A dignified phoenix was now reduced to such a state.
Was this due to the dimming of humanity, or the decline of birds?
Guifeng didn’t know, and neither did Meng Xiaoni.
After the staff of the Forestry Bureau left, Guifeng was not able to shake off his depressed mood for a long time.
Meng Xiaoni couldn’t help but shed tears of sympathy for it.
It was tragic, it was just too tragic.
If the Guifeng was really a phoenix, if he had been able to predict today’s fate, would it still turn into a parrot and come to this store?
If it were Meng Xiaoni, she would definitely refuse.
Things have already come to this, and the medical examination is over. Even if Guifeng made a fuss, he couldn’t change anything. The worst thing was that Guifeng was too prideful—the medical examination alone had been embarrassing enough; it would be twice as embarrassing to make a fuss after it’s over.
He couldn’t do it.
Meng Xiaoni and Guifeng both decided to bury this matter in their hearts and decided not to mention it openly.
Of course, in private…
Meng Xiaoni still had to contact the Forestry Bureau and send various photos of Guifeng and his breeding conditions to form a document for approval. If there were no unexpected hiccups, the approval could be obtained within three working days.
During this waiting period, Meng Xiaoni booked a leisurely tour package for Father Meng and Mother Meng. She perused many guides so as to let the couple go out and have a good time.
It was time for them to enjoy their retirement, so it was better to have a more leisurely tour.
Father Meng and Mother Meng packed their luggage and set off with a tour group.
After the left, renovation went on downstairs as usual.
Lao Lu reported for work every day.
Meng Xiaoni somehow felt it was rather strange to not see Elder Lu around. fails to see Master Lv and feels strange. But it was obviously impossible for her to ask Lao Lu questions like “where did Elder Lu go”. She could only act according to routine, follow the progress of the renovation, eat, and sleep.
The various documents related to Guifeng were delivered to Meng Xiaoni’s house on the day her parents left.
Meng Xiaoni happily put up the breeding permit and Guifeng’s quarantine certificate on the wall, just like a simple adult putting up their child’s award certificates on the wall.
Guifeng looked at these documents rather indifferently, and silently increased his food intake.
The days went by very quickly.
The plumbing and electrical lines downstairs have been done, and they have now entered the stage of painting the walls. Lao Lu also picked several types of wood to show Meng Xiaoni, so she could choose the colour of the wood to be pasted on the wall.
Meng Xiaoni finally chose a kind of dark brown wood that had a fresh scent. She couldn’t remember the specific name of the wood even after reading it a few times, and finally chose to give up.
Hiring workers was expensive; Lao Lu and Meng Xiaoni took it upon themselves to change and join in the wall-painting team.
Meng Xiaoni’s whole body smelled of paint.
Guifeng stayed upstairs in disgust, completely unwilling to go downstairs.
When the wall was roughly done, Lao Lu called the number that was on his draft, called that talented art student over.
The art student sported two braids, one was with his hair, and the other, his beard. As soon as he walked in, he bowed. “Hello Teacher Lu, hello little boss.”
Meng Xiaoni bowed back in a panic. “Hello, hello.”
The art student got up and laughed. “You’re too kind.”
The art student’s name was Zhang Xiaoxiao. He was very rich and came from an extremely wealthy family.
After asking Lao Lu about the restrictions, he called for a helicopter to transport all his painting tools over.
Meng Xiaoni got to know for the first time that Fengdu had a place to land a helicopter.
When Lao Lu saw Zhang Xiaoxiao, he formally introduced him to Meng Xiaoni, “Zhang Xiaoxiao’s family is quite well off. His mother is an established artist. So, he has been learning various musical instruments and painting since he was a child. He had originally intended to apprentice under his parents’ friend, but who knew, he went to the wrong classroom and insisted on apprenticing under my classmate. Probably people who study art will always have this kind of unbridled rebelliousness…”
Meng Xiaoni nodded.
“His use of colours is very bold—bright, but neither gaudy nor harsh. It’s very rare.” Lao Lu had conveyed the design concept to Zhang Xiaoxiao, and let him make his own decisions.
Lao Lu could praise Zhang Xiaoxiao for an hour.
But it was different when Lao Lu introduced Meng Xiaoni to Zhang Xiaoxiao.
He introduced her like this, “An extremely innocent, ordinary and honest person, from an average family background. Her only unique feature is probably that she has a particularly beautiful parrot.”
This was truly an introduction that was concise to the point of being featureless.
Zhang Xiaoxiao nodded, a little curious, “Where’s the parrot?”
Lao Lu nodded towards upstairs, “It’s refused to come down in the past two days. Perhaps the smell downstairs is too overpowering.”
With this curiosity about the parrot, Zhang Xiaoxiao officially settled down in Fengdu and began to paint on the walls of the hot pot restaurant. It wasn’t that he couldn’t create works that were printed, but that he has become obsessed with mural painting recently.
Meng Xiaoni was a little curious about Zhang Xiaoxiao’s painting skills and told Guifeng about it.
After Guifeng heard about it, he raised his head slightly in a somewhat arrogant manner, “When it comes to the topic of the underworld, this Zhang Xiaoxiao wouldn’t be more familiar about it than me.”
Meng Xiaoni was a little curious, “What’s the underworld like?”
Guifeng paused.
This was very difficult to explain.
He lived quite far away from the Courts of Hell, and most people in this world thought that the Courts of Hell was the entire underworld.
“The underworld is a lot bigger than you think.” Guifeng pondered over how to describe it more precisely. “In the legends and stories of this world, the ten Courts of Hell are what’s most often mentioned. But in the underworld, the ten Courts only occupy a small area on the edges of the seven seas, and are in charge of the affairs of life and death on earth.”
Meng Xiaoni was even more curious, “Then, what is the rest of the underworld like?”
Guifeng looked at Meng Xiaoni, “You don’t need to know. After a person dies, there is plenty of time for you to understand the underworld.”
Meng Xiaoni thought about it and felt it was indeed so.
She asked Guifeng again, “Then, do you want to go downstairs to see Zhang Xiaoxiao’s painting of the underworld?”
Meng Xiaoni added, “The paint used by Zhang Xiaoxiao has a very light smell. I heard that a small tube costs more than 600 RMB; he buys them by the bottle.”
As Guifeng listened, he felt that it wasn’t pictures that were being painted downstairs, but rather, money.
It wasn’t just Guifeng who felt this way; Meng Xiaoni also felt that Zhang Xiaoxiao was really extravagant with his use of colour, “I think this painting will be the most expensive thing in our hot pot restaurant.”
Guifeng flew to Meng Xiaoni’s head and perched on it. “The most expensive thing in this hot pot restaurant is me.”
Meng Xiaoni felt a weight on her head and thought that he was indeed “heavily” expensive.
She tilted her head in confusion, “Guifeng, have you been eating a little too much recently?”
This weight seemed to be a lot heavier compared with the last medical examination.
Guifeng replied crisply, “I want to become human.”
He didn’t want to be a bird anymore and actually wanted to be a human.
Meng Xiaoni felt that Guifeng wasn’t living up to his status as a phoenix. “How amazing it is to be a phoenix. I have never seen another phoenix.”
Phoenixes were certainly more amazing than humans.
But even phoenixes would be forced to undergo medical examination on earth!
Guifeng was in pain, “You don’t understand.”
Meng Xiaoni actually understood quite well.
She seemed to have been watching Guifeng’s experience from the side all along.
Meng Xiaoni brought Guifeng downstairs with her.
Downstairs, Zhang Xiaoxiao, who was wearing an apron and a headscarf, had a lard brush in his hand and was dipping it into a jar of paint.
Next to him was a scribbled sketch, spread out wide and covered with plastic wrap.
Lao Lu was giving Zhang Xiaoxiao a hand.
As soon as Meng Xiaoni came downstairs, she saw Zhang Xiaoxiao using a bright blue colour on the wall with quick strokes. This wall had already been plastered with some undulating and uneven wooden blocks.
“Won’t the paint get on the wood?” Meng Xiaoni walked up to Lao Lu and asked.
Lao Lu said simply, “We’ll paint the wood later.”
Meng Xiaoni watched as Zhang Xiaoxiao painted seriously and had a bunch of questions in her head.
Why did he use blue? Weren’t the most common colours of the underworld the black that was unique to demons and evil spirits, the red of red spider lilies1, and at most the dark gold that can only be found in the Courts of Hell?
This was the underworld in Meng Xiaoni’s imagination.
Of course, she also thought that it had to be bright and eye-catching, but in her mind, that was to be achieved with lighting.
Zhang Xiaoxiao, however, chose to use a blue that was just slightly darker sky blue.
Guifeng looked at that shade of blue. “Very beautiful.”
This crisp voice caused Zhang Xiaoxiao, who had dipped his brush into the paint again, to look over at Guifeng’s direction.
He saw the pink Guifeng and immediately marveled, “What a truly beautiful parrot.”
Guifeng, “The blue you’ve used has really captured the feeling of the underworld.”
Zhang Xiaoxiao laughed and asked Meng Xiaoni, “It’s really so fluent. Has this parrot’s IQ been measured?”
Meng Xiaoni said frankly, “No.”
Zhang Xiaoxiao nodded. “It might even exceed that of an average person. It even praised that my painting captured the feeling of the underworld, maybe it could even paint in the future.”
Meng Xiaoni suggested, “Let’s just continue with the painting first.”
Zhang Xiaoxiao turned and continued to paint.
A lot of blue was being painted in large, broad strokes—even Lao Lu felt there was something strange about it. But because of Guifeng’s words, Meng Xiaoni felt that the underworld could really be of such hues.
After all, no one would be willing to stay in a dark and gloomy environment every day as they went about with their official duties.
The same should go for the various Yama Kings.
Zhang Xiaoxiao finished using a large amount of blue, then suddenly switched to a yellowish-greenish brown. It was the subtle colour of earth, but this colour did make one feel like it was of the underworld.
Meng Xiaoni couldn’t recognize the name of this colour.
The busy Lao Lu and Zhang Xiaoxiao have no time to teach her on-site; they just busied about mixing colours with their heads bowed, and painted with fierce concentration.
Meng Xiaoni looked at the large blocks of colour that were gradually being added to the wall in front of her and pursed her lips.
This Zhang Xiaoxiao wasn’t a local, and she was afraid that he wouldn’t be used to Fengdu’s spicy hot pot all at once.
Moreover, she also felt like having a change of taste tonight.
“How does white pepper chicken-stuffed pork tripe hot pot2 sound?” Meng Xiaoni asked Guifeng.
She took Guifeng a little to the side, so as to not to disturb Zhang Xiaoxiao painting.
“A whole chicken stuffed in an entire pig’s stomach, stewed, then cut the pork tripe into slices and the chicken into pieces,” Meng Xiaoni described briefly as she recalled the ingredients in their inventory. “There seems to be fish maw at home, I can put it in too.”
Fish maw are the fish’s swim bladders, they are delicious in soup and very nutritious as well.
Guifeng listened, thought it sounded tasty, and agreed immediately, “Sounds good.”
Meng Xiaoni nodded cheerfully, “Then, I’ll get the ingredients and borrow the kitchen next door.”
One person and one bird immediately set out for the sake of delicious food.
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Footnotes:
1 Red spider lilies: Many Buddhists will use it to celebrate the arrival of fall with a ceremony at the tomb of one of their ancestors. They plant them on graves because it shows a tribute to the dead. People believe that since the red spider lily is mostly associated with death, one should never give a bouquet of these flowers. Since these scarlet flowers usually bloom near cemeteries around the autumnal equinox, they are described in Chinese and Japanese translations of the Lotus Sutra as ominous flowers that grow in Hell, and guide the dead into the next reincarnation.
2 white pepper chicken-stuffed pork tripe hot pot: 胡椒猪肚包鸡火锅; it exists more commonly as a soup on its own, but also as a hot pot base, which is what Meng Xiaoni is intending. This dish will be described more in detail in the next chapter!
