ADLH Chapter 1: Say… Would You Consider a Dragon a Local Specialty?
He was a flawed person.
Humans possess both reason and emotion.
People might lean more toward one or the other, but no one completely loses one side — no one lives solely by emotion or by reason.
After all, humans aren't mindless fools without judgment, nor are they emotionless machines.
But he lacked the latter —
Ruan Xingzhou suffered from emotional apathy disorder.
This psychological disability had been with him since birth: he couldn't comprehend complex emotions, couldn't socialize, and had no innate sense of social responsibility or justice. Even basic negative emotions like fear were a luxury he could barely grasp.
That feeling — of gradually fading out of this world until disappearing — was hard to explain to anyone.
Like now.
Ruan Xingzhou, dressed in a black suit, stood in a foreign cemetery. His suit wasn’t entirely black; he'd rushed here straight from a meeting.
Behind him, bodyguards, assistants, and subordinates stood alert.
The few relatives and friends of the Ruan family wept quietly, comforting the woman who cried the hardest.
That woman was his mother.
The priest recited something. Then, one by one, the people standing by the coffin scooped up dirt to cover it — the coffin draped in white flowers.
Ruan Xingzhou watched it with calm eyes, as if seeing through it to the father who had always smiled warmly and embraced him despite his emotional distance.
He had been a good father.
Even though Ruan Xingzhou had been unable to return normal affection, his father had poured all his love into giving him warmth.
His mother cried harder, struggling so fiercely that even the nearby relatives couldn't hold her back. She lunged toward the coffin, and just as she was about to fall, Ruan Xingzhou reached out to steady her.
"Slow down, Mom," he said softly.
But the woman, in the depths of her grief, violently pushed him away.
The force was so strong that her black-veiled hat fell off, revealing her exhausted face, red and swollen from crying.
Caught off guard, Ruan Xingzhou stumbled back.
His silent assistant caught him and shot a glance at the bodyguards, who immediately stepped forward, their overwhelming presence pressing on everyone around.
"Madam, please refrain from any extreme actions," the assistant said coldly, narrowing his eyes in warning. "President Ruan is also grieving. Please control your emotions."
"My son... grieving?!"
Madam Ruan laughed hysterically, as if she'd heard the funniest joke in the world.
Pointing at Ruan Xingzhou, she screamed, "What do you mean grieving? Look at his face! LOOK! Ruan Xingzhou, your father is dead — do you even know that? Have you shed a single tear? You're nothing but a cold-blooded monster!"
"Have you ever once reached out to me or your father for affection? Your father loved you so much! Are you truly sad?!"
Ruan Xingzhou lowered his head and said nothing.
Was he sad?
A little, probably.
Madam Ruan's neck flushed red from screaming. She lunged forward, grabbing and tearing at Ruan Xingzhou's clothes — an act completely unbecoming of her noble status.
Assistant Mirdan moved to intervene, but Ruan Xingzhou quietly signaled him to step back.
The woman clutched and ripped at his suit, as if trying to tear open his icy shell to see if there was any warmth inside.
"I should never have given birth to you!"
"Never should have!"
Crying, shouting, despairing, she still couldn’t extract even a hug from her son.
Ruan Xingzhou bent down, letting his mother tear at him. Blood scratched across his neck and cheeks, but he didn't straighten up…
She had been a good mother. Truly.
No parent could easily accept their beloved child not loving them back — maybe some could endure it for a while, but ten years, twenty years… that hope and tenderness would inevitably wear thin.
Still, even when she had long been disappointed, whenever she faced Ruan Xingzhou, she forced herself to smile, giving him the purest love a mother could offer.
She and his father had even decided against having a second child, fearing it would make them neglect Ruan Xingzhou.
They had truly been the best parents.
After another slap knocked his head sideways, Ruan Xingzhou thought expressionlessly:
It's a shame they had a child like me.
One month after the funeral.
There was too much to handle after his father's death.
When Ruan Xingzhou finally lifted his head from the endless mountain of paperwork, his mother had already moved away to another place.
He hadn’t tried to stop her.
He was also leaving the country — from M Country to Z Country.
The Ruan family's business — Aierslan Biotech Corporation — was a sprawling multinational conglomerate.
Before his death, his father had always wanted to return to their homeland and expand there.
Ruan Xingzhou was helping him realize that dream.
Thus, he arrived at:
Z Country. Aierslan Tower.
Exhausted after another day of burying himself in the domestic market research, Ruan Xingzhou leaned back in his chair, weary.
His phone buzzed with a message.
It was from his assistant, updating him on his mother's recent activities.
Ruan Xingzhou typed a few words back:
"Protect her, but don't interfere."
Assistant:
"Understood."
Setting down his phone, Ruan Xingzhou closed his eyes.
Immediately, he heard again his mother's despairing cries:
"I wish… I’d never given birth to you!"
He sighed and muttered to himself.
For the first time, he felt exhausted — even angry.
He wanted to respond to his mother's emotions.
He wanted to cry at the graveside.
But why couldn't he?! Why was he the only one unable to?!
With a sweep of his hand, the documents on the table flew everywhere.
Ruan Xingzhou's chest heaved wildly —
One second, two seconds — then the rage faded as if it had never been.
Expressionless, he pounded a fist against his chest.
Useless.
After a long moment, he exhaled, turned around, and called his assistant.
"…I want to bring her some gifts. What would make her happy?"
The assistant patiently reminded him:
Gifts with sentimental value, not jewelry.
Ruan Xingzhou nodded. "I see. Something with emotional meaning..."
"Would… local specialties work?"
The assistant replied, "That’s a good idea, boss.
Although, honestly, I'm not that familiar with local specialties from Z Country either."
Ruan Xingzhou frowned.
Why is it called 'local specialties' anyway? What's with the 'local' part? he thought.
Still holding the phone and chatting, he didn’t notice:
Behind him, a strange black hole had silently formed in the office air.
It grew bigger and bigger, until finally —
A red something poked its way through.
Still discussing local gifts with Mirdan, Ruan Xingzhou suddenly felt a strong gust of wind blow against him.
Did someone crank up the air conditioning?
Frowning, he turned around — and found himself nose-to-snout, lips-almost-touching, with a massive creature!
"……"
Frozen in place, phone still in hand, Ruan Xingzhou stared wide-eyed, pupils shrinking.
His heart, which hadn't thudded so violently in over twenty years, now beat like a frantic tap dancer.
The creature —
A massive red dragon — blinked its golden, slit-pupiled eyes at him and snorted two streams of hot breath out its nostrils, almost knocking Ruan Xingzhou off balance.
Never before in his life had President Ruan been looked at through someone else's nostrils.
"..."
On the phone, Mirdan's voice sounded staticky:
"Boss? Boss, the background noise sounds weird. Should I send bodyguards up?"
"No, no need…"
Ruan Xingzhou stiffly answered.
If this is real and not just an overtime-induced hallucination… even sending bodyguards would just mean sending them to their deaths... he thought blankly.
Then, out of nowhere, another thought struck him.
Still with a deadpan face, he asked:
"Mirdan."
"Yes, sir?"
Ruan Xingzhou hesitated, staring at the massive dragon's head:
"Would you say… a dragon counts as a local specialty from Z Country?"
"…………"
Mirdan:
Boss, are you trying to trigger a global catastrophe?!
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