Lessons on Raising a Partner

Chapter 2: Eggs and More Eggs

Elves have always been less enthusiastic about glittering things. Except for the crown on the Queen’s head, it was almost impossible to find other gems in the elves’ habitat. Only humans and dragons were obsessed with these glittering gems. Mankind has always hoped to take more precious stones and gold coins from dragon’s nests, but the ultimate result was that the people themselves were looted by the dragons. But for thousands of years, mankind has never abandoned this lofty idea. Hai’an has been unable to understand what kind of mentality this was.

When Attlei put Hai’an back into the dome-shaped glass dome, she dropped her hand. The glass dome floated steadily in the air. She stood beside him, clasped her right hand on her left hand, and stood still.

Hai’an was a bit bored. He looked around and found that there were many plants under a dome like him floating around him. However, by contrast, Hai’an found that he was the smallest. Most of the other plants were mature, and unlike himself, they were not still germinating at all.

After a while, Attlei put a little yellow flower on Hai’an’s head. The flower petals swayed a few times before a ray of light came down. It was actually sunshine. When the light settled on Hai’an, he felt warm and comfortable. Was it the nature of plants to love sunshine? He couldn’t help shaking his leaves and staring at a group of unmoving plants.

Hai’an: ....

This body was still out of his control. He’d better be quiet.

In this building, besides Attlei, there were a lot of other humanoids coming in, except for a slightly different skin color and facial features they all looked the same. It looked like this was their natural skin color.

The humanoids all held glass domes in their hands, and they began to bring in plants like Hai’an. After that, a lot of strange things began to appear, some of them were oval eggs, some of them had patterns on them while some of them didn’t. But after a hatched egg came in, Hai’an no longer felt that they were just eggs. Some of them were like small dolls, all of which were cuter than Hai’an. Hai’an swears that he also saw a cloth doll while the rest were animals and creatures that Hai’an didn’t know. Some of them were soaked in a yellowish-green liquid, and they occasionally moved while a few of them were ramming about restlessly in their domes.

Hai’an finally saw a woman who could really be called human appear at the door. She was wearing a dress that hugged her curves and it had a slit that went all the way up, revealing snow-white thighs. The sound of her dark blue high-heeled shoes clacking against the floor kept approaching as she moved forward, followed by more than a dozen men, all white were wearing a uniform-tone suit. After the appearance of this woman, all the humanoids stopped and bowed deeply to her.

The woman satisfactorily inspected the room and said to these people, “Okay, you can go and get your own energy source.”

As long as the owner could sell Hai’an at this exhibition, he would not lose money. After all, this was the only seedling of trembling grass in the Goude Galaxy. The owner bought all the seeds of trembling grass in order to monopolize them. As a result, all of them were killed. Rare items were precious, besides, Freeport was never short of big spenders.

After they left, the crowd behind the woman dispersed and opened the domes one by one to examine each floating product.

Hai’an was looking around at the strange plants floating around him. Especially the dome on his left looked very similar to the one he just saw in the greenhouse with branches full of eyes.

When Hai’an was busy thinking, a man had begun to check in his direction. The man was supposed to be responsible for inspecting all plants because the only ones he opened up on the way were plants.

It’s my turn soon.

Hai’an was a little nervous as this was the first time he was going to be touched by human beings in the world. The man stretched out a finger and drew circles around the dome lid. The glass above Hai’an’s head opened. He felt his seedling leaves being touched lightly by the man and he couldn’t help shaking. He looked at the man nervously, but the man was not surprised at all. He slid his finger a few times over his right wrist and Hai’an saw a light blue box with words on it that he could not understand. Then the man dragged the text box through the air and entered several words before leaving Hai’an to go to another plant.

Oh, he went to the dome on Hai’an’s left.

Hai’an instantly felt that it was normal for a plant to move, it wouldn’t shock anyone. There were no leaves on the branches of the teardrop tree, only small balls. These balls were all eyeballs, but they were all currently closed. It was different from the plant with open eyes that Hai’an saw in the greenhouse. After being touched by this man, it opened its eyes quickly, circled it’s pupils a few times and stared at the man in front of it. Then Hai’an saw it clearly. The eyeballs had narrowed slightly, welling up with tears.

Hai’an: ... = =

There was another dome beside the eyeball tree. According to Hai’an’s observation, it was the most beautiful of all the plants there. It looked very beautiful, with lush green leaves and a pink flower on a single pale brown branch. After being poked by the man, the flower shrank into the branch.

Hai’an felt that the plant was shy.

Then the man also made a few movements across his wrist, which should be to record the flora that had been submitted. Other humans seemed to have finished checking their inventory and they went up to the woman and said a few words. But because of the distance, Hai’an did not hear what they were saying.

When the woman listened to them, she immediately smiled and nodded. Two of the men immediately went to the door and closed it. Hai’an suddenly saw the colorful lights on the ground move.

The hall was rising.

Had it not been for the rapid change of light spots on the ground, Hai’an would not have been able to realize that the whole hall was moving. After the spots stopped changing colors, the men inside quickly ran to the door and lined up in two rows on both sides. The two men closest to the door opened it and some well-dressed people rushed in.

But the further back the crowd, it was not just humans that had arrived. Hai’an saw many human-like creatures with skin of all colors who looked less like human beings. They were like animals that had not fully evolved, but a species that Hai’an couldn’t recognize. They whispered in groups, scattering around and appreciating the items beneath the glass domes. Hai’an guessed that this should be some type of auction house. It seemed what they sold were these items that were covered up by the crystal domes because every single creature looked at him like he was some sort of commodity.

Hai’an thought bleakly, ‘I’m going to be sold.’

After people came in one after another, the woman in the blue skirt clapped her hands and the two nearest guards closed the door again.

The whole hall went silent at once.

“Welcome to Freeport’s largest flea market.” The woman in the blue skirt raised her hand and the goods floating in the air followed her. “Only the goods you can catch will belong to you. After you have caught the goods, you can ask the auctioneer to find out the information of the goods and decide whether you wish to buy them or not.” She paused before continuing, “Of course, if you are not satisfied with the goods you have caught, you can either let them go or resell them to other customers who need them.”

After she had said these words, the whole hall began to change. First, the roof of the hall gradually rotated and separated, becoming pieces of debris that flew into the air before gradually converging and narrowing into a ball. It flew back to the woman’s hand where she kneaded the ball a few times and turned it into a green bracelet. When the woman in the blue skirt put the bracelet on her wrist, the floor became transparent, reflecting the whole sky as the roof disappeared.

“Well,” the woman in the blue skirt smiled and continued to lift her hand before abruptly dropping it again. “Now, I wish you all a pleasant shopping.”

As her voice fell, the merchandise in the hall moved as fast as it could without any restraint. But when it moved to the border of the room, it would bounce back and unable to leave.

Hai’an stayed quietly in place. He hadn’t figured out the situation yet. Why hadn’t he moved? Even the teardrop tree on his left was moving, albeit really slowly.