章 27: chapter 27 Messenger
Lin Xi's mind had almost stopped working from fright after she heard him say these words with so much force. She thought that she had offended him somehow.
"I didn't mean anything by asking this. I just thought that your work must be very high in demand, with how advanced and profound your techniques are. That's all."
Zhang Jian eased up a little after he heard her say this. Another factor was that he owed her a favor for helping him previously and he couldn't be very fierce towards her for that very reason.
After this fiasco, Lin Xi had become sure of one thing that Zhang Jian would never work for someone else but it didn't mean that Zhang Jian wasn't open to help if she asked him for it especially since he thought that he owed her a favor for help with catching the Black Fish King.
She had found her way in and now all she had to do was to lay down her net to rope Zhang Jian in. She felt more confident in accomplishing her plan more easily now that she had found a way to get Zhang Jian to help her.
As Lin Xi was busy relishing in her hard found achievement, Bluebird was busy running for its life.
Cerberus had been chasing it while oozing with bloodlust and killing intent. It had already been more than an hour and Bluebird had started to get tired because it was already weaker than Cerberus and had been running while overdrafting on its meager strength.
As time passed, Cerberus had started to inch closer to it slowly which made it feel confident in being able to kill Bluebird.
Cerberus unconsciously started licking its lips while thinking of tearing into the Bluebird that had been leading it by the nose for such a long time.
At this moment, Bluebird had started to feel that it could not keep on leading it in circles for long. It had already carried out Lin Xi's orders anyway. As such without any delay, it broke away from Cerberus with its last burst of strength and flew away at a breakneck speed leaving Cerberus in dust.
Cerberus had already been feeling that something had been off about the situation very early on.
At the beginning it thought that Bluebird had been caught spying and was only trying to run. Later when despite being able to run away easily it kept maintaining the distance between the two, Cerberus felt that Bluebird had been taunting it by leading it in circles.
This made Cerberus fume with anger and chase after Bluebird with red eyes.
It was only now that Cerberus thought of a certain other possibility that Bluebird had only been a distraction and the real target had been something else entirely.
After Cerberus calmed down, it immediately figured out that Zhang Jian was the intended target.
Although Cerberus knew how powerful Zhang Jian was, it couldn't help but get worried and sprinted back to the hut on top of Mount Dabie at its fastest speed.
As it got close to the hut, it sensed an aura that made it lose its mind in fury. What infuriated it further was that the aura was coming from the hut where Zhang Jian had been previously.
It slammed into the door of the hut and pushed its way in. As soon as it stumbled inside, it was dumbfounded to find that Zhang Jian who had been chatting merrily with Lin Xi was now looking at him in an odd manner.
Seeing that Zhang Jian was attentive towards it, Cerberus growled in a low voice and showed its aggression towards Lin Xi which almost shocked the soul out of her.
She tried to back away in a flustered manner in order to avoid the possibility of Cerberud attacking her but calmed down when Zhang Jian intervened between the about to be victim and her canine aggressor.
Zhang Jian had never found it acting so aggressively towards anyone before. He chided Cerberus in a playful manner and hit its ears a few times to keep it from hurting the guest.
"What happened to you? Why do you look like you want to bite someone today? I don't care what happened to you but try to be nice to her. She's our guest here."
Cerberus calmed down afterwards when he had made sure that Lin Xi wasn't here to harm Zhang Jian and decided to investigate her intentions.
As it was busy speculating, a loud cry of a bird was heard and Bluebird entered from the open window.
It came in while flapping its wings and landed on Lin Xi's shoulder. She gave a surprised cry all the while cursing it furiously on the inside for not being able to do a single job properly. Its failure to hold back Cerberus might have even resulted in a horrible death for her.
Her heaven defying luck and Zhang Jian's surprisingly amiable character were the reasons that neither was her plan ruined nor had she come to any harm as a result of its failure.
"I am very sorry for its behavior. It is usually very well-behaved. I don't know what happened to it today."
After the matter was settled, Zhang Jian once again apologized to her.
Lin Xi found that the apology seemed to be very sincere and nodded in acknowledgement. To be fair she didn't dare to demand anything more from Zhang Jian even if he was the one in the wrong.
Zhang Jian found her to be a good girl and asked her to remain in contact and to visit often. Zhang Jian had very few acquaintances so this good natured girl was very welcome in his eyes.
What Zhang Jian didn't know was that he had snatched those words right out of her mouth. Lin Xi had been looking for a means to say the same words to him but he had beat her to it.
As soon as she heard those words, Lin Xi felt all her troubles melt away like polar ice caps due to global warming.
She happily gave away Bluebird to Zhang Jian as a reliable means to communicate with him often.
Although Zhang Jian found this gesture of goodwill from Lin Xi very touching, he straightforwardly rejected her. He had never accepted anything that he had not earned and was not comfortable with taking any such thing.
Therefore, despite her desperate and continous insistence on giving the Bluebird to him, Zhang Jian kept on refusing her.
"Then you can think of it as an exchange. You can give me one of your paintings and I will give you my messenger bird to facilitate communication with you. I live very far away from here and visiting is very troublesome so this is the only way I can reach you."
Zhang Jian finally caved in and accepted the Bluebird after giving her one of his proud works in return.
All this while nobody bothered asking Bluebird what it wanted. It had only recently offended Cerberus and was bound to suffer its revenge as soon as it was handed over to Zhang Jian. It was crying inside but its own master had turned her back on it and had heartlessly sent it behind the enemy lines for reconnaissance.
As a result Bluebird had become meat on the chopping block in front of Cerberus.
What was truly pitiful was that its own master had been responsible for setting its body on top of the chopping block and even for handing the cleaver to the butcher.
The only thing Bluebird was capable of doing in this situation was to look at its master pitifully with puppy eyes and beg to show its unwillingness.
The result was that Lin Xi gave it a dark and emotionless look which translated into something like "You better accept your fate quietly otherwise I will enjoy myself a little bird stew tonight."
As such it could only begrudgingly accept its new role as Zhang Jian's and Lin Xi's messenger and work diligently in order to remain in the good graces of its new master while trying to butter up Cerberus simultaneously to avoid its vengeance.
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