Chương 156: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 156 - Achieving Dragon Speech with an Elf's Body

"Mimic a dragon's tongue to pronounce it?" (,,??.??,,)? Anna stared blankly, her watery peach-blossom eyes wide open, the crimson-gold irises swirling like two tiny whirlpools.

"That's right~ Pronouncing Dragon Speech requires an extremely complex process — made possible entirely by the dragon's powerful tongue!" Su Nian slipped into full biology-teacher mode and began explaining dragon tongue anatomy to his precious student with complete earnestness. To help Anna follow along, he drew a dragon tongue on the small blackboard.

"As shown in the diagram," he said, tapping the board, "this is a dragon's tongue."

"From the inside out: tongue root, tongue body, and tongue tip."

"The tongue body is covered entirely in tongue mucosa. Layered over the mucosa are dense clusters of dragon filament nerves."

"And controlling the dragon's tongue alone requires exactly 457 muscle groups." Anna was already starting to see stars. Su Nian recognized it. This was clearly beyond her, and honestly, it wasn't that closely tied to the actual vocalization of Dragon Speech anyway. It didn't matter if she couldn't follow every detail. He was mainly laying groundwork for what came next.

"To correctly pronounce a Dragon Speech syllable, you must control your tongue to vibrate at specific frequencies while forming distinct special shapes."

"Each syllable has its own vibration amplitude and tongue configuration. Let me demonstrate." He opened his dragon mouth as he spoke. His large crimson tongue unfurled, and then he let his throat vibrate as he addressed her:"Now, my precious student."

"Please direct your full attention to the dragon's tongue."

"Okay, okay!" Anna answered obediently. She rose on her tiptoes and locked her gaze onto Su Nian's enormous tongue. She'd had her face washed for all sorts of reasons before. But observing a dragon's tongue from this close was genuinely a first. The base of it was as wide as the Black Dragon's mouth. Toward the tip, it tapered, the slenderest point no wider than a baby's arm. The tongue's color was a deep, slightly darkened red, and across its entire surface grew tiny, densely packed fleshy spines.

Anna made the connection immediately. Those spines had to be the dragon filament nerves her brother had just described.

"Zun!" A single obscure syllable of Dragon Speech rang out, and the air inside the Dragon's Nest trembled with it. One syllable, just one, but Anna, with her Dragon Heart, felt the power coiled inside it with crystal clarity. As the syllable echoed through the lair, the Black Dragon's tongue moved in a blur. It twisted, bent, and curved into a strange and elaborate spiral shape. Truly worthy of a dragon's tongue. Extraordinary didn't even cover it.

Anna didn't understand the mechanics at all, but that didn't touch her awe, or the adoration that welled up in her chest whenever she looked at him.

"So, as you can see," Su Nian said, closing his mouth and lifting a soft wing to gently pat her head, "pronouncing Dragon Speech is an extremely complex process. It isn't just a matter of making a sound."

"Our dragon tongues are exceptionally flexible. Now that you have the Dragon Heart, your tongue should be capable of this too." He gave a sly, strange laugh.

"Hehehe..." This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The implication hung in the air with complete shamelessness. Anna's face went red. Her two soft hands came together, fingers tangling anxiously. She believed him completely. She knew firsthand how flexible a dragon's tongue was. She was very, very aware of that.

"Brother..."

"Can we please have a proper lesson~ okay? Please?" Her voice grew smaller and smaller as she pleaded, dwindling until it was barely louder than a mosquito's whine. The flush spread from her cheeks to her fair neck to the tips of her snow-white ears.

"Hehehe~ I've been having a perfectly proper lesson the whole time! Anna's the one who should be reflecting..." Su Nian smiled with the shameless ease of someone who had never once been embarrassed in his life.

"Brother... you! Hmph. (╯^╰)""If you keep teasing Anna like this... Anna will... will..." She held the threat for a long moment. Nothing came to her. There was genuinely nothing she could threaten him with. Her entire self, her entire heart, it all belonged to the Black Dragon. This infuriating, shameless dragon had long since placed himself in an unassailable position.

"Will what~ hmm?" Su Nian slipped the tip of a soft wing beneath her chin and tilted it up, his teasing intent impossible to miss.

"Hmph... hmph..." Anna puffed her cheeks out like a little aggrieved dumpling. Her two dimples vanished entirely into the pout. Her adorable peach-blossom eyes glared up at the insufferable Black Dragon before her. She couldn't make herself say a single word of reproach.

"If brother keeps this up..." she finally declared, "Anna will reduce the daily hundred licks to eighty, no, ninety-nine!"

"Oh?" Su Nian looked at her with genuine curiosity.

"Why only reduce by one?" He held her a little closer, charmed entirely by the small elf girl in front of him.

"Because..." Anna turned her face away with a huff, the pink flush now blazing across her neck.

"Because Anna also wants to lick brother~" She refused to look at him. Which only made the color creeping up her throat that much more visible.

"If Anna cuts too many licks, then punishing brother just becomes punishing Anna. Anna... Anna is not going to do something that stupid~ hmph~" Su Nian watched her quietly. She was small and lovely and utterly precious, and he looked at her the way people look at things they can hardly believe exist. Even now, in her shyness, in her little performance of "anger," Anna's eyes still drifted back to him every few seconds. Cautious, barely-there glances, checking his expression, gauging his mood.

Her magnificent eyes were half-lowered, long lashes tracing a soft, delicate curve. He understood. She was afraid that being willful might displease him. But she was his. And having finally let herself be, Anna sometimes slipped into these moments, part petulance, part longing. She wanted to be real with him. She wanted to be free to pout and tease and be affectionate without restraint. And she was terrified of being too much.

It was hard to imagine what she'd lived through to become someone this tender and this careful at the same time. Su Nian felt something gentle and aching move through his chest. He raised a wing and tilted her chin back toward him.

"Anna," he said softly.

"Didn't you just say that even watching me use Dragon Speech, it would be hard to learn on your own?"

"So now I'll teach you."

"Hands-on."... After Su Nian's thorough, mouth-to-mouth personal instruction, Anna finally started finding her footing with Dragon Speech vocalization. She'd mostly gotten the hang of the tongue's vibration frequency and the tongue shapes required for each syllable. Then again, brother had already walked her through it firsthand. If she still came away with nothing after that, she'd be embarrassed herself, letting down his reputation as a teacher.

"Alright, Anna. Try releasing the syllable Zun. Open your mouth a little, I want to observe your process and see if there are any issues." Su Nian adjusted the nonexistent glasses on his dragon nose with one claw, his entire expression radiating the solemn authority of a very dedicated educator.

"Okay~ sure, brother~""Ah —" Anna answered agreeably and, facing him, opened her soft pink mouth. A gentle, rounded "Zun" drifted out on the vibration of her tongue. The shape was right, but the power behind it was still thin. Su Nian looked at her small pink tongue and had to swallow before he could speak. He managed it. He pointed out her errors with complete professionalism.

"Vibration frequency is a little low, and your tongue shape for Zun is too stiff. Relax. Try imagining your tongue guiding a current of water through your mouth, you're not pushing hard, just steering it gently..." Anna tilted her head, sat with the image for a moment, then softly opened her lips again and let out another "Zun" with his adjustment in mind.

"Better this time. But the tongue shape still isn't fully loose. Don't think about it so hard."

"Let me walk you through it again."...

"Zun."

"Good! More force behind it — project it!"

"Zun!!"

"Excellent. Anna, you're a natural. Now let's wash our, I mean, let's move on to the next syllable." Inside the Dragon's Nest, which had taken on a certain distinctive atmosphere, the enthusiastic teacher and his eager student pressed forward through their Dragon Speech lessons with impressive momentum. They were hitting their stride. Every so often, an obscure syllable rumbled out from inside the lair. The monsters gathered outside exchanged glances, then wordlessly pulled their wives a little closer.

Those who didn't have wives looked down at their own arms.... [ps: Daily request for support, coded this chapter in the small hours] (╥╯﹏╰╥)? ➤ Next: Bait Yamaguchi Mura Chicken