Chicken talking with a duck? (language barrier)
No, it was human talking with bird in their case. How difficult was it? In terms of eight taxonomy classification ladder, it crossed 5 steps in one go.
No matter what he said, for example patiently explaining the essential needs of humans to empty their bladder and bowels… The result was the bird staring at him with that smart-looking face, letting him talk on and on until his mouth and tongue became dry and his throat gets hoarse. But the only response he got was the other party tilting its head to one side.
He’s so thirsty. And there’s a very pressing need to deal with his physiological needs. He stood up and used action to tell the bird what he wanted to do, for example, lifting up his hide skirt.
He peed towards the nest wall. When his tank was about half empty, the sill bird slapped him with its wings and he fell to the moist puddle he made. Unable to press down the rest of the pee and unable to bounce back up, one could imagine his state……
Yan Mo silently climbed up and stood up straight, took off the heavy coat on him and threw it aside. All the while telling himself to be patient. In the process of taming a beast, one must be more patient to the beast.
He spat out his tongue in front of the silly bird and flicked off the liquid on himself. After that, he looked up to gesture that he wanted to drink something. Words were useless now, but he couldn’t directly use actions to demonstrate what he wanted to say. He could only use some gestures and just hope that the other could understand him.
He didn’t know if the silly bird really understood. Perhaps it was also feeling thirsty, after making gestures that he wanted to drink for no less than 300 times, he heard the bird making very cheerful coos. Its face looks tickled as if watching a clown performing a circus trick.
After the silly bird flew out the nest, Yan Mo swallowed his spit and quickly started digging around for anything that could be useful.
Feathers, dried plants, twigs. For him now, they’re useless.
Buried under the hay and feathers were a lot of translucent rocks. They’re as big as his palm, oval, looking neat and uniform. They’re beautiful, but just as useless.
He thought he would find a lot of animal skins and bones, but he’d be hard-pressed to find even one here.
Weird, did that silly bird not eat in its nest?
He didn’t know much about birds’ living habits, not to mention different species of birds would have different habits. Judging from how clean and neatly laid out this nest is, the human-faced bird seemed to be a clean-loving bird and good nest-maker.
He examined the make-up of the walls and dug into the nest’s bottom layers.
The whole nest was built by mixing twigs, pieces of stones, dried grasses, mud and some other binding material that he couldn’t name.
The nest tasted salty when licked. These materials, such as the mud, were most probably taken from the salty seepweed marsh.
The bird even knew to pile stones at the bottom layer of the nest to make the nest heavier, so that it wouldn’t be blown away by the wind.
But how was this bird’s nest fixed to the top of the stone pillar? The wind at the top of a mountain is really strong. Although the whole bird’s nest was large, this should not be the actual reason why it hadn’t been blown away or become dismantled by the weather.
The reason was out of Yan Mo’s comprehension. Unable to find anything that could be useful to him, his eyes finally fell on the animal skin he took off.
If he used his teeth to strip them into thin pieces, tied them up into ropes to slowly descend… would that work?
Or make it into a kite or hang glider?
Heh. A very imaginative solution, with no way to actually get it done. Those are all rather out of reach…
The big bird was back again. This time, it brought back two honeydew melons! One melon in each claw, its claws piercing into the fruits.
The silly bird stretched out its claws and shook them off in front of Yan Mo. *Thud*, a melon fell from the claw, then the other melon was also shaken off.
Yan Mo didn’t act polite with the bird. How could he be full with just a bunch of manai grapes? On the contrary, after having a taste of food, he felt even hungrier. Now that he got something that could substantially fill his stomach, he immediately pried the melon open along the claw holes after sitting down.
He set the melon skin aside. He had a hunch that he might do something even more unsightly after eating this many things.
When the bird saw that Yan Mo had finished eating, it called out to him, “Keeh”.
What’s that? Yan Mo wiped his face, sat on the ground while looking up at the bird.
The big bird pecked Yan Mo’s face with its beak. It used too much force, making Yan Mo tumble over.
“Ngh!” His nose hurt so much! Yan Mo covered his nose, his tears trickled out.
The big bird made calls at him again. Yan Mo didn’t understand what it meant but didn’t want to keep lying down, so he climbed up while pinching his nose.
As a result…the silly bird’s strong beak pecked Yan Mo again, this time on his back.
Yan Mo fell again.
“Gruru, gruuru.” The silly bird paced a small circle in the nest, seemingly extremely happy.
When it noticed Yan Mo staying down and not getting up, it grabbed on the tufts of his hair and pulled.
Yan Mo’s hair was crudely pulled by the silly bird. He suspected his scalp was all pulled off. Because he could feel blood on the pulled spots when he reached up.
He begrudgingly stood up again.
He understood now, this bird was playing a game with him! Including the way he spoke to it and gestured just now, the bird thought he was doing cute tricks for it!
And so in order to praise and encourage him, the silly bird brought him two melons. It waited for him to finish eating before starting the game again. The other side didn’t want to be a mere watcher this time, it wanted to play together.
Yan Mo…… was about to be played to death.
No matter what, he just wouldn’t get up. Not willing to play this game of silly beak pecks human, human flips like pancake for bird. While he lied down on the ground pretending to die, the silly bird kept pulling on his hair. It had pulled off most of them out by now.
The silly bird held his hair in its beak. And piled them up beside his face.
Yan Mo twisted his body, grabbed that hair pile and threw them at that silly bird’s face. He sneered, “Want to play, huh? Come here, uncle wanted to play doctor and dead bird.”
In the end, Yan Mo only pricked the golden needle at silly bird’s claws to vent his anger. Because before he could be sure he could lock the bird’s movement or kill it within a few quick stabs, any hostile behaviour towards the bird should be avoided.
Unfortunately for him, the silly bird’s claws were surrounded by thick and hard skin, his golden needle couldn’t get inside the skin.
Look at how the silly bird just stared at him. No reaction whatsoever, it’s clear that this attack didn’t even scratch it.
Soon, Yan Mo’s stomach started reacting as he expected. He fetched the melon skin calmly, then relieved himself.
He didn’t know if the bird had a sense of smell. He had heard that some have a very sensitive sense of smell while others don’t. But looking at the two openings on that hard beak, he thought, the bird should be able to smell, right?
Even he couldn’t stand the smell!
The silly bird was still looking at him with a tilted head, wondering what he’s doing, but soon its body froze like a statue.
“Keeh!” Unable to withstand it, the silly bird grabbed the stinky two-legged monster and took him out of the nest.
Yan Mo’s shoulder bore the brunt again.
But no matter in what way, he had stepped out of that prison. The opportunity to escape is in sight!
The silly bird threw him into a small stream near the seepweed field.
“Splash!” The water in the stream splashed. Yan Mo’s lips came in contact with the cool scentless flowing water.
He kept his mouth closed and didn’t drink the water, letting the flow of water help him move up, slowly moving into a sitting position.
When he looked back to the stone pillar, he found that the pillar’s top part was sunken in. The silly bird had built its nest to perfectly fit that sunken bit. The bowl-shaped depression at the top of the pillar seemed like it wasn’t completely intact, there are some cracks here and there. The water collected inside the nest would flow out from there. The pillar had distinctively dark water stains.
Yan Mo took back his gaze and looked around him. The stream was shallow, the water was extremely clear. He could see many of that same translucent palm-sized pebbles and small fish swimming in the water.
Blood from his injured shoulder slowly merged into the water, diluting the red bit by bit.
Yan Mo strenuously stood up and walked to the shore.
Then, he found a large number of scattered animal bones, small and large. There were also many leftover animal skins that hadn’t rotted yet, thrown into the low bushes.
So this was where the human-faced bird eats!
“Splash!” Something else crashed into the water.
When certain someone turned around, he saw half of the melon skin flipped upside down and moving towards him following the current.
Yan Mo mouth twitched, this bird really liked to keep clean.
The human-faced bird seemed very angry, but also very helpless. It had thrown away the awful thing that made its nest smelly, but the thing inside still leaked out somewhat when it pierced the skin with its claws. That’s okay though, tomorrow there will be a lot of water falling from the sky. After tomorrow its nest wouldn’t smell that bad again.
The human-faced bird walked around in the water as if pacing. It didn’t like bathing, but it could wash its claws.
Should it take little two-legs to its other nest tonight?
But before that, it has to teach this little two-leg who likes to poop everywhere, so that he won’t piss and poo in its nest!
The bird thought, two-legs should take its example, it always released poop when flying, never dirtying its own nest.
But little two-legs can’t fly. How can it make two-legs fly?
If only little two-legs can get out of the nest on his own and come back after he’s done pooping, how good is that?
Yan Mo thought, the silly bird must be angry. That’s why it had brought him to the eating spot, it wanted to eat him now. He snatched two stones and escaped!
He ran as fast as he could. Taking advantage of the blink of an eye when the silly bird wasn’t looking at him, he rushed into the bushes not far away. He was planning to run to the forest farther away, then the silly bird wouldn’t be able to rush in, and he’d be safe for a while.
“Cheeehk—!” The human-faced bird issued a cry harsher than his previous ones. Flapping its wings, it rushed to Yan Mo.
Yan Mo had reached the bushes. The moment he got within the bushes, he yelled out, “Aaaaah—!”
How could this happen? He hadn’t seen thorns on the plants and thought this place was safe, but these plants actually secreted some unknown liquid.
Especially when he rushed in and broke a few branches, he got the green juices on himself. The green juices that touched his skin bring searing pain like being burned by a red-hot metal.
Poor Yan Mo had just reached his goal, only to flip around and run back out of the shrubs, rushing back to the nearby stream.
Since the little two-legs was running back, human-faced bird canceled its flight and tucked its wings back in. It slowly slid by the shore of the small stream.
“Keeh! Gruuru, ruuru.” You are the stupidest two-legged monster I’ve ever seen. You actually ran straight into thunder’s mouth!
*Splash!* Yan Mo plunged into the stream and scrubbed his skin, trying his best to get the juice off of him.
He felt a little better being inside the cool flowing body of water, but it couldn’t relieve all of the pain. The skin that was in contact with the green juice was getting inflamed at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Look at yourself! With just how you are now, you want to escape the fate of being eaten and settle down near this place?!
Hahaha! Dream on!
Just look, there was a chance to run away and what did you do? You could only send yourself back!
Yan Mo’s tears kept flowing down. It wasn’t sad tears, it’s physiological tears, he couldn’t stop them from coming out. The red swollen skin was really painful.
He disliked the urine-soaked animal skin, so he took off his clothes, planning to wait for it to dry up before putting it back on. Now, he got burned in so many places because he was entirely naked.
The human-faced bird paced behind him, “Kieeh!”
Don’t run around, stupid two-legs, it’s dangerous around here.
Also, why did you peel off your fur? Aren’t you cold? He could scent that winter is coming soon. During this time, which animal running on the ground and flying in the sky was not changing into thicker furs and feathers? Peeling his skin during this time, kieh kieh, really too stupid!
The human-faced bird tilted its head, flapping its wings and flying back to its nest.
“Plopf!” What fell down this time was his animal hide clothes.
Yan Mo looked at the animal skin quickly sinking to the bottom, without a word to say. He once more deeply regretted his initial decision.
The water didn’t work that well as relief for his burns. He needed to find some medicine to treat himself.
As Yan Mo was busily looking around in case there were suitable herbs nearby, the human-faced bird was dipping its head into the water. The bird had picked up one of the translucent stones from the bottom and carried it to him.
What did that mean?
Yan Mo didn’t immediately take it.
As if it couldn’t wait until Yan Mo understood, the human-faced bird held the stone over to his waist, where Yan Mo’s most serious burns were at.
But the stone was inside its beak and the sharp edge touched his skin first, making Yan Mo scream. It hurts like someone was cutting his open wounds with a blade.
The human-faced bird tilted its head. This time, it pinched the stone toward the teen’s hands. Take it, take it!
Yan Mo got it this time. He took the stone from the human-faced bird, tentatively pressing it on his reddened skin and gently rolling it.
Bone-penetrating cold immediately spread from the wound.
Not long after him rolling the stone on his wound, the unbearably hot burning sensation got smaller and smaller.
Once Yan Mo discovered its effect, he immediately bent down and grabbed another stone from the stream. Both his hands worked to press it on his two other seriously burned wounds.
After this incident, Yan Mo temporarily lost the desire to run away. He realised that this bird really seemed to not regard him as its food, its behaviour seemed more like it was raising a ……pet.
After that, the bird took him to that nest again. This time Yan Mo didn’t wait until the big bird’s claws latched into his shoulders, he took the initiative to reach out and grabbed onto its leg.
The big bird was not used to having its legs grabbed, instinctively wanting to throw the grip off by shaking and kicking.
Yan Mo kept his position and let the big bird carry him around in the air until it’s hovering over that nest. When the height seemed pretty safe to jump down from, he released the grip on his own.
The human-faced bird looked quite amazed. He perched on the edge of the nest and stared at Yan Mo for a bit, purring sounds coming from its throat.
By now, Yan Mo could roughly tell that whenever the big bird made noises like purrs, that meant the bird was in a good mood. If it issueda “–Eeech” cry, when the bird’s screech was a softer keeh, that’s still fine. If the sound was very sharp and high-pitched screech and chieek, that probably meant warning and anger.
The big bird only stared at him for a moment. The smell in the nest was not as strong as before but the big bird, not wanting to stay longer than it needed to, flew away shortly after dropping Yan Mo off. It didn’t come back for the whole night.
The next day, heavy rain poured.
Yan Mo, who had nowhere to hide from the rain, could only shrink into a corner of the bird’s nest with the still wet beast coat covering his head. He had gathered feathers and grasses around him but even so, he still trembled from the cold.
Yesterday it was still quite warm, but today there was a freezing downpour, directly chilling him to the bones.
He didn’t know where the big bird was, maybe it went to find someplace to shelter from the rain? This nest was not suitable for rainy days and winter.
An animal was an animal after all. Just throw him into the nest, not caring about the aftermath. Because he could bathe, it must have thought he could handle being drenched by rain, didn’t it? As for its pet’s primary needs, there was still one of the melons from yesterday left in the nest. And for water…… with this much rain, will its pet run out of water to drink?
Yan Mo hurdled himself into a ball. Will he freeze to death like this? That was his last thought before losing consciousness.
Yan Mo got sick. His whole body burned hot and the fever tampered with his brain.
The human-faced bird returned the next day, as soon as the rain stopped. When it discovered the little two-legs it had captured just wouldn’t wake up nor eat and drink, the bird got anxious. It flew out and back to move the translucent stones into the nest.
The bird thought that the little two-legs must still have some thunder’s spit left on him, that’s why his breath would be so hot and his face was all bright red.
In a short amount of time, the stones brought back are about to cover every inch of Yan Mo. However you look at it, it just looked like there’s a brand new human-shaped stone tomb in the nest. Delirious from fever, Yan Mo started speaking nonsense.
“Dudu…, don’t come to this place. Daddy’s wrong, daddy shouldn’t bring you here to suffer……”
“Dudu, daddy is going to you…we will……”
“Yuan Zhan you fucker! I’ll kill you… I’ll……”
“Salt…so many salts……”
“Yuan Zhan, save me… I’ll give you 50 kilo… no… 5 kilograms…… both accounts are cleared, I don’t owe you anymore…… next time we meet I’ll… kill you…”
What’s the two-legs talking about?
Is he going to die?
It doesn’t want little two-legs to die.
Is little two-legs homesick?
It had seen that those two-legged monsters all live together.
Together…… That’s right, it’ll catch another two-legged monster and bring it here!
“Cheeehk—!” The human-faced bird suddenly raised, huge wings snapped down to bring it to the air. Its black body moved too fast it left an afterimage, using the fastest speed it could use to get to that far-off place.
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