"Li Qingping, wait for me down there!" Cezar shouted while leaning on the railing of the rooftop.
Perhaps he shouted too loudly, as he coughed while clutching his stomach and raised his right hand, suddenly conjuring a book engraved with stripes in the palm of his hand.
The shark was taken aback: "You’re an Anecdote Envoy?"
"I’ve always been an Anecdote Envoy. Both my older brothers are Anecdote Envoys too." As he spoke, Cezar pulled out a card from the Anecdote Atlas, raised the corners of his mouth, "Found it."
The shark focused its gaze and saw only the orange patterned designs on the back of the card.
"An orange patterned card?" Ji Minghuan was stunned for a second, "A generational class anecdote?"
Before the shark could react, Cezar crushed the card, his white hair rising high, and his blue eyes glinting with a strange light.
In the next moment, the crisp cry of a reindeer echoed in the mid-air, like a distant song.
Following the source of the sound, one could see, at this very moment, two reindeer wearing Christmas hats flying from the other end of the sky. A bell-tied rope was fastened around their necks, the trailing end dragging a red sled.
The reindeer trod over wind and snow, their hooves rising and falling, accompanied by the fierce wind and snow brushing past. They dragged the sled through a school of swimming fish, past the spire of the Floating Castle, finally stopping in front of the rooftop.
Cezar cradled the Crystal Ball in his arms, boarded the Christmas Sled, and descended with it towards the courtyard of the Floating Castle. He extended his hand to Li Qingping mid-air:
"Li Qingping, let’s go up and chat!"
Li Qingping was taken aback, then smiled and shrugged, swiftly grabbing the Third Prince’s hand, darting into the sled.
He sat alongside Cezar. Enveloped in a flurry of whipping wind and snow, the reindeer pulled the sled, soaring like a large snake of gathered snow towards the top of the Whale Terrarium.
A luminous school of fish swept past them, stirring up a damp sea breeze mixed with tidal waves, illuminating the sky of the terrarium brightly. Looking up, one could see dolphins frolicking across the surface of the sea through the almost transparent whale skin.
Looking down towards the ocean surface of the Whale Terrarium, the islands gradually shrank into tiny points of light in their view, bouncing in a world where the night had descended.
Li Qingping didn’t seem to be riding Cezar’s Christmas Sled for the first time, and compared to Cezar’s joyful expression, his seemed rather calm, as if indulging a child at play.
After a while, Li Qingping turned his head, examining the shark inside the Crystal Ball:
"A Nobel Shark, huh. Your Highness, is this a gift from the King to you?"
"Yes, it’s a birthday gift from my father." Cezar nodded, "And didn’t I tell you? When it’s just the two of us, just call me Cezar."
"You’re something else, Li Qingping."
Cezar laughed, his pale hair dancing freely in the wind.
At that moment, a soft voice in perfect Beijing-accented Chinese drifted out of the Crystal Ball, breaking the brief silence between them: "Li Qingping, you idiot."
Cezar stiffened all over.
Li Qingping was slightly startled, wondering if the noise of the reindeer’s wind and snow was too loud, or if he was simply too dizzy from a busy day, leading to an auditory hallucination.
"Did the Nobel Shark speak? And in Beijing-accented vernacular?"
Thinking this, he lowered his eyes toward the Nobel Shark in the Crystal Ball.
He saw that the Nobel Shark wasn’t paying him any mind, instead staring blankly at the fish flying across the sky.
"How strange," Li Qingping thought, his face devoid of expression.
He had just lifted his head, intending to speak to the Third Prince, only to hear the faint sound from the Crystal Ball again:
"Li Qingping, you idiot."
Li Qingping quickly lowered his head, staring resolutely at the Crystal Ball.
The palm-sized Nobel Shark was tilted slightly, showing only a plump cheek, its watery eyes fixed innocently on the Third Prince.
"What’s going on..." Li Qingping frowned, the braid atop his head swaying in the breeze.
"Shh!" Cezar tilted the Crystal Ball to one side, gesturing to the shark to keep quiet, then whispered, "Yaguba, what language are you muttering in?"
"It’s a language used by Easterners, we call it ’Chinese’," said the shark, "In Chinese, ’Li Qingping, you idiot’, means Li Qingping is super awesome."
"Oh, I see. ’Li Qingping, you idiot’, I’ve noted it down. When I learn it, I’ll use Chinese to praise Li Qingping too."
Cezar paused, whispering, "Yaguba, after seeing Li Qingping in person, you like him too, don’t you?"
Li Qingping looked at Cezar’s sneaky back and couldn’t help it anymore:
"Your Highness, are you speaking with that Nobel Shark?"
"No," Cezar shook his head, nervously saying, "Li Qingping, you must have heard wrong."
Cezar turned back, wearing a sheepish smile: "You really heard wrong."
"If Your Highness doesn’t mind, can you lend me this shark for a night?"
"No, this is my father’s birthday gift to me!" Cezar clutched the Crystal Ball tighter.
Looking at the innocent smile of the Third Prince, Li Qingping shrugged, thinking today must truly be bizarre, first encountering a twenty-meter tall demon robbing an auction, then a talking Nobel Shark.
But to be fair... even with a genetic mutation turning Nobel Sharks into talking creatures like parrots, they shouldn’t pose much of a threat, right?