Chapter 1 — The Beggar Husband Turns Out to Be a Dragon

The rain fell on the city at ten o'clock at night, without warning, without a flash of lightning, just suddenly pouring down as if the sky had been holding back for too long. Giang Tuyet Nhi sat in the car, watching the raindrops pounding on the windshield, still feeling a little worried about the gift giving ceremony for disadvantaged children that the group's charity fund had just organized an hour ago. She was the only person in Giang's family who still had the habit of going to the place and personally handing out each gift, instead of just signing the sponsorship budget and letting others take care of the rest.

"Miss, it's raining so hard, let me slow the car down." Uncle Thinh, the driver who has followed Giang's family for nearly twenty years, spoke from the driver's seat, his voice as careful as always.

"Just drive normally, I'm not in a hurry." Tuyet Nhi replied, her eyes still glued to the blurry scene outside the glass window. The streets were deserted at this time, only the yellow streetlights reflected on the water-slicked asphalt, and the store awnings had long been closed.

The car drove through a deserted road near the night market, where during the day it was bustling but at night there was only trash and a few wet cartons left behind. At that moment, out of the corner of her eye, Tuyet Nhi caught a glimpse of a figure huddled under the sagging awning of a closed store, not moving even though the rain was pouring straight into half of her body.

"Uncle Thinh, stop the car!" She exclaimed, her urgent voice causing the driver to suddenly step on the brake.

"Miss, what's wrong?"

"I just saw someone lying there, under the porch." Tuyet Nhi opened the car door, without waiting for Uncle Thinh to stop her, she rushed out into the rain. The cold rainwater hit her face immediately, but she didn't pay attention, just quickly ran to the other person's figure.

It was a man, probably around twenty-five or twenty-six years old, with a thin body in tattered clothes covered in mud, long hair matted by rain and road dust, covering most of his face. His body trembled intermittently, his lips turned pale, his weak breath came out in thin puffs of smoke in the cold air.

"Brother, can you hear me?" Tuyet Nhi knelt down and called out, gently shaking the man's shoulder. His skin was as cold as ice, so cold that she was startled and pulled her hand away for a moment, then raised her hand again, more resolutely.

Uncle Thinh had time to carry an umbrella and run after her, standing behind her, his voice mixed with worry and concern. "Miss, this is just a wandering beggar. Let me call an ambulance and then let's move on, otherwise you will catch a cold."

"No, call the ambulance and then leave. If they're late, this person won't be able to stand it." Tuyet Nhi took off the dinner jacket she was wearing and put it on the strange man, despite the fact that the shirt was more expensive than many people's month's salary. "Help me put him in the car, we'll take him straight to the hospital."

Uncle Thinh wanted to give a few more words of advice, but looking at the young lady's determined eyes, he had to sigh and bend down to help her help the man up. His body was surprisingly light, so thin that when touched you could clearly feel each rib through the torn shirt, but strangely, when the two people carried him up, Tuyet Nhi felt like she was supporting something much heavier than it looked, as if there was some invisible weight hidden inside that skinny body.

She dismissed that strange thought, just focusing on getting the man into the car as quickly as possible. As he lay him down on the back seat, his head tilted slightly to one side, and in that moment, his wet hair parted to reveal part of his face.

Tuyet Nhi paused for a few seconds. It was a strangely sharp face for a wandering beggar, with a straight nose, a strong jawline, and even while unconscious, the eyebrows were still furrowed as if enduring some pain deeper than the cold in the middle of a rainy night. There was something in that face that made her unable to take her eyes off, a vaguely familiar feeling that she couldn't name, as if she had seen her somewhere before, even though she knew for sure she had never met this person before.

"Miss, which hospital should we go to?" Uncle Thinh asked, sitting in the driver's seat and turning the car around.

"Central Hospital, go quickly, uncle." Tuyet Nhi replied, still holding the man's shoulder tightly so he wouldn't fall when the car moved.

All the way to the hospital, she kept paying attention to his breathing, sometimes weak and unusually strong, as if his body was fighting something that conventional medicine could not explain. At one point, she thought she saw a faint ray of light flashing under the skin of his wrist, but when she looked closely, there was nothing left, perhaps just streetlights reflecting through the rain-soaked glass window.

Arriving at the hospital, doctors quickly took the man to the emergency room. Tuyet Nhi sat outside waiting in the hallway, her hands were still shaking from the cold but her heart was burning with nameless anxiety. She called her family to inform her that she would be home late, but deliberately did not state the reason, because she knew how her stepmother and younger brother would react if they knew she was at the hospital because of a strange beggar.

Nearly an hour later, the doctor on duty came out, took off his mask, his face looked a little relieved. "Are you the one who brought the patient in?"

"Yes, how is his condition, doctor?"

"The patient suffered from severe hypothermia, prolonged malnutrition, and several old wounds that had healed but left deep scars on his back, like whip marks or burns from a long time ago. Luckily, you brought him there in time, another half hour delay could have been life-threatening." The doctor looked at her, his eyes a bit curious. "Do you know the patient?"

"No, I just happened to see him lying on the street." Tuyet Nhi replied, then asked more. "Is he awake yet? Can I come in to visit?"

"The patient is not fully awake yet, but you can come in and take a look. We have moved him to the monitoring room."

Tuyet Nhi walked into the hospital room, looked at the man lying on the bed, his face had been wiped clean of mud, his skin was still pale, but his features were becoming clearer and clearer under the white light of the hospital. She pulled out a chair and sat down next to her, not understanding why she felt such deep concern for a stranger she had never known.

Near midnight, the man's eyes moved slightly and then slowly opened. It was a pair of deep black eyes, so deep that Tuyet Nhi felt like she was looking into a bottomless dark water, and in the moment his eyes met hers, she suddenly felt something strange and familiar running down her spine, as if those eyes had seen for thousands of years, not just twenty-five years old.

"Are you awake?" She asked, her voice gentle. "You're at the hospital. I found you passed out on the street in the rain so I brought you here."

The man did not answer immediately, just silently looked at her for a long time, his eyes were complex and unpredictable, a bit wary, a bit like surprise, and deeper still, a fatigue that seemed to have weighed on him for a long time. Finally, he nodded slightly, his voice hoarse because he hadn't spoken for a long time.

"Thank." Just two short words, but that voice was deep and had a strange timbre, not at all like the voices of the people living on the streets she had met during charity activities.

"What's your name? Where are your family members? Can I contact you?" Tuyet Nhi asked, trying to get more information.

The man was silent for a long time, his eyes seemed to be considering something, then finally just answered briefly. "I don't have any family members. My name is Bach Tranh."

"Bach Tranh." She repeated the name, finding it somewhat more special than the common names she imagined a wandering beggar would have. "I'm Giang Tuyet Nhi. You can rest assured to recuperate here, I've already taken care of the hospital bills."

Bach Tranh frowned slightly, seemingly not used to receiving favors from others so easily. "You don't have to do that. I have nothing to give you in return."

"I didn't save you because I wanted you to give me something in return." Tuyet Nhi smiled, her eyes were sincere. "I can't do it when I see someone in trouble and ignore it."

He looked at her for a moment longer, those dark eyes as if trying to read something behind her words, looking for some other intention or purpose, but only saw unadulterated sincerity. It was the first time after many years of wandering that someone looked at him not with disgust or cheap pity, but with genuine concern, as if he was still a human being who deserved to be treated kindly, not just a loser who deserved to be forgotten.

That night, when Tuyet Nhi left the hospital to go home, the rain had completely stopped, leaving only a few drops of water left on the trees along the road, occasionally falling a little. She sat in the car, looking out the window, her heart still lingering on the image of that strange man's deep black eyes. She did not know that the person she had just helped on this rainy night was the crown prince of a tribe that had been hidden among humans for thousands of years, fleeing from a brutal massacre that, if exposed, would not only upset his life but also the fate of the entire clan.

She also did not know that, from tonight onwards, the peaceful and somewhat disciplined life of a rich lady like her would turn in a completely different direction, a direction that no teachings or household rules could prepare her for.

The car drove through the gate of Anh Duong villa, where the lights were still on even though it was late, signaling that her stepmother was probably still awake waiting to ask questions, or to scold her. Tuyet Nhi took a deep breath, preparing herself for what she was about to face, but in her heart, a decision had silently formed without her knowing: she would not let that man return to his wandering path once he was discharged from the hospital. No matter how much his family opposed, she would find a way to help him make a new beginning, kinder than what fate had treated him for so long.