The Blue Dragon Clan’s Very Suspicious Little Chick - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 1

Spring at the Blue Dragon Palace.
In the center of the Blue Life Pond, which cut through the main hall like a vein of living water, a lily pad rose up—far larger than a pot lid.
Yet the small white egg resting upon it showed no signs of hatching today, as silent as the pond itself.
Cheong-un, the clan head, tilted his head to one side as he studied the egg lying there alone.
“When will the youngest one hatch……?”
Then fine lines creased the corners of his eyes—time at last settling into the face of a beauty whose age had been impossible to guess.
His loyal retainer, Hee-rim, answered carefully.
“Haven’t you already welcomed the lovely twin young masters? Don’t grieve so.”
The twins from the same nest had been born a week ago, which made it difficult to hold out hope for the remaining egg.
“I’m not sad at all.”
Hee-rim didn’t believe his lord’s placid reply. It was clearly a bare-faced lie.
Though Hee-rim misread the situation thoroughly, Cheong-un truly wasn’t grieving. The reason was this:
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump! Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!
Within the egg, a heartbeat was thrumming urgently—and Cheong-un heard it with perfect clarity.
Cheong-un, who possessed two extraordinary gifts and was called the incarnation of the Azure Dragon Deity, listened with preternatural acuity.
From birth he had commanded wind and rain, and after becoming clan head, he’d gained a new power—hearing as keen as an owl’s.
His azure hair stirred in invisible currents.
His pale earth-colored eyes flickered vertically for just a moment, bright as lightning.
Then a single breath of spring breeze crossed the railing, traveled over the pond, and settled on the lily pad.
Yet even with the wind’s comfort and gentle touch, the egg remained completely unmoved…….
In that instant, Cheong-un’s vision blazed with crimson fire as the small egg cracked and shattered.
“Ah.”
But in the next heartbeat, his eyes reflected only the familiar sight of the Blue Life Pond and an unblemished small egg.
“My lord……?”
Hee-rim asked in confusion, but Cheong-un only smiled faintly, as if he’d understood something.
In truth, Cheong-un harbored a secret known only to his departed wife.
Sometimes the wind granted him visions of what was to come—his third gift, never revealed to the world: Future Sight.
Cheong-un turned to his bewildered retainer and commanded him.
“Retrieve the youngest one.”
“I beg your pardon……?”
His long, pale fingers pointed directly at the lily pad.
“The youngest.”
He turned to regard his uncomprehending retainer with open disdain.
“Bring it here.”

***

Not long after, in the Kitchen of the Blue Dragon Palace.
Upon the fiercely burning hearth, in place of a great cauldron, sat a single white egg.
Hee-rim stared at the egg engulfed in flames, helpless, as if his own skin were burning away.
“My lord, I fear I misspoke earlier. Even if our youngest is a bit slow to hatch, might we not see results if we simply wait a little longer? Surely the cook must agree?”
But his desperate plea received no answer.
The cook stood slack-jawed before the dragon’s egg that had seized his cooking hearth, while his lord seemed equally absent, his mind still lost to the grief of his wife’s passing.
If that was the case, now it fell to him, the retainer, to stake his life and prevent his master’s madness.
“My lord……!”
With that resolve, Hee-rim threw himself in front of the hearth—
Crack.
At the ominous sound from behind, his face crumpled.
“A, a poker! Give me a poker, please! The egg—the egg is damaged, my lord……! O, our young dragon……! If, if it gets overcooked……!”
Pop!
“No, our baby……! If, if our dragon gets half-cooked, what will we do……!”
Tears streamed down Hee-rim’s face as he frantically searched for a poker himself.
But when he’d finally seized one and turned back, the egg in the flames was already split in half…….
“Gasp!”
Something inside it was pushing out a head no larger than a dragon’s claw.
“Wh, what is that…….”
While Hee-rim rubbed his eyes, Cheong-un gently smothered the flames in the hearth with sand.
Then he lifted the half of the eggshell that had not yet broken, fully revealing the small creature hidden within.
Its legs were impossibly thin and…….
“F-feathers? It has feathers?”
Hee-rim blinked hard, staring at what looked like a chick.
“Our youngest arrived late, didn’t she?”
Cheong-un smiled with evident satisfaction.
Had Hee-rim been an ordinary man untrained in martial arts, the serene patriarch’s words would have shocked him into immediate unconsciousness.
“L-Lord…….”

***

Regardless, Aran—freshly hatched and returned to the world as a chick—tilted her head in confusion.
“Squeak?”
(Who are you blue-tinged creatures?)
“Coo…….”
(It’s freezing. The moment I’m born, it’s cursed winter again?)
“Chirp!”
(Wait, don’t I look exactly like myself when I was young? Could this body really have been reborn?)
No!
Nompang-i, the Azure Dragon Deity—now a god—swindling an honest Vermillion Bird Humanoid?!
I said I’d ascend, not be reborn!
“Squawk!”
(You there! Tell me who the emperor is now! I haven’t somehow gone back a hundred years to when I was born, have I?)
“Squawk-squawk!”
(This is impossible! It’s a swindle—a complete swindle!)
While Aran vented her outrage, a careful hand gently picked her up and placed her in the center of a large palm.
Aran, who had been trembling ever since the hearth went out, found herself unconsciously nuzzling against the warmth radiating from that palm. It was wonderfully warm.
“Squeak…….”
(The end times have come, I’ve become a chick again…….)
Fortunately or unfortunately, Aran’s speech was Beast Language
(*the speech of animals)
and so no one present could understand her.
Unaware that a hundred-year-old Vermillion Bird dwelt in the body of a white feathered chick, Cheong-un drew his palm closer to himself to observe the infant.
“My, just look at these legs. Thin as thread, aren’t they?”
Whatever Cheong-un said, Aran was cold.
In the raw chill she rarely experienced, she barely managed to recall that she was a great Vermillion Bird.
Yes, a Vermillion Bird that had once been great would remain great even in rebirth.
Aran attempted to generate heat as befits a great Vermillion Bird, trying to dry her damp down.
……But then.
Shudder-.
The downy feathers, not yet grown into true plumage, puffed slightly before deflating with a soft hiss, as though nothing had happened at all.
Yet it was effective in another sense.
“Sh-she seems to be shaking, doesn’t she?”
Hee-rim, who had been standing dazed, accurately identified Aran’s current state.
“Cold, is she? Ah, of course—without those hard scales, she’d feel it more.”
With that, Cheong-un placed his remaining hand over Aran’s body.
As the broad, warm palm of the Azure Dragon enclosed her from all sides, tension melted from the small frame and strength drained away.
“Chirp…….”
(For a dragon, you’re remarkably warm. I really shouldn’t be…….)
And so Aran, leaving only an exclamation that no one could understand, drifted back into sleep.

A moment later, Cheong-un carefully opened the palm he had held sealed shut like a lid.
A fluffy white chick lay curled on itself in the center of his hand, fast asleep.
Whether she knew it or not that she’d been born in another’s nest, her round belly rose and fell defensively with each breath.
Cheong-un could not tear his eyes away from the sight before he murmured softly.
“Hee-rim, are Vermillion Birds always this cute?”
Hee-rim, standing bewildered at his side, blinked at his lord’s question.
“P-pardon?”
How could he affirm it when he’d barely laid eyes on a handful of Vermillion Bird Humanoids without wanting to look away?
But that wasn’t the only problem.
“A Vermillion Bird? Surely you don’t think this creature is actually a Vermillion Bird?”
Cheong-un countered with perfect composure, as if he hadn’t noticed Hee-rim’s shock at all.
“What else would it be? It was born in flame.”
Of course, Hee-rim found his lord’s certainty utterly absurd.
It was just a bird, that was all.
However it had awakened in the fire, the fledgling struck Hee-rim as nothing more than an ordinary bird.
If it truly were a Vermillion Bird Humanoid, it should bear distinctive markings—but the chick was nothing but white.
Even the eyes that had flickered open for a moment were black, not red.
He hesitated to flatly contradict his lord, but as Cheong-un began to gently rock the palm cradling the sleeping chick, doubt crept in.
Thump-thump, roll-roll-roll.
The creature was remarkably serene.
As Cheong-un rocked his hand, the sleeping chick tumbled this way and that across his palm until—thud.
It dropped straight into Cheong-un’s embrace.
Good heavens.
Watching his lord’s long eyes widen with delight, Hee-rim felt his own heart plummet in tandem.
This was it, this was truly it…!
The master had decided to take that bird as his youngest charge.
Azure Dragon Deity, why must you test me so…!
The Blue Dragon Clan’s Questionable Peeping Fledgling: Volume 1
E-book Release Date | August 5, 2026

Author | Raviolli
Publisher | Odd Eye
Submission/Inquiries | [email protected]

UCI | G720:N+A101-20260722065.0001
List Price | Non-commercial

© Raviolli 2026

This e-book is protected under copyright law and is a copyrighted work.
This e-book has been published under a contract with the author and may not be reprinted, reproduced, distributed, or shared without the express written consent of both parties.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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