Chapter 1159 — A Fortunate Coincidence
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Ten minutes later, the atmosphere in the main hall of Cecil Palace had turned rather strange.
Gao Yang stood there with a wooden expression. A short distance in front of him were two familiar dragons who had come together—Metzin the blue dragon and Noretta the white dragon—while behind him stood Hedy and Rebecca, attending in their capacity as "members of the royal household." Amber lurked nearby, invisible, enjoying the spectacle. And at the very center of it all, a massive dragon egg sat quietly on the floor. Afternoon sunlight poured in from the tall windows along one side, passing through the openwork iron lattice and casting a pattern of light and shadow across the upper half of the shell.
"I may have misheard just now..." The hall had been silent for some time before Gao Yang finally broke it. "Could you introduce this again?"
"This is the dragon egg that Noretta and I have adopted," Metzin said with a completely serious face. "It doesn't have a name yet. The embassy still needs some time to prepare, and the environment at the Autumn Palace isn't really suitable for incubation, so we brought it along this time for you to see. We were wondering if you could help arrange something..."
"All right, I understand." Gao Yang pressed a hand to his forehead and waved dismissively once she had finished, finally confirming that he hadn't been hearing things—this blue dragon lady had gone back to her homeland and promptly returned to take up her diplomatic post with a dragon egg in tow, and one she had co-adopted with Noretta the white dragon, no less... He had been worrying earlier that she might bring some kind of baffling "surprise," and now he had quietly resolved that for the rest of his life, barring emergencies, he would stop worrying about things.
"You seem troubled?" Noretta the white dragon possessed keen observation and a delicate sensibility; she immediately sensed something from Gao Yang's expression. "My apologies—we were too forward. As diplomatic personnel, to suddenly raise such a personal matter with a head of state like yourself is hardly proper..."
"Ah, no, that's not it. I'm just a bit surprised," Gao Yang said, quickly waving his hand, worried she had misread his attitude. "I didn't expect you two to... bring a dragon egg. Frankly, I never would have connected something like this with Metzin."
"You're pretty shocked too, aren't you, Ancestor?" Rebecca finally seized the chance to speak, immediately bouncing several steps forward. "Let me tell you, Auntie and I were even more shocked than you when we received the delegation! Miss Noretta just landed with a dragon egg—the diplomatic roster sent over from Thalorund didn't mention it at all! But Auntie explained it to me afterward, and I think it makes sense. After all, the egg hasn't hatched yet, so you could call it luggage, and there's nothing wrong with that..."
"Rebecca." Before the girl's mouth could completely run away with her, Hedy stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You can be quiet for a moment."
Rebecca turned to glance at the veins already faintly visible on the back of her aunt's hand. A chill ran down the back of her neck, and she cowered there like a startled squirrel, making not another peep.
"My apologies—this child has always had an overactive imagination," Gao Yang said, nodding somewhat awkwardly to Metzin and Noretta. But Rebecca's interruption had done him a favor; the strange tension in the air had loosened considerably. He turned his gaze to Metzin. "Arranging something for you won't be any trouble, but I am curious—what made you suddenly decide to raise a... well, a hatchling? I really can't picture that happening to you. And I've also heard that upper-tier dragons like yourselves, being 'custom-designed,' are actually quite indifferent when it comes to family inclinations. You shouldn't have any instinct to raise hatchlings at all..."