I Will Never Submit to Miss Grim Reaper - Chapter 205
Chapter 205: Dragon’s Milk Bottle
In my impression, dragons belong to “oviparous animals,” and they share a common ancestry with birds. In the minds of most people, dragonkind, birds, and creatures like phoenixes should belong to the same category. Even if some people think that dragons resemble giant lizards, they are still oviparous animals because lizards themselves lay eggs.
Whether in movies, TV shows, or novels, “dragons” are typically associated with “dragon eggs.” Over a decade ago in online literature, many stories featured protagonists finding a dragon egg and then achieving great success, starting from obscurity and reaching the pinnacle of life. In the context of mature novel systems today, these “dragon eggs” can be equated to the protagonist’s “plot device.”
In most cases, oviparous animals do not have “milk” as such. However, there are exceptions, such as the platypus, which lays eggs and nurses its offspring with milk.
I don’t know when exactly, but even in a situation where no one has actually seen a dragon, the classification of these large creatures from ancient myths as egg-laying beings has become a kind of consensus. Of course, here, “dragon” refers to Western dragons, not Eastern dragons.
Male dragons are obsessed with wealth, spending every waking hour guarding their hoard of gold. Killing a dragon means gaining access to the dragon treasury’s treasures. On the other hand, female dragons are fierce and violent. They spend their days guarding dragon eggs and nurturing young dragons. Adventurers risk their lives to become dragon knights, daring to invade the lairs of mother dragons to seize dragon eggs.
The “Dragon King” Fei Luo, who comes from another world, directly shattered my understanding of the dragon system. She taught me that dragons in other worlds not only lay eggs, but mother dragons also secrete “dragon milk,” similar to humans. If they learn shape-shifting magic and transition from the dragon’s oviparous mode to the human’s viviparous mode, mother dragons who frequently maintain a human form, even without children, will exhibit a state similar to “having laid an egg,” just like Fei Luo now…
“So, do you get dragon milk almost every day?”
In the living room, after listening to Fei Luo and Yin Xiamo’s explanations, I couldn’t help but show a “shocked cat for a hundred years” expression.
“Then… aren’t you…”
“Not every day will have this much.”
Fei Luo gestured towards the bottle in my hand.
“This should be the accumulation of a week’s worth. In the first few days, there was a lot of secretion. If it doesn’t… if it doesn’t come out, the amount secreted in the following days will be less.”
I was at a loss for words for a moment. The “bottle” in my hand, with a marked capacity of 500 milliliters, similar to a bottle of cola, didn’t seem like the small bottles designed for infants. It seemed to be the large bottle parents use to mix formula for weaning children, probably bought by Yin Xiamo at a nearby grocery store.
Five hundred milliliters, according to Fei Luo, is roughly the amount produced in about a week, and the most is secreted in the first few days. So, on average, around a hundred milliliters per day? How hardworking are you dragons at feeding…
“Does Fei Luo have children?” I instinctively asked.
“How is that possible? No, no, I’m even too lazy to bother with relationships,” Fei Luo quickly replied.
The young girl in front of me blurted out, “Of course not! I’m just over seven thousand years old. Why would I want children so early? It’s super troublesome. You have to find a male dragon, cultivate the relationship for thousands of years, lay an egg for a few hundred years, incubate it for a few hundred more, and then take care of the little dragon for a few hundred years. Just thinking about all these things gives me a headache.”
“Of course, those old fossils in the dragon clan would love for me to lay a few more eggs. They hope to choose the strongest black dragon to inherit the position of Dragon King from them.”
Then, Fei Luo put her hands on her hips. “Anyway, I don’t like those things. I’d rather travel the world with Momo.”
Just over seven thousand years old?!
“How many thousand years to lay an egg?
Fei Luo’s words instantly made me understand ‘why long-lived species in other worlds don’t experience population explosions.’
In my understanding, if a race can live for thousands or tens of thousands of years and they gestate for nine months like humans, giving birth to one child per year, then within a few hundred years, that place would be destroyed by the terrifying explosion in the population of long-lived species.
At that time, I was curious about how other worlds balanced this issue. I even wondered if the people there had a low desire for reproduction. However, I hadn’t considered that I automatically brought the perspective of “humans” into my thinking.
Humans typically start considering reproduction around the age of 20. After graduating from university and working for a year or two, life stabilizes. Then, after a few more years of dating, they can get married at 27 or 28 and start preparing for children. The child is usually born around the age of 30. This is a relatively normal situation in our fast-paced society and can be considered as one generation reproducing in 30 years.
Because everyone around me follows this pattern, I naturally assumed that humanoid creatures in other worlds might do the same. Even if not exactly 30 years, even if it’s 300 years per generation, it would still be fast enough for long-lived species.
However, the dragon clan, elves, and other long-lived species, despite dragons having the ability to shape-shift and elves and demons resembling humans in appearance, are not conceptually the same as “humans.”
According to Fei Luo and Xiao Mo, several thousand years seem like nothing to them.
It’s like the perspective difference between rabbits and humans.
Rabbits typically reach maturity in around 6 months, and they can reproduce shortly after reaching this age. When a male and female rabbit are together, they usually become fertile after about a month, giving birth to a litter of baby rabbits—usually five or six, but sometimes eight or nine.
If rabbits were intelligent beings, they might habitually apply the human time scale and perspective to their own species when observing humans. They might ponder questions like, “Humans mature by age 1, right?” “Even if they don’t mature by 1, they reach adulthood at 18. It shouldn’t take as long as nine months to give birth, right?” “Humans must have seven or eight offspring at a time, right?” So why haven’t humans overrun the Earth in a few thousand years?
In the current situation, whether it’s Fei Luo from the dragon clan or Xiao Mo from the demon tribe, they both belong to long-lived species where not dating or having children for thousands of years is considered normal.
In the case of the hero and the little demon from another world years ago, it can be likened to the relationship between humans and cats. A human who can live for 100 years living with a cat that can only live for 10 years. For the cat, one year is a significant portion of its life, but for the human, a year is inconsequential.
The cat only needs one year to grow up, learning to drink milk, walk, eat on its own, run, hunt, and live independently, eventually becoming an adult cat capable of self-care.
However, for humans, in one year, not only may educational pursuits be incomplete, but physical development might not be complete either, and the ability to speak may not even be acquired.
This is a significant reason for Yin Xiamo’s previous statement, “She’s not even 30, don’t talk about these things.” When viewed from the perspective of humans, a one-year-old cat, even if it has reached adulthood and can live independently and has entered an age to raise offspring, is still considered a child in the eyes of its owner.
“Nuo’er?”
During my contemplation, Yin Xiamo in front of me extended her hand and waved it in front of my eyes.
“What’s wrong? Suddenly stopped talking?”
“Is she not used to dragon milk? Or does she not like it?” Fei Luo also looked a bit awkward. “Was I too abrupt?”
“Ah… no, not at all,” I snapped out of my thoughts. “Just had a moment of realization.”
The relationship between the hero and Xiao Mo back in the day, when converted, seems to be something like this—
In a time of war, a little cat found a young girl abandoned by her parents in a corner. The cat said to the girl, “Can’t hunt? It’s okay, I have sharp claws and strong teeth. I can help you catch fish.” Although the girl didn’t understand what the cat was saying with its “meow, meow, meow,” she chose to trust it, seeing the cat’s non-threatening demeanor. The cat then led the girl away from the ruins, catching fish for her every day, protecting her from approaching snakes, raising her, and even teaching her “cat claws” and “cat whirlwind.” The girl learned the language of the cat’s “meow, meow, meow,” mastered cat martial arts and magic, and fought alongside the cat.
Then, the cat sacrificed itself and was reincarnated.
The girl defeated the demon king who plotted against the cat and, following the cat’s soul, arrived in another world. Looking at the new cat without memories, she said to her, “It’s okay, I’ll wait for you to grow up.”
“This… dragon milk, is it very precious?”
Under the gaze of Fei Luo and Yin Xiamo, I reluctantly inspected the milk bottle I had just taken a big sip from.
I expressed my gratitude, “Thank you.”
The taste of dragon milk is truly unique. Despite the warmth carried by the milk and the slight warmth in my hands as I held it, drinking it gave me a sensation of it being a “cold beverage.” Whether in my mouth or as it flowed down my throat into my stomach, there was a strange, refreshing coolness. Perhaps “comfortable” or “refreshing” would be more appropriate descriptors. It’s like… similar to the feeling on a hot summer day when students play a vigorous game on the outdoor field or when workers toil away on a construction site all afternoon, drenched in sweat. Then, walking into a shaded area and enjoying a sip of ice-cold cola or a bite of ice-cold watermelon.
There seems to be some kind of energy in dragon milk that, when consumed, leaves me feeling invigorated and full of energy. Regular milk, whether it’s genuine pure cow’s milk with a sweet milk flavor or powdered milk with a sugary taste, can be sweet and cloying. Dragon milk, however, completely lacks this cloying sweetness. Its texture is closer to a refreshing spring, with a hint of milkiness but not overpowering, and a sweetness that doesn’t fatigue the taste buds.
At least under normal circumstances, I could never drink so much milk, but dragon milk… drinking the entire 500 milliliters in one go is not a problem.
“No need to thank me. This is something I have every day, and I’m used to it,” Fei Luo replied to my gratitude, seemingly a bit embarrassed.
She then turned to Yin Xiamo, saying, “Actually, it’s also a lingering issue from when we fought together with Xiao Mo before. At that time, in order to help Xiao Mo recover faster, I forced myself… Well, I know it might not be a common practice among humans, but as long as you don’t mind.”
In truth, it’s indeed a bit unfamiliar.
If you offer me milk, I would certainly drink it without hesitation. Even if you took me to your own farm, brought out a cow, and milked it for me to try, I probably wouldn’t have any reservations. However…
When a talking cow hands over its milk, calling it a welcoming gift, I can’t help but find it a bit peculiar.
“Dragon milk is a luxury item in the other world, worth a fortune. The milk from so many young dragons could be exchanged for a kilogram of gold, not to mention a flying dragon,” Yin Xiamo joked on the side.
“This is the milk of the Dragon King… or the Black Dragon Princess, with some of Fei Luo’s dragon aura and magic. Nuo’er, if you hope to learn magic well in a few hundred years, you can start preparing now.”
“That’s right, all of these contain the overflowing magic from my body,” Fei Luo added with a laugh.
“For the dragon clan, offering their own milk to guests is the highest etiquette. Guests must drink it all in front of us, or it would be disrespectful to the dragon clan.”
There’s such a tradition?
Speaking of learning magic a few hundred years later, what’s going to happen to this world in a few hundred years is still unknown!
Not to mention, the first computer was born in 1946, only around eighty years ago. Computers have developed to such an astonishing level in this short time.
What can humans create in a few hundred years?
Will there even be time for me to start learning magic?
“Well, okay.”
Despite my doubts about these strange customs, I unscrewed the lid of the milk bottle, lifted my small head in the hall, and took a sip.
“Gurgle…”
After a few dozen seconds, having finished the milky liquid in the bottle, I handed the bottle back to Yin Xiamo. “The room is ready. Do you want to take a look?”
So comfortable.
Indeed, it’s dragon milk, full of energy.
“Oh, right.”
As if my words had awakened her, Yin Xiamo took the bottle and said to Fei Luo beside her, “I showed you my memories of these years just now. How does it feel? How about staying with us for a few days? I’ll talk to the landlord after she wakes up in the afternoon. It shouldn’t be a problem to have one more person here.”
“Is that okay? Won’t it bother you?”
Fei Luo seemed a bit embarrassed. Wearing Yin Xiamo’s outfit, her chest was quite pronounced, revealing a small waist below. “Maybe I should stay on that little island for now. It won’t take much time to fly over from there anyway.”
“No, it’s not allowed. The technology in the human world is very advanced. Flying like that once or twice may not be detected by satellite radar, but if it happens often, nearby fishermen or ships might notice. It would be hard to explain then.”
Yin Xiamo seemed unconcerned. “Just stay with us. This way, I can provide Nuo’er with a cup of milk every morning, and she’ll grow faster.”
“Hey!”
I protested, “What do you mean by ‘grow faster’?”
“Chest.”
Yin Xiamo responded without hesitation, “Nuo’er, you wouldn’t want your fans to know that you’re less than an A-cup, right?”
“Where did I get fans?”
When I subconsciously uttered that sentence, I suddenly realized another thing—my and Yin Xiamo’s Tongmeng Net accounts… seem to have over a hundred thousand followers. But what does that have to do with my chest?
“Dragon milk is excellent for beauty and skincare. It also has a significant effect on promoting breast development. It helps Nuo’er’s body adapt to magic in advance, paving the way for future magic learning. Moreover, this is Dragon King’s milk, already the best milk,” Yin Xiamo explained, perhaps sensing my irritation.
Seeing my raised hackles, Yin Xiamo continued, “It can also provide energy for the whole day. Even if Nuo’er only drinks one cup of dragon milk a day, your mental energy will overflow, and you won’t feel tired even after working a whole day at the cafe.”
“Cafe?”
Upon hearing this, Fei Luo interjected, curious, “If I understand correctly, coffee here… is a fruit of a kind of leguminous plant, and coffee is soy milk. A cafe… is a store that specializes in selling soy milk, is that right?”
“Not entirely.”
Yin Xiamo pondered for a moment. “The cafe where Nuo’er and I work now is a cat café. Inside, there’s not only coffee and soy milk but also a lot of food, like… a comprehensive restaurant in the Imperial City.”
“Do you work there?”
Fei Luo became even more curious. “I can’t believe it, Momo, after coming here, you actually have the mood to live an ordinary life.”
“The war has already ended, and Nuo’er has been living this kind of life all along.”
Yin Xiamo smiled. “As long as Nuo’er likes it.”
“Is that shop still hiring?”
Fei Luo leaned over. “I can help with some tasks within my capabilities. I tried being a bartender for a while back in the Empire, and I quite enjoyed that lifestyle.”
Huh?
Fei Luo’s words instantly reminded me of what Ai Luodi mentioned before, “Ouyang Xue asked if any of you have friends who want to apply for the maid position.”
Currently, the Shangjing Cat Café… is in a period of rapid expansion. The advertising and promotional effects went overboard, and its popularity soared. People from nearby areas, Shenzhen City, and even surrounding cities would come over when they had enough time to relax and unwind.
In the words of people online—it has the feeling of home in the café.
Here, you can eat and drink, there are cats and maids, and there’s a resting area. With WiFi for internet access, bringing a laptop and treating this place like an internet café is not a problem.
“A bartender for a while?”
Yin Xiamo exclaimed, “Why haven’t you mentioned this before?”
“You never gave me a chance to talk. You just ran off, and I don’t have time to tell you everything.”
Fei Luo joked, “To be precise, I worked as a bartender for over a decade. Do they allow selling alcohol in this café?”
“The menu has some fruit wines, and the ingredients here are not as abundant as there.”
“No problem, even if I don’t work as a bartender, helping with hygiene in the shop is also possible.”
Fei Luo blinked, “In the Empire, staying a day at an inn costs a small gold coin. I can’t just stay here for free, right?”
“……”
At Fei Luo’s insistence, Yin Xiamo and I showed her the small room.
“It’s quite nice, very cozy. It suits my aesthetic more than the small inns in the Empire.”
She sat down on the soft bed with a soft thud and looked around the place where Xiao Mo had been living for the past few years. Her gaze landed on the computer screen on the bedside table.
“Is this the ‘high-tech’ product in your memory?” Fei Luo inquired.
“It’s from several years ago,” Yin Xiamo said somewhat sheepishly. “Ye Zi… um, a good friend of mine and Nuo’er’s came to see it. They said this machine is already quite old, but I still think it’s very advanced.”
“From your memory, I also felt its sophistication, being able to communicate with people far away,” Fei Luo sighed.
“If we had such things back then, or that thing called a ‘mobile phone’… perhaps the war wouldn’t have been so difficult…”
I noticed that the bedsheet I had just spread out with my own hands had a conspicuous indentation over a large area. I couldn’t help but ask, “Um… Fei Luo, can I conveniently ask about your weight?”
Hmm… if it’s a giant dragon, generally they wouldn’t mind being asked that question, right? Even if she is a girl?
“Weight?”
As I expected, Fei Luo lying on the small bed seemed completely unconcerned about this question and casually said, “Converted to the units here… let me see, around 2000 tons.”
“I meant in human form.”
I gestured towards the mattress beneath her, “How much does Fei Luo weigh in her current form?”
“Now? In humanoid form, which is the most energy-efficient mode, I rarely pay attention to this aspect. It shouldn’t be considered heavy, probably around one or two hundred kilograms.”
One or two hundred kilograms? Isn’t that about three to four hundred pounds?
I twitched the corner of my mouth, scrutinizing the girl on the bed. Fei Luo’s appearance, no matter how you look at it, had nothing to do with “being overweight.” Once you remove the dragon horns and vertical pupils on her head, she looks just like an ordinary teenage girl. Fei Luo has bright, watery eyes, a slightly round face, giving the impression of a mischievous girl at first glance.
She is of average height, between Yin Xiamo and me, with a sizable chest, but not to an extremely exaggerated extent. Typically, on those dubious websites where we see girls labeled with “huge breasts,” the visual impact of their chests is significant, but those breasts are at least in the range of G cups.
For example, the dragon girl Tooru in “Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid” has an official setting of a bust size of 130, waist size of 55. Under this setting, with an upper bust size of 130 and a waist size of 55, based on the ratio between the waist and the bust, her lower bust size would not exceed 75. So, Tooru’s upper and lower bust sizes would differ by at least 55, which is equivalent to at least an S cup.
Fei Luo doesn’t have such an exaggerated chest, and I don’t have the talent of a fashion designer like Lan Jiajia, who can instantly determine someone’s bra size. However, after learning so much about girls’ related knowledge, I can more or less infer Fei Luo’s figure from her appearance.
She belongs to the type of slightly plump girls, with a chest size between E and F cups. Girls with a large chest of about 1.5 meters in height generally tend to be slightly overweight, estimating around 110 to 120 pounds (50-55 kg).
However, Fei Luo told me that her weight is more than three times the standard body weight.
This can only indicate that… the bodies of the dragon race tend to be heavier, even in humanoid form.
Is it similar to the current situation where I only have two cats with almost the same weight? Elves, because they often have to move in the forest, jump on trees, so their bones and muscles are relatively light. The dragon race, on the other hand, symbolizes strength and power. In humanoid form, their weight is three to four times that of an ordinary person.
I can already imagine that if troublemakers come to the cafe, several sturdy men weighing a couple of hundred pounds each will come out to provoke. A punch on Fei Luo’s small body won’t move her, and then she’ll counter with a slap, sending them flying.
On second thought, it seems that the cafe is not only short of maids but also lacks security personnel?
“Ah… so comfortable. This is much better than the shabby houses in the Empire, right? No wonder Xiao Mo doesn’t want to go back once she comes here.”
Under my gaze, Fei Luo lay down on the small bed, looking quite content, “Woo woo woo, I don’t want to leave either. I want to stay here. There are no monsters, no wars, and no annoying old guys bothering me to manage dragon matters and urge me to lay eggs. It’s simply a perfect vacation paradise.”
“Xiao Mo, take me to your cafe quickly. I want to talk directly to your cafe manager. I’m fine with being either a waitress or a bartender!”
“……”
……
An hour later, the three of us arrived at the cafe. Perhaps Fei Luo’s aura was just too strong, the cats in the shop scattered when they saw her, with some smaller ones even getting scared and hiding under the tables. I had to run over to pick up a few and comfort them softly.
“Do you want to work here?”
On the side, Ouyang Xue, watching Fei Luo suddenly appear, couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Have you done something similar before?”
Fei Luo nodded, “I’ve been a bartender.”
“For how many years?”
“Um… more than ten years?”
“More than ten years?! How old are you this year, child?”
“I… I…”
Fei Luo turned to Yin Xiamo, “How old am I?”
Yin Xiamo also didn’t know how to respond, and turned to me, who was grooming a kitten on the side. “Nuo’er, how old is she?”
You’re asking me her age? Momentarily unsure how to explain, I just put on a somewhat pretentious look. “7200 years old.”
As my words fell, the corners of Ouyang Xue’s mouth twitched noticeably.
“Well, uh, Fei Luo is a member of the dragon race, a giant dragon.”
I walked over while holding a kitten.
“Manager, you know, those dragons that fly in the sky, tens of meters high, living for thousands of years is not too much, right? Having ten years of experience as a bartender is not too much, right?”
“I think I understand now.” Ouyang Xue glanced at Fei Luo, then at Yin Xiamo.
“Each of you has extraordinary skills – a giant dragon, a grim reaper, an editor, a fashion designer, and a cat.”
When did I become the cat?
“Well, isn’t it that you had Ai Luodi ask me if any other friends were looking for work?”
I said with a hint of grievance, “This… My friend just arrived.”
“Alright, alright. Since they are your friends, I won’t ask too much. Just two main questions.” Ouyang Xue turned to Fei Luo.
“You’ve worked as a waitress before, right? Not too introverted?”
“How could I be introverted?”
Fei Luo, full of confidence, added, “I am the Dragon King!”
“No issues with basic communication with customers?”
“No… Shouldn’t be.”
“OK.”
Hearing this, Ouyang Xue took out her phone and opened the contract.
“Interview passed. Report your height and measurements, and I’ll talk to the city’s factory tonight to rush a new set of clothes for you.”
“……”
……