Picking up one of her tiny needles, Luna stuck it into his arm many times, letting it fly up and down on it like an exciting dragon. Quickly, tiny beads of blood oozed out of Tolly’s arm.

Nevertheless, Luna didn’t feel intimidated at all. From her beautiful appearance, she looked like Venus on a half shell rising slowly from the sea, but she was tough deep down.

Tolly’s arm was like a tract of land left to be tilled by Luna, on which she was allowed to show her brilliance and sow her talent seeds. Luna, like a hard-working farmer, wiping away the little beads of blood off the arm proficiently, was now concentrating on her artwork.

One could also put it another way, Tolly’s arm was like a small canvas waiting for her to paint the most beautiful picture on it.

Before she knew it, more than two hours had passed. Gazing at her own gorgeous tattoo artwork on Tolly’s arm, Luna heaved a relieving sigh. At last, she finished her artwork.

‘What a nice tattoo!’ she thought.

Taking a sip of water, she wiped the sweat away from her forehead and plunged herself into her chair for a short break.

Maybe one or two minutes later, with his fingers moving a little bit, Tolly eventually came to be wide awake. He gradually opened his eyes, the figure he had seen as a blur was now getting clearer to him.

“Oh, you’re awake at last! It seems you’ve never missed your beauty sleep!” Luna said teasingly.

“What happened to me? Why did I fall asleep?” Tolly asked in surprise.

“To be precise, you just passed out!” Luna blurted out.

“How? I’ve always taken good care of myself. I’ve been trying to eat well and sleep early. This sort of thing has never happened to me before!” Tolly widened his eyes, staring at Luna in disbelief.

“I guess you’ve always been squeamish about blood. When the sight of blood is involved, you will feel sick or even pass out!” Luna explained, “It appears that you’ve made a good choice of trying to gain more strength and courage from a dragon. At least, you won’t be afraid of seeing blood if you become a dragon knight!”

Tolly chuckled, squirming awkwardly. It was at that moment that he felt a vague pain coming from his arm.

“Have you already finished my tattoo? It’s fast!”

“Not at all. You know, it took me more than two hours!” Luna replied.

“Huh? Did I sleep that long?” Tolly gasped in astonishment.

 “Yes, you did. Well, you’ll have to pay me five hundred dollars, but I can knock ten percent off it. Hence, four hundred and fifty dollars will be all right!”  Luna said lightly.

“No sweat! It looks like it doesn’t have to cost me an arm and a leg.” Tolly smiled. He took a few brand-new notes out of his pocket quickly and handed them to Luna.

“Here they are!”

After getting money from his hand, Luna said happily,

“Thank you! Now you can have a close look at my tattoo. Look at yourself in the mirror. I’m sure you’ll be pleased.”

“I bet you must be an amazing tattoo artist.”

With that, Tolly stood to his feet from the leather chair and walked slowly towards the mirror at the corner of the shop. When looking himself in the mirror, he found out that he looked much more invigorated after his beauty sleep. However, he was taken aback when he stared fixedly at the tattoo on his arm.

“Are you sure this is a finished tattoo artwork, Luna?  How come it’s totally different from the one in the picture?” Tolly turned to Luna and asked.

“It’s finished! I can assure you that.” Luna said calmly.

“Are you sure it’s a dragon?”

 “A thousand times yes!” Luna answered without any hesitation.

“But why does it look like an insignificant small snake?” Tolly asked.

 “I did it according to the picture. There’s nothing wrong with it.” Luna said with a raised voice, frowning.

She then picked up the picture on the desk and compared it with the tattoo on Tolly’s arm, adding,

“Look! The nine odd circular patterns of your tattoo look practically identical to the ones in the picture.”

“Well, they are the same, but as for other parts…” Tolly mumbled.

“Maybe just a little bit different. The picture is just for your reference. I guess you have to go by my final work!”

Though not very satisfied, Tolly seemed to have to make do with it.

“Well, it could be that something is wrong with my eyes, or your mirror doesn’t work so well that the reflection in it is contorted. But to tell you the truth, the difference between my tattoo and the dragon in the picture is really big. Can you help make it better, Luna?”

“OK. Customers always prevail as my god, so you are always right. Let me perfect it for you.” Luna gave him a business-like look before she continued,

“But I’m afraid you’ll have to pay me extra money for it. Are you okay with that?”

Tolly fumbled in his pocket, a reflex from his searching for money, but only a few coins were left.

“Uh, my dear Luna, I guess there must be a problem with my eyes indeed. It may look like a combination of a snake and a dragon, but it’s still a dragon after all.  Thank you for your hard work! You know, I don’t want to see my blood again!”

“Good! At first sight, people see it as a snake, but what they see is a dragon indeed. That’s why it’s called Hidden Dragon. In this way, it can bring out its greatest power and launch a fatal strike on the enemies when they let their guard down. You know, if you can learn this kind of wisdom from it, you won’t have to worry about being bullied again in the future!”

“With your kind words, wish me good luck then, thank you!” Tolly said with a light smile.

“Okay! Break a leg! So long!” Luna laughed.

There was something peculiar in her laughter that made Tolly feel awkward. Was ‘break a leg’ pun here? It looked like she had a good sense of dark humor. However, it was abrupt and strange as the way he had just entered the shop.

Tolly walked out of No. 1063 without turning back, with a mixed feeling of trust and suspicion inside.

‘It’s a daylight robbery, isn’t it?” Tolly wondered.

But on second thought, Tolly felt that Jenny would never lie to him, not to mention bully him. Besides, Luna was a pretty girl. How could such a beautiful girl have an evil heart?

‘No doubt the Hidden Dragon on his arm will bring me good luck.’ Tolly reassured himself in his mind, "Yeah, it will bring me good luck VERY SOON!”

Once again standing on the busy Tinselow Street, where people passed him by without any expressions, Tolly felt like he was now a drop into the bucket. He realized he was a nobody in the crowd and infinitely small in this world.

He didn’t walk toward the school. Instead, he went towards some flat blocks whose edges were blurred in the mist at the moment.

He had always preferred to live alone and did not like to be around other students, and they, consequently, always thought he was a weirdo. Hence, he rented a cheap one-bedroom flat outside the school so that he could stay in peace without any disturbance.

He turned right at the end of Tinselow Street, and about a five-minute walk later, he arrived at the flat block where he had always stayed. It was seven o’clock in the evening when he finally got into his small cozy flat.

There wasn’t much furniture inside except a bed, two modest tables, and a sofa. A color television set hung on the wall before the sofa.

He went over to the television and turned it on. Although he preferred to stay alone, he was actually afraid of being lonely. Hence, he would always have the television on no matter what he was doing in his flat. He had no intention of watching TV but taking its sound as background. It acted as a pacifier to help him get rid of loneliness.

Feeling a bit thirsty after a long walk, he filled his kettle on the floor with water and started to boil some hot water for himself.

Sometime after, he sat against a yellow cushion on the sofa, starting to read a book about heliocentrism and geocentric cosmos. It was a bit boring and not as enjoyable as a fascinating web novel.

All the words in the book suddenly turned into tadpoles, swimming around in front of his eyes. The book told him that the earth goes around the sun in an elliptical orbit.

He agreed on it by nodding his head. He nodded and nodded…soon he snored like a trumpet.

And he had a strange dream.

He dreamed that he went back to school. He came across Jenny at the school gate first. She kept smiling at him and Tolly smiled back. And before waving goodbye to him, Jenny even blew him a kiss.

Then he met Sam and his followers when he headed to the school building. They wanted to pick on him by slapping him in the face. In the dream, however, Tolly was not afraid of them anymore.

He proudly showed them his tattoo, which shed a golden light, so dazzling that it could even blind them. It also sent out a great amount of energy and power, with each beam of its light darting at them in droves like sharp arrows. They all fell down to the ground, screaming in pain.

Seeing this, Tolly drew back his lips and put on a big smile, thinking that these bastards would never be able to bully him again.

What a sweet dream!

But usually, good dreams would not last long. His kettle was boiling, whistling so loudly that it was even able to wake the dead. Tolly woke up, though he did not want to wake up from the nice dream. He wished that everything in the dream were true—the kiss, the golden light, and the screams.

He didn’t sleep very well during the night because he thought about the dream again and again, so the next morning, he got up very early. Without any breakfast, he went straight back to school.

Amazingly, the last night’s dream seemed like a prophecy.

He did run into Jenny at the school gate.

“Good morning, Tolly!” Jenny greeted him warmly.

“Morning, Jenny！” Tolly replied with a hint of excitement.

“Have you been to No. 1063?” Jenny asked with great concern.

“Sure. Thank you. Thank you for your suggestion.” Tolly said happily, “Your friend Luna is a nice girl. She’s a beauty with a creative brain and deft hands.”

“She sure is. I’m happy that she’s been able to help you. It seems like you are different now, more confident and with a better sense of humor.” Jenny smiled.

“Am I? You’ve mentioned the word ‘humor’, which literally means ‘fluids in the body.’ You know, getting a tattoo would make him ooze some fluids from my body. You said I got a better sense of humor because perhaps you’ve smelt the scent of my fluids.” Tolly joked, “I hope the special smell of my humorous fluids can purify the odor deeply rooted in the souls of Sam and his followers. Then they will behave well to be good students and stop bullying me in the future.”

“It will. Don’t worry, Tolly. You’ll have a better life here soon. Anyway, break a leg! See you around!” Jenny smiled and waved him goodbye.

“How come you’ve almost said the same thing to me as Luna did when she decided to wave me goodbye!” Tolly asked curiously.

“Maybe it’s just a coincidence or maybe Luna and I have the same sense of humor.”

Then Jenny waved him goodbye again, but she did not blow any kiss as she had done in the dream.

According to the dream, Tolly knew he would soon run into Sam and his followers. Sure enough, Tolly did bump into them after he had simply taken a few steps.

“Fancy meeting you here, little bastard. Anyway, I’ll teach you a lesson. You can’t escape this time!” Sam said nonchalantly.  

He rolled up his sleeves, glaring hard at Tolly as if he would like to tear him apart and eat him alive.

“Only two options for you now, Tolly. Lick my shoes or crawl through under my crotch. I’ll spare you as long as you do either of them!”

“What if I don’t do any of them?” Tolly fumed.

“Then your body will be honest enough to tell you what the true meaning of ‘pain’ is!”  

“I don’t understand, Sam, why do you keep asking me to lick your shoes? Have you grown up like a DOG??? If so, I guess you’ve developed a habit of being into licking the mess?”

“W-w-What?!” Sam got so furious that his hair stood on end. He’s going to explode at any minute.

“Are you deaf or something? Read my lips!” Tolly sneered, pointing to his mouth, “I’ve said you are like a dog that can’t get rid of the habit of licking shit? Do you hear me now?”

Tolly suddenly felt like he had become more eloquent than before. Was it the benefit coming from the tattoo of Hidden Dragon on his arm? It was unbelievable!

"You... You're courting death, you little punk!"