In the end, it was inevitable that some trouble would come once Jia Hyson began to reveal his dragon appearance.
Jia Hyson wasn't unhappy though. He had wanted some events and conflict in the first place after all.
"How much for it?" A pompous looking and arrogant noblewoman greedily eyes the golden dragon as her friends surround Tang Muxin and her, ready to watch a good show.
It was only less than an hour before Wen Xia had been fuming when the cold faced commoner girl had not only stolen a bracelet she had been eying on, but had even given her no face, ignoring her threats and bidding above her with more money than she had! If Wen Xia hadn't had decided to dress a bit more low-key when going out today and running off from her attendants to play freely with her friends then she would have easily been able to slap this wench's face with her money!
Frustrated and shamed into anger she insisted on following and harassing Tang Muxin, calling her out for various things and getting face slapped almost immediately after.
For example disparaging Tang Muxin for buying such a cheap trinket of a bracelet for so much money, implying she had no eye for value and merely wanted to gain some attention from others with her exorbitant purchase.
A passing famous jeweler: "Aiyah! Isn't that the x bracelet with hand carved beads of pure lightning jade that was promised to Emperor x's beloved empress but was lost during x dynasty in the war? How much will it cost to buy I'll pay x amount!"
Tang Muxin: "Sounds good."
Wen Xia: '...'
Then when Tang Muxin went into an old, almost abandoned and shabby looking store and bought an ugly wooden statuette Wen Xia immediately laughed and scorned her.
Wen Xia: "Do you think you come across one treasure and suddenly you've been blessed with luck ah? Even if you want to be pretentious there's no need to be like this. Did your eyes go blind from greed?"
Tang Muxin: '...' I only bought it because it looks a bit like Da Gong and I wanted to see his reaction to it.
A famous official's wife who had been shopping with her friends: "Oh my god! That wooden carving! That's clearly my second brother's work, but he was kidnapped x years ago and my family have been searching for him since! See that scratched in symbol at the bottom! Yes! That's really X ge's work!! Wuwuwu young lady, we must be fated! If you need any help my husband Official x and family are forever indebted to you!"
Tang Muxin: "No need for debts. Rather, can I ask you if there's anywhere with good quality produce? I have some picky eaters at home."
Wen Xia: '.....'
Finally Wen Xia really couldn't take it and secretly tried to throw mud onto Tang Muxin, feeling that at the very least she can humiliate her in this manner. Sensing the projectile, Tang Muxin immediately moved to block it with her long robe sleeves, swatting it fiercely to the side and ruining her dress and appearance.
Wen Xia: "Hah! You-"
Person behind Tang Muxin: "Miss you are so brave to step out and help protect me without hesitation! Even though I am the unfavored middle son, my word as one of the children of x family's main branch has some weight. I am moved by your heroic blah blah blah."
Tang Muxin: "No problem. If you really insist I can only ask you to help me pay for my grocery shopping." Capital prices for good food were higher than expected ah!
Wen Xia: '....'
What the hell is this?! This is blatant cheating! If I knew what hacks was I would call it okay?! (┛ಠДಠ)┛彡┻━┻
One had to admire the tenacity cannon fodder can have ah. Even her friends at this point were embarrassed for her. But they still persisted. It was clear from this that Wen Xia must be the doted child of an important family, if not they would have left her ages ago to save their own faces. Still they wouldn't be very happy with her after today.
Tang Muxi, who at that time was merely browsing stalls and buying cheap things to resell for higher prices later, had never thought that her one act of buying a handsome carved jade bracelet would bring so much trouble to her. People at the market place bid and barter all the time. She really didn't see why this person had to be so troublesome about a bracelet.
...though in the end, the girl didn't seem to be very smart and kept making a fool out of herself while Tang Muxin somehow reaped quite a few benefits in the form of connections and freebies so she really couldn't complain ah.
Finally Tang Muxin had grown tired of being followed by a group of little bullies and reached the small stall their group had set up.
While she still wasn't in prime condition like in her original body that had undergone years of vigorous training, she could have easily exerted her current skills to evade these troublemakers. However learning from Ye Cheng had caused her to gain a slight materialistic bias overtime. Seeing the low key but high quality fabrics, the natural arrogant disdain and curiosity for commoner life and a few more clues, Tang Muxin could deduce these were some rich kids that had secretly gone out to play.
Given how badly they tried and failed to trip her up, Tang Muxin felt that these kids were a bit stupid. So of course she had to lead them to their stall Stupid and rich were the best customers.
Plus given that their items now were genuinely rare goods thanks to her good luck blessed by Jin Bao, it was better to have customers with proper backgrounds who could appreciate their wares better. While villagers and such can be more gullible, they are also unlikely to recognize treasures and more often then not will accuse them of being blackhearted scammers once they hear the prices.
Plus, given the rarity and authenticity... none of them were willing to lower the prices of items to the point any commoner can afford it after some hesitation and haggling. So they really hadn't had the opportunity to put out, much less sell, any of the antiques and rare items they possessed currently until now.
In short, they were running out of space in their carriage and Da Gong was getting upset so they needed to sell some stuff ASAP.
Da Gong: 'People keep getting too close to my worm now that my worm has gotten prettier! This is unacceptable! Anyone who comes close to my worm will eat my chicken feet!"
Other animals and humans in the cramped carriage: 'No, that's not, we're not...' CryingwithoutTears.gif
"Muxin, you're back early?" Ye Cheng who had been chatting with Cao Huizhong as they manned the stall gave her a surprised look. Cao Huizhong just gave her an annoyed one.
"En," Tang Muxin nods, eyes softening and shoulders relaxing. She walks around to the back of the stall and puts down her recently purchased items. "I've brought customers."
At this moment, Wen Xia and her group arrived, panting and looking a little disheveled. Even though Tang Muxin didn't try to shake them off, her light footwork techniques naturally made it easier to walk agilely in a crowd. For pampered second and third generations like them, it really was difficult to keep up.
Jia Hyson who had been basking on the stall table lazily lifted his head up as he looked at the rather pitiful looking group. Overall most of the people were plain with only a few okay looking ones in the mix. The only one with above average looks was the young lady at the front of the group.
'That's Wen Xia,' Bebe identifies, 'she's the well-loved daughter of Kaifeng's head of the judicial office's main wife. Her father has often taken bribes and such from nobles to minimize their punishments or get out of them completely. The Wen family is very rich and are considered a very old but relatively small noble family. Because of their position over the law they're very influential.'
Pretty face but not outstanding. Arrogant, dumb and full of pride. Rich and corrupt family. She really couldn't be more cannonfodder ah.
While he wasn't with Tang Muxin during her walk, knowing her luck and the typical direction these stories go, he can more or less guess the general process of the whole outing. Given Tang Muxin's personality, Jia Hyson would bet good money that Wen Xia was the one who got herself all angry because of something unintentional that Tang Muxin did and tried to harass the protagonist in order to vent but failed.
Very hateful. Very good. They need a nice stupid one for starter cannonfodder.
When Jia Hyson moved to look at the group, Wen Xia was immediately drawn to the action. Even though Jia Hyson was small he was now incredibly eye catching and beautiful in appearance. While his horns and whiskers were no fully developed yet and his mane was still short, with his glittering golden scales and glimmering hair he looked like a dragon stature carved from gold and pearls and jade.
In fact his underdeveloped appearance gave him a softness and vulnerability that you couldn't find in adult dragons, coupled with the large bright eyes... it was an appearance that could finally make people fall to their knees in cuteness.
Jia Hyson: 'After x fucking months since I've arrived I finally got my goddamn wish to be cute.' ﾟ+.(ﾉ*^ ω^)ﾉ*.☆ﾟ･:*☆ FireworkPartyTime.gif
Bebe: ( ¬_¬) 'Oh. Congrats.'
Jia Hyson: 'Tch, tch. You're so awful, so unwilling to support your significant other in anything. No wonder I'm planning to divorce you.'
Bebe: 'Heh, go ahead. In the divorce you can take your cuteness and I'll take your life okay?' ☚(ﾟヮﾟ☚)
Jia Hyson: '...fuck. Baby forgive me. Daddy really loves you okay?'
Bebe: '...' Dammit. Bebe almost won this round but had to forfeit due to disgust.
Wen Xia who, like most typical female cannonfodder, was very fond of glitzy to the point of gaudy things, a materialistic spoilt woman. Jia Hyson at one glance had completely captured her heart.
Which brings us to the current scene.
"Hey," one of Wen Xia's followers whispers to another, "that... is that a dragon?"
"It.... shouldn't be?" Follower 2 frowns, "Though it does bear a striking resemblance to the paintings."
"Don't be stupid, dragons aren't actually real, and if they were why would they be at some street stall ah?" Another follower snaps.
The first follower glares at follower 3, "Then explain why it looks like a dragon then?"
"Just some weird lizard," Follower 3 dismisses but the more she looks at Jia Hyson the more doubt arises. "It.. it's probably a mix breed of some sort. Though I admit, it's pretty cute for a hybrid."
"Your sister's a weird lizard!" Follower 2 hisses, "Lizards are brown or green! What lizard is pure gold and has silver hair? Fuck are you blind?"
"How much?" Wen Xia repeats in a louder voice, ignoring her arguing followers. Her eyes were shining more than Jia Hyson's scales. It was clear she had already forgot her original purpose and just wanted the baby dragon.
Tang Muxin's expression darkens as she sees the almost fanatical glean in Wen Xia's eyes. She lowers her hand in front of Jia Hyson, silently coaxing him to crawl onto her palm.
Jia Hyson was also a little perturbed by how strong the reaction of this cannonfodder was and quickly obeyed, crawling onto her hand and wrapping his tail like body around her wrist like a beautiful scaly spiral bracelet.
'Bebe, what's up with Wen Xia?' He asks internally.
Bebe was silent for a moment before clicking it's nonexistent tongue, 'Aiyah, this is really interesting. Bebe had to pay for a bit more detailed information about Wen Xia's background and it turns out she's one of the people with a special bloodline.'
It turns out Wen Xia's family had a direct ancestor that was blessed by a golden dragon back in the day. They were huge dragon worshippers and when the dragons left the family who were servants that loved their draconic masters with their hearts and souls almost killed themselves in grief. Moved by their sincerity and love, the golden dragons have them parting blessings, wishing their family line a prosperous thousand years and a promise to see them again in the future.
Even after a thousand years has passed and this world slowly forgot that dragons and spiritual beasts really once walked amongst them, the Wen family who had persisted in their beliefs still maintained their blessing albeit it was diluted somewhat.
Each person of the Wen family was raised to love dragons, be loyal royalists to the emperor's family that is the closest to the dragons, and store as much gold and beautiful things in their treasury as possible in order for the day a dragon will one day remember the loyal Wen family and visit the again.
In fact, excluding the imperial family, the Wen family can be said to hold the most dragon-themed items and were well known avid collectors for them. The bracelet Wen Xia had lost to Tang Muxin coincidentally also had small carvings of lively little dragons on the beads which is what initially attracted her to it.
Of course it had been over a thousand years, no matter how fanatical they were before it would be strange if there weren't doubts and disbelief with each passing generation. And as the blessing became weaker and weaker so did their faith which would further weaken the blessing causing a bad cycle.
Still, even if they didn't believe as strongly as before, they still respected their family traditions and raised the next generations on stories of dragons and times of wonder. Wen Xia was no exception and as a child had loved the idea of being the first person in thousands of years to meet a dragon. Though she had grown out of it more or less, as a childish person she still retained a lot of her childish heart.
Thus upon seeing Jia Hyson, all her previous arrogance and attitude had been wiped away. Maybe it was her upbringing or the faint blessing that still ran through her veins or maybe Jia Hyson was really just that cute but Wen Xia was so moved she almost cried.
Jia Hyson falls into contemplative silence as he digests this information.
To think the first cannon fodder they meet would actually be a dragon-con. Should he say Tang Muxin's luck is too good or his own luck was too bad?
Watching Wen Xiao throwing her family's name and money at an increasingly colder Tang Muxin, Ye Cheng and Cao Huizhong, Jia Hyson silently clicks his tongue and touches his snout thoughtfully. What he wants is a proper simple brainless cannon fodder to face slap. It wouldn't do if they got a brainless sister character joining the party instead.
Best case scenario is if Wen Xia is dumb enough to make trouble and then her mother or someone else comes in to make more trouble before finally the head of the family steps in, sees everything with clarity, scolds Wen Xia, punishes her and then offers their assistance to Tang Muxin.
Worst case scenario is that Wen Xia sobers up a little and becomes Tang Muxin's little follower. The annoying type that will cuss strangers and bring aggro to the group before feeling bad, helping out a tiny bit, apologising and then doing it all over again until she finally learns through some harsh consequence.
Since the story is going toward the feel-good transmigration story, Jia Hyson truly doesn't want the latter to happen.
Seeing that Wen Xia looked like she was going to calm down and think more rationally thanks to some strong coaxing from her followers and the metaphorical cold water of the constant rejections from Tang Muxin and the group, Jia Hyson decides not to risk it and steps in.
Flicking his tail and letting the shine of his scales attract everyone, Jia Hyson activates his absolute favourite skills in this lifetime [Cutie Beam, Level 7] and [Selling Meng One Paw At A Time, Level 3]. For maximum effectiveness of [Selling Meng One Paw At A Time] Jia Hyson twists his body so he's lying on his back and wiggles his little legs and claws as he stares at Wen Xia with his large golden eyes. Then as a finishing blow he sticks out a little pink tongue and cutely 'mrrps'.
"Fuck." Follower 1 swore under her breath. She had never seen such a cute animal. Sure before she had thought the weird little dragon lizard was quite adorable but now… it was like she was being whipped with cuteness, it was almost painful.
"Fuck." Follower 2 agrees.
"Fuck," Follower 3 looks at Follower 2 weirdly, "Did you just get a nosebleed?"
The followers all took a large step away from Follower 2.
Follower 2: "..." No, it's not, I didn't...
Wen Xia stares at Jia Hyson, the frenzy that had just calmed down in her eyes suddenly reignited even brighter and a tad crazier than before.
…
Da Gong and Meng Meng came back a few minutes after Wen Xia left, carrying some basic necessities that they needed to restock on. Sensing the atmosphere, Meng Meng puts down his shopping and concernedly asks Tang Muxin what was going on. Da Gong in contrast went straight to his little worm.
"Baby?" Da Gong clucks as he gently nudges the little dragon's stomach which had gone back to basking in the sun.
"Mnnnn…" Jia Hyson lazily twitches his legs, halfheartedly kicking the rooster's head lightly as the bird continued to nudge him, "Brother Gong, stop, I'm sleepy…"
Da Gong cocks his head, then drops to sit next to Jia Hyson with a faint thump. "Okay." The humans can sort whatever problem they have out. His worm's nap is more important right now ah.
Of course Da Gong later regretted his complacency later on.
Because that night, Jia Hyson was stolen.