'Auntie, you really don't look like you're acting at all.'
'It's as if you really had such a rebellious family member at home...'
In the next part of the plot, under Little Light's guidance, Leon meets Rossweise again.
But Claudia isn't the only obstacle in the way of their relationship.
They have to face the anger and condemnation of two nations, endure a life of wandering, fall into a witch's trap, and experience life-and-death trials.
Just as they are about to escape to an ideal secluded paradise, right before the arrival of their beautiful new life, the princess is cursed by the witch and falls into an eternal coma.
"No! No!"
(Snowflakes flutter, the north wind whistles)
"Darling, you can't leave me like this! You can't just leave!"
On stage, Rossweise "falls into a coma" and lies in Leon's arms.
Leon holds her head, looks up at the sky and laments, tears streaming down his face. Actually, he rubbed onion juice near his eyes before going on stage, or else he'd easily burst out laughing.
Just thinking about the mother dragon falling into a coma makes him too happy (because he could dress her up as a black silk bunny girl and take a ton of pictures again, hehe).
Though he's enjoying himself inside, his performance still came out emotionally powerful.
Many little young dragons in the audience started to worry, would the beautiful princess ever wake up?
The plot continued to progress.
The knight played by Leon, after the princess fell into a coma, traveled the world, just to find a way to wake her up.
This matter was soon known by both nations.
The princess falling into a coma was no trivial matter.
But because of the ongoing war between the two countries, neither side was willing to be the first to stop and make a statement.
In the end, it was the knight's persistent love for the princess that moved them.
The knight was no longer fighting the world alone, he had supporters for the first time.
In the final scene, the knight finally found a way to awaken the princess.
They reunited by the seaside at sunset, tying in with the play's title "As Love Sets in the West."
Leon held Rossweise in his arms, waiting slowly for her to wake up.
The stage lighting created a sunset atmosphere, ambiguous and soft.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes at one side of the stage, Helena walked up to Noah.
"It's almost curtain call. We did it, Noah."
Noah nodded, "Yeah, we... did it."
"Oh right, that final line mom asked me to revise at the beginning—"
"Don't worry, before the show started, my dad said he'd already thought of the most suitable line."
Little sea dragon girl's eyes lit up, "Really?"
"Mhm, really. Although I don't know what kind of line he'll say... I believe in him."
On stage, Rossweise slowly awakened.
The male and female leads looked into each other's eyes, the "sunset" light reflected in their pupils.
Ambiguous like silk, rippling in their eyes, unable to be cut, entangled and messy.
"You finally woke up," Leon said in a low voice.
Rossweise was also a little into the act.
She gazed at Leon's deep black eyes and softly responded, "Mm…"
In the script, after the princess replies, comes the very last line of the entire play.
That one line Helena revised many times but was never satisfied with.
Rossweise was also curious what Leon would say.
Would it be the simple but formal "I've been waiting for you"?
Or a long but romantic "several-hundred-word essay"?
Or perhaps...
Rossweise couldn't guess.
Because this man always surprises her.
"Rossweise."
This wasn't the female lead's name in the play, but Leon insisted on calling her real name at this moment.
Of course, Leon's willfulness had limits, only the two of them on stage could hear this "Rossweise."
Rossweise looked at him in slight surprise, 'This idiot actually… called my real name… What is he trying to do?'
"Rossweise...", He looked back into Rossweise's eyes, and under the gaze of over a hundred people in the audience, slowly spoke, "I love you."
———
In the evening, all the stage play performances came to an end.
It was time for the real scoring and judging segment.
The little directors and little screenwriters of each group went up on stage, five groups in total, lined up in a row.
The specially invited judge from the top-tier stage play troupe of Sky City slowly walked onto the stage, standing in front of the little dragonlings.
Down below the stage, Leon's family and Claudia sat in the audience seats, nervously awaiting the final results.
Honestly, Leon wasn't confident about the results of this competition.
In the past, things like champion or first place were always achievable relying on either his or Noah's top-tier personal ability. And the father-daughter duo happened to be very confident in their own skills, so when waiting for results, they were naturally never nervous.
But stage plays weren't something Noah had ever done before, and it was Leon's first time trying too.
Judging the quality of a stage play involved many factors, and Leon wasn't a professional, so he didn't know how his performance compared to others'.
Everything depended on that professional judge from the stage troupe.
He took a deep breath, tried to adjust his nervous mood, then turned to look at Rossweise beside him.
He saw Her Majesty the Queen staring straight ahead, her pretty and cold face as expressionless as usual.
However, Leon still noticed a trace of something off.
Her current blank expression didn't seem like icy aloofness. It looked more like... distraction.
Looking closely, one could even see a faint blush on her face.
"Hey."
Leon called out to her.
But Rossweise didn't really react.
"Hey, what are you thinking about?"
As he asked, Leon gently bumped her shoulder.
Only then did Rossweise come back to her senses, "Huh? Ah… no, nothing."
"Really nothing?"
"Really nothing. I just... just a little nervous, yeah, a little nervous."
Rossweise pursed her lips, raised her hand to tidy her hair, then looked up at the stage.
Leon looked at her profile, knowing she wasn't actually as nervous as she claimed.
He had seen what Rossweise looked like when she was truly nervous, she would force herself to calm down, and that sense of inner conflict couldn't be faked.
But right now, she was clearly distracted by something else.
Perhaps noticing Leon's scrutinizing gaze, Rossweise glanced sideways at him and pouted slightly.
'Hmph, did you expect this queen to honestly tell you the truth?'
'To say I'm reminiscing over the last line you just said on stage?'
'That kind of thing should be buried deep in this queen's heart, no one must ever know!'
Even when she noticed Leon's probing, Rossweise decided to play dumb all the way through.
Anyway, the dog man was always so polite, if others didn't want to talk, he wouldn't ask too much.
Sure enough, after a few seconds of giving her the look, and seeing she was committed to pretending all the way, Leon gave up on pursuing it.
Right now, the most important thing was their precious daughter's ranking.
"Everyone did really well today. Each group had its own strengths, excellent job~"
The judge shook the envelope in his hand and continued, "And the scores for everyone's performances are already in here."
"Now, we'll announce the results from fifth place upward. Everyone, get ready~"
With that, the judge slowly opened the envelope.
To make the atmosphere more tense and exciting, and better engage the little dragons, the judge used a set of fluent, lively, but slightly exaggerated facial expressions.
First surprise, then excitement, finally "that makes sense."
Noah raised an eyebrow slightly and whispered, "No wonder he's a professional stage actor."
Helena covered her mouth and laughed softly, "You know what I like most about you, Noah?"
"What?"
"Whenever you encounter someone excellent, you never hold back your praise."
Noah smiled, "Praise is to mark a label, and then strive toward that label."
Helena tilted her head, intrigued, "Then who's the person you've labeled the most?"
Noah replied without hesitation, "My dad."
The two best friends smiled at each other, then stopped chatting and quietly waited for the judge to announce the results.
"Fifth place is—"
The judge deliberately elongated the tone, his gaze sweeping back and forth over the young dragons.
Tensing everyone's nerves.
"Angela and her little troupe~ Congratulations~"
Angela and her little screenwriter looked at each other, smiled, though their smiles were a little bitter and helpless.
Although the ranking wasn't high, the five troupes chosen to perform officially were selected through many layers of filtering.
So on this stage full of top competitors, even if the ranking wasn't ideal, it was still a fine work standing on the corpses of countless rejected scripts.
Just a pity.
Everyone gave Angela and her screenwriter a round of applause.
"Next up is the fourth place~"
"..."
After two rounds of announcements, it was time to decide the final champion and runner-up.
And the ones left on stage were Noah, Helena, and another group of students.
That group was also among the top performers usually, which gave Noah a fair bit of pressure.
In the main performance, they had also earned waves of cheers from the audience.
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