Gu Yuan, a good-for-nothing hunter in a remote border town, found a dragon egg.
That very night, the Dragon Hunters' Guild kicked down his door. "Hand over the egg, and we'll spare your life!"
The shell cracked, and a tiny pink-and-gold dragon the size of a palm crawled out. It wrapped itself around his neck and said in a babyish voice:
"Daddy, hungry."
From then on, Gu Yuan's life went completely off the rails.
Feeding the baby, changing diapers, evading pursuers, and teaching his little girl to speak human language.
Someone called him useless, and Xiao Zhu knocked him flying with her tail.
Someone tried to capture Xiao Zhu, and she blew the roof off his house with a breath of dragon fire.
Gu Yuan sighed every day. "Sweetheart, can you be a little gentler?"
Xiao Zhu tilted her head. "Daddy, what's gentle? Can you eat it?"
Then one day, the guild master himself arrived, intent on using Xiao Zhu in a blood sacrifice.
Gu Yuan slowly unsealed the cultivation he'd kept locked away for twenty years and smiled.
"You want to bully my daughter? Did you ask her dad first?"
