have any seasonings, so it was all about the original flavor.
Xia Li drained the lobster, cut open the pomfret from the middle and cleaned it, and tried to pry open the Queen Conch for a long time but couldn’t, so he simply threw the whole thing into the water to cook.
Incidentally, the knives provided in the apartment hotel were really bad, and Xia Li had used the Demon Repelling Sword to process all this seafood.
Boil the water, start cooking.
Half an hour passed.
After making sure that all the ingredients were cooked through, Xia Li lifted the lid of the pot.
The moment the lid was opened, a fresh aroma filled the entire room.
Lucia was rubbing her hands together excitedly beside him.
Since they didn’t have any eating utensils, they simply grabbed the food with their hands after it had cooled down a bit.
Well, the fish was overcooked, dry and tough, not tasty.
The lobster was springy and smooth, and the meat was quite firm, delicious.
However, because the lobster had the word “dragon” in it, Lucia didn’t eat much, and most of the lobster meat ended up in Xia Li’s mouth.
On the other hand, the conch, which looked very beautiful, tasted surprisingly delicious.
The feeling of biting into a mouthful of conch meat was so satisfying.
It was a pity that they didn’t find a pink pearl and couldn’t get rich.
“Today’s new friends are delicious too!”
When she was a dragon, eating these conchs was like eating sunflower seeds.
When she was human, conch meat of this size could be eaten as a meal.
As a late-night snack, it was already quite substantial.
Lucia rubbed her belly, looking very satisfied.
Xia Li really didn’t know where she had learned this way of referring to food as “friends”.
It was both creepy and funny.
It was quite in line with Lucia’s recent mischievous behavior.
“Zhou Anqi said you might have a cold. How are you feeling now?”
Xia Li remembered this and was still a little worried.
On the way back, Lucia didn’t show any signs of a runny nose or cough, but she did sneeze a couple of times when they got ashore and were blown by the sea breeze.
It shouldn’t be a cold, right?
After all, she was a pureblood giant dragon, how could she catch a cold like a human?
Xia Li thought uncertainly.
“I feel great now!”
Lucia held the new friend’s house （referring to the conch shell） in her hand and looked at it, using her fingers to trace the lines on it.
Seeing her energetic appearance, Xia Li also felt that he must have been overthinking it.
Even if he let this dragon run barefoot in the snowy mountains, she wouldn’t necessarily catch a cold. How could this small seasonal temperature difference affect her?
“Want to hear the sound of the sea?”
Xia Li walked over and took the pink conch shell in his hand.
Lucia listened intently to the sounds outside the window and answered Xia Li seriously.
“If there are no cars passing by outside the building, I can hear the sound of the waves with my hearing.”
Xia Li was amused by the dragon’s seriousness.
“I mean, listening to the sound of the sea with a conch.”
“With this little thing?”
Lucia turned around, her hair still wet from the bath and draped over her shoulders.
She looked very different with her hair down compared to when she had it in braids.
It was like she had transformed from a pure and lively junior to a mature yet slightly charming girl next door.
She had shed some of her innocence and naivety, and gained a bit more maturity and gentleness.
Xia Li walked behind her, one hand resting on her slender waist, the other hand holding the hollow part of the conch to Lucia’s pink ear.
The sound of air flowing echoed in the curved interior of the conch shell, eventually accumulating into a peculiar sound of waves.
“Whoosh… Whoosh…”
The sound of the sea!
“Magic item!”
Lucia found it amazing and quickly turned to look at Xia Li.
Xia Li’s special magic!
Every time, as long as he did something, he could make the dragon very happy with his magic!
“Fun, right?”
Xia Li pulled Lucia to sit by the bed, took a hairdryer and blew her hair, continuing to speak.
“But we can’t take this thing back with us, so we can only play with it on the island.”
The buzzing sound of the hairdryer mixed with Xia Li’s voice. Lucia held the heavy conch and listened quietly to Xia Li, occasionally raising the conch to listen to it “speak”. Her eyes sparkled constantly, and a smile never left her face.
“Hehe…”
Xia Li said that she would be able to apply for an ID card tomorrow.
Although it would take more than half a year to get the ID card, as long as the application was approved, she would officially be considered a member of Earth.
Joining the ranks of humans in this world, becoming a real “person”.
By then, Lucia would no longer feel inferior for being a member of a different race.
She wouldn’t have to hide anymore, she could go anywhere she wanted, and she could proudly introduce herself to anyone.
Xia Li’s family and friends could all truly accept her.
The socially anxious dragon would no longer be socially anxious!
Just thinking about it made her happy.
Night fell.
Lucia wasn’t sleepy at all. She originally wanted to play for a while longer, but considering that Xia Li must have been very tired these past two days, she got into bed first at two in the morning and patted the bed for Xia Li to come to sleep.
Xia Li was still looking at tomorrow’s strategy on his phone.
In order to be able to actively respond to the unknown problems they might face tomorrow, Xia Li needed to be fully prepared.
“If it doesn’t work tomorrow, I’ll secretly use magic…”
Lucia’s slender legs clamped the large sheep plush toy in her arms, her eyes blinking as she looked at Xia Li.
Xia Li shook his head: “Although there aren’t as many cameras here as in the city we live in, this place is too unfamiliar to us, and there are too many variables. Magic is the last resort. We must keep this option until absolutely necessary.”
“I know, you’ve said that. Unless we encounter a life-threatening emergency, we can’t use magic in public…”
Lucia always kept this in mind, but she felt sorry for Xia Li seeing his tense expression.
“Don’t worry about it… Come to bed!”
Lucia stretched out her arms and opened her embrace.
Xia Li glanced at the alluring mounds and his head automatically lay down.
Hmm, extremely soft facial cleanser, comfortable!
As if he had been hit by some kind of sleeping spell, the moment Xia Li lay down, sleepiness took over.
Listening to the faint sound of waves in the distance and feeling Lucia’s warm body temperature, Xia Li fell into a deep sleep.
◈◈◈
Lucia couldn’t sleep.
She couldn’t sleep at all.
Xia Li was pressing down on her arm, making it numb. She gritted her teeth and carefully pulled her arm out from under Xia Li’s neck.
But Xia Li’s head was like a magnet that had been pulled away, automatically attaching itself back.
His forehead had to be pressed against the bottom of Lucia’s collarbone, his nose had to melt into the soft mounds, and his breath had to be filled with the air from there.
Every time Lucia moved, Xia Li, who was sound asleep, moved with her.
“…”
Sigh.
After trying a few times, Lucia sighed.
The Brave Hero is so clingy… clingy to a dragon!
There’s no other way.
She could only secretly play with her phone while hugging him.
Lucia lay on her side, her entire dragon body remaining still, her arms secretly reaching around the back of Xia Li’s head.
She held her phone high, barely able to make out the screen.
When she couldn’t sleep, going online was the only way to pass the time.
Lucia’s phone already had a SIM card. Although the internet speed was slow and she couldn’t watch videos, it was still possible to browse websites and send messages.
After three hours of frantically scrolling through forum posts, Lucia still wasn’t sleepy even though her phone battery was drained.
Turning her head, she saw that the sky outside was almost bright.
Lucia’s heart skipped a beat.
Oh no.
If Xia Li woke up and found out she had stayed up all night, he definitely wouldn’t let her off easy.
If only there was magic that could hypnotize herself…
As the sky by the sea grew brighter, Lucia became more and more anxious.
It was six in the morning, which meant it was six in the evening in Qingcheng City.
According to Lucia’s usual biological clock, she wouldn’t be able to sleep for at least another four hours.
But four hours later, Xia Li would be awake, so what was the point of sleeping then?
“Achoo—”
In her anxiety, Lucia sneezed loudly.
Because she was so relaxed, her dragon tail and horns popped out at the moment she sneezed.
Her long silver tail involuntarily perked up, like a cat with its tail raised.
Her palm-sized horns suddenly sprouted, poking against the soft headboard.
Lucia rubbed her wet nose and quickly looked up at the headboard.
It’s okay, it’s okay… It’s good that there’s no hole, otherwise she would definitely have to pay a little money.
Lucia hurriedly retracted her tail and horns.
She tucked her feet in and completely wrapped herself and Xia Li in the bedding.
Zhou Anqi said she might have a little cold…
Could she really be catching a cold?