The Birds Keep Ringing Chapter 14
byChapter 14: Pre-Roast Performance – At Worst, I’ll Become a Roasted Suckling Bird, But At Least Before I Die…
The leaf finally landed.
The entire arena fell silent.
Almost the instant it touched the ground, the two men moved.
Yun Zhen found watching those people fight extremely boring, including the match between Lu Feng and Xie Xiaoming. They traded one sword strike for another, like performers on a stage, terrified of accidentally tearing the other’s expensive costume. They could fight for half a day without even touching a single hair.
That wasn’t a duel; it was a martial arts gathering for friendship. The emphasis was on “friendship,” not “martial arts.”
But Jiang Zhi and Lu Feng were different; they genuinely wanted to kill each other.
A fight that stopped short was uninteresting; a fight that ended in death was spectacular.
Yun Zhen perched on top of his Senior Brother’s head, a position with an excellent view. Even so, he could only see two afterimages crossing and tangling in the air. He tried hard to keep his eyes wide open, attempting to discern every move and technique, but they were simply too fast.
Where sword energy crisscrossed, a puff of blue smoke suddenly dispersed, forming a mist that enveloped the two men.
The audience below naturally couldn’t see clearly either, but this didn’t stop them from offering their professional opinions.
“I can’t see their swords!”
“I can barely see the people anymore!”
“I’m nearsighted, so I couldn’t see clearly to begin with.”
“…Then why are you here watching the excitement?”
“For the atmosphere,” the person said self-righteously. “Besides, even if I can’t see, I can hear. Listen to that sound, how crisp. What does that tell you? It means both their swords are excellent.”
The smoke dissipated, and the two figures reappeared.
Lu Feng shook his long sleeve, and the long sword in his hand executed a flourish. The blade hummed, then the tip suddenly vibrated rapidly, transforming into countless sword shadows, dense as rain, assaulting Jiang Zhi from all directions.
The crowd below gasped in unison. Such swordsmanship had reached the pinnacle of mastery!
Wait!
Yun Zhen’s bird body trembled. He saw it—Lu Feng’s other hand was moving inside his sleeve again!
That silver thread! He was going to use that silver thread again!
This man truly embodied the saying, “A gentleman conceals his weapon, awaiting the opportune moment.” Except what he concealed was not a proper gentleman’s tool, but a despicable, underhanded hidden weapon.
Yun Zhen chirped frantically, calling out desperately: “Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!”
Jiang Zhi’s expression remained unchanged. Facing the overwhelming rain of swords, he neither dodged nor retreated. The Fuzhou sword in his hand slashed straight upward from below.
Before the sword arrived, a burst of sword energy had already torn through the rain curtain!
With a barrage of crisp, rain-like clangs, the sword formation was instantly broken.
Lu Feng’s smile didn’t falter, but his left hand gave an almost imperceptible shake. A silver thread, fine as a spiderweb, silently shot out.
Jiang Zhi seemed to have anticipated it. He countered with a backhand slash, the sword edge grazing past the corner of his own robe, cleanly severing the silver thread.
Lu Feng’s expression finally changed.
“Brother Jiang has excellent eyesight,” his voice also turned cold.
Jiang Zhi didn’t reply at all, and his sword momentum suddenly intensified by thirty percent.
Lu Feng also stopped holding back. The refined, elegant, and carefree demeanor of a noble young master vanished completely, replaced by moves that were all lethal strikes.
Just then, blood began to seep from the cuff of Jiang Zhi’s left arm.
His old wound had reopened.
“He’s bleeding! The man in black is bleeding!”
“I knew it! How could Young Master Lu possibly lose?”
“You just said that Jiang Zhi was very powerful.”
“Did I? You must have misheard. I said Young Master Lu was very powerful.”
Yun Zhen thought disdainfully: A fence-sitter, leaning both ways.
Just when everyone thought Jiang Zhi was about to lose, he suddenly smiled.
He looked at Lu Feng, the corners of his mouth curving slightly. The smile was extremely faint, conveying a sense of reckless, destructive madness.
Yun Zhen was startled. Wasn’t this man supposed to have facial nerve paralysis? He could actually smile?
Master saw it too.
He shot up instantly, dropping the osmanthus cake he was holding onto the ground.
“Disaster is coming!” Master jumped up and down anxiously.
If Jiang Zhi actually chopped down Lu Feng, a member of the imperial family, wouldn’t his entire plan be ruined? All five members of their Flowing Cloud Sect would likely face execution!
Seeing that Jiang Zhi was about to gather his full power, any further delay would be too late!
Master grabbed Yun Zhen off Xiao Fengzhi’s head.
“Chirp?!” (What are you doing?!)
“Quick! Fly up! Fly to the center of the arena, as high as possible!” Master urged in a low, hurried voice.
“Go quickly!”
Master didn’t give Yun Zhen a chance to react. He took a deep breath, channeled his Internal Energy, and forcefully tossed him into the air.
Yun Zhen was launched, soaring straight toward the clouds.
Simultaneously, Master’s other hand reached into his robe, pulled out a cloth bag, and violently scattered its contents into the sky. A shower of golden powder drifted down.
Within that glittering “Auspicious Cloud,” a plump pearl bird was flapping its short wings in panic, struggling to maintain balance.
The sunlight shone through, coating its fluffy feathers with a faint halo, giving it a genuine appearance of a Spiritual Creature.
Master cleared his throat, using all his lifelong cultivation, and roared like a great bell:
“An Auspice descends from Heaven! The Divine Bird has manifested!”
This shout was truly like a sudden clap of thunder, causing the entire arena to buzz.
Everyone was stunned.
“What… what is this?”
“A Divine Bird! It’s a Divine Bird!”
“Why is the Divine Bird so fat?”
“You don’t understand! Divine Birds eat heavenly nectar and jade dew in the sky. They have good nutrition, so naturally, they are plump!”
On the stage, Jiang Zhi’s movements paused. He subconsciously looked up at the ball of fluff fluttering in the golden light.
In a contest between masters, victory is decided in a single thread.
Lu Feng possessed keen eyesight. He immediately seized this fleeting opening. A sharp glint flashed in his eyes. He didn’t care if what fell from the sky was chicken feathers or bird feathers. He thrust his long sword forward. One inch closer, and it would pierce the artery and take a life.
The next second, cheers erupted like a mountain tsunami.
“Young Master Lu won!”
“Well deserved! Truly well deserved!”
“See that! It’s the Divine Bird! The Divine Bird manifested to help Young Master Lu claim victory!”
“Young Master Lu is indeed the Chosen One; even the Divine Bird came to assist!”
Master had already squeezed to the edge of the stage and said to Lu Feng, “Congratulations, Young Master Lu!”
He pointed at Yun Zhen: “Young Master Lu, this is the Sect-Protecting Divine Beast of my Flowing Cloud Sect. It absorbs the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and feeds on the essence of the sun and moon. Now, it has come uninvited, surely sensing Young Master Lu’s kingly aura! To show our sincerity, I am willing to present this Divine Beast to Young Master Lu!”
Yun Zhen: “…”
He had seen shameless people, but never anyone this shameless.
Having finished speaking, Master waved his hand toward the sky.
Yun Zhen cursed ten thousand times in his heart, but the act had to continue. He shook the feathers dusted with gold powder and slowly flew down, landing in Master’s hand.
Master held the bird with both hands and respectfully presented it to Lu Feng: “Young Master Lu, please accept this gift.”
“Thank you, Senior, for your generosity,” Lu Feng accepted Yun Zhen.
Yun Zhen landed in a warm palm, but he felt cold all over. He had only one thought: It’s over. Now I really am going into the pot.
Jiang Zhi watched them, silent.
His sword had not yet been sheathed, and blood was still dripping down his arm and clothes, but he gripped the sword tightly, his knuckles white.
Lu Feng turned to Jiang Zhi, his smile deepening slightly: “Brother Jiang, thank you for the match.”
Jiang Zhi stared at him for a moment, then finally sheathed his sword.
He turned and walked away. Amidst the cheers of the crowd, his retreating figure carried an indescribable sense of loneliness, just like the night Yun Zhen saw him burning paper offerings alone on the back mountain.
Yun Zhen watched his back, a sour, choking feeling rising in his heart.
He wanted to say: This is all an act! I’m not really going with him! I actually wanted to peck him; I don’t like him!
But he was just a bird now; he couldn’t say anything.
Lu Feng turned to face the entire arena and announced loudly: “Thank you all for attending! This year’s Martial Arts Assembly concludes here! Tonight, I will host a banquet at the Lu Family manor to entertain all the heroes and celebrate this grand occasion!”
Another wave of cheers erupted below the stage.
Yun Zhen ignored the clamor. His bird brain was a mess.
Why did he feel such a strong urge to tell Jiang Zhi that he didn’t like Lu Feng?
Also, was his Second Senior Brother perhaps… not actually annoyed with him, and might even… might even like him a little?
The moment this thought surfaced, he was startled himself.
How could that be? How could Jiang Zhi, that stone-faced man, possibly like him?
But…
Memory is a strange thing. The scenes he had deliberately ignored now sprang out from every corner of his mind.
He remembered the first time he met Jiang Zhi. He hadn’t been at the Flowing Cloud Sect long and was practicing the body-strengthening technique Master taught him on the back mountain. Then Jiang Zhi appeared. At the time, Yun Zhen was very angry, thinking the man was too rude.
But thinking back now, why was Jiang Zhi there?
Jiang Zhi said he was passing by, but passing by to where? The end of that path was a cliff. Unless Jiang Zhi planned to jump off, he had no reason to take that route.
And later, when he started clinging to Jiang Zhi, following him every day, Jiang Zhi was always cold, but he never truly chased him away.
If you genuinely hated someone and wanted them gone, there were countless ways. Jiang Zhi’s martial arts were so good; a simple scare would suffice.
But he didn’t.
And recently, after he turned into a bird, Jiang Zhi had been incredibly good to him. Not only did he feed him on time every day, but he also specially folded a little nest for him, washed his feathers, and even took him shopping for clothes—though he bought red ones, which Yun Zhen would never forgive him for.
And last night, Jiang Zhi used his arm to block Lu Feng’s sword strike just to protect him.
“You just can’t accept that someone doesn’t like you. You just want to prove that you can make everyone like you…”
When Jiang Zhi said those words back then, was he just trying to push him away?
Why?
Yun Zhen couldn’t figure it out.
If Jiang Zhi liked him, why push him away? If Jiang Zhi didn’t like him, why treat him so well?
What was this man thinking? A man’s mind was harder to guess than a set of nine interlocking rings. Especially Jiang Zhi, that stone-faced man—his mind was harder to guess than nine interlocking rings nested inside nine interlocking rings.
While Yun Zhen was lost in thought, he suddenly felt Lu Feng’s finger gently stroking his feathers.
The movement was light and gentle, like stroking a beloved treasure. But Yun Zhen felt a chill run from the tip of his tail feathers to the top of his head.
He forced himself to calm down. It was fine. Master had a plan; everything was under control. As long as he followed the plan, he would surely succeed. By then, he would be the famous Divine Bird Hero!
Yun Zhen cheered himself up, trying not to think about how hot that alchemy furnace was. But he couldn’t help but wonder: What if Master’s plan failed? What if he was really thrown into the furnace?
The more Yun Zhen thought about it, the more terrified he became, wishing he could transform back into a human instantly and run away. But he couldn’t. He had promised Master to expose the Lu Family’s conspiracy.
And… although he didn’t know what Jiang Zhi was truly thinking, he knew that his Second Senior Brother would protect him.
So he couldn’t back down. He had to prove to Jiang Zhi that he could also become a heroic figure who stood tall! Even if he was just a bird now, he had to be a bird with backbone!
Yun Zhen puffed out his chest, deciding to go all out.
It was just an alchemy furnace. What was there to fear?
At worst, he would become a roasted suckling bird. At least he would smell his own fragrance before he died.
Author’s Note:
That’s very greedy.
The next update should be next Tuesday evening~