Chapter 124: Dragon-Taming Lineage

Baimu reached out to snatch it back. "This was left to me by my father."

"Father?"

The man froze for a moment at his reply; the wooden tag in his hand was swiftly snatched away before he could even examine it closely.

In fact, if he had taken the trouble to feel the texture and examine it carefully, it wouldn't have been hard to discover that the thing had actually only just been made, and was nothing like some old, well-worn heirloom.

Even though Baimu had deliberately had it aged, it still hadn't reached the point of one month looking like ten years. Huang Tie Town wasn't, after all, a town that specialized in peddling antiques — there was no relevant tech tree here.

It was enough to fool people, though.

The man looked at Baimu again, his expression turning somewhat complicated. "Your father, he…"

"He had already passed away for as long as I can remember," the latter replied with great calm, then asked in turn, "Can you tell me what this thing is? I've always been curious."

The man exhaled a breath of stale air. "This, ah…"

"Baimu?"

A voice suddenly came from behind the two of them.

Baimu's heart skipped a beat. He suppressed the vexation welling up inside, turned his head, and was startled to see Shanren, whose whereabouts had been unknown until now.

Curiously, Shanren at this moment was full-faced with surprise, his gaze shifting back and forth between him and the man behind him.

"You two know each other!?"

The man opened his mouth, a note of disbelief threaded through his tone.

"You two know each other?" Baimu was also startled. He stepped back, his gaze sweeping between the man and Shanren — he had never imagined that the person this lead pointed to actually had a connection with the latter.

The three of them looked at one another, all dumbfounded.

"…While the auction hasn't started, let's find somewhere to have a proper talk." Shanren was the one to speak up first.

The other two naturally had no objections.

At the same time, Baimu was immensely relieved that he hadn't pretended to be the dragon lineage the man spoke of, and had instead given an ambiguous reply. Leaving the question to the previous generation, or even the generation before that, left plenty of room to maneuver.

——

Baimu had assumed Shanren would borrow a small room from the organizers.

Instead, the three of them slipped like thieves through an unguarded door, circled around to the parking lot, and climbed into the off-road vehicle that had been driven over.

"Who goes first?"

Shanren turned to look at Baimu and the other man, and asked softly.

The last man raised his hand first. "I'll go first — you two know each other?"

"We do. He's the one I brought here," Shanren said very honestly, but the remark seemed to rouse the man's anger; he suddenly slapped the seat cushion.

"What were you thinking? How could you just casually bring someone into such a dangerous place? Someone who doesn't know anything, no less!"

"I have my own considerations." Shanren, as if entirely unaware of his anger, went on with the introductions on her own, laying out the broad strokes of Baimu's situation.

Hearing all this, the anger on the man's face quickly dissipated, and he calmed down considerably.

"You came here to buy Pokémon?" He looked at Baimu and asked in a level tone.

Baimu flinched. "I had no idea the Pokémon here were of shady origin, really! If I'd known beforehand, I wouldn't have come!"

Although there was no need to be afraid of the man, it was still better to explain clearly the things one had no intention of doing, to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings.

Sure enough.

The moment those words were spoken, the man's tightly clenched grip on the cushion slowly loosened.

Shanren also said, "I can vouch — I was the one who sweet-talked him into coming here. He knew nothing about it."

"You—!"

The anger the man had just suppressed instantly flared up again.

"Alright, alright." Shanren pressed a hand down, signaling him to cool off. Meeting Baimu's puzzled gaze, he smiled and said, "You must have a lot of questions — let me explain them one by one.

"This gentleman is Awu, a Dragon Tamer from the Dragon's Homeland, who came to Huang Tie Town to track down stolen Single-Strike Dragons. It just so happens that the two of us had crossed paths a few times in the Kalos region, so he agreed to let me help him recover these Pokémon."

Hearing this, Baimu immediately looked at Awu and saw that, although the latter's expression was a little odd, he still nodded in agreement. In that instant, Baimu understood a few things.

"You may be wondering — since we're doing something so important and so covert, why I would still specifically invite you here…" Shanren said calmly. "On one hand, I wanted to see your reaction to the stolen goods; on the other, by using the chance of sending you away, I created the opportunity to set a trap and establish an alibi."

"Shanren!"

Awu's face changed. "Don't drag uninvolved people into this!"

"Let me finish, Awu." Shanren shook his head, then suddenly lowered his head in apology. "I'm sorry — I used you. But please believe me, I never had any intention of putting you in danger.

"Whether you were willing to buy those Pokémon or not, I would have found a reason to send you back. You would not have come to any harm at all. I'm also willing to compensate you for your losses and agree to any conditions you have."

Seeing this, Awu also hurried to apologize. "Sorry about that — that idiot Shanren went and did something like this. I'll have him send you away right away. You really don't need to get tangled up in something this dangerous."

The apology was sincere.

The little anger Baimu had originally felt instantly dissipated, since he had already owed Shanren a favor to begin with — the Soothe Bell, the boost to the shop's foot traffic, all of it.

The key point was that the other party hadn't intended to screw him over; they had merely used the chance of shuttling him around to manufacture an alibi. For him, there was no loss at all — it was practically the equivalent of seeing the world.

If there really wouldn't be any further entanglement down the line, then compensation and the like were completely unnecessary.

And honestly, none of this needed to be told to him in the first place. Keeping him in the dark forever wouldn't have led to anything bad.

But Shanren had still said it out loud.

Why?

Because he had shown disgust at those stolen goods?

Baimu was silent for a moment, then said, "I still have one more question."

"Go ahead and ask."

Shanren wore the look of someone who would hold nothing back.

"What is this thing?"

He held up the wooden tag and looked at Awu beside him. "I never got an answer just now."

"This is a Dragon's Token, a symbol of a Dragon Tamer's identity. Every mature Dragon Tamer will be granted a Dragon's Token." Awu met Shanren's astonished gaze and said, "The fact that you have something like this can only indicate two things.

"One, your parents or ancestors were Dragon Tamers; two, your parents or ancestors knew Dragon Tamers. Personally, I believe you should be a descendant of the Dragon Folk."

"Huh? Why?"

All Baimu was momentarily stunned.

"Your eyes and eyebrows have the bearing of the Dragon Folk!" Awu gave a reason that left him utterly speechless.

Shanren could not help but interject, "Your ancestors were Dragon Tamers?"

"I don't know about that!"

"If your ancestors were Dragon Tamers, then your talents as a Trainer and certain other talents might be explained."

Shanren nodded with an air of great seriousness. "So that's how it is. No wonder I've always felt you didn't quite fit in here. Turns out you weren't an original resident of Huang Tie Town at all!"

What the hell…

All Baimu was speechless. His original intention had truly not been to claim some ancestor for himself, but Awu and Shanren both wore expressions as though the matter had been conclusively decided.