Of the three stories in Part A, the story of "My Lord Bag of Rice" was the only one that particularly caught my interest.
In particular, it could be interesting to potentially explore the potential future of the relationships between the hero and the dragons he saved.
In the original story, the king of the dragons lies in wait, covering a bridge with his fearsome bulk. When the hero steps over the dragon, the dragon transforms into a human and asks the hero for help. Each night a dreadful giant centipede attacked the palace and carried off one of the dragon's children or grandchildren.
The hero goes to the dragons' palace and after feasting all day, confronts the centipede as it approaches. His first two arrows fail to strike true, but by coating the third arrow in his saliva, it strikes the centipede dead and the hero is praised and rewarded by the dragon king.
A potential story idea I had would be to do a gender swap of the dragon king to a dragon queen and make the hero a woman. Then, when the hero slayed the great centipede, instead of leaving with some rewards, I think it might be interesting for them to instead marry one of the dragons and become the next dragon queen by proxy.
Story Source: "My Lord Bag of Rice" by Yei Theodora Ozaki [Part A] [Part B] [Part C]
Image Source: Dragon Yin-Yang Clipart by CLkr-Free-Vector-Images
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