Chapter 15. Why is this man’s tone so weird? (1000 cups of bubble tea)

“If you really one thousand cups of bubble tea to take away, I should start making them now. What flavours do you want? And…” Phương made a money gesture with his hand. “Payment first.”

Long Quang’s good mood dissipated as he considered just how expensive bubble tea was. There weren’t even any special spiritual ingredients! Phương was a real profiteer!! But he didn’t know anyone else who could make bubble tea.

“Before, that man asked for jasmine with cream cheese foam. But that’s not on the menu. You’ve also made other drinks that aren’t on the menu.” Like the really sweet longan drink that Long Quang had right now.

Phương’s lips twitched. “Do you want everything that I can make?”

Long Quang took out an eye-watering, heart-wrenching number of spiritual stones with a cold face. “What? Is one thousand too much for you?”

Phương’s sword flew over and eagerly waited for permission to take the stones away.

Long Quang pointed at the menu on the wall, which had ten different flavours listed on it. “Start with those. Twenty of each, standard full sugar. And then another twenty, full sugar, no ice, extra boba.” Long Quang touched the cup in his hand. “Twenty of this. And the rest, you can think of it.” He raised an eyebrow. “Unless you can’t.”

Phương swept the spiritual stones away, handing only a small fraction to his sword. To his sword, he said, “Go and fetch more ingredients from town for me, and after that, craft five hundred more bamboo cups.”

The sword agreed and flew off.

In an act that would cause refined tea drinkers from around the world to curse him, Phương brewed strong black tea in a stock pot to make the first flavour—original pearl milk tea.

Phương seriously questioned his life choices. Wasn’t he retired? He should make a bubble-tea-making machine. He should increase his prices!

Sigh, but look at how sad Long Quang looked after giving up so many spiritual stones! It really energised Phương to make more bubble tea. Using high-levelled cultivation spiritual energy control, Phương finished preparing the first forty cups, half of which had extra tapioca pearls.

Long Quang ate all the fried spring rolls, deeply feeling the loss of his savings and wondering whether it was the right choice. Could he really resell most of it to the other dragons? He felt a little bit better stashing (hoarding) the first forty cups.

While Phương’s machines worked hard on creating more tapioca pearls, taro powder, and blended honeydew, Phương took a break to steal the last fried spring roll from Long Quang’s plate.

“Hey!”

Phương chomped down on half of the spring roll. “Do you want the rest?”

Long Quang: “…”

“Was it just Phượng Hoàng Vũ who visited your kingdom? He hasn’t returned since the last time you were both here.”

“A group of phoenixes visited the kingdom,” Long Quang said, making a face.

“Sounds like you’re not happy about it.”

Long Quang huffed. “That Phượng Hoàng Vũ kept pestering me for starfruit bubble tea. You should watch out if he comes here…”

“I’ll keep that in mind and stock up more starfruit,” Phương said. And stock up on everything else and raise the prices. “Was it an official visit?”

“Why are you asking?”

“I’m just curious. It doesn’t sound like the phoenixes visit regularly.”

Long Quang snorted. “I’m not the dragon emperor, I don’t know why they visited.”

“Are humans really not allowed to visit?”

“That’s right, no humans allowed,” Long Quang said. “You humans like stealing our dragon pearls and using dragon corpses for alchemy!”

“Oh, I see.”

“Why? Do you want to visit?”

Phương shrugged. “If I’m allowed to, it sounds like fun. But if I’m not allowed to, then that’s fine too.”

“If you really want to visit—” Long Quang paused. He wanted to say that he could ask about it. But who would he ask? Would they even care?

Depressed, Long Quang’s head drooped. “Well, humans can’t visit anyway.”

Phương resisted the urge to ruffle Long Quang’s hair. For all that Long Quang liked acting tough, it was all too easily for him to slip back to being cute.

“I guess you’ll just have to keep visiting me,” Phương said. He winked when Long Quang looked up.

Long Quang’s cheeks felt hot. “You just want my spiritual stones!”

“I want more than that.”

“Huh?”

“Your company, of course,” Phương said. He started preparing the green tea powder for the next set of milk tea.

Long Quang huffed, his chest feeling weird. What was this human saying? Could he speak proper dragon words?!! What kind of person would say that?

“Here you go, matcha bubble tea. Next up is taro.”

Long Quang shook off his prior thoughts and put away yet another forty cups of bubble tea.

“How many siblings do you have?”

“Why are you asking?”

“I want to know more about you,” Phương said. “I have two younger siblings.”

“Are they also refiners?”

Phương chuckled. “No, they’re just ordinary humans.” And they weren’t even in this world.

“Oh…I don’t know how many I have. There’s at least one older sister and a younger brother…”

“Here you go, taro bubble tea. Next up is honeydew. What was it like growing up in your dragon kingdom?”

Long Quang rolled his eyes. “Why would I tell you that?”

“Do you own a house yet?”

“Of course I have a cave!”

“Oh? And how big is it? Does it have lights and air conditioning?”

“Of course I have lights!” (His dragon pearl and now the little light orbs.) “And what’s air conditioning?”

“Well…”

By the time Long Quang had all one thousand cups of bubble tea in his spatial storage, he had somehow told Phương about all the amazing buildings in the dragon kingdom, how the little dragons liked bubble tea, the regular tournament in the dragon kingdom and how he kept losing, and even about the large turtle guards that patrolled the kingdom perimeter.

All the while, Phương was topping up his cup of longan juice and feeding him more fried spring rolls.

Realising this, Long Quang realised that Phương was actually a really devious human!!!

“Why are you asking me all this?!”

Phương smiled. “Ready for dinner?”

Long Quang perked up. “Yes.”

“Come here, let me show you how to make rice paper rolls…”

“You’re making me do it myself?!!”

“I made you one thousand cups of bubble tea,” Phương said. He gestured to the the big basin of mint that his sword had collected. “Look, the components have been prepared. I’ll make it cheaper for you if you help. This way, you can add as many herbs as you want.”

Long Quang raised his chin. “Do you think I’m poor?”

“Yes. A lot poorer than Phượng Hoàng Vũ.”

Long Quang felt a stab through his chest. He gave Phương a wounded look.

Phương reached out and could no longer resist ruffling Long Quang’s hair. “It’s not bad to learn how to make a few dishes.”

Long Quang slapped his hand away and covered his head. “A dragon’s head shouldn’t be touched!”

“But it felt so good,” Phương teased. “How about pinching your cheeks? Can I pinch your checks?”

“Then give me free bubble tea to compensate!”

Phương laughed. He tried to pat Long Quang on the head again, but Long Quang dodged.

“Little Long Quang, be good.”

Long Quang huffed. Why was this human’s tone always so weird?!

Phương took out various ingredients that he had prepared earlier and also mixed three dipping sauces—one using fish sauce, one using hoisin sauce, and one using fermented fish sauce.

The kitchen counter was soon full with plates of steamed fish, steamed prawns, sliced pork belly, fried tofu, herbs, salad, dipping sauces, rice vermicelli, dried rice paper rolls, and plates for rolling rice paper rolls.

“First dip them in hot water,” Phương said. He showed how he made rice paper rolls, filling them with a reasonable amount of herbs, salad and protein. “You can also add rice vermicelli if you want, but then that reduces what else you can add. Have a taste. What do you think?”

Long Quang ate the rice paper roll. “Less salad, more mint.”

Phương gestured to him. “Go on. Surely you have enough finesse to roll some rice paper.”

Long Quang did have finesse—he wasn’t a bad cultivator, after all. He was able to copy Phương’s actions and roll up his first, then second, then third rice paper roll.

The fresh salad, fragrant mint, sweet prawns and savoury dipping sauces, together were really tasty! Especially the fresh mint…

“You have some many devices, why don’t you have something that makes rice paper rolls,” Long Quang grumbled. It took him longer to roll than to eat!

Phương raised his eyebrows. “I’ll think about it.”

“Surely you’re able to make it,” Long Quang said, copying Phương’s taunting tone from earlier.

But instead of being annoyed, Phương laughed at him. “Actually, it’s better to roll all of them in one go, and then sit down and eat, rather than roll and eat one at a time.”

Long Quang wasn’t afraid of hard work and he was no slower than Phương (no, he was even faster!). Soon, they both had multiple plates of rice paper rolls.

Long Quang’s rice paper rolls went from stuffed-to-bursting to barely-holding-on as he filled them with his favourite ingredients.

They carried those plates and the dipping sauces to the table to eat. Phương served them both a cup of sweetened lemongrass tea.

Long Quang ate a pork rice paper roll, then a prawn one, then a mixed-protein one. Hehe, it turned out that he could make delicious food too.

His wagging tail, which had emerged at some unknown time, betrayed his good mood.

By the time Long Quang finally left Phương’s place, he was full of longan juice, fried spring rolls, rice paper rolls, and pandan cake.

Phương’s words were sometimes weird, but the food was real.

(Even if that dastardly human had expected him to make his own rice paper rolls.)

Long Quang sneaked a last look back before he jumped into the water. He immediately noticed that Phương was watching and so pretended to be looking at something else.

Splash!

The cool water cooled his embarrassment.

Long Quang swam to one of his favourite deep sea reefs.

He slowed when a group of jellyfish floated by, their long tentacles trailing in the water behind them. Long Quang thought of the jellyfish light in his spatial storage, and then at the jellyfish in front of him. Could Phương make jellyfish lights of different shapes? Did Phương even know that jellyfish could take different shapes?

Heh, Long Quang felt a sense of superiority about knowing more about jellyfish than Phương.

He took out a cup of bubble tea to drink while watching the jellyfish and thinking of new moves.

Would Phương really refine something that could make rice paper rolls? What if he made a move that rolled up the opponent like a rice paper roll?

Long Quang liked the idea of that annoying Long Quyền being rolled up and glaring at him but unable to break free.

He also thought of using this move on Phương. It would be amazing if he could show him just how powerful he was! Hahaha!

Fuelled with motivation, Long Quang put away his finished cup of bubble tea and got to work immediately.

Phương: You’re poorer than Phượng Hoàng Vũ

Long Quang: … *takes an arrow to the stomach*

Phương: But luckily little Long Quang is so cute, or else I would never have made one thousand cups of bubble tea for him.

Long Quang: Grrr!! I’m not cute, I’m dangerous and powerful!

Phương: See? So cute!

Zhèng Huá: Yeah, I can see it!

Xīn Lìjūn: *soaks in vinegar*

Notes:

Dinner menu: rice paper rolls or bánh cuốn. They’re also called gỏi cuốn, nem cuốn, salad roll, summer rolls, Vietnamese spring rolls. The description of how its made and eaten here is based on what my family does (which is different from how it’s sold and way more delicious). No vermicelli! More salad, more herbs and more protein (aka more of all the expensive stuff haha)! Favourite proteins include prawns, pork belly, and raw (sushi-grade) salmon (￣￢￣)