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Spiritual beasts were a common sight in Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. After all, the dense spiritual energy that made it an ideal place for human cultivators was equally good for all types of spiritual cultivation.
However, most had better manners than the lizard crawling around in Shen Qingqiu's sleeve. The misbehaving little thing had climbed in while he was meditating — not mourning — at Binghe's sword mound. It was currently half-inside one of his qiankun pouches while nosing and clawing at a second.
As an immortal cultivator and Peak Lord, perhaps Shen Qingqiu should have noticed it before they got to this point, but he wasn't thinking about that. Instead, he stuck his right hand into his left sleeve and grabbed the recalcitrant critter gently around the middle and pulled it out into the waning sunlight.
It was not, in fact, a lizard.
Held firmly in Shen Qingqiu's fingers was a pocket-sized dragon. It had brilliant, blood-red scales that glittered sharply against its black fur, claws and horns. It blew a few playful smoke rings at Shen Qingqiu, not even struggling in his hold as he lifted it up to eye level.
"Hello Little Majesty," Shen Qingqiu.
Its entire body perked up at the greeting, eyes shining. It blew another few excited smoke rings before sneezing so hard it launched its body halfway out of Shen Qingqiu's grasp. Much like a cat that missed its jump, the dragon quickly shuffled back to its previous position and then meticulously fussed with its whiskers and fur as if nothing had happened.
Shen Qingqiu carefully loosened his grip, placing his left hand underneath for the dragon to stand on, but instead it floated in place, body undulating smoothly. He couldn't remember anything in particular about dragons from PIDW, at least not teeny, tiny ones like this. There had, of course, been the obligatory carp demon wife that had to leap over heaven's gate and become a dragon to be worth of marrying of Bingge.
And then there'd been a Western-style dragon and princess thing that had made Shen Qingqiu so mad he'd had to lay on floor because he'd almost passed out from anger. Definitely nothing about adorable little noodles that communicated with smoke rings and whisker twitches.
He wondered how angry his ancestors would be if he tried to talk this dragon into being his pet friend. Could his ancestors even see what he was up to? Actually, he wasn't thinking about that.
Warm light continued to reflect off the dragon's scales. Shen Qingqiu glanced at the sun's low angle and stood up. Thankfully a recent treatment for Without-a-Cure meant his legs cooperated without only minimal stiffness after a long day.
"I suppose the Little Majesty was looking for dinner in my sleeves, hmm? Let's get you something more substantial than sweets." Fancy, poser, ahem, Peak Lord, robes came with wide shoulders, so Shen Qingqiu held the dragon up to his left shoulder where the creature obligingly stepped down before carefully threading its claws into the embroidery for a sturdy grip.
"Clever little thing."
"There is such a thing as too clever," Shen Qingqiu muttered, as the dragon refused the braised chicken left by either Ming Fan or Ning Yingying. They tried their best and after more than two years they were better than the Qing Jing cooks, but that wasn't a particularly high bar. Louder, he said, "You know, full meat dishes aren't an everyday thing here on Qing Jing. You shouldn't be so picky."
But his words did nothing to dissuade the dragon's upturned nose. It was really too adorable with its little quail-egg head and cat mouth, but that didn't get it a pass on being rude.
Shen Qingqiu tore off a small piece of chicken breast with his chopsticks and held it out to the dragon, to no avail. With a sigh, he brought it to his own mouth, only to wince, purse his lips and swallow quickly, trying to taste it as little as possible. It was bland, too wet and somehow… gooey.
He sighed. "Well, you may have had a point. We can flip this piece over and leave it for them to collect later."
The dragon blew a smoke ring at him, walked a tight circle, then grabbed a chicken leg easily twice its own mass and started floating away.
"Oh- You're dripping!"
Shen Qingqiu hurridly stood and held the tray under the flying dragon. It blew several more smoke rings at him before taking its burden into the Bamboo House's abandoned kitchen. Frozen at the threshold, Shen Qingqiu awkwardly stretched his arm forward to keep the tray under the chicken leg until the little dragon let out a sound not unlike a chirp and he followed his charge with a weary sigh. He hadn't wanted to disturb what felt like Binghe's space, even though Binghe wouldn't be coming back… At least not to cook. At least not food. Something would be burning! Hah! Haha! He wasn't thinking about it.
After setting the chicken leg down on a cutting board, the dragon set to work. With hitherto unseen agility, the dragon flitted across the kitchen, sniffing and discarding jars and sometimes taking a handful of the contents and sprinkling over or massaging it into the chicken. At one terrifying point, it lifted the cleaver and dropped it onto the meat, splitting it clean in half.
To finish its work, the dragon blew measured streams of blue-white fire at the chicken. The meat, skin and freshly-added spices sizzled pleasantly. Finally satisfied, it turned to Shen Qingqiu and presented the chicken while standing on its back claws and gesturing with its foreclaws like Mushu from that D*sney movie.
Not hungry, but not wanting to disappoint his new friend, Shen Qingqiu carefully picked up one half of the new seasoned and seared chicken by the exposed bone and bit off a piece. The flavour burst across his tongue like a revelation.
Actually, not like a revelation, it was a revelation.
"BINGHE?!"