LBRDI Chapter 65

Not Familiar

Bonus ko-fi chapter

A new post had appeared in the Dragon Empire’s anonymous exchange site:

[Help]: I bumped into the crown prince and he tied my daughter’s hair. Should I take it apart now or not?

Referring to the question. The thing is this: Today I took my daughter to Ocean World to swim and my daughter’s hair got tangled in the coral in the water cube. I was playing a game in the waiting area and didn’t know, but it was the crown prince’s family’s dragon cub who found her… The crown prince even gave my daughter a bun hairstyle.

The accompanying picture showed the little girl’s back, wearing a pretty little colourful dress and her black hair tied in two round buns with different hair ties.

The topic related to the Crown Prince immediately attracted a group of dragons, who clicked on the post.

1st Floor:
I don’t believe it. How could it be so easy to meet him, unless you show me a picture?

2nd Floor:
Photos can be photoshopped, upload a video, you know what I mean?

3rd Floor:
He can even tie hair (horrified expression) I don’t even know how to tie my daughter’s hair… I’m going to die, now my wife has even more reasons to dislike me.

4th Floor:
Going off-topic for a bit, OP, how dare you play games while looking after your cub, you should be sleeping in the living room tonight, right?

OP:
No, I’m on the balcony.

OP:
Actually, there’s a video.
　　

Soon after, the OP uploaded a somewhat shaky video without the crown prince’s face, just a pair of hands and the back of a little girl’s head.

In the video, a voice familiar to most dragons explained, “You start by splitting the hair into two parts, tie them up separately and then you twist…”

“Yes, yes, I’ve remembered.”

As the person videoing spoke, the camera shook a few times and a rare hybrid little girl flashed by in the video, with neatly tied buns. The sharp-eyed netizens immediately recognised her- it was Xing Fei!

If voices could be imitated, there was no way to fake the beautiful Xing Fei.
The OP really met the crown prince.

The netizens in the building were in a delicate mood: Ever since His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince, made an appearance, he had been flying headlong down the road of collapsing the public’s image of him.

182nd Floor:
So what, our crown prince is very versatile.

……

The night the little dragon cub’s first trip ended, Shen Mian finished grading all the papers in passing.

There were only four courses in total, with a total of sixteen papers, so it was really easy to grade.

By the time He Xing returned from coaxing the dragon cubs, Shen Mian had placed aside three exam papers that had already been graded and the written language paper he was currently grading was the last of the exam papers.

He Xing randomly looked through a few of them. Xing Fei and Gian’s exam papers were still very beautiful. Lu Yuan’s written language course was only that little bit away from failing and if Shen Mian really deducted any more marks, this little fatty would fail the course.

The last one in Shen Mian’s hand was Rhein’s written language exam paper, which had been graded on the front and turned to the other side, which had a small essay that required three hundred words.

Shen Mian glanced at it and put down his pen.

He Xing, “What’s wrong?”

Shen Mian leaned back on his chair. “I don’t know what grade to give him.”

The exam paper on which the essay was written was deliberately marked with numbers on the 300th grid to make it easier for the dragon cubs and the teacher to grade the word count. All the teachers defaulted to writing on the line marked with the number as a pass.

In order to get to that grid, Rhein wrote two sentences into one paragraph and then moved on to a new paragraph. It wasn’t enough to get to the end, so he simply inserted a large paragraph of parallelism, wrote a dash on the grid marked as 300 and finally wrote a full stop after the 300th grid.

He Xing, “…”

Water, too much water¹.
But he couldn’t give it a failing grade because the requirement was to write up to that grid.

He Xing lowered his head and wrapped his arms around Shen Mian, smiling and kissing the top of his head. “Our dean has worked hard. Getting a headache for the Empire’s youngest seedlings.”

Shen Mian was kissed by him like how he kissed dragon cubs and after a moment of silence, he increased his tone. “My family’s little dragon cubs.”

“Yes, yes,” He Xing hugged the big baby in his arms and laughed his heart out. “They’re our family’s little dragon cubs.”

t/n: would’ve used laughed his ass off but it didn’t suit the mood 🌚

He Xing was silent for a moment, his jaw gently rubbing against the top of Shen Mian’s head. “Are you going back to the human civilization this year?”

The Dragon Empire celebrated the grandest festival for all dragons every year from December 6 to December 9, known as the Dragon God Festival. In the dragon’s culture, this was the time when the Dragon God broke their shell and it was a festival celebrating the arrival of the dragon race to the world. This was also the time to celebrate the successful day of the Great Migration of the Human Civilization and the two civilizations were so far apart that the time of the holidays were similar.

Shen Mian waited for a while. He Xing just hugged him and shook him a little bit. Shen Mian expressionlessly picked up his pen. “I’m not going back. I don’t have a place to live there.”

He Xing paused and didn’t ask any further questions. He just lowered his head against Shen Mian’s face and stickily said, “Then let’s go home together. There are a lot of fun things on the Imperial Star. We’ll pick Yan Tan up in the morning so he can be with Xing Fei and Gian and then we can go around Fei Yun City.”

Shen Mian, “Meeting your parents?”

He Xing was a bit surprised. “Do you guys want to meet my parents? We don’t have to, I just have to let them know if I get a lover.”

Shen Mian, “…”

He Xing took advantage of Shen Mian putting down the exam paper and quickly fished his hand over to hold. “Where do you want to spend the holidays?”

Shen Mian, “…Go look at the flights, we’ll talk later if there are tickets.”
He would also ask the dragon cubs. If Gian or Xing Fei didn’t want to go, then he also wouldn’t.

He Xing lowered his head and kissed him. “If there aren’t any tickets then I can just get the housekeeper to pick us up in a private starship!”

……

Early the next morning, Lu Yuan’s parents rushed over to pick him up.

An Long and his wife hadn’t seen Lu Yuan with their own eyes for a semester and the deeply guilty Lu Yuan’s mother held the thirty-something catty dragon cub in tears and said, “The dean said you worked very hard. You’re looking skinnier than before.”

The centre’s little dragon cubs, “…”

He Xing silently turned his head away.
Lu Yuan’s weight gain was due to having grown quite a bit, but he did gain weight as well. It couldn’t be helped; spotted dragons were just particularly good at absorbing and it was easy for them to gain fat from everything they ate.

Shen Mian held two sealed envelopes in his hands, inside of which were printed out report cards and hand-written end-of-term comments. Although none of the centres required physical comments nowadays, because there were only a few cubs in the centre, Shen Mian still prepared one for each dragon cub.

Shen Mian handed the envelope to Lu Yuan. “Here are the final grades and comments for this semester, I’ll upload the electronic version into a file and send a copy to your parents.”

Lu Yuan had received a final report card at his previous centre, but he had never been as nervous as he was today. He knew that Gian and Xing Fei would definitely do well on their exams and he also knew that the normally wobbly little Rhein would never fail.

But he might.
He took a deep breath and received the envelope.

An Long patted Lu Yuan gingerly. “It’s fine, there will be another chance if you don’t do good this time. Don’t be discouraged, we will definitely pass in the end.”

Lu Yuan scratched his head, a little embarrassed. “I’ve never worked this hard before, so I’m a little scared that it’ll be the same as before. I really want to graduate with Gian, Xing Fei and the others… I want to go to the same elementary school as them.”

Lu Yuan’s mother quickly comforted him. “We’ll take our time, we’ll definitely get better and better.”

Shen Mian took out another envelope. “I heard that the dragon’s star coin is based on the scales of the legendary Dragon God and every year during the Dragon God Festival, parents will prepare a star coin for their dragon cubs, hoping that their cubs will be protected by the Dragon God.”

“Grades are important, but they are not everything,” he shook out a star coin of the highest value from the envelope. “I believe every child carries a treasure, a mountain of star coins or a lake of wisdom. You are the sea of stars. Go into the depths and find your own treasure.”

Shen Mian took one of Lu Yuan’s paws and placed the translucent golden star coin on his paw pad. “With the wishes of the Dragon God.”

Lu Yuan stared at the star coin on his paw pad and suddenly plunged into Shen Mian’s arms. “En.”

He Xing had a slight smile.
Compared to other dragon cubs, Lu Yuan was really lucky to have met a teacher who could actually guide him, rather than a simple knowledge repeater.

He Xing learned these principles at a very young age- any little dragon cub should learn to appreciate other dragons, but not forget to appreciate themselves.

……

Lu Yuan and his parents went home. Rhein and Lansin were planning to go back to Lansin’s parent’s house for the holidays and Yan Tan was still taking exams these days because of the different semester lengths.

It was clearly only a day later but the centre was suddenly deserted several times over. The only good news was that the library next door had finally been built.

The construction team took down the wall, smoothly took away their equipment and handed over a completed project without a hitch. The brand new library was finally revealed.

The two little dragon cubs, however, were a little uninterested, so they went in for a bit and sat in silence in the studio that was specially prepared for Yan Tan.

Shen Mian hugged the two little dragon cubs. “The smell still needs to be dispersed, don’t stay in here too long.”

Gian snuggled into Shen Mian’s arms. “Dean, I miss Yan Tan.”

Xing Fei took Shen Mian’s sleeve and nodded.

Shen Mian, “Then shall we go see Yan Tan?” 

Gian was pleasantly surprised. “Really?”

Shen Mian, “I originally planned to tell you tonight. Uncle He wants to take you to the Imperial Star for the Dragon God Festival, would you like to go? If we go, we’ll book a slower flight so the journey won’t be uncomfortable.”

After a few months of medication, Xing Fei’s health was much better and preparing a little commonly used medication was perfectly suited to handling the longer intervals between space jumps.

Xing Fei’s eyes curved. “I probably won’t become dizzy now. I also want to see Brother Yan Tan sooner.”
It wasn’t that she would get starship-sick, she originally just wasn’t in good health and space jumps would be a burden on her.

Shen Mian tidied up the little girl’s collar. “Then I’ll discuss it with Uncle He. Shall we leave the day after tomorrow?”

“Okay,” Gian took Xing Fei by the hand. “Then let’s go pack, I’ve got a lot of snacks saved up to give to Yan Tan.”

Shen Mian nodded.

Unfortunately, they were too late in booking the tickets and there were no more to the Imperial Star. He Xing wasn’t bothered to snatch tickets- the ticket being publicly snatched was for the last cabin, not to mention the small spaces between the seats in that cabin, the vibrations were strong. His little girl was not in good health, wouldn’t she suffer in the last cabin?

He contacted the housekeeper and asked them to drive the private spaceship out.

The Dragon Empire allowed civilian starships to be bought and sold on the market, much like buying a suspension car. He Xing’s starship was similar in appearance to the starships sold on the market, but it was equipped with military weapons inside, making it a completely civilian-looking warship.

On the day of the starship’s arrival, He Xing and Shen Mian went to the port with the dragon cubs in their arms.

The silver-grey starship was low-key in appearance and had been docked at a port reserved in advance. Vick was waiting at the starship’s door, dressed in a very common shirt and trousers, looking like a competent secretary.

Vick had always thought of himself as a secretary, but with a military rank.

Vick stood coldly at the starship’s entrance, his upright posture making the passing dragons look twice. No one would have known that the human form 1.8-metre (5ft9) tall attending officer was already a mess on the inside- His Majesty and Her Royal Highness had been informed of this when His Highness and the Dean had established their relationship and of course he himself as part of his entourage had known about it.

t/n: for all my American bros out there ❤ 

So here’s the question- His Highness is an alpha, but as part of his entourage, he was an omega, will the Dean not like him very much?

How should I explain to the dean when he arrives?
Should I start by saying, “I’m not familiar with His Highness at all”? Then directly say, “I really like the dean, so I will never trouble you”?

Vick was falling apart on the inside and before he could find a suitable way to put it, Dean Shen was already in sight.

Shen Mian put one hand on Gian’s body, giving the curious little Gian some general knowledge about starships. After a while, He Xing stopped in front of a silver-grey starship. There was a tall, thin young man waiting at the entrance, looking at the way he stood, he was probably an officer.

He Xing introduced him to Shen Mian. “This is Vick, an officer from my entourage. Vick and I…”

Before he could finish his sentence, the fair and indifferent officer quickly answered, “Not familiar!”

Shen Mian, “?”

He Xing, “…”
Vick, don’t get me in trouble! Your quick answering attitude is more likely to make a dragon think otherwise!
In the event of a social-anxiety attack, just keep your mouth shut, okay?

Xing Fei grabbed He Xing’s arm and exchanged a look of “Something’s wrong again” with Gian.

The author has something to say:

Vick: I’m so excited, I’m so nervous, Dean, I like you!

Dean: …

He Xing: Wake up, this is my lover!

sauced

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1. Means “making a fool of yourself”

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Today’s bonus chapter is the last of the bunch i owe so we’re going back to twice a week!

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Shallotnoodle

Please support the author by buying the raws.

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