Chapter 280: Yesterday Once More
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Richard stared angrily at the two red-headed lovebirds. It couldn’t understand why they were stupid—the words were very easy to pronounce, yet what they said was simply wrong. How could they just not get it?
Richard felt a bit of regret for taking over this task impulsively, for now Richard had found this mission was a little more difficult than it had thought. Chinese was too complicated and too difficult. It was way more difficult than learning the Indo-European Family Languages. Even if they pronounced the words in Chinese correctly, others were still unable to understand what they ant if the tone was wrong.
Segnts were composed of phones and suprasegntal phones – Phones were made up of vowels and consonants, which determined the basic pronunciation of a word, and could be applied to most languages in this world. When it ca to suprasegntal phones, there were voice accent, nasal, intonation, phonetic change and rhythm, and many other aspects involved, and Chinese included indefinite changes of suprasegntal phones, making it a language hard to comprehend thoroughly.
Little Purple and Yellow Pea Cake lowered their heads in front of Richard and stood timidly, like pupils that had made mistakes.
Seeing them like that, Richard couldn’t bear to reprimand them anymore. After all, objectively speaking, their learning speed was very fast, much faster than Richard was back in the old days.
Richard’s mory was sowhat vague when recalling the old days, which were really long ago. At that ti, it had not yet beco an Elf because of the Strength of Faith. It was just an ordinary African grey parrot to be sold as a pet. It was no different from any other grey parrots. If it was because of anything, it was that Richard t her.
She bought Richard from a pet shop.
Yes, a pet shop. Its destiny was always sowhat related to pet shops, thought Richard. It t her in a pet shop, and appeared in another pet shop after becoming an Elf. Although the two pet shops were half a world away, it seed like there was so sort of magic linking them.
Richard didn’t know how she chose it among all those parrots in the pet shop—because of its breed? Size? Feather color? Or its eyes that Zhang Zian ntioned oftentis? Unfortunately, it never got the chance to ask her, for it hadn’t learnt how to ask.
Richard had heard the word “chemistry” for the first ti from Zhang Zian. There were no exact corresponding words in English for what “chemistry” ant in Chinese. At best, only phrases like “the encounter of fate”, “love at first sight, and “fall into love” could deliver a similar aning, yet these combinations were too superficial, and could not be as exquisite and long-lasting as the word “chemistry” in Chinese.
Richard knew that it should not scare Little Purple and Yellow Pea Cake, but if it did not do so, birds’ instinct of activeness would make them unable to concentrate—and concentration was the key to efficient learning.
Richard still rembered its tension and fear when it left the pet shop and was brought into the lab. Facing the strange woman in a white coat, Richard nervously speculated, what she was going to do? To kill it? Or to eat it? It wanted to tell her that it was not tasty, its at was hard to chew, its feathers were hard to pull, and it had too many bones…
Although she tried hard to express her friendliness, Richard’s brain was so chaotic that it could not understand her good will. Richard just felt more afraid and did not even dare to leave the cage. Although the cage imprisoned its freedom, it was also a shelter for Richard.
What made Richard even more tense was that, there were not only it and her in the lab, but also there was another parrot—a parakeet nad “rlin”. Though rlin was smaller in size, it was rather hostile, staring at Richard as if it was an intruder and snatcher in its territory.
Richard couldn’t help but compare the parakeet rlin with the cats in the pet shop now. In its opinion, the scariest cat in the shop was Fina, who would lose its temper easily. However, the way Fina looked at Richard was different than that of rlin—Fina never regarded Richard as a threatening opponent.
To calm Richard down, she brought water and food. But Richard was so overly nervous and scared that it didn’t drink a drop of water or consu a single grain of rice…hunger, thirst, fear of a new environnt and the strangers took turns in tornting it.
Fortunately, the very next day she had detected the reason—parrots were also territorial creatures that needed their own space, especially when they arrived at a new environnt. So, she brought rlin the parakeet to another room, so that Richard could stay alone in a room, and she comforted Richard more gently.
Richard, who gradually cald down, had really felt her good will, within which her compassion and caring for it was absolutely true. She kept wiping the edges of its eyes, and repeatedly saying “poor little thing”. She blad herself—because of her inexperience and improper handling, Richard was suffering from unexpected fears and anxieties.
Seeing her like that, Richard gathered its courage, trying to tell her that, it was not her fault, and everything would get better. Richard didn’t know where this sentence was heard from, perhaps was in the pet shop, or maybe sowhere else. Richard wanted to say this sentence to her, but it couldn’t, because it didn’t know how to speak back then. It could only muster its courage and go out of the cage, jumping onto her arm and bowing its head to touch her white coat, hoping to convey to her the ssage.
She smiled with surprise, and her face beca softened, as if she had seen a very precious gift. She held out her other hand, trying to comb its disheveled feathers, but then she stopped, fearful of scaring it again.
Richard wanted to prove it was not a coward, so it fluttered its wings, trying to fly. However, it forgot that the birdcage was right next to it, and one of its wings accidentally got stuck amongst the iron fence of the cage. In an instant, it had felt it was bleeding painfully. Richard was screaming, she was also screaming, and the other people who heard the screams rushed forward and hurriedly treated its injury and wrapped it up.
That hurt, that really hurt. Even today, Richard still rembered that intense pain.
Richard’s first formal contact with her had a nice start, and had an extrely awful ending…
The noise from downstairs woke Richard up from its mories. It shook its head, trying to get rid of these mories temporarily—ever since it beca an Elf, forgetting the past seed increasingly difficult. Every minute, every second when it was with her recurred to Richard so vividly, just like yesterday once more.
Richard cheered up, raising a wing to point to the kitchen utensils, and said to Little Purple and Yellow Pea Cake, “Pot! Pot! Pot, bowl, basin!”
Richard knew it was not smart, what it was doing right now, and that it was just a poor imitation of what she did in the past.
The kitchen door was pushed open, and Richard thought it was Zhang Zian, so it imdiately changed its serious expression to cheeky grinning and looked at the door. It would no longer be sad and weak anymore, for no one would look at it with gentle and caring eyes like she did.
It was not Zhang Zian who’s standing at the door, but was Sun Xiaong, holding the Arican Shorthair in her arms.
Just like her, Sun Xiaong was also dressed in a white coat, with a pair of rational and intelligent eyes.
Just like yesterday once more.
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