The tale of the fox and the dragon egg

Chapter 36 - Right here

"Ahahahaha! Lan Zhan, you – hahahaha! You really are something else!"

As Wei Ying writhed and turned on the dragon's lap, the same only watched him with a soft expression in his eyes. However, it turned sour some seconds after; a look that even made the laughter die down instantly. 

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It was a fine morning.

Truly, especially as the warm rays of the sun warmed the dark fur on Wei Ying's tails. Everything was cosy and the fox spirit soaked in the feeling of the same on his skin and hair.

He found himself in a tiny clearing, one in the mountains of Cloud Recesses.

Within a breeze that had called him and made him follow deep into the woods, where nobody would disturb him. The sunrays drove him out of the dull walls of the rooms and out under the almost cloudless sky. Green surrounded him in the grass under his feet and the trees and bushes around him, a sign how alive and well everything was.

It reminded him of the clearings he himself discovered in the Burial Mounds. The only thing that was truly missing were the countless rabbits running around.

With tiny A-Yuan in his arms, he had wandered around to get out of the stuffiness that was called the home of the Lan. It was supposed to be an elegant and silent estate, a place of peace and seclusion.

It was hell for an energized and always prankful spirit as himself. All those serious faces that ran around, following more than 3000 rules, it drove him almost insane.

To hell, one of them included not smiling without a good reason!

Maybe that was why old man Lan Qiren hated him so much. Wei Ying couldn't remember that old dragon smiling even once in all the time he had been there – not once! As a spirit that couldn't go a day without grinning or laughing, this was laughable by itself. And it explained so many things about the Lan, but in particular that stubborn mule!

Under the tight watchful eyes of the old spirit and his subordinates, the fox urgently escaped into the free outside. The woods always reminded him of home, of the place within the burial mounds he had inhabited for so long, even when the trees and plants were not even close to being so vibrant there.

It was a change he himself and his son enjoyed immensely.

Now that A-Yuan started to learn how to shift at will, from a dragon form to the human form on two legs, he had fun in shifting from one second to the next and confuse his mother to no ends. That boy was insanely clever and caught up to everything very quick. Wei Ying was extremely proud and groaning in frustration both at the same time.

The teachings of the other Lan disciples helped the little one immensely and made Wei Ying pout in dissatisfaction. In the face of the differences in shifting into the body of a fox and that of a dragon, he ultimately needed to call himself defeated.

Everything was worth it when the back of his legs was tackled by two chubby arms, or when the same held onto his right one. Or when the long body of his dragon child curled around his chest, now big enough after his grow spurt to curl entirely around it. It made cuddling that much easier and A-Yuan throughout enjoyed to choose his body and get into the most comfortable position. Every night, Wei Ying fell asleep to the purr of a dragon child and it was marvellous.

His time in Cloud Recesses was not bad, nor was it exclusively good. Being watched until a shudder travelled down his back wasn't fun, but in the face of the internal peace he, his son and Wen Ning faced it was only a tiny sacrifice.