Chapter 209: Messenger Zhetian

You King's Mansion·Suiyu Hall

Weini, after the Great King took the whole family out and left it behind, the bear became depressed. It still ate its meals, but it was angry for a period of time.

After a long time, it gradually stopped being angry, only hoping the Great King would return soon.

Every day it walked a circle in the sleeping hall, confirming that the Great King's quilt, pillow, night lamp, and favorite cup and teapot were still there, and then it firmly believed the Great King would return.

Weini still slept in the Great King's sleeping hall every night; during the day it would get up and lie in the main hall of Suiyu Hall, and after lying for half a day at noon and dusk it would rise to go to the hall's entrance to look, to see whether the Great King had returned.

Whenever it stood at the hall gate, the gatekeeper eunuch would open the door, and Weini would stand there gazing into the distance; but if it took two more steps out of the hall, the Great King could see it on the full topographic map……

That night it as usual dragged its nest to the side of the Great King's bed, and just as it was about to fall asleep it heard the night-watch eunuch's exclamation outside; in the next moment the door was flung open, and that familiar bird appeared inside the sleeping hall.

Weini was overjoyed; it leapt up with an unprecedentedly agile movement, 'Wow? You guys are back!'

Zhetian tilted its head to size it up, called out a greeting, 'You're not bad, are you? No missing legs, no lost fur…… fur?'

Zhetian lunged forward and bit the fat bear, pulling out a clump of fur……

All set!

The Great King had nagged all day; surely it missed you, bringing back a clump of fur will let it know I came to see you!

The Great King pinched a clump of Weini's fur, laughing and crying at the same time: '……Turns out you really can find your way back, and even locate the ship that's underway!'

Zhetian continued to hold its head high and chest out.

The Great King's eyes suddenly lit up: 'Do you still remember Wei Shen? He's my cousin! I'm writing a letter……' The Great King said this and, wary, grabbed Zhetian's leg: 'You must deliver the letter, not go see for yourself, understand? And don't bring back two strands of Wei Shen's hair—I don't want that!' The bear already had a bald patch; if the cousin went bald too, that wouldn't be good.

Zhetian was being pulled by the leg, its wet eyes darting about, the Great King: '……You look quite crafty.'

While the ship was making haste, the Great King had nothing else to do, so it simply wrote a letter to Wei Shen. If Zhetian could run the route from Youzhou to Changzhou, that would save a lot of time.

The Great King wrote that it had already boarded a large ship and gone to Liaodong Commandery, then discovered that someone had already occupied it, planning to produce salt there and ordering Wei Shen to have them buy his illegal private salt from now on. Finally it did not forget to add the most important line: 'Read and then burn.'

Signature: Tai Ping.

For fear that Zhetian might be unreliable and lose it, he used no personal names inside, even replacing Liaodong Commandery with a fairy island in the Bohai Sea; anyone seeing it would think it was just a piece of dreamlike literature.

After writing, he rolled it up, placed it in a cloth bag, and then tied it to Zhetian's leg.

Bai Ze had opinions about this crude 'secret letter': 'Shouldn't it be properly sealed and waterproofed?'

The Great King: 'Ah? Could Zhetian fall into the water?'

Bai Ze: ……

It won't rain, right? Okay, let's mess around; the weather looks fine today.

After tying it, the Great King repeatedly told Zhetian, 'This time you're to deliver it to Changzhou, which we just left, to the Wei family, to Wei Shen—do you understand?'

Cousin! You know this term, right?

The Great King's nagging made Bai Ze want to hit him; finally it brought Zhetian up to the second-floor small terrace, the Great King pointed toward the west, the direction of Changzhou, and then tossed Zhetian into the air~

Zhetian let out a happy cry, drew a big circle in the sky, and came back……

How fun! Again!

The Great King: ……

Bai Ze: ……

The Great King, looking pained, pulled out his storage medicine bottle; that was Qiao Yi's new product, an Intermediate Beast-feeding Pill.

The Cloud-soaring Eagle's native Frost Feather Pill must be taken on schedule; the low-grade Cloud-soaring Eagle disdains it, so the Great King bought three intermediate ones as a hidden treasure, and now took them out to try to win over this creature.

The Great King opened the lid, pinched out a pill to show it; when Zhetian excitedly swooped down trying to swallow it, he slyly shoved it back and closed the lid!

The Great King, full of himself, pointed westward: 'Wei Shen, go find him, give him the letter, then get a reply, his handwriting, understand? Come back and I'll give you a pill as a delivery fee!'

This time, after hugging Zhetian and throwing it skyward again, it didn't turn back, and in the blink of an eye turned into a black dot vanishing into the horizon.

The Great King was happy for three seconds, then belatedly clutched its pocket: 'The delivery fee is so expensive; if I'd known, I would have written something serious……'

Bai Ze: ……

The Great King had rested enough; gazing at the sea and thinking of its ever-shrinking purse, it wanted to go down to pick up some catch, but the ship had to make haste, leaving no time for it to mess around.

The Great King lowered its head to look at the fur in its hand: 'How boring, what should we do?'

Bai Ze: 'Study.'

The Great King pretended not to hear: 'Go find Ling Yin to practice the heavy sword; I haven't been able to bring it out for a long time and haven't practiced.'

Bai Ze: 'Then you ask what it is?'

The Great King ran off without looking back……

Changzhou·Wei Manor

Wei Shen went to his family's sugar workshop in the morning; after returning to his courtyard for a noon rest and just lying down, he heard something hitting his window.

He instinctively thought it was the Great King, because few people are so bored as to not take the usual route, after all the main gate is right beside the window.

He immediately thought that creature might already have returned to Youzhou, and then began to lose interest. Having spent too many days following the Great King's chaotic escapades, he found Changzhou a bit dull; his brother was even more bored than a year ago, and his grandfather and father were also each day mysteriously busy with who-knows-what.

He himself wanted to go back to Youzhou, but leaving the Great King alone to return made him unwilling; who knew that creature would still refuse.

However his grandfather said, once their white-sugar business gets off the ground, let him escort the shipment to Youzhou.

Wei Shen, listless, pushed open the window and discovered Zhetian crouching on the windowsill!

'Oh dear, why are you still in Changzhou? Did you get lost?' Wei Shen was first shocked, then……

No 'then' followed; truly worthy of being the Great King's close cousin, he excitedly said, 'Since you're lost, don't go back—just stay in Changzhou and keep me company, hahaha~'

How to enjoy this happiness? 'I'll piss off Bai Li Jing, hahaha!' Others pluck feathers when geese pass; he wants to take the whole lot.

Zhetian found Wei Shen truly hard to understand; it strained to lift the leg bearing the tied letter, hurry up and look! Hurry up and reply with a few characters! I still need to go back to exchange for medicine to eat!

Wei Shen, whose mind had already flown far away, finally saw the yellow ribbon tied to its leg, untied it, and discovered inside the little sachet a personal letter from the Great King.

He excitedly tore it open, …… Indeed it's the outlaw Wei Tai Ping.

He stood up intending to send this "read-and-burn" letter to his grandfather to have a look, bragging all day at home—how could he be reliable!? Not a speck of salt in sight, yet he first wrote a letter to divide the spoils.

Zhetian lifted its wing and slapped him back—it really slapped! Wei Shen had no strength to struggle at all and plopped down on his butt on the ground……

"What kind of monstrous bird are you, anyway? Ow, my butt……"