Beware Of Chicken-Novel

Now though, we could sit down and hear what had happened all together. It was fun playing the part of a speaker in this audio drama retelling of Tigu’s Excellent Adventure.

I pitched my voice in a passable imitation of Yin being smug, then transitioned into Tigu’s righteous anger. Everybody else burst out with laughter at the petulant whine. Noodle was wheezing from his place coiled around Bowu’s arm, tears gathering in his good eye.

I shook my head in amusement and continued.

Big D’s letter had been lyrical, almost, in its quality. He wrote like somebody from, well, an ancient time period, his language largely formal but still informative. It had been concise, with the occasional aside to explain his feelings.

She had little doodles in the margins of the scroll, things she had seen on people’s clothes; and when she reached something she wanted to convey, she didn’t even try to describe it. Another print would simply be inserted.

From the reed houses of the Misty Lake, to the endless Grass Sea at sunset. One was Xiulan, staring at the horizon, a little smile on her face.

Meiling’s eyes softened and a small smile crossed her face. Chunky oinked with pride.

She was a far cry from the selfish cat she once was. I was proud of her. And I was even more proud when a print of people in cages was unveiled. This one was abstract, unlike Tigu’s normal perfect realism. The vision was edged in red and black miasmic swirls.

“Nor a better daughter,” Meiling murmured. Her back was straight and proud.

The girl who had once cared nothing about the weak and maimed things she didn’t like because she thought it was fun had grown to become a woman who would stand between the weak and those who would hurt them.

I felt a smile grow on my face. She was right. She could hold her head high, because all of us were proud of her.

She may not have been the daughter I had imagined having… but I was glad that she was.

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She had her second abstract piece after that—the great beetle that was Grass Sea City, and its dark, seedy underbelly.

What followed was straight out of an action movie as they hunted down the slavers, and met Delun’s mother and father, two people who Tigu had given a glowing review.

“Well, it isn’t exactly an uncommon name,” I pointed out after a moment. “Besides, the Lord Magistrate told me he's stationed in Pale Moon Lake City.”

We both looked at each other and shrugged.

I continued reading as they left Grass Sea City and headed to the Dueling Peaks.

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Finally, they came to the Dueling Peaks.

Tigu described the tenseness. The confrontation with the Grand Ravine Sect. The charge in the air—and then the absolute bafflement as they simply handed over all the memory crystals.

It was almost anti-climactic. They were all prepared for a battle, perhaps a war, but I think Tigu had the right of it.

“She’s holding ethics classes?” Gou Ren asked, a look of incredulity on his face.

Washy just started laughing so hard he nearly fell out of his trough.

I finished the scroll and sighed with contentment.

“This is going right beside Big D’s,” I declared happily…. before swatting away Washy’s hand as it inched towards a bag of sweets in the chest.

“Does anybody want to read their letter out aloud?” I asked, and Bowu immediately opened his scroll.

I started pulling out the souvenirs—there were reed hats and water plant seeds from the Misty Lake, an opera fan and preserved flowers from the Verdant Blade Sect, several prints carved in stone, a slightly ragged headband that looked like the one that Rags wore, and badge that had a tiger on it.

There were also dried fruits and honey candies—along with a bottle of some kind of perfume.

Encouraged, Gou Ren opened his next. He grinned as he unfurled it and cleared his throat, ready to tell us the contents of the letter he had received.

His eyes went further and further down the page, and his blush went from his cheeks all the way up to his ears.

He tried to roll the scroll back up, but Meimei was beside him in an instant, moving faster than I had ever seen her move. She grabbed the letter, her eyes roving all over it—before her face turned pink.

Gou Ren snatched his letter back, his face so red that you could probably cook an egg on it.

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The other letters were much less lewd, fortunately.

Most of them were actually more personal letters, written by Tigu, to Washy, Chunky, and Peppa. Mostly, they were about food, in the case of Washy’s letter, gloating about all the different things she got to try.

The Torrent Rider had written to Big D, so that one remained untouched.

And then the final letter was from Yin to Noodle. It was rather short and to the point, and kind of awkward and stilted, as she struggled to describe things.

But its ending caused the snake to bow his head.

It was a wonderful end to a wonderful day.

And it gave us something concrete to look forward to. They were coming home on the solstice.

We had it in writing. And if they weren’t home, well, I would have to go and fetch them, wouldn’t I?