Chapter 112: Ao Run Old Business

In the midst of all the rain and wind, life was once again quiet.

The departure of Xuan Yu and the gods of winter also took the cold out of Lu Qingjiu's body, making it less difficult for him to survive the winter months without being nailed to a warm bed as he had been before. Now Lu Qingjiu can play in the snow without worrying about catching a fever, as long as he wears a bit more clothing.

Snowfall was not as continuous as before, and sunny days became more frequent.

Bai Yuehu began to bring in fresh ingredients from outside every day, at first the better tasting poultry and animals, but later he became addicted to fresh seafood.

Unlike the seafood from the human world, the seafood Bai Yuehu brought back from the other world was big and fresh. For example, the fresh shrimps, which looked similar to those from the human world, were as big as a man's calf and were still alive when Bai Yuehu brought them back with a bunch of them. Lu Qingjiu also felt as if the Otherworld wasn't so bad, or at least that it was full of some kind of unspeakable charm for the food-conscious humans.

There are many more ways to eat fresh prawns than frozen ones, from steaming them and dipping them in soy sauce to pureeing them for soup or hot pot.

Lu Qingjiu made a shrimp ball soup, steamed a few of them and stir-fried a few of them. After Bai Yuehu's introduction, Lu Qingjiu realised that the shrimps were actually newborn pups, and that the adult shrimps were as big as a man, but the shrimps were a bit too old then and did not taste as good as they do now.

Lu Qingjiu is still thinking about how big a prawn is when it's as big as a man.

Apart from shrimps, other seafood was not left behind, what with crabs and lobsters, abalone and sea cucumbers, in short, almost all the food that can be found in the human world is not missing in the other world, and substitutes can be found for all of them.

Lu Qingjiu made a soup with abalone, which was delicious in the cold winter months and also helped to take the chill off his body, so it's safe to say he enjoyed it very much.

But they hadn't lived such a beautiful little life for more than a few days before someone couldn't see it anymore.

Lu Qingjiu didn't expect Ao Run to come straight to him and fought with Bai Yuehu on the spot.

Lu Qingjiu was worried at first when he saw the two of them pouncing on each other that the fight might destroy the house, but it turned out that he had been overly concerned, as neither Bai Yuehu nor Ao Run were using any great strength, and they were only fighting with their physical qualities, with no intention of destroying the whole house. But even so, the yard was still a mess, with walls falling over and the original chicken coop flattened.

The two dragons fought like two human beings, without using any spells, but with fists to the bone. Lu Qingjiu was in tears as he tried to stop the fight, but he was afraid he would be hurt by mistake, so he stood by and did nothing.

Yin Xun, who was watching the fun, pulled out two baked sweet potatoes from the house and handed them to Lu Qingjiu, saying let's eat and watch, but don't let your body get cold.

Lu Qingjiu was about to refuse, but seeing that Bai Yuehu and Ao Run had no intention of stopping, he took them and nibbled on them while warming his hands.

What Lu Qingjiu didn't expect was that as Bai Yuehu and Ao Run fought, he heard them arguing, with Ao Run cursing Bai Yuehu for being heartless and unjust and Bai Yuehu yelling at Ao Run for meddling in his own affairs. Lu Qingjiu's expression was stunned when he first heard the quarrel, for he had only heard the red-haired Ao Run's voice before, but never thought that the black-haired grandfather could also speak.

"They're making a lot of noise." Lu Qingjiu spoke up.

"What's all the noise?" Yin Xun was bewildered, "Did they talk?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "You can't hear me."

Yin Xun shook his head to indicate that he had not heard anything. Lu Qingjiu looked more closely and was incredibly surprised to find that Ao Run and Bai Yuehu had indeed not spoken, their lips were pursed in a straight line, while the sound of their quarrel seemed to be transmitted directly into Lu Qingjiu's mind.

"Ao Yue, you refuse to let Lu Qingjiu go, don't you know that he will die if he stays here?" Ao Run was still yelling, "Do you even consider him as your lover?"

"How does my lover need your opinion?" Bai Yuehu retorted coldly, "If he wants to stay, I respect his opinion, unlike you, who has always been so dictatorial, not caring whether the person to whom you are giving it wants it or not."

The two of them were arguing so much that Lu Qingjiu was a bit worried, it was almost lunchtime, how much longer were they going to be arguing?

Bai Yuehu and Ao Run's movements stop momentarily and they both turn their heads at the same time, giving Lu Qingjiu a surprised look.

"I can hear you," Lu Qingjiu continued in his head, "how much longer are you going to fight?"

Ao Run immediately released Bai Yuehu and he rose from the snow, twice patting the snow that hung on his clothes, and returned to his gentle appearance, smiling gently as he approached Lu Qingjiu: "O wine, you can hear us now"

Lu Qingjiu said, "Yes, I just heard it." He looked at Yin Xun, who was a bit confused, "Can't anyone else hear it?"

Ao Run explains, "It's a sound that only dragons can hear." He had tried to speak to Lu Qingjiu in this way before, but Lu Qingjiu did not respond to the voice at all, so he had to write to Lu Qingjiu. Although this method is common among dragons, Lu Qingjiu is only a quarter dragon, so it's normal that he can't hear him.

Ao Run gave Bai Yuehu another cold glare as he thought about it.

Bai Yuehu was furious, grinding his teeth in anger, thinking that if it wasn't for Lu Qingjiu's face, he would have fought Ao Run to win.

"Wine." Ao Run's voice from inside his head, not too different from the red-haired Ao Run, walked over to Lu Qingjiu's side and reached out to gently help him sweep the snowflakes off his head, "Hurry up and get inside, it's cold out."

"Grandpa, I'm fine." Lu Qingjiu said, "Don't you fight Bai Yuehu."

Ao Run said, "I just didn't think he would be so selfish." He was still a little upset, "How can you stay in Shuifu Village with the cold in your body, I even gave you a good road before, I just wanted you to leave earlier"

Lu Qingjiu said, "Now there is no more cold energy in my body."

Ao Run frowned at this, the reason he had frozen Lu Qingjiu was to force Bai Yuehu to send Lu Qingjiu away, whether Bai Yuehu wanted to or not, Lu Qingjiu's body would not be able to cope with remaining in Shuifu Village, so Lu Qingjiu would have to leave to avoid what was about to happen. Lu Qingjiu had to leave to avoid what was about to happen. Ao Run thought his plan was perfect, but when he returned a few days later, he found Lu Qingjiu still at home, alive and well.

"The gods of winter have helped me to drive the cold out of my body." Lu Qingjiu said, "I don't have to leave again."

Ao Run's expression is mixed and he wants to say something.

Bai Yuehu, however, walked up to Lu Qingjiu's side and took his hand directly, saying, "Wine, I'm hungry." He raised his chin provocatively.

Ao Run was so angry that he almost rolled up his sleeves again and took action against Bai Yuehu.

Lu Qingjiu hurriedly persuaded the two of them, saying that we could continue after lunch, it was almost ten o'clock and there would be no food to eat if we continued to fight.

Tempted by the food, Bai Yuehu and Ao Run finally chose to call a truce, but the two were still somewhat at odds with each other, provoking each other with their words.

The most confused person was Yin Xun, who was standing next to him, gnawing on his baked sweet potato, not understanding how the group had reached an agreement without saying a word, and had decided to go for lunch in a friendly manner, and what they had said behind his back.

It was the first time that Lu Qingjiu invited Ao Run into his home and invited him for lunch.

Ao Run was clearly surprised by Lu Qingjiu's invitation, and although he didn't like Bai Yuehu, he suppressed his inner turmoil and returned to the gentle demeanour he had seen before. Bai Yuehu also gave Ao Run the benefit of the doubt, although he didn't like Ao Run's self-initiated behaviour, in the end, Ao Run was Lu Qingjiu's grandfather, and it seemed that Lu Qingjiu had no intention of blaming him.

"Why don't you go." Ao Run was in the kitchen, head down, helping Lu Qingjiu with the fresh vegetables Bai Yuehu had brought back from outside yesterday, "I can clear the path for you again if you want"

Lu Qingjiu shook his head, his tone firm: "No, I'm not going."

Ao Run said, "But you will die."

Lu Qingjiu said, "Will it be?"

Ao Run frowned slightly and did not answer the question.

Lu Qingjiu was chopping up meat to make meatballs for deep-frying when he said, "But if I leave, Bai Yuehu will die," he remembered what Xuan Yu had said.

Ao Run continues to be silent.

"Grandpa, do you know what will happen next?" Lu Qingjiu said, "Can you tell me?"

Ao Run sighs as he says, "The gods of the four seasons are dead, and the next step is for the two worlds to merge"

"So you want the two worlds to merge?" Lu Qingjiu asked.

Ao Run looked up, his eyes closed, but he seemed to be gazing into Lu Qingjiu's face as he said, "I don't care about the two worlds, I only care about you." Lu Qingjiu was the offspring she had left behind, the only human with dragon blood, and naturally he wanted to keep him alive by all means, but now it seemed that Lu Qingjiu himself had given up his last chance.

"You have one last chance." Ao Run said, "Even if you stay, you may not be able to save Bai Yuehu . But if you go, you will surely survive, and when the two worlds merge, I can protect you and find you the magical texts that were once practised by the great powers of the human world, and then"

While listening to what he said, Lu Qingjiu looked at Bai Yuehu, who had remained quiet during his conversation with Ao Run, seemingly focused on the vegetable pot in front of him, but the pot was filled with Bai Yuehu

Lu Qingjiu suspects that if Bai Yuehu were to reveal his hairy ears at this moment, they would be carefully erected.

"Well, I know." Lu Qingjiu said, "Thank you grandpa, it's just that I know what I want."

Ao Run said, "Do you really know?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "I know, when my parents died in an accident, I also wanted to take my grandma out, but she refused, she said Shuifu Village was her roots, there were people here she wanted to protect, I didn't understand then, but now I do." He smiled, "If she was still alive, she would have stayed too."

Ao Run's expression showed a hint of imperceptible pain at the mention of his grandmother, and he had many things to say to Lu Qingjiu, but these words eventually turned into a low sigh: "Well, I respect your choice."

Lu Qingjiu was relieved to know that Ao Run would no longer deliberately stop him.

But despite this, the atmosphere in the kitchen was still strange, and Yin Xun was too scared to come in while sitting in the living room, and when Lu Qingjiu asked him what was wrong as he took the dishes out, he said, "Nothing, any other creature would be overwhelmed to find two and a quarter dragons in the house."

Lu Qingjiu: ""Your count is too precise.

Since grandpa stayed for lunch, Lu Qingjiu cooked a hearty lunch of stewed tomatoes with meatballs, steamed fish with black beans, braised hoisin, vermicelli soup with pickled vegetables, and one vegetarian dish and one cold dish, each of which was a generous portion and was placed on the table in a large plate.

Ao Run looks slightly formal as he takes his place at the table, it seems a long time since he had a good meal, but Lu Qingjiu's heart still tingles when he notices his empty mouth after he opens it. Lu Qingjiu's mother had been swallowed by Ao Run himself, but he could not blame Ao Run for anything, he had not felt any ill will from him all this time, only a strong sense of care.

Ao Run eats very carefully, chewing each bite for a long time before swallowing it all slowly, similar to Bai Yuehu when he was first brought into the family.

When Lu Qingjiu looked at him, he thought of Bai Yuehu, who had not had enough to eat, and felt a bit sad, but he could not show it, and just quietly helped Ao Run to add food.

Bai Yuehu, for the first time today, did not protect his food and even put his bowl down after eating a bowl of rice, saying he was full and had some work to do, so he got up and went out. Yin Xun was also smart enough to finish his bowl and then said he would go and help Bai Yuehu tidy up the yard, leaving the food and time alone to Lu Qingjiu and Ao Run.

Ao Run took the kindness of both of them and ate while speaking slowly and in the unique way of the dragons to Lu Qingjiu, who talked a lot about his past and his first encounter with his grandmother.

"Your grandmother wasn't much of a cook," says Ao Run. Ao Run says, "Before I moved in, she was eating pickles with white rice every day, and she was so thin."

Lu Qingjiu listened to the fact that by the time he was born, his grandmother was already in perfect control of the fire to make delicious food. Ao Run had already been away from her lover for many years and she was forced to live on her own, but the heartache hidden in these few simple words is hard to describe.

"She likes whatever I make." Ao Run said, "She ate a lot of everything." He spoke of the old days with a wistfulness and tenderness that Lu Qingjiu had never seen before, "but although she ate a lot, she didn't gain any weight, so I don't know where it went."

Lu Qingjiu says: "Grandmother was very thin." Until she left this world, she was a skinny old lady. All the other old people in the village had a tendency to put on weight as they got older, but she was still a skinny one, which was heartbreaking to see.

"Well." Ao Run said, "Everything was fine then, until I was tainted."

This was the first time Ao Run had spoken about pollution and Lu Qingjiu's heart tightened slightly as he listened.

Ao Run doesn't say much about this, and it seems that even he doesn't understand why he is contaminated, but he does tell Lu Qingjiu that dragons who fall in love with humans are more likely to be contaminated, and he doesn't explain why, perhaps even he can't understand it.

Ao Run talks a lot more about Grandma's youth, about their love for each other, their separation, and the birth of their child.

"I was forced to leave and when I returned again, your mother was three years old." Ao Run was smiling as she said this, "It's amazing how humans look like this as children, so different from dragons"

"Can't dragons take shape as children?" Lu Qingjiu asks.

Ao Run said, "Yeah, the dragons look like little dragons when they are young, they have to wait until they are adults and take off their young horns to become humanoid little dragons look just like snakes, they are not cute at all."

Lu Qingjiu immediately remembered Bai Yuehu, who he had hurt, and it seems that Bai Yuehu, who was disliked by the children, was justifiable.

"Humans are a different story." Ao Run seems to be in a good mood, and with it, a lot of words, "soft, tiny, falls over when pushed, and cries when it falls over, cries with a red nose"

Lu Qingjiu strongly suspects Ao Run of bullying her daughter behind her grandmother's back, otherwise why would she be so detailed in her description?

"But it's okay to cry." Ao Run says, "Just put a candy in your mouth, it's easy to coax."

Lu Qingjiu wondered, "You don't do this very often, do you?"

Ao Run: "No."

Lu Qingjiu: "No, really"

Ao Run said calmly, "It's only been done once or twice."

Lu Qingjiu :""

Ao Run suddenly remembered something and said, "Wine, are your young dragon horns still on"

Lu Qingjiu said, "Yes." The young dragon's horns were so sensitive that he didn't dare to show them at all, and only occasionally was he forced to do so by Bai Yuehu.

"What's wrong, Grandpa?" Lu Qingjiu tried to digress.

He said that Bai Yuehu was not a good dragon, and that Lu Qingjiu was still a poor, weak and helpless young dragon, and he had done it to him!

Lu Qingjiu said in horror, "But Grand Master, I am twenty-seven years old."

Ao Run said, "Twenty-seven you're only twenty-seven Dragons twenty-seven is just a white ball, and he's actually going after an egg"

Lu Qingjiu: ""Grandpa, calm down, look at me, I don't look like a white egg.

Ao Run was clearly upset that Bai Yuehu was a pig who had taken a bite out of the family's cabbage, and if Lu Qingjiu hadn't stopped him, he would have gone out and had another go at Bai Yuehu.

Lu Qingjiu could only try his best to persuade him that he really couldn't use the standard of the dragons, and that if he were to fall in love according to the life expectancy of the dragons, he would be 200 years old, and it would still be a question of whether he would be around then.

"And I remember that my grandma was only eighteen when she fell in love, a full nine years younger than me." Lu Qingjiu said, remembering this, "Grandmother you"

Ao Run is silent for a moment and decides to skip the subject, saying that today's meal smells really good.

Lu Qingjiu thought to himself, "Grandpa's turn of phrase is a bit too hard.

Lu Qingjiu chatted with Ao Run for a while, but then he remembered something and went into his bedroom, where he took out a pair of woollen ear cuffs and handed them to Ao Run, saying that he had knitted them himself and that they would keep his ears warm. It wasn't that he didn't want to give Ao Run something else, but he hadn't finished knitting anything else, so the ear muffs were the only ones that would work, but he had knitted them according to Bai Yuehu's ear proportions.

"It's almost New Year's Eve, so I wish Grandpa a happy New Year in advance." Lu Qingjiu smiled.

Lu Qingjiu explained that they were for the dragon's ears, and Ao Run simply revealed his own erect ears. Lu Qingjiu noticed that the ears were also furry and moving, which made his hands itch, but given his status as a junior, he had to resist, but asked politely if he needed to help him put them on.

Ao Run nods in agreement.

Lu Qingjiu was slightly surprised as he picked up the earmuffs and carefully put them on Ao Run's ears, which felt similar to Bai Yuehu's, except that the fur was slightly thicker, but still soft and plush.

Ao Run tilts her head and asks, "Does it look good?"

Lu Qingjiu smiles and says it looks good.

"I'll keep it then." Ao Run said gently, "It's getting late, I'll be off."

Lu Qingjiu said, "Won't you stay for dinner?"

"No." Ao Run said, "I have things to take care of."

Lu Qingjiu wants to say something but doesn't.

But as he hesitated, Ao Run had already stood up and walked out. When Lu Qingjiu arrived at the door, there was no longer any sign of Ao Run, and he was slightly lost, when Bai Yuehu, who had been restoring the courtyard with Yin Xun, came up to him and said, "Why is he wearing ear-cups?"

"Oh, I thought it was New Year's Eve, so I gave it to him as a New Year's gift." Lu Qingjiu wondered, "I thought you didn't like ear cuffs."

Bai Yuehu was not happy, "Who said I didn't like it." He finished and showed his own ears shaking a little, "It's cold."

Lu Qingjiu looked at Bai Yuehu's jealous look and couldn't resist, so he reached out and took hold of Bai Yuehu's fluffy ears, and this time he wasn't polite, and gave them a kiss: "It's okay, I'll knit you a new pair, no, many pairs."