The tale of the fox and the dragon egg

Chapter 66 - Warmth and farewell

"Did you even hear what I said?", Jiang Cheng barked, but not even that brought Wei Ying out from his reverie. The only thing it succeeded in doing was making Lan Zhan slip to Wei Ying's side to make sure he was well.

"Wei Ying", he hummed and finally, the fox reacted.

Without his eyes ever moving from the roofs he had gazed upon; the fox began to answer.

"Actually", Wei Ying began, a little humbler than he would have done any other time, "I think we forgot to buy a little of those steamed buns for our travel."

******************************

"No! I want to stay here! I want to stay!"

"Little radish, we need to go home. Everyone is already waiting for us there."

"No! No! I don't want to!"

A heavy sigh tore from Wei Ying's chest as he watched how the little dragon child had such a tight grip on Jin Ling's leg that it must have turned blue. Strange to say, the boy in gold didn't even do anything against it. On the contrary; he pushed out his chest and stood a little in front of him, shielding the little body partly with his leg.

Even Jiang Cheng sighed now. Lan Zhan was still silent right next to the fox and Wei Ying almost thought he looked proud.

"Brat, you need to go back. That boy in front of you won't concentrate on his training otherwise. And I want to have peace and quiet back", the clan leader said and A-Yuan shook his head so strong that Wei Ying feared he might give himself a concussion, "Stubborn boy. I see where you've learned it."

The fox ignored those purple eyes and instead grinned as he looked towards Jin Ling, somehow proud of him as well.

"What, are you already taking him in? You'll need to wait before you can go on a hunt with him", Wei Ying teased him, but got a playful, thinking look on his face, "No, actually this little radish might be better than you already."

A shameful blush spread on Jin Ling's face and his annoyance was already visible.

"I'm perfectly capable of fighting. As if such a tiny child could defeat me!"

"From how you're always fooling around in training, that child might as well succeed", Jiang Cheng huffed and crossed his arms in front of his chest. His gaze was obvious and challenging, something the teenager couldn't go against, "How do you expect to protect the clan like that? Or that child?"

Obviously, Jin Ling couldn't go against that.

He was probably thinking about the incident weeks ago, where his own uncle summoned one of the darkest beings he had seen in his life. Back then, he didn't have the strength to fight with them, being only a young spirit himself. Although he succeeded in protecting Wei Ying for a moment, it wasn't strong enough to fight against someone as powerful as Xue Yang.

Even though Jin Ling didn't say it, Wei Ying and every other could see that it was weighting on his mind and pride.

The teenager caved in.

"You should go home", Jin Ling said to the boy hiding behind his leg, "I need to get back to my studies. I don't want to be as weak as this anymore."

The teary silver eyes of A-Yuan looked up, his bottom lip trembling in the heave of his emotions.

"Don't want to!", he called out, his hands burying themselves further into the golden material of Jin Ling's robes, "Don't want to!"

Jin Ling couldn't help but sigh loudly and Wei Ying felt a little glad that the teenager got to experience such temper tantrums as well. Now that the child began to cry once more, the golden boy was looking at them like he needed help to control this situation. Such a look was pretty amusing for the fox, but he didn't have the mind to truly act on it.