Chapter 497 Extra: Metamorphosis into a Dragon Egg

A pit.

A huge pit.

A giant pit, ten meters in diameter and five or six meters deep!

The soil in the pit was scorched and black, shrouded in smoke, as if it had just been baked by a fire.

In the very center of this charred, giant crater, a mound of earth stands upright, upon which sits a smoking... turtle.

The tortoise is standing on one leg.

As the turtle opened its mouth, a plume of smoke billowed out, and it fell flat on its back from the towering mound of earth, revealing a black egg beneath its lightning-struck, blackened feet.

The black egg wasn't big, but it wasn't small either.

It's about the size of a rugby ball, oval-shaped, pointed at both ends, and round in the middle.

Shen Qingyan and Qiao Changdong knelt on the edge of the deep pit, staring at the giant pit and the black egg inside. Both of them were dumbfounded.

When that golden lightning bolt struck down, they seemed to be bound by something, unable to move.

After the lightning stopped striking, a dazzling light appeared before their eyes. They could sense that this light must have come from their beloved daughter.

But when I got there, I found a huge pit.

A blackened egg still stands in the giant pit.

This, this... could it be that their precious dragon egg has molted into something else?

A black egg?

After the thought flashed through the minds of the two men, they both crawled and rolled all the way to the bottom of the pit.

But when they actually squatted down next to the black egg, the two men hesitated again.

Looking at the black egg, I didn't know what to do.

In the end, Qiao Changdong was the first to react. He carefully touched the dark tip of the egg and asked softly, "Baby, is that you?"

"..." Black Egg.

The black egg stood there, offering no response.

Qiao Changdong's heart clenched.

He looked at Shen Qingyan.

Although Qiao Qiao had warned them beforehand that there would be a lightning tribulation, if it successfully survived the tribulation, it would directly transform into an egg.

But looking at the power of this lightning bolt, it was so strong that it created such a large crater.

Even though they had been told not to, the two men couldn't help but worry.

It's not that I'm worried about anything else, but I'm worried that if lightning strikes like that, and the egg is blackened and smoking, will the egg... be cooked?

"Let's take it back first," Shen Qingyan said.

As Shen Qingyan spoke, she took off her clothes and gently lifted the standing black egg into her arms.

As Qiao Changdong passed by the giant turtle lying on its back, he originally intended to walk straight past it, but then he remembered something and turned back, scooped up the turtle, and hoisted it onto his shoulder with a "heave-ho."

The two men, one carrying a dark, unremarkable egg in his pocket and the other carrying a dark, unremarkable turtle on his shoulder, quickly disappeared from everyone's sight.

Even now, the others are still not recovered from the sudden turn of events.

After a child was struck by lightning, he disappeared, leaving only a turtle and an egg. Everyone instinctively felt that the turtle had laid the egg.

Therefore, no one finds the origin of the egg strange.

I just feel a little sorry for those two fathers.

Look, these two fathers are so heartbroken they've gone mad. It's as if they don't remember their precious daughter who was struck by lightning. They've run off with a tortoise and its eggs, without asking about anything else.

The two fathers have no idea that, in the eyes of the outside world, they have already gone mad with grief.

After they took the egg back, they guarded it.

The egg was blackened by the cracking, so Qiao Changdong fetched hot water and gently wiped the shell clean, revealing its original color.

This is a white egg, but with a hint of pale blue.

As Qiao Changdong looked at it, he felt that the egg was incomparably beautiful!

As expected of his daughter, even the eggshell is light green with a hint of pink showing through!

But the two men were still unsure, because the dragon egg had not given them any response, and they didn't know if the egg was still good or if it had been split open and cooked.

This latter concern caused Qiao Changdong to lose sleep and appetite for a time.

The day after Qiao Qiao molted into an egg, Qiao Changdong squatted in front of the egg, muttering to himself.

At first, the dragon egg did not react.

When Qiao Changdong reached out to touch the dragon egg, the dragon cub inside seemed to sense his anxious emotions and pushed the eggshell outwards.

The eggshell seemed to be elastic, and a small bulge was pushed out.

Qiao Changdong was overjoyed.

The Qiao family's woodpecker chirping technique, which had been lost for some time, resurfaced. He held the dragon egg, kissing it repeatedly, and exclaimed happily, "Great, great! It's still alive! Not cooked yet, not cooked yet!"

Qiao Changdong and Shen Qingyan were genuinely afraid before.

Although they had never seen anyone struck by lightning, they had heard of it. For example, someone from some city or town was said to have been struck by lightning and turned into charcoal!

In a certain month of a certain year, someone was struck by lightning under a tree and both arms were burned off.

Their daughter, such a weak and helpless dragon egg, might just be hatched and cooked!

After confirming that the dragon eggs were not cooked, the two novice dragon egg fathers completely relaxed.

However, a very important problem has now been placed before them.

How do I bring this egg back to Kyoto?

Qiao Changdong and Shen Qingyan did not plan to return to Hongfeng Town. Instead, they wanted to take Qiao Qiao directly to the castle in Kyoto, where arrangements had been made long ago and the security was much better than in Hongfeng Town.

After Shen Qingyan finished arranging preparations in Nanshi, on the morning of June 8th, Qiao Changdong and Shen Qingyan finally made arrangements to return to Kyoto.

Pei Anting and Meng Zhengcheng were also with them.

The dragon egg was placed in a square wooden box about fifty centimeters long by Qiao Changdong, with more than a dozen towels inside for shock absorption.

Not only that, but there were also four rubber hot water bottles filled with hot water that Qiao Changdong had bought from the supply and marketing cooperative early in the morning, placed underneath and around these towels.

He read a book that Shen Qingyan had been reading before, which said that incubating eggs must be done at a suitable and stable temperature.

Qiao Changdong referred to the temperature for a hen incubating eggs, saying that the temperature should be maintained between 37.5 and 38.5 degrees Celsius.

Although it is summer now, the highest daytime temperature in Tainan is only 27 or 28 degrees Celsius, which is obviously not suitable for incubating eggs.

This temperature is actually the most suitable for the human body.

However, Qiao Changdong was afraid that the bumpy ride might cause him to accidentally break the dragon egg, so he put it in a wooden box and covered it with several rubber hot water bottles.

Shen Qingyan was driving, and Pei Anting was in the passenger seat.

Meng Zhengcheng and Qiao Changdong sat in the back seat. He watched Qiao Changdong bustling around, and after holding back for a long time, he finally couldn't help but ask him, "Dongzi, aren't you afraid it'll rot like that?"

(The extra chapters are all independent and do not follow a timeline.)