(Yesterday was January 1, 2013, New Year’s Day, the first day of the year, and the first day after the Doomsday Year. On this universally celebrated and memorable day, the most memorable thing I did was forget to ask for monthly votes... XD, so today I’m asking for monthly votes! Make up for yesterday’s!)

The sound of a crowd arguing came from not far ahead, with a sharp, angry female voice mixed in. That slightly screechy voice was very distinctive, unmistakably Shajina’s.

The market was already bustling, seemingly at the peak of its trading hours. Therefore, although the two stalls were only over a hundred meters apart, the crowd had already blocked the way, and we hadn’t noticed the commotion over there until we pushed our way through. On reaching it, we saw that more than a dozen people had already gathered in front of Shajina’s stall, most of whom seemed to be drawn by the excitement. Opposing Shajina were two men in blue short robes.

"Those are apprentice outfits," Lilina whispered, nudging my arm, "though it’s impossible to tell whether they’re alchemy apprentices or scholar assistants; both kinds of people habitually wear blue short robes."

"Shajina, what’s going on?" Sona agilely weaved through the crowd and came to Shajina’s side, asking quietly.

Shajina was puffing up in anger, staring at the two men in front of her. She only noticed us returning at this moment, so she pouted, "It seems the orthorhombic stone we sold them last month had some issues, messed something up, and now they want compensation."

Sona frowned, indicating that this was quite a troublesome situation for them. The taller of the two young men seemed to recognize that Sona was a key figure in this exploration group. So he stopped entangling with Shajina, took a small piece from his belongings, and slammed it forcefully on the wooden surface with a "pop": "See for yourself! This is your orthorhombic stone!"

I craned my neck to take a look and found that the so-called orthorhombic stone looked somewhat like shale from Earth but was evidently sturdier, pale in color, divided into several layers, and had neat edges, though I wasn’t sure if this was due to cutting or if it naturally formed this way. It was a fist-sized piece of ore that left a layer of white stone powder after crashing onto the wooden surface. The young man glared menacingly at Sona: "The purity is simply not enough! This thing ruined both our potions!"

The crowd erupted into a buzz of discussion. Sona’s face turned grim as she squeezed the stone into several pieces, revealing blackish-gray components inside. Seeing these, her expression also darkened.

I initially thought I was witnessing a classic otherworldly subplot where delinquent youths unreasonably harass innocent women, and I was already prepared to leap in as the defender of justice. However... Of course, the plot wasn’t going to follow a mainstream route. Even if the young men’s demeanor was harsh, they seemed genuinely wronged as the victims of counterfeit goods. So, I couldn’t directly intervene for now. I needed to understand the situation better before making a move. Based on my understanding over the past two days, I figured Shajina and Sona weren’t the type to engage in deceit, so this seemed more like an unfortunate situation where no one was truly at fault.

"I remember I reminded you back then," Sona pondered for a moment and finally spoke, seemingly trying to salvage her disadvantageous position a bit, "it’s best not to use orthorhombic stone as a medium when making Grul’s Acid Resistance Agent. Among similar materials, the impurity content of orthorhombic stone is the most unstable. We’re just explorers, not alchemists or earth spirit masters. We can find such stones, but we can’t guarantee that the impurity content meets your requirements. We all agreed on this at the time, right?"

The slightly shorter man among the two young men spoke up, pointing at Shajina, "And don’t forget that the one who assured us that the purity of their stone was enough, and even for making acid resistance agents, was her. It was your own guarantee, and now you’re not mentioning that? Oh, and surprisingly, you do know a bit about pharmacy, so you should understand how great the loss is when a potion gets destroyed at the final step! Do you think we’d just let this massive loss slide?"

Lilina suddenly slumped over my leg. Upon understanding the situation after listening to the whole story, she let out a long sigh: "Arguments between Taobao buyers and sellers; even half a month away from the computer, I still run into this... Boss, let’s just eliminate them."

I increasingly think that taping Lilina’s mouth shut with duct tape before going out should be included in the imperial citizen behavioral guidelines!

Sona and Shajina exchanged troubled glances and finally sighed helplessly: "So how much compensation do you want?"

The taller youth’s tone was matter-of-fact: "All potion losses totaling six thousand five hundred Soks, plus a new batch of orthorhombic stone. Also, during our two-month stay in Sen Tu, you should stay away from the market; seeing you annoys us."

With a "pop," Shajina crushed the stone she was fiddling with in her hand, "Do you think that’s possible?! Six thousand five hundred?! Why don’t you just rob us! And banning us from showing up? Who do you think you are?"

"Just the fact you sold fake goods is enough to get you out of here!" The tall youth angrily glared at Shajina, "Get it straight, even if this goes to the lord, you’d probably be kicked out just the same!"

Shajina’s face turned red, but she couldn’t find any words to express herself. At this point, I felt it was about time for me to step forward, so I took a step forward and cleared my throat a couple of times: "Ahem, well, I heard the situation too, can I say a word?"

The two young people had already noticed that there was a group of people around them, but since there were already quite a few onlookers, they probably thought we were just part of the crowd, so they didn’t pay much attention. Of course, they couldn’t have guessed we were with Sona. At this moment, seeing me speak, the tall young man was taken aback: "Um, you are...?"

"We are friends of these two half-dragon people," I chuckled awkwardly, and when they heard the words "half-dragon," there was a noticeable disdain on their faces, and they snorted, which made me frown, "Losing the potion is indeed a bummer, but you can’t say it’s entirely the fault of these two girls, right? And when it comes to compensation, that’s one thing; wanting to drive them away, isn’t that a bit too much?"

The two young men looked over here in disbelief, clearly not expecting that the two half-dragons would have such a large group of friends who seemed to belong to a completely different world. Just by our clothing, you could tell we’re of a special kind. Not to mention, Lili and Vanilla were wearing the Crow God Sect festival outfits, which were not something ordinary people could get. However, soon, their attention was drawn to something else: under Bingdisi’s lead, the Divine Clan’s Tiaozi Five all took out wolf fang clubs over a meter long, smiling at the two young men, especially Bingdisi, whose smile was particularly friendly, "So, what’s it going to be, a group fight or a one-on-one? A group fight would be us ganging up on you, and a one-on-one means you take on all of us alone..." As she finished speaking, the Tiaozi Five nodded in unison. It’s worth mentioning that even the usually obedient and sensible Lin was joining in on the fun, proving how incredibly influential Bingdisi, the boss, was.

At this point, anyone with an IQ higher than their foot should have realized that our fundamental purpose wasn’t to mediate the situation (though, at the very beginning, I was really thinking about mediation, but was instead sidetracked by Bingdisi’s unstoppable mischief), and those two young men quickly shrank back. Lin Xue started yawning and mumbling, "There’s really no fun in this, why do we still have to deal with such clichéd situations? Listen up, you two, it would be fair if you asked for compensation, but to drive them away over this is somewhat unreasonable. I suggest that you both take a step back, how about taking the money and leaving?"

I looked at Miss in surprise, thinking she might have been about to order her people to beat them senseless: such a tyrannical act was not out of her reach, given her deeply rooted tendencies towards violence.

"Why are you looking at me," Miss gave me a sidelong glance, "We have to be reasonable. They did suffer losses, but with your kind of personality, you certainly wouldn’t bully others with power; I’ve figured you out long ago."

"Tch, no fight then." Bingdisi regretfully put away her weapon, then patted me on the shoulder: "Boss, give them the money."

I: "..." Why does it suddenly feel like something’s off?

Bingdisi perhaps realized that what she said wasn’t quite right, twitching at the corner of her mouth, she added, "My dear, it’s time to stand up for our friends, you wouldn’t really expect Shajina to..."

"We’ll pay," Sona suddenly spoke up, taking out a stack of paper money the size of playing cards from her bundle, "This is what we should bear. Six thousand Suo, this is all we have now, and the remaining amount... We’ll make it up when we return next time. You can trust the promise of a half-dragon person; we speak as we act."

The tall young man shrugged and took the compensation money, giving Sona a disdainful look: "Tch, half-dragon this, half-dragon that, aren’t you just Lizard People?"

With that sentence as the trigger, the situation that had originally been about to resolve erupted again in an instant. Shajina punched the iron post beside her with a loud bang, bending the thick iron post: "Say that again?!"

Shajina’s tremendous strength (by normal standards) was somewhat intimidating, and the two young men couldn’t help but glance at each other and take half a step back. However, they clearly did not take this threat too seriously. Seeing the surrounding crowd growing larger, they seemed to gain more confidence, looking around while helplessly shrugging: "Does your self-delusion make sense? Ask someone else beside yourselves, how many people acknowledge the term ’half-dragon’?"

The onlooking crowd, while not directly involved, also began murmuring. In this world, the term "half-dragon" was no longer recognized, except by the half-dragons themselves. Instead, "Lizard People" was the commonly accepted term. Despite Shajina and Sona’s resistance, they had to face this painful fact—that they were a low-class race in this world.

I started contemplating how to resolve this issue; of course, violence is always the quickest solution, and Lilina’s plan was quite straightforward: take them out and keep it quiet. But objectively speaking, that was the worst idea at the moment.

Perhaps have Sandora use mind control, or ask my sister to curse the place, or have Qianqian cause a mass streaking event... After all, any one of us could quiet the world in thirty seconds. So what I’m actually thinking about isn’t just getting Shajina and Sona out of trouble on the spot, but finding a more perfect solution, one that would preserve the dignity of the two half-dragon girls.

Half-Dragon People are stubbornly proud—of course, as a friend, I’ve decided to call it self-esteem that cannot be trampled upon.

"You see, we mean no mockery, this is just common sense." Seeing the reaction of the surrounding crowd, the tall young man merely shrugged and said in a narrative tone. If judged by the standards of this world, he was indeed telling the truth from start to finish; however, this truth was a direct insult to the souls of the two Half-Dragon girls. Shajina clenched her fists tightly, her eyes almost bursting with blood-red threads, and growled in her unique hissing voice: "No matter how many times I have to say it, I am... a Half-Dragon person!"

"Tch, your own superstition, that era is already over," the short man seemed to think Shajina was just repeating those three words, looking impatient and pulling his companion away, "Forget it, Half-Dragon is Half-Dragon, remember to prepare the rest of the debt if you still want to keep some reputation, Lizard."

I instantly slapped my forehead, knowing things were about to get bad: You finally got over it, why did you have to stir things up again? Is fighting for the last word really that satisfying?

Sure enough, the impulsive Shajina immediately jumped out, even though Sona tried to stop her, it seemed that Shajina’s strength was far superior to Sona’s. Ultimately, she blocked the path of the two men. The scene immediately became confrontational and seemed tenser than before. Just at this moment, a commotion arose outside the circle, and someone shouted: "The City Guards are coming!", causing the crowd to automatically open up a path. Under the leadership of an officer riding a warhorse, over a dozen well-armed, heavily armored tall soldiers walked in. The officer glanced around, his gaze landing on the two Half-Dragon girls: "Lizard people, are you causing trouble here?"

"We are Half-Dragon people!" Shajina looked stubbornly at the officer, shouting loudly.

Under normal circumstances, even if called Lizard people, Shajina might endure it. After all, the current state of Half-Dragons in the world is just that. Despite her stubborn nature, she could not change this fact, yet now, she seemed to have thrown caution to the wind.

I sighed; it was apparent that Shajina and her companion could no longer solve the problem themselves, so I could no longer just stand by.

I nudged Sandora’s arm: "Forget it, let’s prepare to clear the scene..."

"Wait a minute, Boss!" Lilina immediately tugged at my clothes, whispering. I turned over in surprise to find Lin quietly leaving the market while no one was watching, and Lilina softly explained: "She suddenly thought of doing something and hopes we’ll cooperate—just stand back and watch quietly."

I was taken aback, not knowing what Lin was planning: it’s rare for that perpetual follower to have such a definitive idea.

"You two, pack your things and come with me to the Guard," the City Guard Captain on horseback pointed his spear at Shajina, saying undeniable, then looked at the two young men, "You too need to come along, the procedure must be followed no matter what."

The Guard Captain had just finished speaking when he gasped in surprise because he found his spear being held by someone: Shajina.

"Officer, just say how much you want this time, no need for such hassle," Shajina said calmly, "Isn’t it a waste to beat us up every time before discussing a price? We have to go out for work in a few days."

The Guard Captain squinted his eyes: "Guards, arrest her!"

A few soldiers quickly approached Shajina, who released the spear, her expression slightly stiff: it seemed she was forcing herself to do these things. When the soldiers neared her, she instinctively drew her short knife.

"See, Lizard people are Lizard people, she finally can’t bear the laws of civilized society!" someone in the crowd suddenly shouted, and then the Guard Captain laughed: "Very good, with enough witnesses and your short knife in hand, armed resistance; Miss Sen Tu, who’s the most dishonest Lizard, tomorrow at this time, you can leave this city forever, that’s the law."

"For the last time... I am... a Half-Dragon person!" The suppressed grievance and anger seemed finally uncontrollable, Shajina shouted at the Guard Captain, raising her short knife and charging at the nearest soldier, looking as if she was going to fight her way out. She was truly strong, as the heavily armored, burly male soldier was knocked to the ground with her pounce, but soon enough, three soldiers came charging from the side, blocking Shajina’s movements with heavy shields. The sharp spears thrust out from behind the shields: against the shield wall, Shajina might not care, but against the spears, her scales couldn’t compare to armor, so she quickly chose to fall back, adopting a defensive stance.

Sona also no longer held back, despite seemingly having no chance to overturn the situation, she drew her own short blade, facing the Guard Captain: "Half-Dragon people can also fight back!"

"Attack at will, death and injury don’t matter," the Guard Captain said grimly, "They’ve already committed a crime; no mercy needed."

The crowd gathered more and more, but the circle gradually expanded outward, obviously even the bystanders knew there might be bloodshed, and no one wanted to get caught up in it, but no one turned and left either; witnessing the Lizard people, oppressed by the laws of civilized society for too long, be executed on the spot, was likely a scene the majority on the scene wished to see.

Suddenly, a scream came from Shajina in the middle of the scene.

Facing a numerical disadvantage, she finally couldn’t dodge, and a City Guard’s spear slashed her arm, crimson blood dripping onto the stone slabs of the road.

"Shajina!" Sona became tense immediately, jumped back to Shajina’s side, yet just as the surrounding soldiers were about to seize the opportunity to attack again, an anomaly caused everyone to gasp.

The blood flowing from Shajina dripped onto the stone slabs and quickly erupted into plumes of smoke, boiling like scorching magma. Visibly, the heavy stone slabs rapidly turned into dust under the blood’s corrosion. Then, the boiling blood began to extend along an eerie straight line, and when it reached the center of the field, it suddenly erupted into a red flash that shot up into the sky.

I paused, only to hear Lilina mutter beside me: "Eh, a little off target, but it’ll do."

"What on earth is this." The Guard Captain’s warhorse seemed startled and almost threw its rider, and the officer on horseback barely stabilized himself before exclaiming in surprise.

And almost simultaneously, a low dragon roar came from the far-off clouds.

I instantly understood what Lin intended to do.

The dragon roar lasted a few seconds, after which the Guard Captain’s horse collapsed onto the ground, trembling, and everyone, including Shajina and Sona, looked up to the sky in terror. That low roar resounded across the sky again, rapidly approaching, and then...

...then gradually fading into the distance.

Lilina almost jumped up, exclaiming in the spiritual connection: "It flew over!"

So a few seconds later, we rewound and listened to the two dragon roars once more: this time, it didn’t fly past. (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to vote for it on Qidian (qidian.com), your support is my greatest motivation.)