Chapter 17
Chapter 17
Shengsheng Zhou hesitated.
In stories, didn’t mysterious sounds like this always lead the heroine to a new plot event?
Could it be Zhiyu Jiang?
Suppressing a breath of excitement, Shengsheng crept toward the noise. She parted the brush and, by the moonlight just climbing through the branches, made out the scene beyond.
A thick, vicious-looking cobra was hunting.
Its prey stood a short distance away, fluttering frantically. Downy feathers bristled over its entire tiny body as it faced the coiled snake in rigid alarm, two beadlike black eyes fixed on its enemy.
Shengsheng tilted her head.
It was a minuscule chick.
Perhaps it belonged to Ai Liu. Shengsheng had noticed that the couple kept poultry when she arrived.
She glanced at the cobra, which looked every bit as venomous as it presumably was. Her fists clenched. She had barely shifted one foot when it landed on another accursed branch.
Snap.
Both animals turned to look at her.
Meeting the cobra’s vertical pupils, Shengsheng clasped her hands politely.
“Pardon the interruption. Please, carry on. I’ll be leaving now. Goodbye.”
She turned without a trace of reluctance and ran for her life.
Sorry, little chick. One of us had to survive.
She assumed that if she ran fast enough, the snake would not bother pursuing her.
She was wrong.
Before she had taken more than a few strides, grass rustled behind her under the swift passage of a reptile. Shengsheng looked back.
Sure enough, the hateful cobra was coming after her.
“Why are you chasing me?” she shouted furiously. “I’m not trying to steal your dinner!”
The moment the words left her mouth, something shifted on top of her head.
Shengsheng reached up. Fine, soft down brushed her fingertips, and a tiny weight promptly sidestepped her grasp.
Only an idiot would fail to understand what had happened.
She gritted her teeth.
“You certainly know how to hide!”
As if responding, the chick lowered its head and calmly preened its fluff with its tiny beak. A sly gleam filled its bead-black eyes.
Shengsheng, busy fleeing for her life, could not see it.
Even if she had, she probably would not have found it especially remarkable.
No nation had even been founded in this era yet. Why shouldn’t animals learn to scheme?
Fortunately, it seemed her life was not destined to end there.
When she failed to return, Ai and Daniu came searching with torches. Shengsheng spotted the distant flames and immediately screamed, “Help! Help me!”
They rushed toward her voice. Daniu had spent years moving through the forest, and the sound alone told him that a snake was likely pursuing her.
He always carried realgar powder. As soon as Shengsheng reached them, he flung a handful behind her.
The cobra recoiled from the smell. However unwilling it might have been to abandon its prey, it quickly vanished into the grass.
Shengsheng bent over, gasping, while Ai hurried forward to support her.
That evening, Ai prepared an enormous dinner. She brought out enough food for a New Year’s feast, emptying the household’s store of delicacies in their honor.
Born to wealth and power, Siran Ming regarded even their most precious offerings as crude fare. Still, he was a guest under their roof and made no complaint.
Shengsheng, on the other hand, understood that they had placed everything good in the house on the table. She honored the gesture by eating with tremendous enthusiasm.
The chick occupied one tiny corner of the table. It regarded the food on its little saucer with unmistakable distaste.
Ai studied it uncertainly.
“Miss Shengsheng, it won’t eat.”
It was impressive that she could detect disgust in eyes so small.
Shengsheng swallowed the bite in her mouth and glanced at the little creature that had attached itself to her for no apparent reason.
“Don’t worry about it, Auntie. It probably isn’t hungry.”
She had originally assumed it was one of Ai and Daniu’s chicks. Ai, however, insisted that it did not belong to them.
Apparently, Shengsheng had acquired a wild chicken.
“The water in Jishui Lake felt lovely, didn’t it?” Ai Liu asked after dinner as she spread bedding for Shengsheng Zhou on the floor.
“Jishui Lake? Is that the lake’s name?”
Shengsheng took a bite from an apple.
Siran Ming, sitting on the bed, gave a pointed cough. She reluctantly tossed him one as well. When he rewarded her with a grateful smile, she quickly looked away.
She could not stand it. Did he have to keep smiling?
She finally understood why Siran had avoided smiling before losing his memory. He must have known precisely how shamelessly seductive he looked.
“Yes,” Ai said. “Its original name was Moonbank Lake, but we all call it Jishui Lake.”
The words *Moonbank Lake* stirred something in Siran’s memory. When he tried to pursue it, agony stabbed through his head, forcing him to stop.
Shengsheng merely nodded.
After Ai left, she settled onto the pallet. The chick perched on her shoulder fluttered down, scratched aside the bright red peony-patterned quilt until he found a comfortable hollow, then nestled in.
His fastidious behavior reminded Shengsheng of someone else.
“The floor is cold,” Siran said as she prepared to lie down. “Wife should come share the bed with me.”
Her expression remained unchanged.
“That won’t be necessary, Your Majesty. Your imperial person is injured, and I sleep restlessly. It would be dreadful if I rolled over and crushed you.”
*Ask me one more time and I’ll agree. But don’t blame me when you wake tomorrow and find every injury worse.*
Siran immediately closed his mouth.
What unspeakable grudge did this woman hold against him?
The fuzzy little bird had already shut his eyes, but the couple’s peculiar forms of address made his feathers twitch. He opened two beadlike eyes and regarded them with derision.
When Shengsheng noticed, she reached out to stroke him.
The bird dodged.
His tender-yellow down was so soft that it practically begged to be petted. Unfortunately, the creature had a stubborn temper. No matter how sweetly Shengsheng coaxed, he refused to let her touch him.
That gave her an idea.
“Why don’t I give you a name?”
The thought of naming things immediately brought back the terror of living under Fusheng Duan’s rule.
She had been called Tail. Perhaps the bird she had picked up ought to take a similarly distinguished name after the person who owned him.
“I found you at Jishui Lake, and my old name was Tail. In that case, you can be called…”
She considered the matter with great seriousness.
“Pecker?”
The person naming, the person not naming, and the creature being named all fell silent.
Only after the word escaped did Shengsheng seem to realize that it sounded indecent.
She pressed her lips together and coughed.
“Never mind. We should sleep.”
Her voice was admirably calm. The tips of her ears, hidden beneath her hair, had already turned scarlet.
Once the lamp was extinguished, the man buried beneath the quilt on the bed released a thunderous burst of laughter.
Shengsheng shoved her face into her bedding. One fist slowly clenched at her side.
That damned Siran.
How had losing his memory made him even more hateful than before?
The bird curled beside her watched her feign sleep for a long time before turning his gaze away.
Fusheng Duan had not seen her for only a few days, yet she had already presented him with surprise after surprise.
First, she had somehow become the “wife” of the emperor of the Yong Kingdom. Then her gift for names had advanced to new heights.
Should he praise her?
Compared with the careless name Little Ba that she had once given the blue ox, Pecker sounded like the product of profound deliberation.
Fusheng looked up at the dim moonlight beyond the lattice window, irritation stirring within him.
It appeared he would have to wait a while longer before he could recover his human form.