บท 164: When a Petty Aunty Showed Her True Colors (Important Announcement)
[…The more, the better. Mommy already noticed it, right?] Kuro chuckled lightly with an enigmatic tone. His glowing scarlet eyes caught a movement in between the trees a few paces away and immediately evade to the next tree on his left.
Hundreds of enhanced razor-sharp sesame-shaped leaves the size of Mommy's palm shot towards his previous location. The huge tree where he had dangled on was pierced like a porcupine. Some of the large branches fell; a testament of how strong and sharp the unassuming enhanced leaves were.
Kuro smirked disdainfully.
[Child's play. The bugger was just an amateur at trap-setting.] He glided away nonchalantly while flaring out his spirit sense towards the surrounding, checking every nook and cranny. Five kilometers to the East, Kuro detected something strange. It could be another trap, or it could be the Forest Spirit itself. He needed to double up.
[Sorry, a bit busy here. I got to go now, Mommy.] Do whatever your heart tells you. Kuro excused himself from the public telepathic channel before planning to shut it off to concentrate.
[Take care, Sweetie.] He heard Mommy's caring words and closed his eyes to savor them. Once he opened them again, they were filled with determination and anticipation.
It won't be able to hide forever.
Kuro was determined to flush it out. After that, Mommy will know who loved her best.
…
Amused at how her self-proclaimed 'new skills' turned out, Hana spent more time observing her lovely white fox performing something akin to a magic show. The frost 'blender' was awesome; Hana could imagine tens of delicacies made easy with the presence of this wonderous magical kitchen gadget. Ladies just love kitchen gadgets, regardless of using them or not. These innovations held the runner-up position just after sparkly things like pretty gems and costly jewelry. Although the base material for the magical food processor was ice, it was still very robust. It didn't easily melt or break as long as they pay attention to control the thickness of the ice slab.
But threading the Spiritual Energy into shapes and using it to knead a doughball made of cooked tapioca, well, that is really something else altogether. Theoretically, it could be done. But, knowing her insanely talented pet fox, he must be intricately manipulating thousands of spiritual energy strands at different directions at the same time! Talk about a super genius, lead character material!
It's ashamed that she still couldn't find a way to permanently imbued materials with spiritual energy. If not, it would be pretty easy to enforce weak materials with spiritual energy sheet on the surface. Hana could use these materials to make tons of stuff like clothes, covers for bedsheets and pillows, curtains… Ohh, there were so many in her mind, it made the aunty excited all over! She didn't have to painstakingly find suitable materials to make clothes anymore in the future; any random leaves would just do. Finding cotton was hard enough, the thought that she might have to spin it to turn into cloth sent shivers through her spine. She'll just make do with the stretchable swimsuit-like material she got from Kuro for the time being and wear rags over them to cover her dignity. Truthfully, using Kuro's skin was just temporary. The unbreathable factor could affect her skin condition in the long term. Worst case scenario, she could develop contact dermatitis from the accumulation of sweat.
[This matter is worth investigating. I must test it out sometime in the future.] The aunty rubbed her chin while contemplating the right time for experimenting it with her pets. She immediately took out her smartphone and jotted it down in her Note apps as a reminder; her tiny notepad was already full of tiny scribbles and notes, and finally, it ran out of pages. Why hadn't she thought of jotting down using her smartphone from the beginning? She could've saved the pages for something else in the future.
However, she did have a lot on her plate for the time being. Once the Spirit Forest arrived, and the Spiritual-agriculture efforts are in full swing, she could let it run remotely and concentrated on dissecting the properties of this new kind of energy she only heard in novels and maybe, come up with new ways to manipulate it for their own benefit. It was so boring (and stupid) to only use it for skirmishes among spiritual creatures. Such was Hana's trust for Kuro. Once Kuro said he will get the elusive Spirit Forest, Hana believed him one-hundred percent and already arranged long-term plans.
"Mistress Hana! This Glorious One wish to speak with you." The four-winged black and white gigantic hornbill appeared and interrupted Hana's thoughts shamelessly. She felt that it was just the right time to ask the Mistress for guidance. After all, she brought along her meat shield in the form of the gullible Markisah. Beside her, Markisah flew over and landed on top of the aunty's head playfully, not knowing that it wasn't really a good time to disturb her friend. Usually, Hana will always welcome Markisah since she never really disturbed her and only perched upon her head. The aunty was already accustomed to Markisah's weight; it was just like a grade M poultry (1). However, the words spoken by the spirited Suria just sounded like grating chalk over a blackboard, except that it was ten times louder!
The aunty didn't understand bird language! Meanwhile, her faithful translator was busy practicing with tapioca balls. Obviously, he didn't plan to diverge his concentration on translating whatever the self-entitled bird wished to relay.
Beeping green veins appeared on Hana's temples as she tried her best to contain her desire to pull the bird's feathers off.
Seriously!!! What's with screeching proudly beside her ears as if there's no tomorrow?! Did it think it was Siti?! (2) This bird really needed to be taught a lesson! It made her feel depressed far too many times! The huge bird was far too annoying. It was really tiring confronting it. In her foul mood, she forgot that she was confronting a bird the size of a house who could peck her to death in mere seconds.
"Tell me what you want this time, Suria. I'm quite busy at the moment. If it is not important, let's put it off for later." Pressing her temples with one hand due to the headache ensued from all the unsavory screeching, Hana unhappily talked to the Lord of the Tricolored World Tree and brushed her off just like that. Suria blinked her eyes, not knowing what the Mistress meant. But, she could plainly see that the Mistress wasn't happy and didn't want to attend to her.
"Markisah! Do something! I don't understand Mistress' words!" She screeched to Markisah who was on top of the aunty's head, gaining more infamy from Hana. It looked like she was shouting at Hana directly on her face!
"Stop being rude. You are not welcome here if you continue this folly. I'm just too tired to be nice."
"Err… Would you like me to help?" A tiny girlish voice sounded out; it was almost a whisper, since the owner of the voice was afraid of both parties. Ara was holding her transparent pinkish pectoral fin up from within the bubble, trying to get notice, but at the same time was afraid to be in the center of the confrontation. She pushed herself forward because Markisah was her bosom friend; she didn't wish for Markisah to be ousted from the Mistress' territory. She misunderstood the aunty's words since it was actually only directed at the Lord of the Tricolor World Tree alone.
As the aunty was linked to the Young Miss of the Waterwave clan, she naturally heard what the little fish was saying via the telepathic channel.
"Yes, what can I do for you, Dearie?" Hana asked back in surprise. Obviously, the aunty didn't know Suria was talking to her.
"The big bird is trying to talk to you, Mistress."
"Oh? And what does it want?"
"Mar-chan, ask your Lord about the details. Please be quick. The Mistress is not in a good mood." Ara immediately turned to her best bud. She too, was influenced by the aunty and attached '-chan' to her friend's name as a sign of closeness. She learnt that anyone who had the '-chan' or '-chi' attachment by the Mistress meant that she's very fond of them and will always get extra attention.
"Fast! Fast! Lord Suria! The Mistress isn't happy already!" Markisah flapped her wings in a hurry over the aunty's head while fretting a little.
"O Great Mistress of the Serpent's Lair! This Glorious One wished to deepen her knowledge in the arts of Blender-no-jutsu! Since Fox is blessed with the gift of manipulating ice, this Glorious One did not have an inkling on how to proceed with a wind-based inborn gift."
Hana tried her hardest not to laugh after hearing Ara's explanation. It seemed that this annoying hornbill wished to learn how to make a blender was it?
"Sure. But what can you give me in return? Pay, pay. Pay me with something for the extra trouble." Hana flapped her hands in front of the gigantic hornbill. The aunty can really be quite petty with the ones she disliked.
A little taken aback with the Mistress response, Suria took a step back. She closed her face with her four wings. She then pondered deeply for a few seconds. What was the thing that was most precious to entice the Mistress?
"This Glorious One will be eternally indebted to you! The Tricolor World Tree Sanctuary will always be your friend!" Suria screeched confidently.
Hana rolled her eyes, "Not good enough. There's nothing tangible involved." Hana was unimpressed as she folded her arms with a bored look. This bird really lah… If she thought she could sell her house together with her little servants so that she could get a one-up from this aunty over here, humph! Sorry to say, it's not a deal. As the leader of the whatever-tree sanctuary, she must be the strongest. If she couldn't even contend her lovely Shiro, it means that the overall strength of the Sanctuary is of the weaker level. That kind of 'friendship' has quite a low value. They could even be a burden.
"Eh?" Suria took a step back in a melodramatic horror as she felt a bitter pang flooding within; the Mistress looked down on her glorious self and the Sanctuary as a whole. From the beginning, she had been on the losing end since she was the one who needed something from the Mistress. The Mistress wasn't even impressed with the heartfelt gift she meticulously nurtured before. The Sacred Mistral Leaf (3) given to the Mistress was not seen anywhere. It was a precious, precious treasure with defensive capabilities against wind-attributed attacks. Either the Mistress didn't recognize the value, or she was so mighty, she didn't need it! Sighhh~
Thinking through until this point, Suria deflated while feeling helpless; her confidence, greatly affected, "Then… Do Mistress need anything? We could help you perform some tasks…" She offered randomly out of desperation.
"Deal! Help out with others whenever I ask you to without questions. No buts. So simple right? WAHAHAHA!" Hana, the notorious haggler, won big time! The key was an infinite number of tasks; not one, not three, not a hundred. This was not being petty, this was taking a 'slight' advantage on naughty kids while teaching them to be better persons.
"Hmm.. Hmm.." Hana nodded self-righteously.
Hence, if this shameless bird knew to care for her relationship with the Serpent's Lair and the rewards ensued, she would oblige. Hana wasn't sure whether the bird was intelligent enough to minimally understand their deal or not, but she'll slowly whipped this bird into shape. It needed to learn a little bit of humility, and especially stop bullying her precious, precious Shi-chan.
…
Authors' Note:
1) Grade M poultry = refers to grade M chickens, its usually around 800g-1kg (standard weight of a processed raw chicken w/o feathers is about +-1.5kg)
2) Siti = a short for 'Siti Nurhaliza', a legendary singer in Malaysia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siti_Nurhaliza). This is one of the latest songs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAGNmOlMdfQ). She always sings in this nuance since she's younger. Now, she's at the level of
3) Sacred Mistral Leaf = remember the pink leaf Suria passed to Markisah to be gifted to Hana? Ohh..can't remember which chapter. Anyone knows, please leave a comment!
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mrandmrsmooncat
mrandmrsmooncat Good day everyone,
You guys must be wondering what happen since we haven't updated at all for March. Mrs Mooncat had tried her hardest, but unfortunately couldn't keep up with the schedule. Too many commitments to fulfill until Mrs Mooncat had to place ASTHW on a low priority scale. Originally, ASTHW is an outlet for Mrs Mooncat to release stress, but at the moment, Mrs Mooncat didn't even have time to sit in front of the PC properly to write for 15 minutes. Hence, after discussing with Mr Mooncat, we decided to take a break from posting ASTHW chapters to stockpile a bit.
The next post will be on June 2021. We will make a prior announcement as a notification for our loyal readers. Truly sorry especially to our patrons. Mrs Mooncat's level of stress is too much to bear already and currently is nearing burnout (on other matters, not this haha).
If you guys would like to observe our daily lives (and learn some simple recipes), just check out #mrandmrsmooncat and you'll see our random posts in FB, though it didn't have any connection with ASTHW haha
Stay safe, and see you in June.
Hugsies
Mrs Mooncat
Nadia Ong
16/3/2021
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