LBRDI Chapter 32

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A Little Bit of Publicity

Bonus of ko-fi chapter

In the centre’s bathroom.

The tree dragon insisted that he only picked a few leaves, but when the police officer took out his quantum computer to identify the tree dragon by comparing his file with the residents of Water Star, the tree dragon realised that he couldn’t get away with it and voluntarily confessed.

This tree dragon was called Edmond. He was a convicted thief and hadn’t committed a crime for months after his release. He got a delivery job that was always short of dragons, saw a mock battlefield arena when he came to the centre and got the wrong idea again.

Edmond’s head was hanging and he had no clothes, so he stayed in dragon form, “I saw that the front yard had a surveillance system and the backyard was dark and had lots of plants, perfect for shelter, so I tried to sneak in through the backyard. I was so hungry that I couldn’t resist eating a little bit as I was passing by the dragon fields. Then that little black bastard jumped down and grabbed me!”

Edmond was yelling at the top of his lungs again, “I’ve come to steal things, but I didn’t, did I? You didn’t lose anything and I got beaten up! You have to pay me back!”

Lu Yuan whispered, “He’s so stupid that he casually got caught. How did he steal things before?”

Shen Mian: “…Lu Yuan, he’s not stupid. Tree dragons are very good at camouflaging and they can maintain the same posture for nineteen hours under the condition of sufficient water and food. Tree dragons also have no scales and have a keener sense of touch than humans, so they can sense the subtle wind direction and adjust their state to blend into the environment.”

That’s why in heavily wooded areas such as rainforests, tree dragons are deadly killers.

The officer was well aware of this as well, so he questioned, “How did you find him?”

Yan Tan and Lu Yuan looked at Gian at the same time.

The small gem dragon said, “I heard a very strange noise outside, so I went to the window to take a look and I found an area of the dragon grass fields that were completely bald. I thought it was a small animal from outside that had snuck in and I wanted Yan Tan to chase it away…”

Gian led Shen Mian to the window, “Every time the dean picks the leaves, he won’t pick all the leaves off one dragon grass, so the ones without leaves would be conspicuous.”

The police officer took a closer look and found a dragon grass that really was bald. He couldn’t help but look down at the gem dragon cub that spoke, admiring the other’s attentiveness.

Edmond spoke angrily, “At that time they did not turn on the lights when entering the bathroom! I thought all the dragons were asleep! I forgot to eat at night so I was so hungry and ate a little dragon grass!”
Because he thought he was going to make a fortune this time, he was so excited that he forgot dinner and his stomach cried as soon as he lurked into the centre.

Shen Mian thought, isn’t this just the dragon’s version of confusing behaviour?

All of the little gem dragon’s inner thoughts were, “We’re going to have to compensate money” and asked in a panic, “Uncle, we have to rely on the dragon grass to save money for our centre and our centre depends on our dean to support the family, do we really have to compensate him?”

Yan Tan was already about to cry, “I-I didn’t mean to, did I get into trouble again, I’ll pay back the money myself…”
He was the one who ate a lot of dragon grass last time, he was the one who demolished the main conqueror last time and he was the one who wounded the other dragons this time.

Lu Yuan glanced around, blinked and let out a little tear.

The three cubs looked tearfully at the officer.

The police officer was an officer who had retired from the military. His expression was colder than the robot, but he was terribly soft to cubs. He had been in the army for years, but he had never seen a battle like this, so he was even more flustered than Gian, “No, you won’t. He trespassed and caused financial damage to the centre, you are not responsible.”

In the absence of any illegal devices such as laser screens installed in the centre, Edmond, who broke in, will be held responsible for the consequences of his actions.

The officer had the other two police officers remove Edmond and considering that the centre only had one kindergarten teacher, Shen Mian, who could not leave the centre, the officer remaining at the centre after took a brief statement and made inquiries.

Shen Mian pulled up the surveillance to give to the police.

The centre’s backyard monitor was broken, but He Xing had fixed it and installed it in the corner.
He Xing probably had a bit of occupational disease- it was just installing a camera in the centre, but he kept the scrapped camera as “bait” and bought a smaller camera to mount next to the old one, with a dead-end view.

The surveillance clearly showed Edmond sneaking over the centre’s fence and shoving a handful of dragon grass into his mouth in a panic when he realised his stomach was making noises.

The officer put away his quantum computer, “My last name is Reed and I will be in charge of this area from now on. The centre can call the police if there are any difficult matters to resolve. We’ll let you know as soon as the decision on Edmond has been made. You can also rest assured that since he dared to steal from the centre and caused severe psychological trauma to the dragon cubs under extremely harsh circumstances, that we will never let it go easily. The scenario was extremely bad.”

Shen Mian looked back. The only little dragon cub who was actually crying out of the three dragon cubs who had been “severely traumatised” was Yan Tan. Gian and Lu Yuan had gathered around Yan Tan for comfort.

Shen Mian nodded: Mhm, they really were severely traumatised.

Officer Reed looked behind Shen Mian and noticed that the little dragon cub was wincing badly and said to Shen Mian, “Dean, please advise them afterwards. In such a dangerous situation, the cubs shouldn’t just rush out, it’s too dangerous…”

Officer Reed paused and one man and one dragon simultaneously focused their attention on Edmond, who was sitting on the ground rubbing his back and grunting, having obviously fallen hard.

Although tree dragons were considered medium-sized dragons, their defences and attacks were much weaker in order to make up for their concealment skills. They didn’t have scales or subcutaneous fat layers on their bodies so being dropped straight down and falling to the ground would still hurt for a while.

Officer Reed tilted his head and added as if nothing had happened, “No matter if they’re cubs or adult dragons.”

Shen Mian also withdrew his gaze, as if he hadn’t seen anything, “That’s a given.”

Officer Reed, “Then we’ll go back first, get some rest. Hey, get Edmond out of here.”

The police dragged Edmond, “Get up, it’s time to leave.”

Edmund was on the floor, “My waist is about to break and I need a stretcher to carry me. I’m just a vegetarian medium-sized dragon, I’m no match for you meat-eaters!”

Both cops were large dragons and were angry at this reverse discrimination, but were unable to really do anything about it.

Shen Mian walked forward, “You can’t move, was it?”
He had seen this kind of spilling and rolling tactic a lot, so it was evident that shamelessness was not just a human prerogative and that all intelligent creatures had it in them to a greater or lesser extent.

Edmond was straightforward, “Yes!”

Shen Mian rolled up his sleeves, “Then it’s fine. I’m a human and I’m “weaker” than you, an adult dragon, so let me escort you out.”

Edmond, still unaware of the danger, nodded and slumped to the floor, “Give me a shirt.”

The cop held his breath and took off his own uniform and threw it at him.

Shen Mian coaxed the dragon cubs to go out.

Edmond, “Is this how I’m supposed to dress? Don’t I have dragon rights?”

Officer Reed clenched his fists, took a few deep breaths, invited his colleagues out as well and watched as Edmond kept going ‘ouch ouch’ while getting dressed.

Edmond got dressed and lay back on the floor, grunting with his eyes half-open, “Come and lift me.”

Shen Mian walked over, directly picked him up the belt of his clothes, lifted Edmond up and casually mentioned, “It’s too troublesome to carry you and as a human, I’m more tender so I’ll just send you out.”

Officer Reed almost laughed out loud, but really couldn’t let Shen Mian carry him out. He held back a laugh and signalled the two cops to hurry up.

Officer Reed and the two officers took Edmond into custody and before they left, Officer Reed said, “Dean Shen, your move to promptly call the police instead of ‘resolving’ the matter privately is very commendable, it avoids danger and reduces trouble for our work. Can we use this police account to publicise this matter?”

If the first reaction of all dragons upon discovering a burglar is to call the police, rather than beating them so violently that their dragon faces are unrecognizable, how great would that be! Every burglary could easily develop into a homicide because of the homeowner’s violent temper.
Especially flame dragons!

Dean Shen, who would have just beaten the dragon if there hadn’t been a crowd of dragon cubs watching, accepted the compliment with a look of ease and said, “Feel free.”
Shen Mian rubbed Gian’s big head, feeling that raising a child was a process of instant rehabilitation¹.

Officer Reed nodded at him.

Shen Mian and the three dragon cubs sent them to the door. Officer Reed waved his hand and told them to hurry back in. The black-uniformed policemen pressed against Edmond faded into the night and Officer Reed’s voice could be heard outside the gates, “Remember to lock the door, Dean!”

Shen Mian locked the door and escorted the three dragon cubs back, “Next time don’t jump out like that, it’s dangerous. Even if it’s not a dragon, animals from the wasteland, especially wurms, can still hurt you.”
No matter how talented the dragon cub’s race was, without actual combat experience, a dragon cub can still be injured by failing to react in time to a frenzied wurm or a cornered dragon. What’s more, Yan Tan’s racial instincts were likely to threaten his companions, not to mention that he wouldn’t be able to use them easily.

Yan Tan and Gian obediently nodded, “We’ll call the dean first in the future.”

After acting for a while, Lu Yuan rubbed his eyes, feeling that it was more difficult to act scared than to fake cry. He was a little sleepy and couldn’t keep his eyes open, “Let’s go back to sleep then.”

Shen Mian nodded, “Go.”

……

Shen Mian thought the publicity praise from Officer Reed was just posting on something similar to Weibo and put the matter behind him when he got up.

On the contrary, He Xing returned to his normal state the next day and listened to Lu Yuan’s colourful descriptions. He rarely frowned- It’s also true, not to mention on Water Star, even in the most economically developed planets, large mock battle arenas worth hundreds of thousands of star coins are not everywhere and some of the included robots can even be resold for tens of thousands of star coins.

“Knew I should’ve slept later last night.”
He Xing washed the vegetables and slightly frowned.

He’s pretty much normal now, except for the hour where he automatically turns into the child version, but he’ll probably make a full recovery within the next couple of days.

Shen Mian ran the live broadcast, as usual, distributing the steamed ribs onto several plates and looked up at him, “I’m still here.”

He Xing looked at him and smiled, “I know, but I also want to face them with…with you and the cubs.”
Of course, I want to stand with you.

Shen Mian always felt that He Xing’s sudden pause just now was a bit strange, but his attention was quickly dragged away by the barrage- the number of viewers in today’s live broadcast was exceptionally high and there was a lot of “Came from Peaceful Water Star to watch” barrage flying across.

The live room had just opened less than half an hour ago, but the number of viewers had exceeded 7 million, nearly double the number of views Shen Mian usually has.

Some of Cat Eye’s channels for the two civilizations of humans and dragons can easily exceed 100 million viewers in the live rooms of popular anchor’s. However, Shen Mian was just a new anchor that had officially started less than a month ago. If it wasn’t for this event, he probably wouldn’t have been able to get more than one million followers for many years, not to mention the number of viewers in the live room.

Shen Mian thought about it, but was still a bit confused, “What Peaceful Water Star?”

He Xing, “What’s wrong?”

Shen Mian, “A lot of viewers said they were from Peaceful Water Star on the barrage.”

This account rang a bell for He Xing. “It’s an account on the Reader, it’s the account of Water Star’s police.”

Shen Mian suddenly remembered what Officer Reed said before leaving, “We want to publicise your approach.”

A little bit of publicity.

Shen Mian borrowed He Xing’s quantum computer, went on the Reader and searched for Peaceful Water Star. This account with 300 million followers had posted a video that morning titled: The human dean called the police first in the case of danger, his composure is commendable!

Opening the video, it was taken with a law enforcement recorder and was a little shaky, but wasn’t a hindrance to view.

The video was around six minutes, from the time Officer Reed inquired about Edmond’s information to the end when Officer Reed leaves, was left uncut and even the footage of Shen Mian picking up Edmond with his bare hands was in there.

Shen Mian, “Is this to promote calmness?”
Shouldn’t the promotion of calmness cut out the uncalm parts?

He Xing accompanied him to watch it again and found no problem. “What’s wrong? The video is pretty good.”

Shen Mian, “…Are the composures of you dragons that wild?”

sauced

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1. 放下屠刀立地成佛 fàng xià tú dāo lìdì chéng fó – literally meaning put down the butchers knife and becoming a buddha. more here

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Sorry if I offended anyone in the last chapter. It wasn’t my intention to as I usually don’t use that word and never will. I apologise.

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Shallotnoodle

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