After Ling Xiaoyou asked that question, question marks seemed to appear above everyone’s heads.
No way, such a precious thing, and you want to eat it?
What a spendthrift!
But Ling Xiaoyou didn’t care about their question marks. She only knew that ancients loved eating this thing, to the point of near extinction, so it had to be something good.
“I’ll eat and eat and eat!”
“Stop messing around, this thing is very valuable.”
Hong Lingyan pulled away Ling Xiaoyou, who was just about to gnaw on the eggshell, and said helplessly:
“This is for you two to raise and play with, not for you to eat!”
Although raising it for fun didn’t sound much better than eating it, raising it was definitely better than eating it directly!
But Ling Xiaoyou didn’t see it that way. Raising a dragon was definitely troublesome, and who knew how much it would cost.
If it were just raising a cat or something, that would be one thing. Ling Xiaoyou could afford that little bit of money.
But raising a dragon? No need to think about it, it was definitely expensive.
Haven’t you seen that the cost of raising a small animal is often not mainly about buying the animal, but rather the process of raising it?
So rather than spending so much money to raise this dragon that might not even be useful, it would be better to just eat it from the start. Maybe it could even improve cultivation!
Ling Xiaoyou could only accept the reality that this egg couldn’t be eaten and could only be raised. But being forcefully pulled away from the egg, Ling Xiaoyou pouted:
“…”
Since she couldn’t eat it, Ling Xiaoyou’s interest in the dragon egg plummeted. She directly tossed it to Bai Shuanglian, letting her take care of it.
Bai Shuanglian held the dragon egg in her arms, unexpectedly giving off a gentle and serene motherly feeling.
She looked at the egg in her arms, then at the three elders, and once again repeated her previous question, asking where this egg came from.
“Not too sure.”
Bai Qiuyin shrugged and said indifferently:
“Rumors say the Imperial Capital’s Exorcists Association excavated it from an ancient ruin. It might be a leftover from some cultivator’s abandoned cave dwelling.”
“Then why don’t they keep this egg themselves? This thing is so valuable, why would they put it out as the final prize for the Xuantian Martial Tournament?”
Although Ling Xiaoyou was no longer interested in the egg, she was still quite interested in this gossip, so she asked curiously.
It wasn’t that the final prize couldn’t be valuable, but rather because a dragon egg was so valuable that Ling Xiaoyou didn’t think the Host would be willing to put something like this out as a prize.
It could only mean that the reason the Host put this thing out was either that the Host was out of their mind and didn’t treat treasures as valuables, or that there was something fishy about this thing and it definitely wasn’t as good as it looked.
And the answer was…
“Because this egg hasn’t hatched in a thousand years.”
Bai Qiuyin knocked on the egg that Bai Shuanglian was holding, listening to the dull echo inside, and said:
“When this egg was excavated, it was already being incubated in a Law Array, and because the array’s design cycle was good enough, this incubation has never been interrupted.”
“In other words…”
Ling Xiaoyou already had a guess, tilted her head, and said:
“This egg is actually a stillborn?”
“That’s not it either.”
Hong Lingyan took over, shook her head, and said:
“The vitality inside this egg is abundant, there’s no death qi of a stillborn. It just can’t hatch.”
Bai Shuanglian glanced at the egg in her arms, then at Ling Xiaoyou who had a speechless expression, and proactively spoke the next words for her:
“Then what’s the difference between that and a stillborn?”
“The difference is…”
Bai Qiuyin spread her hands:
“This egg might be able to hatch. That’s enough, isn’t it?”
After all, dragons were worth a lot of money. Anything even remotely related to dragons could double in value.
If it really could hatch, just selling some dragon scales or dragon saliva would earn a fortune.
“But the premise is that she can actually hatch it.”
Ling Xiaoyou crossed her arms, showing she wasn’t buying this temptation:
“If it can’t hatch, then it’s just a big rock that hurts more when you smash someone with it. I’d rather eat it!”
“Alright, alright, just treat it as tempering your dao heart.”
Hong Lingyan patted her little head, soothing her:
“Besides, this dragon egg is both your reward and your punishment going forward.”
“Or you could choose a different punishment.”
“?”
Ling Xiaoyou was stunned. Having been led off topic by the dragon egg, she had almost forgotten that she and Bai Shuanglian, because they acted too recklessly and walked into danger, still had to be punished by their two parents.
Thinking of this, Ling Xiaoyou shrank her neck, gave an awkward laugh, and quickly promised:
“I’ll raise it well!”
Rather than swapping for a punishment whose nature she didn’t know, it was better to try hatching this dragon egg.
Even if it couldn’t hatch, at least she’d have a decoration!
Seeing Ling Xiaoyou’s rapid face-changing technique, Bai Shuanglian smiled slightly. She didn’t care about punishments, but hatching an egg together with Ling Xiaoyou was something she was very interested in.
After all, hatching an egg, well, you know how it is. At the very least, they’d need to lie together holding the egg, right?
She was very willing to hatch the egg together with Ling Xiaoyou!
“Yo, what are you guys chatting about?”
While they were talking, a rough, thick voice suddenly came over, making everyone turn to look at the source.
They saw a burly man wearing dark red armor walking toward them. His features were proper and dignified. By all rights, he should have had the image of an elegant young gentleman, but his attire and build made him seem somewhat strange, his head and body feeling out of sync.
Having been seeing those big demon types all this time, Ling Xiaoyou had developed some PTSD, instinctively thinking the other party was a demon coming for revenge.
But on second thought, no way. With so many big shots here, what demon would be crazy enough to come for revenge?
And seeing that this person seemed familiar with the elders, he probably wasn’t a demon.
Just as she was thinking this, Ling Xiaoyou noticed there was actually a torn Space Hidden Door behind the burly man, and a head was peeking out from inside the door.
Seeing that head, Ling Xiaoyou was stunned, and instinctively shouted:
“Su Lihua?”
“Eh? Xiaoyou!”
Hearing Ling Xiaoyou’s voice, Su Lihua was delighted. She quickly ran out from the Space door, came to her and Bai Shuanglian’s side, looking them up and down, and said with concern:
“Are you two okay? After I went through the Teleportation Array, I never saw you two come over, I was worried sick!”
“We’re fine, healthy as can be. We just got checked up.”
Ling Xiaoyou patted her small, not-so-big chest, saying confidently.
“Let’s not talk about that first.”
Seeing that Su Lihua still wanted to ask something, Ling Xiaoyou spoke first, pulling Su Lihua to the side and quietly pointing at the burly man, asking:
“Who’s that guy? How come you came here with him?”
“Him?”
Su Lihua looked back at the burly man. The latter noticed Su Lihua’s gaze and gave her a gentle smile. Then Su Lihua looked at Ling Xiaoyou and said:
“He’s my dad.”
“Oh, just your dad.”
Ling Xiaoyou nodded, then was stunned.
“Wait, your dad?”