Chapter Ninety-Eight: The Epitome of Shamelessness

A cutting wind whipped the deep snow and scourged the earth; at ten paces the figures were already blurred into ghosts. In the raging white storm, Lin Qi’s towering frame was wholly ignored by Angel, who treated him as if he were air, and so did Enzo at his side—motionless as a drawn blade, untouched by her notice.

Across the boundless world, only Dragon City stood out: tall and arresting, his arrogant, wicked smile coiled with lethal pride, like a venomous poppy blooming in the cruel cold, spilling a heart-numbing danger into the ice-laden gale. His eyes burned with a brilliance that seemed brighter than the brightest star in a midsummer sky by a hundredfold, and that clear, watery stare struck through Angel’s defenses like thunder, leaving her heart unmoored.

With his hands tucked behind him, Dragon City stepped forward slowly, then collided his shoulder into her with a silent force, setting Lin Qi stumbling a few crooked steps to the side. He came to rest almost against the carriage. The handsome, darkly elegant face he turned toward Angel was less than half a foot from her delicate one, and the breath he exhaled on her hit her cheek, warm and intrusive, making her pulse lurch in uneasy agitation.

Like the breath of a demon dragon, that breath melted the fortress of reserve she had guarded for years—like a scrap of paper gone soft in the next instant. Her fair face flushed instantly. She opened her small mouth as if to speak, but panic surged up inside her, and no words came.

When Dragon City’s shoulder had nearly toppled Lin Qi to the ground, he nearly lashed out, meaning to kick the villain squarely in the backside. But Lin Qi’s temper snapped back into caution. He remembered Dragon City’s terrifying power, muttered a few indistinct complaints, and, with a grim little shake of his head, almost managed to convince himself to avoid a duel.

Watching him with narrowed eyes, Lin Qi’s thoughts curdled with depravity—ideas foul enough to disgrace even a Celestial Throne Knight. For instance, if, while Dragon City were enjoying himself with some cherished lovely young lady, the walls of a room were suddenly torn down, exposing his bright, fair backside to everyone in Dunlke at once.

Of course, that plan needed careful reckoning. If Dragon City, shamed and furious, struck down everyone present to silence them, it would be a massacre of the first order. At such a critical moment, when Blackbeard was pushing for the mayorship of Dunlke, the last thing he needed was a scandal tied to him.

Considering the consequences, Lin Qi pulled a strange, apologetic smile back onto his face. “Excellent, excellent,” he thought. “Beautiful Miss Angel, then—go on, reel that wild lunatic who crossed the Odin Tundra and the North Sea in midwinter into your arms. Keep him drowning in your gentleness and let him never trouble poor Lin Qi again.”

Yet as Lin Qi toyed with these thoughts, Dragon City did something that made his own skull feel as if it had been split by a hammer.

Dragon City pressed his lips to Angel’s full, rosy lips—openly, openly under the hard blue sky and bright daylight, with no hesitation at all. He simply kissed her.

Lin Qi, standing off to the side, saw Dragon City’s long tongue thrust out without hesitation, driving forward like a battering ram, breaking through the faintest resistance of Angel’s soft mouth just as if thirty thousand fully armed orc berserkers had marched into a village guarded only by the old and weak. He had no chance to object.

He watched the tongue move there, saw the strange, shuddering play of the muscles near Angel’s lips as Dragon City tasted every inch of her in forceful, relentless attention. Lin Qi, Enzo, and Anlin—who had been sitting in the carriage, unable to speak—had all heard the odd little squeak coming from where their mouths met.

Lin Qi’s head swam. He staggered backward a few steps, then scanned the surroundings.

If word reached town that Blackbeard’s only son had publicly seduced a noble young lady in broad daylight, the consequences would crush him at once. In Dunlke, and in every city along the northern continent, the manners were rough and fierce; precisely because of that hardness, the society itself was stubbornly old-fashioned and fiercely traditional. Dragon City’s behavior, if exposed, would instantly make Lin Qi the target of every accusation in Dunlke, and drag Blackbeard down with him.

“Damn him!” Lin Qi trembled as he thrust his hand into his boot and drew a dagger, intending to drive it into Dragon City’s back. Not even naming him a Celestial Knight or a thing greater than such knights mattered; if it came to it, Lin Qi would gamble everything.

Kill Dragon City, and he could take all the gains of the Unihorn Whale King for himself. Kill Angel and Anlin, their coachman and guards too, and everyone nearby who might have seen anything—then erase every trace.

With murderous light in his eyes, Lin Qi moved a few steps closer. But Dragon City slowly parted from Angel’s lips, and in smooth, practiced Common Tongue he said, “There is no woman in all the world as beautiful as you, and I beg your pardon for my discourtesy. Your allure is impossible to restrain. I am sorry. Yet I do hope you would be willing to dine with me this evening.”

Lin Qi froze, stunned, and looked at Angel. His face had gone scarlet. He made up his mind: if she cried out, he would kill her then and there—kill and bury the whole thing, no witnesses. Even if he could not defeat Dragon City, he still fancied he could see to it that Angel met the sea and fed the sharks.

Yet what happened next left him utterly aghast. Still with cheeks burning, her gaze lowered in embarrassment, Angel murmured softly, “Honored sir, there is a restaurant called the White-Fragrant Grape. Its lamb chops are the finest in all Dunlke.”

His fingers went numb. The dagger slipped soundless from his grasp and clinked onto the packed snow. He stared, amazed. Was she possessed?

Dragon City, smug with triumph, pulled open the carriage door, winked at Lin Qi with a wicked little smile, and called back, “Do not worry. There is nothing I cannot do. Remember my thirty percent. Convert it to cash and bring it to me. In a few days I go to the Imperial Capital. You have three days to send the money.”

With a laugh, he climbed inside and shut the door hard.

A sharp sound from Angel startled the coachman, who immediately whipped the horses toward Dunlke’s streets.

A few meters later, Lin Qi heard Dragon City’s strange laughter drifting through the cold wind: “I am truly surprised—there is such a beautiful and lovable young lady in this place. Hm… might we dine together? Perhaps the three of us could share a truly marvelous night?”

Three to share such a night?

Lin Qi and Enzo exchanged a glance, then cried out together, “Shameless! Shameless! Scoundrels! Shameless!”

Monday. How shameless to beg for just a little more recommendation.
A little more—just a little more—could there be even more?
C!