RIIDMDR chapter 6

 

Nan Xu set down his bamboo water bottle and looked for the source of the noise. He locked and opened the guest room door. The bird, with damaged wings that prevented it from flying, had already pecked a hole in the door. If it kept trying, it might poke another hole in the door within the next hour.

Upon seeing Nan Xu, the bird’s emotions became intense, as if it were blaming him for locking it up in the room and ignoring it.

Nan Xu also felt a tinge of guilt. After seeing the vegetable seeds that morning, he had been so excited that he forgot about the bird. If he hadn’t made a noise, Nan Xu was sure he would have forgotten about the bird for a while longer.

“Are you hungry?” Nan Xu asked.

The bird’s chirping suddenly stopped. Between venting his emotions and eating, the bird chose the latter without hesitation and nodded at Nan Xu.

Nan Xu placed the bird on his shoulder and walked outside. “Let’s go see what we caught in the fish traps we put out yesterday.”

The fish in the nearby stream had become wary after being caught by Nan Xu so many times. Catching them with his bare hands was no longer an option, so Nan Xu put two traps in the stream, hoping for a good catch.

He lifted the traps and took a look: There were three slender fish, each weighing only a few pounds. For Nan Xu, any catch was a good one, but the bird on his shoulder chirped, seeming rather frustrated.

“You think it’s not enough?” Nan Xu couldn’t help but laugh. Although the fish looked small to him, compared to the bird, they weren’t small at all.

The bird chirped again, and Nan Xu smiled. Without saying anything else, he expertly gutted and cleaned the fish and carried it back to the cabin.

After frying the fish, Nan Xu added water and cooking wine to the pot. He covered the pot and removed some wood from the stove, letting the fish soup simmer. Then, he took the bird and the bok choy seeds to the back of the house to plant them.

Planting small greens is simple. Just spread the seeds evenly across the ground, cover them lightly with soil, and you’re done. Since the ground was still damp with dew in the morning, Nan Xu planned to water it again after sunset.

While he was busy, the bird perched on his shoulder, its claws clinging to his clothes. It quietly watched him. It was very well-behaved. Although its presence wasn’t very noticeable, Nan Xu knew it was by his side, and his work was completely different from the previous day.

No wonder people who live alone love having a pet for company.

Nan Xu had never known how difficult it could be to be alone. Even though he was an orphan and had been without a family for as long as he could remember, most elderly villagers didn’t have children around. He went from house to house, helping with chores, and there was never a shortage of people to talk to.

After arriving here and wandering alone each day through these silent, tranquil mountains, he sometimes felt as if he had lost track of time. He felt lonely yet accustomed to this feeling, as if he had felt this way for years.

This strange yet familiar feeling was subtle, and Nan Xu couldn’t pinpoint the reason for it.

After planting the vegetables, Nan Xu returned to the house. The fish soup was already simmering in the pot in the kitchen. The fish was tender, and the bones could easily be removed with a chopstick. The milky white broth was served in a bamboo bowl, filling the air with a fresh, fragrant aroma.

Nan Xu seasoned his soup with salt and poured a small bowl for the bird. Just as he was about to take it away, the bird on his shoulder became agitated, jumped down, and danced around the salt. This signaled to Nan Xu that he should put some in his bowl as well.

Nan Xu was at a loss for words. Too much salt would upset the bird’s stomach, but it insisted, so Nan Xu gave it a small amount and stopped.

The man and the bird sat on opposite sides of the table and drank from their bowls of fish soup. Nan Xu had been eating so much fish lately—stir-frying it and deep-frying it—that he no longer found it particularly delicious. But the bird across from him took a sip, tilted its head back, swallowed, and looked particularly intoxicated.

It was already noon by the time they finished their meal. Nan Xu carried the bird on his shoulder and wandered the nearby mountains, digging up shepherd’s purse and gathering firewood. In the afternoon, he continued making his wooden basin at home.

After two days, the bird’s wings had healed considerably. It stayed by Nan Xu’s side every day, eating and drinking for free, seemingly unbothered by his poverty.

On the day he finished the wooden basin, Nan Xu took it to the stream to test its usefulness. When he returned with a basin of water, he found several people standing at the gate of his courtyard and looking around.

Nan Xu was stunned and a little incredulous. Someone had actually found this place.

At the sound of his footsteps, the people turned around. Their eyes brightened when they saw Nan Xu and the bird on his shoulder.

“My darling!” a woman shouted excitedly as she ran toward Nan Xu.

His initial joy at seeing someone was shattered by her call. His joy vanished, and his scalp tingled as goosebumps covered his body. He took two steps back instinctively, wanting to say something, but his mouth opened and no words came out.

This, this, this… It’s a bit inappropriate to call someone “darling” the moment you meet them, isn’t it?

The woman seemed oblivious to Nan Xu’s panic. She quickened her pace, and in just a few steps, she was in front of him. “My darling, Mother couldn’t find you anywhere and was scared to death.”

Mother? ? ?

Nan Xu had never witnessed anything like this before. This wasn’t just a strange encounter—it was the beginning of recognizing kinship!

He didn’t know who his parents were and had wondered if they would return. He’d thought of countless possibilities, but nothing like calling them “darling” right away. That was too blunt.

Still stunned, he felt the bird on his shoulder flutter and almost fall. Nan Xu instinctively reached out to catch it, but a hand swooped in front of him and caught it first.

“Chirp!” The bird chirped nonstop, shaking its head and flapping its wings as if saying something.

The woman held the bird in her arms as she listened, her expression a mix of fear and relief. “Oh, so that’s terrifying! Mother’s darling has suffered…”

Nan Xu: …

Oh, this bird is your darling…

Nan Xu breathed a sigh of relief and took a few steps back, watching the man and the bird communicate seamlessly. He was a little amazed.

Many pets treat their owners’ children like their own, but perhaps not everyone possesses the skill to communicate with animals. It’s unclear whether the woman truly understood the bird or was simply comforting it.

At that moment, the other two men approached. One appeared to be middle-aged and the other was a young man around Nan Xu’s age. They briefly examined the bird in the woman’s hand before approaching Nan Xu.

The middle-aged man bowed to Nan Xu and said in a formal tone, “Thank you for saving our child. We cannot repay your kindness. If you need anything, please let us know. We will do our best to get it for you.”

“Child?” Nan Xu twitched, his mind a blur of words. “Your family has quite a sense of humor. It’s nothing more than a small favor.”

The middle-aged man was deeply touched by Nan Xu’s kindness. “Most children of the Bird Tribe are well-behaved, but only the… Our child has been spoiled since childhood and is truly naughty. He heard that the mountains were too high for a demon to climb, but he simply didn’t believe it. This time, he came here without telling his mother or me. Luckily, we met you, young master. Otherwise, his mother and I would have to…”

Nan Xu: “Demon? Bird-Tribe?”

He studied the man before him closely. He had thin lips, a hooked nose, and sharp, piercing eyes. He seemed to register something. Then he glanced at the bird in the woman’s hand. Recalling the bird’s cleverness, his pupils gradually dilated, and a hint of fear appeared in his eyes.

“Is that your child?” Nan Xu murmured uncertainly. “A biological child?”

“Of course it’s a biological child.” The middle-aged man frowned at the question, then stared at Nan Xu with growing suspicion. “Young Master, it seems… he’s human?”

Nan Xu nodded slowly and dully.

So the system wasn’t trying to raise him in the mountains after all. It was essentially giving him a completely different world to live in!

He wandered the mountains every day, never encountering any species that could communicate with him. Finally, he encountered a bird that seemed human, only to find out that it was not just a pet but a member of a vast species that existed in this world.

Upon hearing this, the young man also looked at Nan Xu with a burning gaze. They both thought the other was a rare and remarkable species.

The middle-aged man said, “There haven’t been any humans in the Demon World for nearly a thousand years. Rumor has it that they all fled to another realm thousands of years ago. The Zhuyu Mountains are so towering and majestic that no demon can fly over them. Most demons avoid the area at the foot of these mountains. I never imagined there were still humans living peacefully in these mountains.”

“I don’t know how I got here. I haven’t even ventured beyond the Zhuyu Mountains yet.” Nan Xu gave a wry smile. He wasn’t living peacefully; he was struggling with the help of the system. “Can you tell me about the world outside?”

This was the first time the middle-aged man had seen a human. He was overjoyed to hear Nan Xu’s words.

Since talking outside the door wasn’t the right way to entertain guests, Nan Xu invited them inside. Luckily, he had left a few extra stumps when he cut down the trees; otherwise, they wouldn’t have had a place to sit.

Even so, Nan Xu’s small courtyard looked shabby. However, the bird tribe members didn’t seem to mind. They surveyed the interior with curiosity and particularly liked the flower and bird painting hanging on the wall.

Nan Xu pulled the bamboo tea he had picked earlier from a bamboo tube and offered the bird tribe members a glass of tea. They then sat in the main room and chatted about the world beyond Zhuyu Mountain.

From their conversation, Nan Xu realized how difficult it was to escape the mountain. Even for their tribe, it took three or four days to reach this point. In their eyes, the Zhuyu Mountains were high and steep.

So, when they learned their child had attempted to fly across the mountains alone, they were terrified.

Nan Xu watched the bird hop back and forth carefree in the woman’s arms and felt fortunate that it had fallen into their yard, exhausted. Otherwise, if it had fallen in the wilderness, its survival would have been uncertain.

“Is Ning Ju still unable to transform?” Nan Xu asked.

The middle-aged man’s name was Ning Jian. He had two children: Ning Sui, the quiet young man sitting next to him; and Ning Ju, the little bird Nan Xu had saved. Ning Jian explained that a thousand years ago, the demon world’s spiritual energy began to thin, causing more and more races to be unable to give birth. Even those who did manage to have children were unable to transform due to the lack of spiritual energy.

Ning Jian shook his head at Nan Xu’s question. His gaze softened as he looked at Ning Ju. He smiled and said, “Our Bird Tribe lives in the Taifeng Mountains, not far from Zhuyu Mountain. The spiritual energy there is much richer than elsewhere. Xiao Ju was able to transform when he was over eighty years old. There aren’t many demons like Xiao Ju who can transform so freely in just a hundred years.”

His tone was filled with pride.

Nan Xu’s mouth twitched at this. He had thought of this child as just that, but he was already over a hundred years old. This was truly a novel experience.