The Blue Dragon Clan’s Very Suspicious Little Chick - Chapter 3

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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 3

“Ugh, I’m exhausted to death. In this sprawling palace, the only one who understands the Water-Speaking Ability is me—Cheong Hui.”
Cheong Hui? Cheong Hui?!
The familiar name jolted her back to awareness as if lightning had split the sky inside her mind.
Cheong Hui of the Eastern Territory!
He was an Azure Dragon remarkable enough that Aran retained vivid memories of him, and with that realization came the immediate, irrefutable fact: she had indeed been sent back one hundred years.
So this creature—this was the one they called Hui who spoke in Water-Speech?
“Chirp!”
……
Faced with this crystallizing reality, Aran found herself clamping her beak firmly shut instead.
A brain no larger than a chestnut, nestled in a head the size of a nutmeg, spun with frantic turmoil.

A Late Bloomer.
Just as the saying went—great vessels are completed late—Aran had been born feeble and risen to magnificence, a Phoenix who bloomed in her own season.
She had taken flight later than others, yet soared higher than any; cast out from the Phoenix Clan in her infancy, yet she had lived a life more precious than that of any Phoenix before or since.
Along that grand journey, she had known the fortune of obtaining the Immortal Herb and the Eternal Life Pill, and had even been granted the opportunity to Ascend and enter the Immortal Realm.
Beneath the wide-open gates of heaven, she had heard the voice of a god.

—Aran, you have accomplished enough. Come now to the Immortal Realm.

But at her side then were her young disciples.
Those children she had gathered and raised from across the continent had no home to return to, and Aran could not bring herself to abandon them.
In the end, the gates of brilliant light sealed themselves shut once more.
As time passed, her disciples grew to adulthood and left her one by one.
When the last one remaining fell ill and died, Aran was devastated by grief.
So she severed her ties with the mortal world and withdrew into deep mountains, practicing alone.
How many years slipped away?
One night, she awoke to a terrible howling wind—and the whole world was ablaze.
How could such calamity befall the land in a single night? Even a Phoenix as mighty as she could not quell those flames alone.
Aran ached with regret.
If only she had Ascended then.
Never to witness her most beloved disciple’s death, or the world itself reduced to ash.
If only she had simply Ascended.
And in that instant, the voice of the god came again.

—If given another chance, would you come to the Immortal Realm?

Aran was alone, and the world lay in ruins. There was no reason to refuse.
So she nodded vigorously.
If another chance were given, she would Ascend.
But she had not known that this chance would come only after living another hundred years…….
That liar, the Hyeonmu God.
She had wondered from the start why it was he who appeared, and not the Phoenix God.
With that resentment churning inside her, Aran shook her head vigorously.
But what could she do about being deceived?
Had she not nodded then, she would have simply become roasted Phoenix anyway.
For such a magnificent Phoenix Supernatural Being with Flame Resistance to meet such an absurd end—it was too ridiculous to bear.

The young master of the Cheong clan, who had been quietly watching the small bird this whole time, tilted his head in puzzlement.
“Say, you—didn’t you just say something like ‘I wonder if our Ok-dan is doing well?'”
What?
He had heard that?
Aran flinched in alarm, her small body trembling.
In all her previous life, there had never been a moment as peaceful as the past week had been.
This was the first true rest she had known in a hundred years.
What do I do? If a hundred-year-old Phoenix is found repulsive and cast out on the spot?
I can’t let myself be abandoned like this……!
Being sent to the Phoenix Palace would be worse than falling to the underworld……!
That’s it—before this goes any further, I’ll deny knowing Ok-dan and get away clean!
Ok-dan, I’m sorry……!
But the moment Aran opened her mouth——
“Right? Come to think of it, I don’t think there’s anyone named Ok-dan in our palace.”
For some reason, Cheong Hui had swiftly arrived at the wrong conclusion on his own.
“Goodness, look at me. Even confusion should have some basis.”
As Aran pressed a hand to her racing heart, Cheong Hui continued to berate himself.
“‘Are you well?’ What kind of baby talks like that! Even our grandmother, who passed long after her sixtieth year, spoke more refinedly than that.”
What? What’s wrong with the way I talk!
Relief warred with indignation in her small frame.
Cheong Hui stepped a little closer to the trembling chick.
“Anyway, what should we do about this? Father seems to want to make you the youngest of our household.”
What? That great dragon has such a splendid plan?
In the Eastern Territory’s Cheong Dragon Clan, which treasures even a single blade of grass, they mean to raise me?
This body approves entirely!
And yet Aran felt the cold seeping in, and huddled herself smaller.
Watching the baby chick curl up like a frightened squirrel, Cheong Hui hesitated.
“Why? Are you afraid of me?”
Afraid?
Would a Phoenix Supernatural Being who’d rolled through a hundred years fear a mere stripling Azure Dragon?
And yet—second life.
Aran, who had weathered storms and battles and impossible trials, was in a sense a survival expert.
She tilted her head with a small tilt and pivoted her stance as suddenly as a spring dust devil.
“Chirp…….”
(Mama…….)

***

“Good heavens…….”
For all his height, Cheong Hui was a boy of fifteen—and only a month bereaved of his mother.
To the eldest son of the Cheong Dragon Clan, whose shoulders bore too much weight to grieve freely, the lone chick seemed infinitely pitiful.
Without thinking, Cheong Hui reached out and cradled the baby bird.
“Little one, do you miss your mother?”
“Chirp, chirp…….”
(Mama, mama…….)
The chick nuzzled against the warmth in Cheong Hui’s palm, seeking heat.
And perhaps its center of balance had shifted.
Tilt——
The chick slipped across his palm and rolled halfway around.
“Haha, me too…….”
Cheong Hui laughed, tears glistening at the corners of his eyes.
“You know, little one, the truth is. I miss my mother so much too.”
He adjusted the chick gently, settling it securely in the cup of his palm.
Looking down at it, it was simply a small bird.
Its body, tinier than his own palm, was covered only in downy feathers soft as willow fluff, and its seed-black eyes held nothing that matched the rumors of the Phoenix.
Though he trusted his father’s judgment, if the chick were not truly a Phoenix, perhaps that would have been for the best.
Cheong Hui continued, his gaze tender and sorrowful.
“Then, shall we go to mother now?”
Go to mother?
Wait—do I even have a mother?
We’re in the Azure Dragon Palace, aren’t we?
Aran, tilting her head with tentative hope, was soon to learn a staggering truth.
In her second life, she possessed a mother—one who was large and very blue and male…….​

***

That same night.
Cheong Su-ryeon, the second son of the Cheong Dragon Clan, sought out the Training Grounds where pale moonlight spilled across the stone floor.
There was no other way to ease the suffocation that gripped his chest.
Shing.
As he drew his blade, the polished steel caught the dim moonlight and flashed with a cold gleam.
“Hah!”
He cried out with each downward stroke.
As the cold steel cut through the void, his conversation with his father from days before surfaced once more in his mind.

“……What did you say this bird was?”
“The youngest. Our fifth child, I have decided.”

His father, after making such a preposterous declaration, cowardly added a reason that Su-ryeon could not bring himself to refute even in his dreams.

“Su-ryeon, do you not recall? That I made a promise to your mother.”

To invoke Mother’s final words at such a moment—it was truly too cruel.
Su-ryeon alone among the family had not been present at his mother’s deathbed.
Even though Father knew how deeply it grieved him, how much he regretted it……!
Shwish!
As the long blade cut sharply through the air once more, wind wailed in response.
It was because of the ability Su-ryeon had inherited.
The most precious power of the Cheong Dragon Clan—the rain wind.
So before he caused suffering to innocent people with this rare gift, he needed to calm his heart, and yet……

“Raise the children of the nest fairly, I told him. Even if one is weak or powerless, show no favoritism toward any. That was your mother’s dying wish.”

An absurd, forced excuse……!
Mother had suffered from postpartum fever, bedridden for an entire month.
Could she have known that another’s egg lay hidden among the nest?
Would she truly have left such a wish, knowing that truth?
Su-ryeon did not believe she would have.
Yet still he had waited.
He believed that when his elder brother returned, together they could convince their father.
His brother Cheong Hui, two years his senior, had been favored with imperial assignments since childhood thanks to his Water-Speaking Ability, and thus enjoyed their father’s deep trust as well.
But what was this?
Upon his return, the brother who went to see the bird had instead brought the creature to their father……!
Patter, patter.
As raindrops began to fall, Su-ryeon lowered his sword with ragged breaths.
Yet the hand gripping the hilt remained clenched with force.
He could not bear the resentment toward his father, the betrayal by his brother.
A pitiful, tiny bird, was it?
And what of it?
Did Father intend to adopt every wretched Supernatural Being across the entire continent as our new youngest?
Whoosh-whoosh!
The wind intensified, and thick raindrops poured down.
“……Get hold of yourself, Cheong Su-ryeon.”
There was no point in having come to the Training Grounds if this was how it would end.
Su-ryeon took a deep breath and sheathed his blade.
He clenched his teeth to hold back tears that threatened to spill despite his will.
A thirteen-year-old boy who had just lost his mother could not easily bear the suffering of others.
The wounded boy made his decision alone: no matter what his father or brother said, he would have only two siblings.
That was true now, and with his mother gone, it would remain true forever.
The Cheong Dragon Clan’s Suspicious Little Bird — Chapter 3
E-book Publication Date | August 5, 2026

Author | Ravioli
Publisher | Odd Eye
Submissions/Inquiries | [email protected]

UCI | G720:N+A101-20260722065.0003
List Price | Not for Sale

© Raviolli 2026

This e-book is a work protected by copyright law.
This e-book has been published under contract with the author, and unauthorized republication, reproduction, distribution, or sharing without written consent from both parties is prohibited.

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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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