Hearing the excited voice of her son, Cai Wei hurriedly turned around to look, only to see a giant bird tethered in a shed by the roadside. The bird stood over a ter tall, draped with a coat of black feathers, possessing a majestic body, sharp claws, a hooked beak, and eyes exuding a king-like, piercing cold light. It was the king of birds soaring between the heavens — the Eagle!
"Imperial Father, Imperial Mother, is this an eagle?"
Jin’er and Yu’er had never seen it, but through everyone’s descriptions and their own imaginations, they roughly guessed the species of this giant bird.
"Yes, this is an eagle." Nangong Yi leaned over, looking at the mighty eagle outside through the glass window of the carriage.
Even though the mighty eagle was tethered with an iron chain, its kingly aura was undiminished. It opened its round eyes, with sharp eyes shooting out penetrating gazes. Its entire black plumage added an intimidating deanor that was daunting to behold.
Jin’er raised his head and said to Nangong Yi, "Imperial Father, your son wants this eagle."
From childhood to now, Jin’er seldom made requests to his parents. This was the first ti he so solemnly asked Nangong Yi for sothing. Naturally, Nangong Yi would not refuse; he ordered the carriage to stop and, accompanied by Jin’er, Yu’er, and Cai Wei, walked towards the eagle.
The Eagle’s owner was a man in his thirties. According to him, the eagle was raised during the prosperous days of their family, consuming dozens of jin of at daily. Later, as the family slowly declined, his father couldn’t bear to sell the eagle, struggling to maintain it by selling the house and land. Now his father had passed away, and the family truly couldn’t support it, thus bringing it to the market to exchange for so money to sustain them.
Nangong Yi walked in front of the eagle, scrutinized it for a while, then slipped off an emperor’s green jadeite ring from his thumb and said, "Let trade with you."
The Eagle’s owner ca from a wealthy family. Although they had now fallen, he still recognized top-grade emperor’s green jadeite, and he unhesitatingly made the trade with Nangong Yi.
Nangong Yi instructed the accompanying eunuchs and guards to take the eagle back to the palace, while he strolled leisurely through the market with his wife and children.
Jin’er’s mind was wholly with the mighty eagle going back to the palace. Leaning against Nangong Yi’s embrace, he was absent-minded. Cai Wei gently patted his small head and said, "Isn’t the eagle we exchanged for very majestic?"
"Yes!"
Jin’er nodded, agreeing with his mother’s view.
Yu’er added, "It resembles Imperial Father’s deanor in the Imperial Court."
The children couldn’t yet articulate the kingly presence of the mighty eagle, so they used their Imperial Father as a taphor for the eagle.
Hearing this, Nangong Yi chuckled, and Cai Wei laughed too, then said, "Do you know why the eagle is so majestic? Even when tethered by an iron chain, its sharpness is undiminished?"
Jin’er thought for a mont and said, "Because they are eagles, naturally they’re like that."
Cai Wei gently explained, "The eagle’s appearance is indeed naturally like that, but its deanor is cultivated, like your Imperial Father. When Imperial Mother first t him, he still carried a free-spirited attitude. His kingly deanor was cultivated later. The eagle is the sa; to soar a thousand miles and look down upon the world, free and unfettered in the sky, its magnificent flight carries with it a tragic grandeur of blood and tears!"
Yu’er curiously asked, "Why, aren’t their long wings naturally for flying? Why should it carry the tragic grandeur of blood and tears?"
Cai Wei said, "The growth of any creature requires trials. To beco a king, one must endure more hardships, the cruelest ones at that. The eagle becos what it is now through enduring the harshest challenges."
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