The Emperor and the Dragon

Backstory

Back to the Past

    It was already nighttime, with the obscured view of the moon, lighting the skies. This would've been just any other night, with just him and his hoard, yet this time he had a companion to accompany him. 'Well, this is awkward,' he thought. The silence was deafening, was he supposed to make conversation at this time?

    Zhúzhī-láng had left discreetly awhile ago to go hunt, hiding from Luo Binghe for some reason.

    Shen Yuan turns to look at Luo Binghe, laying to his far right side. The boy adapted well.

    Shen Yuan had given him some of his spare robes and resized it to make sure it would fit him well. And would you look at that, after a nice clean up at the waterfall, getting rid of the muck and dirty face, underneath he turned out to be a decent looking young man. Shen Yuan wanted to gift Luo Binghe one of his hairpins, but the boy had refused. Saying, 'You've already done so much for me, shizun. I can't take something so expensive from you.' He pushed kept trying to push the boy in picking one, but he still refused. So Shen Yuan hesitantly dropped the subject, not wanting to offend his newly made human companion. A sudden thought came to mind.

"So Binghe you still never told this master how you got yourself in that trap," he pulls his upper body up and rests his chin on his right palm while looking in Luo Binghe's direction. "Did someone bully you?"

    In the dark, he could barely make out what Binghe's face looked like since he was looking away after Shen Yuan, but he could see the tips of the boy's ears redden. Looks like he guessed right. Should he take back his question?

"To answer shizun, I was helping a few locals with work when I accidentally offended a young lady from a noble family."

"Oh? How did you offend this young lady?" Luo Binghe doesn't look like the type to be a ruffian. Shen Yuan does a quick scan of Luo Binghe from top to bottom. Yeah, there's no way he would be that type of person.

"I wasn't careful when walking by and soiled her dress," Binghe paused before proceeding again, "she yelled at her group of followers to teach me a lesson...that's when I was dragged into the forest and forced into the net."

    Luo Binghe stopped, but this time looked over at Shen Yuan nervously. He opened his mouth, but quickly closed it. Huh? What's wrong? Why isn't he continuing? Binghe opted to stare at a corner of the cave instead of looking at Shen Yuan before speaking again. 

"They said, they'll see to it that I'll be dragon food, but shizun, I know that they were only trying to scare me."

"Why would they leave you in the net if they were merely trying to scare you, Binghe?" 

"To answer shizun...the followers left because they heard master approaching." 

    'Ah, that makes sense.' He felt a little embarrassed after hearing this, unconsciously raising one of the long sleeves to cover the lower half of his face.  To comfort Binghe for his misfortune, Shen Yuan decides to throw an offhand comment, "You don't have to worry about ever being bullied again since I will protect you." He involuntarily raised his hand and touches Luo Binghe's head. 'Aaa...so fluffy,' he couldn't help but exclaim in his head. Although it was an offhand comment, he meant every word of it. Luo Binghe will be under his protection until he becomes strong enough to care for himself.