My Asian Dragon

Chapter 8

Joy was stunned by the transformation of the temple. The villagers had quickly decorated the normally serene temple after the battle with festive colors, with paper lanterns and streamers hanging everywhere. Joy had spent the entire afternoon working on cleaning up the battle site, gathering the guns left behind and burying the bodies of the Triad. Thankfully, most had died in the deep mantraps, and required little more than scooping dirt on top of the corpse. The rest were to be buried in the car trap, which was already over four feet deep.

Joy had avoided that work for the most part though, as she was one of the few people in the village who knew how to drive a car. Once the fire in the car trap went out, they pulled the wreckage out using another two trucks, then filled in the gap enough to let her slowly drive the pickups around the barrier, parking them near the school. Over the next week, the plan was to strip the trucks of everything useful to the village.

For Joy, the trembles had begun as she pulled the second truck over the quickly filled in section of road and started driving to the village. In her mind, she kept seeing the explosion as the fuel in the car trap went up, and could hear the bullets pinging off the stone facade of the bunker. She was proud that she hadn’t frozen up, but knew she needed to purge her feelings.

Stepping into the temple, which the left behind villagers had adorned so festively, she felt conflicted. Part of her wanted to celebrate, to rejoice in the victory and in still being alive. On the other hand, part of her wanted to scream and cry over the horror she had seen that day, and the lives she had taken. Even if they were Triad bas*ards, they were still human beings.

Avoiding the celebration, Joy made her way to her room, washing the dirt off her skin and changing into clothes that didn’t reek of gasoline, blood, gunpowder, and sweat. Staying in the back of the temple, she found Longwei sitting quietly in the inner private courtyard. The sight of him in the place where they had first made love pushed back the darkness, and she sat down beside him. “How’s the leg?”

Longwei opened his eyes, his small smile breaking out on his face as he saw her. “The bleeding has stopped. It seems that while wounds carry over, I heal from them more quickly as well. The doctor says I will carry a small scar in my human form on my leg, but nothing more than that.”

“And your dragon form? I’d hate to see those perfect scales marred.”

Longwei chuckled. “I do not know. It is not like there are many dragon experts in the world.”

Sputtering, Joy rolled off and sat up to hear the giggles of children running down the hallway. One of the children stopped and yelled something back at them before running off again. Joy looked over at Longwei, who was wiping the last bits of water from his eyes. “What did they say?”