Reborn Dragon General: My Troopers Spoil Her Wildly

Four-year-old Lila curled up inside a rusted iron dog cage barely half a meter tall, the cold metal bars biting into her thin shoulders and bony back. The cage had originally been built to lock up the landlord’s fierce hunting hound, a brute beast with a vicious temper that once terrified the entire slum neighborhood. Now, that feral hound was long gone, abandoned by its owner after biting a local resident, and the cold iron prison had become the only shelter for a helpless little girl abandoned by the cruelty of fate.

Her tattered thick coat was patched over seven or eight times, crude uneven stitches crisscrossing the worn fabric like ugly scars carved into old cloth. The cotton wadding bulged out from every torn opening, soaked pitch-black by three straight days of nonstop torrential rain, heavy, damp and icy against her fragile little body. Lila tucked her small face tightly between her cold, bony knees, her slender frame trembling violently like a withered autumn leaf caught in the howling storm wind that swept through the narrow alley. In her mouth, she clamped a damp, slightly moldy shoelace she had scavenged from the overflowing garbage heap at the alley entrance. Hungerness gnawed at her stomach relentlessly, a hollow burning ache that never ceased day or night, and sucking on the damp lace was the only childish trick she had to fool her empty belly into temporary comfort, to pretend she was not starving alone in the cold dark.

The muddy slum alley was shrouded in thick gray mist, rain pouring down in heavy endless curtains, blurring the dilapidated shabby wooden houses lining both sides. Puddles spread everywhere on the cracked broken road, reflecting dim flickering streetlights that barely cut through the gloomy fog. The whole neighborhood reeked of mold, rot, stagnant sewage and the bitter chill of endless rain, a forgotten corner abandoned by the glamorous prosperous city beyond the slum’s boundary. No wealthy citizen ever stepped foot here, no kind soul ever cared for the poor children left to wander and starve.

At the faint sound of heavy military boots crunching through muddy puddles, cutting sharply through the monotonous patter of rain, Lila slowly lifted her head with extreme difficulty. Her long, delicate eyelashes were crusted with a thin layer of icy frost, flaking away piece by piece with every slight movement, revealing a pair of large, watery, bloodshot eyes filled with exhaustion, cold fear, and desperate longing that no child should ever carry. Her small nose was red and swollen from the bitter cold, her lips chapped, pale and trembling as she forced out a whisper so faint it was almost swallowed entirely by the downpour.

“Daddy… Is it really you? Have you finally come back home to me?”

Kane Voss stood motionless at the alley entrance, his tall, broad frame cloaked in a mud-stained dark military overcoat lined with thick wool. His sharp facial features were carved like cold marble, his jawline tight and rigid, his deep ocean-blue eyes clouded with raging storm, crushing guilt, bone-deep pain and chilling killing fury suppressed beneath a calm surface. Three long brutal years of endless bloody battles on the Northern Frontier, endless wars against brutal barbarian tribal alliances, countless freezing nights sleeping on snowfields soaked with enemy blood, countless life-or-death duels against warlords and assassins—he had endured hell on earth, fought and conquered death time and again, risen step by step to the supreme rank of Dragon Lord General, the undisputed commander of the legendary Ten Thousand Dragon Legion, the most feared and respected elite force across the entire Western Alliance continent.

He had faced thousands of enemy soldiers alone, charged headlong into dense enemy formations without a single flinch, stood against deadly blizzards and hidden poison assassinations, never once showing weakness, never once shedding a tear on the battlefield. But in this rainy filthy slum alley, staring at his own flesh and blood daughter trapped like a stray abandoned animal in a rusted dog cage, his rock-solid iron heart forged by war shattered into countless pieces in an instant.

Kane’s throat tightened abruptly, as if clamped shut by red-hot steel wire, making it nearly impossible to draw a breath. Floods of warm, tender, long-buried memories crashed into his mind unbidden, sweeping away the blood, smoke and cruelty of the battlefield in an instant. He recalled the bright summer day he left home three years ago, golden sunlight spilling over their cozy suburban villa on the outskirts of West City. He had personally assembled a luxurious custom princess bed for his baby daughter, draped with soft pink lace curtains, carved with delicate rose and lily patterns all around the wooden frame. Little Lila had twirled around happily on the soft mattress in a flowing white chiffon dress, her laughter bright, clear and pure as wind chimes ringing in the summer sunlight, shouting her thanks to him over and over again with innocent childish joy.

That perfect peaceful life had once been his entire world—the quiet warm villa, his gentle talented pianist wife Elara, his lovely lively little daughter Lila, a calm future waiting for him once his military frontier service came to an end. But everything had crumbled into ruin the moment he stepped onto the battlefield and marched north. That beautiful princess bed had long been sold off cheaply to greedy secondhand furniture dealers, every piece of valuable furniture, every precious ornament pawned one by one, all to pile up endless overwhelming medical bills that crushed his helpless family deep into the cold mud of despair.

In its place stood this cold, humiliating iron cage, its metal bars still marked with deep gnawing tooth scars left by the landlord’s vicious hound long ago—a burning humiliating brand seared permanently into Kane’s soul as a father and husband.

“I’m home, my baby girl.” Kane’s voice was hoarse, gravelly, thick with suppressed emotion he could barely contain behind his cold exterior. His calloused, battle-worn fingertips slowly brushed over the countless tiny dents and scratch marks carved into the cage bars—faint, uneven indentations left by Lila’s tiny fingernails as she clung to the bars through endless lonely, freezing, hungry nights, crying silently for her father who never returned and her mother who had vanished into the dark downtown nightlife. Those small fragile marks were etched deep into his bones, an unbreakable curse of guilt, pain, regret and unquenchable rage burning relentlessly in his veins.

Behind him, elderly neighbor Old Madam Hale leaned heavily on a weathered faded oil-paper umbrella, her gnarled wrinkled hands gripping a rough wooden cane that sank deep into the soft saturated muddy ground. The iron ferrule at the cane’s top sunk into the muck, trembling slightly with her unsteady aged breath. Her gray thin hair was soaked flat by rain, sticking to her wrinkled forehead, her cloudy old eyes filled with endless pity, sorrow and helplessness as she looked at the trapped child and the broken hearted man standing before her.

“Don’t blame Elara blindly, Kane. It was never her selfish choice to abandon little Lila and fall into the dark sinful world downtown.” Her weak trembling voice echoed beneath the endless patter of rain, carrying the heavy weight of bitter helplessness no ordinary person could bear. “Only three months after you departed for the Northern Frontier to fight the endless brutal wars, your mother was diagnosed with terminal late-stage lung cancer. The hospital’s urgent billing notices piled up like endless falling snowflakes, each one heavier than the last, pressing this already broken family to the very brink of total collapse. We had no savings left, no wealthy relatives willing to lend a single cent, no way whatsoever to gather the huge sum needed for her life-saving surgery and treatment.”

She paused, swallowing hard to hold back her old burning tears, then continued in a shaky mournful tone. “Then your greedy scheming cousin showed up out of nowhere, lying smoothly and convincingly that the infamous Nightfall Lounge in the busiest downtown district could let Elara earn enough money for the life-saving surgery fees in just one month. He tempted her with false hope, cornered her with desperate circumstances, left her with no other visible choice but to step into that den of luxury, lust and sin.”

Old Madam Hale reached into the inner pocket of her faded indigo linen coat and pulled out a crumpled, water-soaked slip of notebook paper. An address was scribbled messily in blue ballpoint ink, the lines blurred and smudged by rainwater until they were almost unreadable, yet still clear enough to recognize the notorious street where Nightfall Lounge stood.

“I saw her with my own two eyes yesterday morning, when I delivered fresh farm groceries downtown. She’s forced to wear those scandalously short revealing cocktail dresses, standing at the dim shadowed entrance of Nightfall Lounge, lighting expensive cigars and cigarettes for lecherous wealthy middle-aged men with a hollow, lifeless expression in her eyes… She’s lost every trace of the pure graceful piano girl we all once knew.”

Kane’s large powerful hand squeezed the crumpled paper until his knuckles turned deathly white, the sharp rough paper edges slicing deep into his calloused battle-hardened palm. A drop of fresh hot blood welled up instantly from the cut, dripping down onto the blurred ink and merging into a dark muddy stain that spread across the paper. The dazzling flickering neon lights of Nightfall Lounge flashed vividly in his raging memory, overlapping sharply with the pure elegant image of Elara in her pristine white graduation gown back at Weston University’s grand concert hall.

He could still see her clearly in his mind, standing center stage under a single brilliant spotlight, the bright white light bathing her slender graceful figure alone. Her delicate slender fingers danced nimbly across the black and white piano keys, the soft soul-stirring melody of Moonlight Sonata flowing gently through the silent hushed hall like clear water rippling under silver moonlight. She had turned her head to look straight at him sitting quietly in the front audience row, a soft sweet smile curving her perfect lips, her beautiful eyes sparkling like starlight trapped in clear glass, full of innocent love and bright hope for their peaceful future together.

“I’ll play the piano for you forever, Kane,” she had whispered softly to him back then after the performance, her tone clear and sweet as wind chimes floating on a summer evening breeze. “When you finally return safely from the Northern Frontier wars, we’ll buy the most luxurious handcrafted Steinway grand piano, turn our villa’s spacious living room into a sunlit music room, and spend every quiet evening listening to soft piano melodies under the moonlight.”

That gentle heartfelt promise had been etched deeply into his heart, a warm guiding light that kept him alive through countless bloody battles, freezing blizzards and lonely nights on the frontier. Now that light was dimmed, tarnished, stained with sin and humiliation, almost destroyed beyond all recognition.

Kane slowly turned toward the rainy alley exit, his heavy military boots crushing deep into muddy puddles and splattering dirty mud all over the dragon-shaped birthmark wrapped around his ankle—the most noble ancient bloodline mark of the hidden Dragon Clan, its intricate scaled lines still carrying the bitter frost and terrifying killing aura of the Northern Frontier battlefields. At this moment, the sacred ancestral mark seemed to mock him silently, mocking his failure as a son, a loyal husband and a protective father.

Behind him, the rusted iron dog cage swayed gently in the storm wind and rain, the metal bars creaking softly as if someone was calling him back, begging him to save them from the endless abyss of despair. But Kane dared not look over his shoulder, terrified that one single glance would drag him down into the bottomless pit of crushing guilt, pain and helpless despair lingering in that cold cage forever. His heart burned with an unquenchable fire of rage that could burn the entire downtown district to ashes, and he knew without a shadow of doubt—tonight, Nightfall Lounge and everyone who had hurt his family would pay a blood price they could never afford.