Yuan Rutang packed the wine into a few cloth bags. He had made ten storage pouches in total, though to the eye they looked no different from ordinary rough hemp sacks.
He couldn’t help it, he was poor. He liked the bright, colorful brocades too, but the fabric for even one fine storage bag cost almost as much as a whole box of pastries.
Stuffing the bags back beneath his scales, Yuan Rutang thought with some satisfaction that the wine inside would be enough to hire a few little demons to tend his fields for hundreds of years.
As for drinking his own bath wine?
╮(￣▽￣)╭
Yuan Rutang wouldn’t dream of it.
When he saw there was only half a tael of silver left in his purse and remembered that his sticky rice cakes were gone, he headed for town and made his way to the Zhen Pastry House.
The shop assistant’s eyes lit up when he saw him, “Ah, sir, you’re here again!”
Yuan Rutang gave a soft grunt of acknowledgement and said he wanted to buy the new Fragrant Peach Crystal Cake.
“Good choice! Have a seat, I’ll bring you some tea. This cake is made with the finest ingredients, eighty coins a tael. How much would you like?”
Eighty coins… Yuan Rutang pressed his lips together.
So expensive.
The shopboy smiled mysteriously.
“It’s made with a secret recipe, one of the ingredients costs more than gold.”
Yuan Rutang thought for a moment, then finally said, “I’ll take six taels.”
“Right away!”
He handed over half a tael of broken silver, and the shopboy gave him twenty copper coins in exchange. Yuan Rutang tucked them away carefully, while the shopboy, watching from the corner of his eye, shook his head in secret.
That young Master Yuan was certainly good-looking. No parents, no attachments, a pity, really.
Not long ago, Master Xu, a wealthy merchant, had come to buy pastries here.
He happened to see Yuan Rutang, was instantly taken with him, and after learning that he was an orphan, began thinking about making him a son-in-law.
But when Xu sent people to inquire further, they found that Yuan Rutang was extravagant and gluttonous.
Three years ago, when the court drafted men for labor service, providing food and pay, Yuan Rutang had gone.
After five days, they sent him home.
The reason? He ate too much; the kitchen couldn’t keep up.
The court still paid him fifty coins in wages, and the first thing he did was use the money to buy himself a plate of spiced beef instead of saving for a marriage.
Master Xu didn’t actually mind that, he had wealth enough to feed a few gluttons.
But when he heard that Yuan Rutang spent most of his days sleeping, coming out for only an hour or two, he was terrified.
A man lives for his descendants, what if his precious grandchild took after such a father and slept all day? How would the boy ever pass the imperial exams?
Xu dropped the idea at once.
Such a pity, thought the shopboy. If only he had looks like Yuan Rutang’s.
While the pastries were being packed, Yuan Rutang’s eyes wandered and landed on an ornate brocade box behind the counter.
“What’s that?” he asked.
The shopboy pushed the box further in, smiling.
“Ah, that’s a fine thing, worth a thousand gold pieces.”
“Worth more than gold”… the phrase struck a chord. Yuan Rutang thought for a moment and asked,
“Earlier you said the peach crystal cake has an ingredient that costs more than gold, is that what’s inside the box?”
Seeing there was no hiding it, the shopboy thought it harmless to tell. He took the box aside and lifted the lid just enough for Yuan Rutang to peek inside.
Inside lay a single dark brown pill. It looked ordinary, but gave off a strange, intoxicating fragrance.
The moment Yuan Rutang smelled it, his pupils nearly slit open; a voice roared in his mind
Take it! Grab it! eat it!
He swallowed hard. Beneath his sleeve, faint golden scales began to bloom on his pale arm.
A storm surged through his mind. The desire for that pill crashed over him like a wave. Since the day of his birth, he had only ever felt such hunger once, when facing his own eggshell.
Whatever it was, he had to have it.
Voices screamed inside his head. It took every shred of willpower he possessed to suppress them.
To the shopboy, he only looked dazed, his voice slightly dull, “H-how much… is it?”
“This one? Fifty taels,” the boy replied cheerfully. Then, lowering his voice, “But since you’re a regular, I’ll tell you, other pastry shops have already learned our secret. We dissolve this pill in water and mix a little of the potion into our cakes. That’s what gives them that rare fragrance.”
“The pill is called Snow Mountain Elixir. It’s a marvelous thing, once a secret medicine of the imperial court. They say even a dying man, with only one breath left, will spring back to life after taking it. But lately, with all the disasters plaguing the Great Xuan, the court began selling them publicly to raise funds.”
“Don’t let the price fool you, ours is the cheapest grade, its power the weakest. The higher-grade ones, sold by the official apothecaries, cost two hundred taels, eight hundred, even three thousand!”
Then he lowered his voice further.
“And there are rarer ones still, the court keeps those to reward ministers of great merit.”
Yuan Rutang swallowed again, his pupils contracting into pinpoints.
“Ministers of merit… What kind of merit? Do they have to be high officials?”
“Not at all,” said the boy, shaking his head, “Anyone who performs great service to the empire, no matter their rank, can be rewarded. Why, just last month, a ninth-rank officer was granted three Snow Mountain Elixirs for successfully controlling a flood.”
Yuan Rutang gasped.
He glanced at the pill, then clutched his pastry bundle and left but not without looking back three times.
Even the cheapest Snow Mountain Elixir cost fifty taels, and all he had left was fifty taels, money he needed to buy a lake.
Lowering his eyes, he sighed. Forget it. He would buy more lakes, more land, farm them well, and sell fish to earn silver.
Yesterday’s meal, once so satisfying, already seemed dull in memory. The scent of the Snow Mountain Elixir filled his mind instead, growing stronger and stronger.
He could no longer tell the difference between hunger and craving, only that no earthly food could ever fill the void inside him.
But the Snow Mountain Elixir could.
Back home, Yuan Rutang curled up in his pit and fell fast asleep.
That night, he dreamed a beautiful dream. In it, a mountain of Snow Mountain Elixirs sat before him, and he happily stuffed them into his mouth one after another.
They were delicious. But even after thousands, he still wasn’t full.
When he woke, staring at the dim cave around him, emptiness washed over him again.
Hugging the moldy dragon-shaped log he used as a pillow, his eyes grew wet.
He was so hungry.
He thought again of what the shopboy had said about the ninth-rank officer, rewarded with three secret elixirs for controlling the flood.
If flood control earned merit, then surely bringing rain would too, right?
Wouldn’t the court reward him as well?
But… Yuan Rutang had no official title, not even the right to speak to the emperor.
He puffed his cheeks in frustration. His mind wandered to what his old teacher from the Song clan school once said that if one could pass the county, prefecture, provincial, and metropolitan exams, they could finally enter court service.
He remembered the mountain of books at his teacher’s home and felt his head ache.
He barely knew his characters. How could he possibly pass the exams?
No, he scratched his head with his tail. He was a dragon, wasn’t he?
Humans revered dragons. Surely the emperor would grant him at least a ninth-rank title?
And he could summon rain! He could end floods and droughts, even suppress earth dragons and stop locust plagues.
He was that capable, surely the emperor would feed him three elixirs a month, at the very least.
And twenty taels of silver. He needed pastries.
And… perhaps a new dragon-shaped log every six months.
Oh, and those spiced beef and lion’s head meatballs he liked, two taels of beef and ten meatballs every month.
Then he hesitated.
Was he being greedy?
Maybe one tael of beef and six meatballs would do.
But still… he sighed.
He didn’t even know what had become of the phoenix clan now. If they were still powerful, he’d have to keep hiding in his pit, farming and selling fish to survive.
After nibbling on a piece of peach crystal cake, Yuan Rutang flicked his tail and flew out of the hole.
He turned human again, standing by his paddy field. The weeds were gone, the pests wiped out, it looked lush and healthy, and his mood lifted instantly.
Soon, footsteps approached.
Yuan Rutang turned and called out, “Grandpa Song, Uncle Song!”
An old man and a sturdy middle-aged man nodded in greeting.
Yuan Rutang smiled and turned back to his field, but the two men didn’t leave. They stood beside him, looking at the rice as well.
He blinked, puzzled. Then the old man spoke.
“Rutang, you’re not that young anymore. When you settled here all those years ago, I went to the magistrate and spoke on your behalf. They pitied you as an orphan and gave you twenty acres of land.”
Yuan Rutang’s heart twisted slightly.
Back then, times were hard, people displaced everywhere, and registering a household was easy if you greased the right palms.
Even as a child, he’d managed to talk the officials into giving him land by saying a few nice words and offering two chickens.
Old Man Song had been the village head, the lizheng and patriarch of the Song clan. He had smiled kindly and promised to help him.
When he returned from the yamen, he led Yuan Rutang to see his fields.
It was indeed twenty acres, but scattered, one plot here, another half a li away. Yuan Rutang had to trek across half the village just to finish planting.
Worse, the soil was rocky and barren. Even weeds struggled to grow.
So one night, Yuan Rutang had used his magic to cleanse the land, clearing the stones and pouring dragon’s saliva into the earth until it became fertile.
But one day, while planting rice, a woman in the next field called out, “Little Ye, where’s your father today?”
Yuan Rutang froze.
Little Ye was Old Man Song’s grandson.
The woman saw his face and gave an awkward laugh, “Oh! sorry, wrong person.”
He didn’t believe her.
Later, he learned the truth, those fields had once belonged to the Song family. The bad fields.
They hadn’t wanted them, so when the land was distributed, Old Man Song had taken advantage of his position and reputation, pretending to help Yuan Rutang while swapping the Song family’s barren land for the fertile plots originally meant for him.
Furious, Yuan Rutang had used a spell to drain the life from the Song family’s fields, causing three straight years of poor harvests.
He had been punished for it, Heaven shrouded him in a mist of red and black that took him years to cleanse away.
✦ ✧ ✦
Vynellia
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
Statistically speaking, coffee would be appreciated.
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 1 · Little DragonChapter 2 · Selling FishChapter 3 · DraughtChapter 4 · Giving LifeChapter 5 · MeritsChapter 6 · Dragon can summon Rain?!Chapter 7 · Wicked Dragon?Chapter 8 · Dragon likes sweetChapter 9 · Dragon WineChapter 10 · Snow Mountain ElixirChapter 11 · The official forced the dragon to rebelChapter 12 · Ministers kneel down and confess their sinsChapter 13 · Court struggle, faith is the dragonChapter 14 · Why do others have auspicious signs, but I don’t?Chapter 15 · Corrupt officialsChapter 16 · The dark side of officialdomChapter 17 Part 1 · Transforming into a golden dragon in full view of all!Chapter 17 Part 2 · Transforming into a golden dragon in full view of all!Chapter 18 · Wrath of the True DragonChapter 19 · Give him a ninth-rank official position!Chapter 20 · The days of being loved by Longlong have begunChapter 21 · Pamper the little dragon, finally full!Chapter 22 · It’s perfectly normal for humans to like dragonsChapter 23 · Avenge Longlong against corrupt officialsChapter 24 · Is being an official like the Dragon King difficult?Chapter 25 · Dragon-shaped woodChapter 26 · Emperor felt the vibrancy of lifeChapter 27 · Do you like the obedient and affectionate little dragon?Chapter 28 · Your Majesty’s PastChapter 29 · A ray of light in a noisy worldChapter 30 · Let’s give the dragon a lake!Chapter 31 · Dragon, don’t run aroundChapter 32 · YaunBaoChapter 33 · Recruiting soldiers and buying horsesChapter 34 · Expand Dragon armyChapter 35 · Longlong is in a dilemmaChapter 36 · Being a king is difficultChapter 37 · Attended the morning court session.Chapter 38 · Secretly feeding the dragonChapter 39 · The restless little golden dragonChapter 40 · Your Majesty foreshadowed thisChapter 41 · Fostering teacher student bondsChapter 42 · Now that the dragon has an official positionChapter 43 · If a dragon wants to become an official, why not touch it?Chapter 44 · Longlong enters officialdomChapter 45 · The Emperor’s disciple?Chapter 46 · Long day’s laborChapter 47 · Being a dragon is comfortableChapter 48 · Thank you, YuanbaoChapter 49 · Very sleepyChapter 50 · The Dragon Who Saves the WorldChapter 51 · Strange storiesChapter 52 · Dragon God saying it wanted to eat peach crystal cakesChapter 53 · The tree is aliveChapter 54 · We can just hold a family feastChapter 55 · What kind of worship?Chapter 56 · Don’t be naughtyChapter 57 · Why does Teacher always avoid my human formChapter 58 · I will be an indifferent learning machineChapter 59 · Jinlong made a fortuneChapter 60 · Ten thousand taelsChapter 61 · FamilyChapter 62 · Will you accompany the dragon?Chapter 63 · What did you hunt, sir?Chapter 64 · From fifth rank to proper fourth rankChapter 65 · Orange PeelChapter 66 · Great Xuan may have enough to eatChapter 67 · Poisoned GrainsChapter 68 · The balance of the mortal world is about to changeChapter 69 · Teacher’s lap truly was very comfortable.Chapter 70 · Caught the little dragonChapter 71 · Only he alone could see that golden lightChapter 72 · Great King must not declineChapter 73 · The top scholarChapter 74 · I do not like other defying meChapter 75 · Great Xuan truly has quite a number of martial expertsChapter 76 · What was there to fear?Chapter 77 · Then Teacher can raise the dragonChapter 78 · Little Dragon Steals Peaches.Chapter 79 · Resentment and Poison.Chapter 80 · Male PartnerChapter 81 · How about choosing a human?Chapter 82 · Young Lord Zhen has a friendChapter 83 · Morning DewChapter 84 · Earth DragonsChapter 85 · Greetings, Your MajestyChapter 86 · Then what am I allowed to do?Chapter 87 · What exactly Happened?Chapter 88 · Praise The golden Dragon!Chapter 89 · ComplexionChapter 90 · Gift is almost readyChapter 91 · Surely Sir would no longer refuse himChapter 92 · Seven YearsChapter 93 · She is really just a childChapter 94 · Good YuanbaoChapter 95 · Ten Thousand year old JadeChapter 96 · They were overwhelmed with griefChapter 97 · Villain: So what if I use magic?Chapter 98 · The Dragon Clan MeetingChapter 99 · The Big reveal!Chapter 100 · The prototype of His MajestyChapter 101 · Autumn HuntChapter 102 · This painting was created by the Emperor’s consortChapter 103 · They gave themselves away and caught the plush rabbit doctor.Chapter 104 · The Rabbit gangChapter 105 · The scars on the fox spirit’s handsChapter 106 · Wang JinzhongChapter 107 · I don’t believe the White Tiger doesn’t protect its foodChapter 108 · Karmic SinChapter 109 · Yuanbao, would you take me a thousand li away?Chapter 110 · Pear FrostChapter 111 · If Yuanbao ever loses sight of the road ahead, then come find meChapter 112 · Let’s take a step at a time..Chapter 113 · The imperial marriage was announced to the public.Chapter 114 · The army, navy, and air force are preparing to attack the Yujing River.Chapter 115 · The attack on Yujing River-humans should not spread rumors!Chapter 116 · King Golden Dragon ascends the throneChapter 117 · Sir, would you like a bowl of dragon soup?Chapter 118 · Wedding celebrationChapter 119 · Establish the Demon RealmChapter 120 · Lord of the Demon RealmChapter 121 · Flourishing and decliningChapter 122 · The Ling Dynasty was defeated, and father and son fought amongst themselvesChapter 123 · The gentleman’s is dragon-themedChapter 124 · People from HeavenChapter 125 · The truth behind the White TigerChapter 126 · Azure Dragon, WarChapter 127 · A great war is about to break outChapter 128 · Victory in the great battleChapter 129 · Side Story (1)Chapter 130 · Side Story (2)Chapter 131 · Side Story (3)Chapter 132 · Side Story (4)Chapter 133 · Side Story (4)Chapter 134 · Side Story (5)Chapter 135 · Side Story (6)Chapter 136 · Side story (7)Chapter 137 · Side Story (8)Chapter 138 · Side Story (9)Chapter 139 · Side Story (10)Chapter 140 · Side Story (11)Chapter 141 · Side Story (12)Chapter 142 · Side Story (13)Chapter 143 · Side Story (14)Chapter 144 · Side Story (15)Chapter 145 · Side Story (16)Chapter 146 · Side Story (17)Chapter 147 · Side Story (18)Chapter 148 · Side Story (19)Chapter 149 · Side Story (20)Chapter 150 · Side Story (21)Chapter 151 · Side Story (22)