Yu Qinghan reached out and pinched Guyu’s tail feathers, his gaze sharp as he looked at the bird. “Where did you learn those words from? Did you sneak off to Xihang’s place to read romance scripts again?”
This little parrot was one that Yu Qinghan had picked up from outside. Because it happened to be during the Grain Rain (Guyu) season, he directly named it Guyu.
In contrast to its petite and cute appearance, Guyu possessed an exceptionally chatty beak that rivaled a myna bird, to the extent that most of the disciples in the Wuji Sect knew their Sect Master had a pet spirit bird with a formidable mouth.
The original Wen Xu had fed Guyu a few times, so Guyu remembered him.
Suspended upside down by its tail feathers, Guyu flapped its wings continuously, its head pointing downward. “Save me, save me! My head is about to hit the ground! Little Xu, save me quickly!”
“Uh…” Wen Xu opened his mouth. “Master, why don’t you let go of your hand first?”
Yu Qinghan glared at Guyu, his icy gaze filled with warning. “Keep chirping and I’ll pluck all your feathers clean.”
With that, he released his grip. Guyu immediately escaped his vicinity, flying straight into Wen Xu’s arms while continuing to squawk at the top of its lungs: “Big bad guy! Big bad guy! Master is a big bad guy!”
Wen Xu opened his hands and carefully cradled the tiny parrot. Looking at that fluffy little head, he couldn’t resist reaching out to stroke it.
It was actually quite soft.
A faint smile bloomed on Wen Xu’s face. Raising his eyes with sparkling pupils, he looked right at Yu Qinghan and said, “Master, it’s so cute! Its feathers are so soft. Is it a boy or a girl?”
“Guyu is a boy! Guyu is a boy!” Guyu shouted, actively rubbing its head against the palm of Wen Xu’s hand while speaking.
Yu Qinghan’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he snagged the bird back again, once more pinching its tail feathers.
Guyu started flapping its wings again. “Master is a hooligan! Touching people’s bottoms again! Hooligan, hooligan! Little Xu, you need to stay far away from this hooligan!”
Wen Xu: “…”
Just who was the hooligan here? A moment ago, it had been trying to make him kiss Yu Qinghan.
Speaking of kissing…
Wen Xu cast a stealthy glance at Yu Qinghan’s mouth: thin lips, very pale in color, looking completely cold and in reality, they truly were quite cold.
He recalled that day when he had been forcefully kissed by Yu Qinghan. Those thin lips had been slightly cool, yet exceptionally soft. Even though he was the one who had been kissed, it actually hadn’t felt bad at all…
“Ah-ah-ah! What kind of chaotic nonsense am I thinking about!” Wen Xu’s face flushed hot, and he clutched his head, shaking it left and right.
The man and the parrot beside him both looked at him in total incomprehension.
“Indeed, what kind of chaotic nonsense are you thinking about, A-Xu? Not only are you shaking your head like a rattle-drum, but your face is also this red. Could it be that you’re thinking of something lustful?” Yu Qinghan’s eyes were as deep as an ancient pool, a trace of mischievous amusement curling the corners of his mouth.
Guyu chimed in from the side: “Lustful! Lustful! Little Xu is lustful!”
“I am not thinking of anything lustful!”
Wen Xu’s face instantly blazed crimson red, the flush spreading all the way down his neck and diving straight into his collar. His fair skin took on a delicate pink hue that looked remarkably striking.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to show me the little snake, Master? Where is the snake? How come there’s only a parrot and no snake?”
Hearing this, Guyu became displeased. “What’s wrong with a parrot? Aren’t parrots good-looking? Why does Little Xu want to see a snake and not a parrot?!”
“Of course not, Guyu is very cute. But since Master said he wanted to show me some little snake, I was just curious! Be a good bird, Guyu~” Although Wen Xu found this parrot somewhat exhausting, he still rescued it from Yu Qinghan’s grip and gently stroked its fluffy little head.
Guyu squinted its bean-sized, glossy black eyes, looking thoroughly gratified.
Yu Qinghan’s gaze turned cold. “Guyu, where is the Sparrow?”
Guyu widened its eyes though widening those tiny eyes looked pretty much identical to squinting them.
Flapping its wings twice, it reported, “It’s sleeping in the forest! Oh right, Master, Sparrow can talk now!”
Yu Qinghan was astonished. “It can actually talk?”
He had raised the Sparrow for two hundred years, constantly feeding it spirit fruits, spirit grasses, and elixirs. It was much older than Guyu, but snakes and parrots were different after all; parrots naturally learned how to speak.
The Sparrow, however, had (constantly/always) been unable to utter a single word. Murong Wenyu didn’t know what was going on either, only dropping the remark that perhaps the time simply hadn’t arrived yet.
To think it could suddenly speak just like that, Yu Qinghan’s mood was genuinely stirred with a bit of excitement.
“I’ll go wake Sparrow up!”
Without letting Guyu go, Yu Qinghan directly led Wen Xu deeper into the forest.
Cradling the small parrot, Wen Xu gazed curiously in all directions. Once inside the forest, that sense of cool shadow became even more pronounced.
The sky was almost entirely hidden overhead, with only a few strands of golden sunlight filtering down through the gaps in the branches to cast mottled pools of light upon the ground.
Yu Qinghan stopped in front of a short tree whose golden leaves formed a sharp contrast with the surrounding emerald-green branches and foliage.
There was a nest resting upon the tree, glittering with a golden hue, though it was unclear what materials it was woven from.
Enviously, Wen Xu muttered, “Must be nice. Even the nest is made of gold…”
“Daddy! Daddy!”
A crisp, bright voice interrupted Wen Xu’s thoughts. Immediately afterward, he saw a slender, pristine white little snake poke its head out from the golden nest. Its crimson eyes genuinely resembled pomegranate seeds; at first glance, it looked as though the white snake jade carving from earlier had come to life.
Yu Qinghan extended his hand, and the little white snake slithered along his arm up onto his shoulder, then rubbed its round head against his cheek while continuously crying out “Daddy.”
Its voice couldn’t have sounded sweeter.
Hearing this, Yu Qinghan felt his heart melt into a pool of warmth. An inexplicable sentiment of ‘my family’s child has finally grown up’ washed over him, and the gaze he directed at the little white snake held a tender, fatherly warmth.
“Daddy?” Wen Xu tilted his head, locking gazes with the little white snake. “Why does it call Master ‘Daddy’? Could it be… is it Master’s son? No wonder it looks so much like Master!”
Yu Qinghan choked slightly on these words, a speechless expression crossing his handsome face as he said in a cold tone: “What kind of nonsense are you spouting?! I am all alone; with whom would I birth a little snake? Weren’t you the one who wanted to touch the little snake? Now the snake is right in front of you go ahead and touch it.”
Wen Xu grumbled inwardly: I didn’t want to touch it at all, alright? I was clearly forced into touching a snake!
Though he thought this, Wen Xu still curiously stretched out a single finger to stroke the little white snake’s head.
The little white snake stayed completely well-behaved and motionless, allowing him to pet its head.
“How is it? Is the little snake nice to pet? Does it feel much better than that jade carving?” Yu Qinghan asked.
At first, Wen Xu thought nothing of this remark, but once he turned it over in his mind, it sounded rather strange.
“The texture is indeed quite nice cool and smooth.” Presumable because it was a baby snake, it felt quite soft to the touch, unlike Yu Qinghan’s rigid true form.
Tilting its head, the Sparrow stared curiously at Wen Xu. “Daddy, who is he?”
The Sparrow had always been raised within this patch of forest and had never stepped foot outside. Aside from Murong Wenyu, nobody else knew of its existence.
“Sparrow! His name is Little Xu. Let me tell you, I just saw him and Master kissing!” Guyu excitedly shared gossip with the Sparrow.
Upon hearing this, the Sparrow’s crimson eyes instantly lit up. “Kissing with Daddy? That means he’s Mother! Mother! Mother! I have a Mother!”
Wen Xu: “Pfft!”