Chapter 6. Confirmed, this human is extremely dubious! (brown sugar milk tea)

As Long Quang waited to be served, he inspected the room. The orbs embedded in the ceiling emitted warm light.

Upon carefully examining them, Long Quang couldn’t sense the high levels of spiritual energy or ancestral resonance that dragon pearls contained. Had this human really refined them? They would look nice in his cave…but Long Quang knew humans’ dastardly ways, their artefacts were extremely expensive! Just look at how much he had to pay for this extremely delicious food that didn’t contain any spiritual essence!

“Here you are.”

Long Quang’s attention snapped to the big bowl placed in front of him. His mouth filled with saliva—this was the scent that had tortured him while he had waited out in the sea. Up close, it was even more fragrant. The savoury broth, the white noodles, assortment of meats and beansprouts and herbs looked so good already! He immediately tucked in.

Phương had made a big pot of phở, so it was simple to serve Long Quang some in the biggest bowl that he had. Adding mint wasn’t traditional, but Long Quang didn’t know any better, and look at how much he enjoyed it!

To pair with it, he made a cup of brown sugar milk tea.

Long Quang eagerly took the cup. He skilfully put in a straw and drank. Black tea, milk, sweet chewy pearls that didn’t pop, and caramel brown sugar…! His eyes lit up. Ohhhhh, delicious! So sweet, so creamy, and the chewy chewy texture was perfect!

Long Quang would have some milk tea, chew on some pearls, and then eat some phở, and then have some more milk tea.

Phương glanced at Long Quang’s wagging tail and his eyes curved with enjoyment. Seeing him eat so well made Phương feel a bit peckish. So he served himself a slice of dessert—lemon cheesecake—and took a seat opposite Long Quang.

“Your cultivation has increased since we last met, quite impressive,” Phương said.

Long Quang raised his head from his food. “Hmm,” he hummed in a restrained manner. “I developed a new move, that’s all.”

“Really? That’s amazing,” Phương praised the little dragon.

Long Quang’s ears went a little red. “Hm. I’ll show you.” He created a small ice sphere in his hands and dropped it on the table. When it landed, it exploded, making a patch of the table wet. “I can make it much bigger.”

Thankfully, Phương’s refining skills were good and the table was very solid.

“Not bad at all,” Phương said. “Does it explode on contact?”

“On contact or after a short amount of time,” Long Quang said.

“Can you control the amount of time it explodes in? Or remotely trigger explosions?”

Long Quang frowned. “If I could do that, I could make many of them and trigger them at the same time. Then my opponent wouldn’t know if or when they would explode…” He formed a tiny ice ball in his hand and stared at it. It suddenly exploded in his hands, making him blink and huff in frustration. To soothe his frustration, he took a deep sip of his bubble tea, until there was just a few tapioca pearls left at the bottom of his cup. Long Quang looked up. “Human…”

“Call me big brother Phương and I’ll give you another cup for free,” Phương said in a teasing tone.

Long Quang bristled. “How can a human be my big brother! I’m a dragon, I have more spiritual stones!”

“Oh? Is it so hard to call me big brother just once?” Phương said. “How about free dessert too?” He had a piece of his cheesecake and made an exaggerated “mmmm!!” sound. “I’ll give you the rest of the cake.”

Long Quang glanced to the kitchen counter, where over 3/4 of the yellow cake remained.

At that moment, he hated that he wasn’t a wealthy dragon.

“…Big brother Phương. I want more.” After finishing the words, Long Quang pouted in dissatisfaction.

Phương burst into a brilliant smile. “See? That wasn’t so hard. You’re so young, you should try acting cute more often.” He immediately stood up and prepared Long Quang another cup of bubble tea and gave him the rest of the cheesecake too.

“You don’t make other guests call you big brother,” Long Quang grumbled, even as he tucked into the bubble tea and cheesecake.

“All the other guests are stronger and older that you,” Phương said.

“Really?” Long Quang gave him a dubious look. “How can this place attract cultivators stronger than me?”

“Little Long Quang, who was the one who hid in the water, afraid of the previous guest?”

Long Quang went red. “What are you talking about?” he protested, not meeting Phương’s eyes.

“The previous guest was a prince of a kingdom. Are you a prince?”

Long Quang stabbed the cheesecake and scooped up a big spoonful. “Technically all dragons in the Blue Ocean Kingdom are descended from the dragon emperor Lạc Long Quân,” he mumbled.

“Really? Blue Ocean Kingdom, sounds like a nice place. Can I visit?”

“No humans allowed.”

“Aww, what a shame. I bet you could develop quite a lot of tourism,” Phương said. “What does your house look like? Do you live in a palace?”

Long Quang made a disgruntled sound. “Are you this annoying to all your guests?”

“Most of my guests willingly tell me their life story,” Phương chuckled. “You’re different.”

Long Quang raised his chin. “Well. I’m a dragon.”

“That you are.”

“My house is bigger than yours,” Long Quang said, with a superior look. “Your house is so small, my dragon form could crush it easily.”

“This little human is thankful that the great dragon hasn’t crushed my little home yet.”

Long Quang glanced upwards. “It’s pitiful that you don’t have a dragon pearl to light your home though.” He sighed. “Those light orbs you have aren’t very bright. But I guess it’s fine to have many of them to make up for it.”

Phương raised an eyebrow. “I also sell light emitting devices. Do you want some? Call me big brother again and I’ll give you one for free.” He leaned back and smirked.

“Big brother Phương, please give this poor dragon a light orb,” Long Quang said flatly. After saying ‘big brother’ once, saying it again didn’t matter so much. He cleared the ‘taste’ of the word ‘big brother’ from his mouth by stuffing cheesecake into his mouth. Hmmm, it was creamy and very sweet, balanced out with the sourness of lemon, and the crumbly base was delicious too.

Phương laughed. “Good, good!”

Long Quang eyed the human. This man clearly wasn’t normal, who would be so excited to be called ‘big brother’?

Phương blithely ignored Long Quang’s look and took out a light emitting device from his spatial storage. “Here you go. To operate it, you turn it on and off down here.” The orb wasn’t perfectly round—it had a flattened base. Under that base was the on/off button.

Long Quang reached out for the orb. The material was frosted glass, smooth and fragile. He pressed the button as instructed. The orb started glowing. He pressed it again. The orb turned off.

On again.

Off again.

On again, off again.

The activation mechanism was so smooth and easy.

Long Quang didn’t have many artefacts, but he knew many of them required a certain level of spiritual power and spiritual energy to activate. This just required a press, even a talentless human could turn it on.

And now that he had in his hands, he could feel a faint glow of spiritual energy, though it was far from the level of a dragon pearl. He turned it on and off again.

“These orbs aren’t particularly expensive, just the cost of two spiritual stones,” Phương said. “But it doesn’t last forever. When the light fades, you need to replace it with another spiritual stone. Give it back to me.”

Long Quang’s fingers tightened, pulling the orb close to him. “It’s mine now.”

“I’m showing you how to replace the energy source,” Phương said with an amused smile. “I’ll give it back to you, promise.”

“…Fine.”

Phương took the orb and flipped over to the base. “You’re now familiar with the on/off switch. If you press over here though—” When he pressed, a flap opened up. Shaking a little, a small spiritual stone popped out. “The device uses the energy from this spiritual stone to generate light. If you leave it on constantly, it’ll last a few weeks on a standard spiritual stone. It lasts longer with higher-grade spiritual stones.” He stuffed the spiritual stone back in again and passed the orb back to Long Quang.

Long Quang pressed the switch. The light still worked after being shaken by the human, much to his relief. “So, you change each of those lights every few weeks?”

Long Quang counted the number of lights embedded in the ceiling and imagined the number of spiritual stones that had to be used. His gaze towards Phương changed. This human was wealthier than him???!!

Long Quang: This human is wealthier than me??? In this pitiful-looking house???

Phương: Hahaha!

Notes:

Lạc Long Quân: According to the Vietnamese creation legend, the male dragon Lạc Long Quân married goddess/immortal Âu Cơ. Âu Cơ gave birth to 100 eggs, leading to 100 children. The dragon Lạc Long Quân took fifty of of the children and went to live by the sea, while the immortal Âu Cơ took the other fifty to live in the mountains. For Dao of the Milk Tea though, I’ve taken this legend and changed it to suit my story~