One: What About Your Husband?

Chapter One: What About Your Husband?

The sun was shining and the birds were chirping. Woken up by Ji XiaoYu, don’t even think of sleeping well!

This was the consensus reached by all the spiritual beasts on Xiao Qing Shan after experiencing numerous lessons of blood and tears over the past six months.

The one who used to be over-energetic, the pheasant spirit used to cause trouble all day long. But because he felt that life in the mountains was too monotonous and boring, at the beginning of last year, he ran to Xing Cheng, a small town near Xiao Qing Shan, to work. The result was after only one year, at the end of a night when torrential rains poured down with thunder and lightning, the guy suddenly came back. Within a few days, he was like a changed bird, dispirited and yawning for days on end.

Even when faced with the fattest worms, he had no appetite. He was sleepy like a sick bird suffering from the plague. If someone woke him up when he was half-sleep or made so much noise so that he couldn’t sleep, it would be terrible. His fighting power would be off the charts, the fighting pheasant of the mountain would burst into the offender’s nest and fight with red eyes and puffed-up feathers. If he didn’t make them cry for their daddy and scare the shit out of them because he couldn’t sleep for three days straight, then his surname wouldn’t be Ji!

So the spiritual beasts on Xiao Qing Shan quickly succumbed to Ji XiaoYu’s despotic power and became as quiet as birds.

But this morning just after dawn, who knew who suddenly lit a string of firecrackers, so that the whole land of Xiao Qing Shan was shaken by the crackling explosion and all the animals, big and small, were awakened from their sleep.

After the firecrackers exploded, everyone was angry and confused. Who was so brave to even dare to openly challenge Ji XiaoYu?

However, after everyone waited for a long time, they didn’t the angry pheasant rushing out of his nest to fight someone. It was really strange.

Did Ji XiaoYu not hear it? Impossible, the firecracker was at least 5000 decibels, it was impossible to miss it unless you were deaf.

A rabbit spirit who lived nearest to Ji XiaoYu raised his shaking hand and said: “That is, at noon yesterday, I saw Ji XiaoYu coming out of his nest. He casually picked up a few fruits and returned to his nest after eating. He hasn’t come back out again…….”

Everyone suddenly shocked and horrified. It had been so long, Ji XiaoYu hadn’t died in his sleep, right?

Now recalling when that kid came back, there was something really not right about him. Maybe he was sick, if he didn’t make it through the night……..

The spiritual beasts looked at each other and their hearts went tense.

……

Meanwhile, in a cave on the hillside of Xiao Qing Shan.

Ji XiaoYu was neither deaf nor asleep. Not even that, he didn’t have the time to find the big guy who had set off the firecrackers in the early morning. He was sitting in his own silk-thatched bird nest, with a pair of dark circles under his eyes, staring at the slipper, slightly warm white egg under his naked butt. This bird was totally confused.

This, this, this, where did this thing come from? He had no habit of eating eggs! Yesterday, all he ate were a few half-baked wild grapes, so sour his teeth almost fell out.

After eating wild grapes, he returned to his nest and fell asleep like he had for the past six months. As a result, he began to have stomach pain in the middle of the night, so painful that he rolled around in tears. Until he almost collapsed in the middle of the night and couldn’t keep from changing to his original pheasant form.

Dazed, Ji XiaoYu felt as if he were incontinent. He dragged himself into the middle of his nest, his belly then swooped, the pain also became a lot weaker, so he then took human form again……

At that time, he was too tired and too sleepy so he didn’t have the strength to clean up and just fell asleep like that. It wasn’t long before the loud sound of firecrackers woke him up. He had been about to roll up his sleeves to go out to find someone to kill when he suddenly found that he had an extra egg under his butt. In addition, there was no dirty waste or urine in the nest. Though it was a little messy, he was still as clean and dry as before.

Thinking over my situation in the last few months, the loss of appetite and all day lethargy, as well as the stomach ache last night: there seems to be only one explanation……

Oh heavens! This was 100X more unacceptable than not losing control and suffering incontinence in the nest!

Oh heavens, oh mother earth, he was clearly male and, chirp chirp, he had grown up well, how could he lay an egg?

It wasn’t scientific!

After living for 20 years, Ji XiaoYu had never encountered something so ridiculous, not to mention that it happened to himself.

As if he had been struck by lightning, with hair sticking up all frizzy on his head, he stared at the little white egg in the nest which was slightly smaller than the ordinary egg, as if looking at a ticking time bomb. Similarly, he was afraid to move, for fear that the little white egg would suddenly explode and send him to the heaven.

“Xiao Yu, are you okay? You haven’t moved for so long and the firecrackers didn’t blow you out, everyone is uneasy, so they let this old man come over to see what’s going on.”

Just then, a trembling old voice sounded outside cave, and a dark gray-haired old monkey came in.

Ji XiaoYu was so scared that he made a “gah” sound and sat down on the ground. By the time he realized that the egg was still lying in the middle of his bird nest, he was too late to pounce up and hide it. The old monkey squinted his faint old eyes which were as big as a cow’s eyes, first staring at the little white egg for a while, then turning his head to look Ji XiaoYu up and down.

Ji XiaoYu said incoherently, “Grandpa Hou, that egg is not mine! I woke up and it was there, I don’t know where it came from! Really, believe me, I have absolutely no relationships, not even really trivial ones!”

“Alright, then I’ll take it back and cook it.” Hou ChangShengturned into the form of a wizened, little old man, grabbed the little white egg from the thatched grass, and made a move to go outside.

“No!” Ji XiaoYu was suddenly terrified, rushing over to block the little old man’s path. “That’s the egg that I laid, you can’t eat it!”

“Oh, it turned out to be your egg, why not say it sooner.” Hou ChangSheng slowly nodded his head and handed the little white egg over.

Ji XiaoYu covered his careless mouth that had accidentally revealed the truth. He stared at the little white egg in Hou ChangSheng’s hand and then took it in his shaking hand. He broke down, wailing: “Yes, I laid this egg! But I’m a rooster, ah, why can I lay eggs?! And why don’t you aren’t you surprised at all, Grandpa Hou?!”

Inscrutably, Hou ChangSheng said: “Roosters laying eggs is truly rare in the world, but I have seen such a thing before, so it’s not so surprising.”

“What? No way!” Ji XiaoYu couldn’t believe it. “Which rooster has also laid an egg?”

Hou ChangSheng said: “Your father, Ji DaHua. How else do you think you got here, if not hatched from your father’s egg?”

This sentence held so much information that Ji XiaoYu was simply thrown into a state of confusion: “My, my father? Where is he? Is he still alive? And my mother? – no, do I have a mother? Or is it two fathers? Ah, ah, what is going on here? Grandpa Hou, tell me quickly!”

Ji XiaoYu was completely confused. If he hadn’t been holding his egg in his hand, he would have gripped Hou ChangSheng’s shoulders and shook them hard.

He has never seen his parents. He had been an orphan since he was a child and it was Hou ChangSheng who had raised him. He always thought that he was hatched from an ordinary pheasant egg and, by chance, he had happened to become enlightened and take a human form. He didn’t expect that today he would actually hear such explosive news.

Hou ChangSheng sighed and said: “Don’t worry, listen to me and I’ll tell you slowly.”

It turned out that Ji DaHua was also a male pheasant spirit on Xiao Qing Shan. Because he liked the prosperity of the human world, he pretended to be an ordinary human and went to the city more than 20 years ago. He then fell in love with a male human being and lived together with him. When Ji DaHua once inadvertently exposed his original form, his partner was scared at first, but in the end, his love for Ji DaHua overcame his fear of monsters. He accepted the fact that he was a pheasant spirit and kept his mouth shut.

After they were together for a couple months, Ji DaHua somehow underwent a genetic mutation and laid an egg. Not a few days after, the accident was leaked as a rumor and was discovered by outsiders. Following the rumor that the eggs laid by a rooster had a supplemental effect, that mortals who ate them would gain longevity and those who were spiritual beasts could eat them to improve their strength, this rooster-laid egg attracted a bunch of people and spiritual beasts. In order to protect their egg, Ji DaHua and his partner engaged in arduous struggles with a crowd of people and finally ended up dying against one of the most powerful ones.

On his deathbed, Ji DaHua entrusted the chick who had just hatched from the eggshell to Hou ChangSheng, the most respected man on Xiao Qing Shan, asking him to please help raise him. If the chick was just an ordinary pheasant and could become enlightened and take human form, his name would be Ji XiaoYu. If there was no special development, it was best not to tell him his family background and the experience of his parents, so as to not attract trouble. As long as their son could live a safe and smooth life, the husband and husband would be able to die content.

Hou ChangSheng had dutifully acted as a nanny and the chick transformed into a fat doll after the full moon, so he was named Ji XiaoYu. Hou ChangSheng had always remembered Ji DaHua’s instructions from that year and never disclosed his story to Ji XiaoYu. The little guy grew with no worries or heartache until the age of 20. He originally thought that this secret would be kept hidden forever, but he didn’t expect that Ji XiaoYu was also gifted, inheriting his father’s ability to lay eggs. He saw the child was so scared and nervous that he had to tell the story.

Ji XiaoYu listened with reddened eyes, pitying his two fathers, who sacrificed their own lives to protect him and he didn’t even know until now.

“It’s been so many years, don’t be too sad. You can live well and both your fathers in heaven can feel at ease.” Hou ChangSheng saw that he was sad and deliberately changed the topic. “Say, Xiao Yu, why did you run back to Xiao Qing Shan to lay the egg alone, where’s your husband?”

“…….” Ji XiaoYu suddenly blushed, the bird was totally embarrassed. “What, what husband? Grandpa Hou, are you kidding? I’m a rooster, how can I have a husband?!”

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Footnotes:

1. Xiao Qing Shan (小青山): Little Green Mountain (mountain with a lush forest)

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