Chapter 5
Chapter 5
I had spent several days cleaning the wounds of His Highness the Eldest Prince, but now the roles were reversed, and he was the one applying medicine to mine.
The cut on my face was fairly deep. He said if we weren’t careful, it might leave a scar.
I hurried to say, “It’s fine. I’m not afraid.”
His Highness the Eldest Prince glanced at me. Beneath his long, black lashes, his eyes held an unreadable look.
I immediately drew my neck in and stopped talking, lowering my head in fear.
He gave a soft laugh. “You’re not afraid of a scar on your face, but you’re afraid of me?”
I lowered my head even more.
He tapped the table unhurriedly. Two heavy beams of attention settled on me as he asked slowly, “Why are you afraid of me?”
“…Your Highness doesn’t like Crow Slaves.”
“…That is true.”
It was a long while before he finally spoke that word, and there was a faint trace of melancholy in it.
I couldn’t help asking, “Why?”
“Stupid. Pathetic.”
Then he added, “Pitiful.”
I stared at him in a daze. “My father said crows are stupid to begin with. Our ancestors were all like this-it’s our nature. That’s exactly why we live together: when something happens, we help each other, we’re friendly with our neighbors, and we never have bad intentions. Isn’t that an advantage?”
“The Phoenix Clan can rest easy giving us the task of trading Primal Stones because we’re stupid too, isn’t that right? Only a dumb bird would be extra conscientious. Your Highness says we’re pitiful-why? We aren’t pitiful at all.”
“We have thatched huts beneath the cliff, we grow Cloak Feathers on our bodies, and we can use Primal Stones to trade with the Phoenix Clan for food. Our people live well. Everyone is happy every day.”
With my eyes wide and round, my heart uneasy, I looked at His Highness the Eldest Prince in confusion.
He only let out a light chuckle. There was pity in the way he looked at me. “Lingdang, you don’t understand.”
Of course I didn’t. With the kind of brain I had back then, I probably would never have figured anything out.
So I went along with it and lowered my head again, turning back into a jittery, foolish bird. “Your Highness, I’ll keep my distance from you from now on. I won’t ever do anything to trouble you.”
His Highness the Eldest Prince was silent for a moment. Then he sighed, and when he spoke again, there was much less coldness and distance in his voice. “You’re different.”
How strange. The more he spoke, the less I understood.
Different how? Because I grew up by the Phoenix Queen’s side? Because I wasn’t as stupid as the others in my tribe?
That had to be it. If His Highness truly thought so, I was rather pleased.
After all, I-Wu Lingdang-had been the pride of the entire Crow Tribe back at Mad Cliff.
I don’t know what kind of celestial herb His Highness the Eldest Prince used on me, but day after day my face healed, and in the end it didn’t leave a scar at all.
His Highness the Eldest Prince, who had been wounded, and I, with my ruined face-we both returned to normal. It truly was something to celebrate.
But for some reason, from that point on, Princess Canyang didn’t come to the Cloud Soaring Divine Palace for quite a while.
Even Sister Chaowei rarely came to the Purple Origin Palace.
Once, I saw her outside the door. She said the Phoenix Queen had sent her to deliver something.
She set the items down and hurried off, unwilling to say even a few extra words to me.
The way she looked at me had turned strange.
Crows are stupid and slow; I didn’t even notice anything amiss.
Recently, His Highness the Eldest Prince often went out. Sometimes he wouldn’t return for many days at a time.
What he went to do was naturally none of my business, and he certainly wouldn’t tell a Crow Slave.
Just like that, without me realizing it, a full year passed during my days in the Purple Origin Palace.
The good news was that I wasn’t so afraid of His Highness the Eldest Prince anymore.
Maybe it really was as he said: in his eyes, I was different from ordinary Crow Slaves. When he spoke to me, he still wore that neither-warm-nor-cold expression, but his words gradually became much more frequent.
When His Highness was in the hall and the incense curled in thin wisps from the burner, I could sit obediently and watch him, even asking curiously, “Why is the Star Tree even balder than our Old Chieftain?”
Probably because I talked more than before, he would occasionally tug at the corner of his mouth, looking at me with a mix of amusement and exasperation.
I said to him, “My eldest brother is named Wu Ha. When I was little, he would often take me to the cliffs to teach me how to fly and dive. Every time my mother came looking for us, she would shout toward the sky-‘Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!'”
“If we didn’t respond, she would suspect her voice wasn’t loud enough. She’d grab my father and my Second Brother, and together they would shout toward the sky-‘Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!'”
“Once, our kind neighbors even helped them shout. We of the Crow Clan are all warm-hearted; no one knew what was happening, but they all joined in. The entire tribe echoed with the sound of ‘Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!'”
“Later, rumors spread outside that the Crow Clan had gone mad. The Phoenix Queen even sent people to investigate… Your Highness, did you know about this?”
“…I did.”
His Highness the Eldest Prince rubbed his brow, unable to stop himself from laughing.
That year, it was time for my annual visit home.
It so happened that His Highness the Eldest Prince was away, so with the Phoenix Queen’s permission, I flew back to my family.
It was during this visit that my eldest brother and Second Brother were planning to fly out of Penglai to trade for ore. I was incredibly excited and clamored to go with them.
My parents refused at first. They said the human realm was not a good place; it was filled with turbid air and pestilence. If we were tainted by it, we would develop the Crow Plague.
I had grown up hearing such warnings.
What we of the Crow Clan fear most is developing the Crow Plague on our heads.
To us, it is as terrifying as the plague is to humans.
I had seen a crow with the Crow Plague when I was young.
Of course, it wasn’t the one from the story about drinking water.
A crow with the Crow Plague has terrifying eyes. It looks at the rest of us as if we are a different species-cold and horrifying.
Its eyeballs turn reddish and dart around rapidly. They are sharp, gloomy, and filled with despair.
It is truly frightening. My father said it was no longer a crow; it had been consumed by the Crow Plague and become a demon.
Cui Bao’er wouldn’t understand. In Yang Valley, on the edge of East Sea Penglai, there stands the massive, towering Fusang Tree. Upon it, the statues of the compassionate divine birds have always had two feet-never three; there were ten of them in total.
Just as I didn’t understand what the “brain” he spoke of was.
In the end, I still followed my brothers and flew out of Penglai.
Because my brothers truly doted on me, they persuaded our parents by saying the chances of a crow catching the Crow Plague were slim. It hadn’t happened in years. As long as we didn’t take off our Cloak Feathers and avoided prolonged contact with humans, nothing would go wrong.
Lingdang was five hundred years old; it was time for her to go out and see the world.
And so, I followed them through the Black Mire Forest and flew across the East Sea. In the human realm’s Misty Town, we transformed our Cloak Feathers into a Rain Cloak, put on a Bamboo Hat and a Black Veil, and disguised ourselves as Penglai Merchants.
The person we traded with was a local esquire named Zhao Jinshen.
My brothers said our father had established this connection long ago. Zhao Jinshen followed our rules strictly and treated us as honored guests.
But we didn’t stay long. My brothers left the Golden Grains, and we headed back with the ore.
The round trip took about ten days.
It was during that journey that a heavy mist rose over the sea. I clearly heard my Second Brother shouting ahead of me-
“Lingdang! Keep close!”
But when I flew over to stay close to him, he suddenly flapped his wings violently, striking me on the head and leaving me dazed and disoriented.
By the time I regained my senses, my foolish brother had already flown far away.
Later, I met Cui Bao’er.
And even later, His Highness the Eldest Prince brought me back to Penglai.
After returning to Penglai, he remained silent. He stood in the Purple Origin Palace with his hands behind his back, his eyes dark and heavy.
I suddenly felt a bit nervous and stood to the side uneasily. “Your Highness, are you unhappy?”
“Yes.”
“Because of Lingdang?”
His Highness the Eldest Prince said nothing. I foolishly thought he was blaming me for not telling him before I went home, so I hurried to explain: “Your Highness was gone for days, and I didn’t know when you would return, so I asked the Phoenix Queen for her permission…”
“Lingdang, tomorrow you shall accompany me to Yang Valley.”