---The unsuspecting dragon went to his private horde of treasure and from behind a huge boulder, the young girl watched as the dragon opened what appeared to be an old antique richly carved chest that must surely trace its history back at least as far as the Ming dynasty. Her eyes went wide in wonder, and she gave a gasp of surprise as the lid opened. The dragon immediately looked up and saw those peering eyes of the intruder.
---"So, I am being spied upon!" roared the dragon when he saw that a human had caught him in the act of gloating over his treasure. Even as a little puff of smoke came belching from his quivering nostrils, he saw how young and vulnerable this trembling female of the human species was. "Caught you now, have I?
---The head of this fire-breathing dragon extended toward her as he swung his green scale-covered neck toward the girl's almost protected position behind her huge rock. Admittedly, the dragon looked fierce as he gave forth sounds and smells that would cause any mortal to quake in their tracks, but the Chinese girl caught a look in the dragon's eyes. It gave her courage to speak and voice her thoughts.
---"I won't tell what I've seen if you will not hurt me," she cried out, and then gave the monstrous beast something he had never witnessed before. She smiled at him, and her smile was radiant as she fluffed out her jet black hair. Then she wiggled one slender shoulder towards the aroused beast.
---"You expect me to believe you after you have viewed my treasure?" He gulped in great quantities of air and could barely restrain himself from belching flame again. She was so lovely and looked so dainty and powerless. The dragon could not resist her appeal and brought his head even closer as if to steal a kiss.
---"Oh my," she managed to sigh as his hot breath caused her to recoil, but then her eyes fell once again upon that golden treasure glittering and gleaming just waiting for the right person to claim it from its resting place in that ancient crumbling carved chest. What good was it doing this ferocious monster of a fire-breathing dragon?
---"Don't be afraid, my little female friend. I will not hurt you as long as you don't try to steal my treasure. I only long for a touch of your kindness," spoke the scaly oversized bird-reptile from a former eon many millenniums past. He carefully studied the rather appealing fresh-eyed girl in front of him.
---"You must know that if your presence is known you will frighten my village," cautioned the girl, thinking of her family and friends. "Will you leave this place if I give you what you seek?" the crafty female ventured to ask. She thought she saw the nod of his head, and so allowed the first kiss a human ever received from such a supposedly mythical monster.
---Afterward, the dragon was faithful to his promise and disappeared, as did his rustically carved antique chest holding all his treasure. What the fair Chinese maiden didn't realize until the first time she looked at her reflection in the surface of a pond was that the dragon's hot kiss turned her skin the same color as the dragon's gold. She had gotten his golden treasure after all. From her came all Chinese and other Orientals, but especially golden were the females!
---Ah yes, most certainly beware the hot-breathed kiss of Oriental dragons. Indeed, it is most magical.
(Except from our book OUT OF THE MOUTH OF A CHINESE DRAGON © 1996 -Gertrude Hii & George Beimers.
There is another great classical Chinese story of a love affair gone awry just a click away. Click here for the best short story you have read in awhile. It does have surprises.
---This young adult fiction was co-authored by Gertrude Hii Beimers, a Chinese from E. Malaysia who collected classical Chinese stories told by her mother and used them throughout a central story about a young Chinese girl with a unique problem. Mee-ing is her name. Mee-ing finds herself a daughter in a family that values sons, a girl in a culture that values boys, and young in a village that respects the old. Sentenced to the role of servant and caretaker, her imagination takes wings when she listens to her mother's stories.
---By day her widowed mother struggles against their poverty and the little family of three manage to survive in their jungle village. The mother the real dragon in the story, fills the children's minds with stories of ghosts, lost children, unhappy brides, and brave maidens. Then Mee-ing finds that she is to be sold as a "child-bride" to the village's butcher who has raised a rascal of a son and needs to provide him with a future wife. How will Mee-ing solve her problem? There is a way...
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