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The letters carved into the bark had faded, but they were still legible on close inspection , the address of the Star Luo Residence, and a note explaining that whoever delivered this item could claim a reward.
Luo Wei read it twice, carefully, before she was sure. This was the piece of bark she had carved in her dream.
So she had really gone to The Misty Plains in her dream?
No. More accurately , after she'd fallen asleep, her soul had actually traveled to The Misty Plains?
"Where's the bird?" Happiness had arrived too suddenly. She couldn't quite bring herself to believe it.
"In the courtyard," Chris said quickly. "We covered it with a wicker basket."
Luo Wei strode out under the eaves and spotted the basket immediately , two maids kneeling on either side to hold it down. Through the gaps in the weave, a dark shadow shifted.
Black?
A bad feeling crept up her spine.
"Open it. Let me see."
The maids lifted the basket. A large, fluffy black bird blinked up at the open air.
Light rain was still falling. The bird's feathers were soaked through, the soft down on its chest and belly plastered into wet, matted clumps. It looked completely bedraggled.
But this wasn't the Chromatic Illusion Bird she had caught in her dream.
This bird's feathers were pitch black and chaotic, its head broad and round , every feature unmistakably that of a raven.
Luo Wei went very still, deep suspicion written across her face.
Had she misremembered the dream? Or had the Chromatic Illusion Bird somehow... mutated?
"Gugaga gugaga!"
The fat-headed bird shook out its feathers, waddled two steps forward, and fixed both its tiny black bead-eyes on Luo Wei with an unmistakably wounded expression.
Luo Wei: ...
That sound, though. That was definitely right.
She crouched down and studied the raven. "Did you fly here from The Misty Plains?"
"Ga!" It puffed out its chest.
...Could it understand human speech?
She turned to Chris. "How did this bird end up in the courtyard? Did someone bring it?"
"No one brought it. We checked outside — it flew down from the sky on its own."
Luo Wei looked back at the raven. "You flew here yourself?"
"Guga!" It flapped its wings, lifted off, and landed again , demonstrating, apparently, exactly how it had arrived.
"How did you know to come here?" she asked, growing more curious by the second. "Can you read?"
That would explain why it had watched so intently while she carved the bark, not making a sound.
"Gaga?" The raven tilted its head and gave a shake. Whether it was flicking water off its feathers or shaking its head to say no, she had absolutely no idea.
Bird language was not in her skillset. Communication was going to be painful.
"Forget it." She gave up on asking. "I said before — if you made it here alive, I'd take care of you for the rest of your life. Meat or grain, go pick whatever you want from the kitchen."
"Gugagaga?"
The raven let out two sharp, urgent cries, then suddenly snapped its wings open and launched itself at her like a cannonball aimed straight at her chest.
"Master!"
"Miss Luo Wei!"
Chris and Lara both screamed and lunged forward to intercept it.
The raven ignored them entirely. It snatched the piece of bark clean from Luo Wei's hand, dropped to the ground, jabbed one claw at the writing on the bark, and began pushing it insistently toward Luo Wei's feet.
Lara squinted at it. "Miss Luo Wei... does it want you to look at the words?"
Luo Wei looked down. Every word on that bark was hers. What was there to see that she hadn't already read?
Just the address and the reward she'd written... the reward?
She eyed the raven. "You're not here to claim the reward, are you?"
"Gaga!" The raven nodded.
Luo Wei's mouth twitched. This world kept getting stranger. A raven had flown across an ocean to collect a bounty on itself.
"Fine. Ten gold coins." She dug them from her pocket and held them flat on her palm.
The raven shot up excitedly, tried to grab them , and immediately discovered its two claws couldn't hold ten coins at once. It landed back on the ground, tilting its head in obvious distress.
"Guga guga~"
"What? I don't understand you."
"Guga. Gua. Gaga~"
"You want me to hold onto them for now?"
After a prolonged and deeply frustrating exchange, Luo Wei finally pieced together what the raven actually wanted.
It wanted her to hang a wicker basket under the eaves for its nest. It wanted the ten gold coins placed inside. And it wanted to sleep on top of them, nestled in the glitter of shiny metal.
Truly the bird with the largest brain-to-body ratio in the animal kingdom. It was practically a spirit beast in the making.
Luo Wei had the maids thread ropes through the basket and hang it in a sheltered corner out of the wind and rain. She tucked a bundle of dry grass inside, then placed the gold coins in one by one, right in front of the raven's watchful eyes.
The raven supervised every step with intense suspicion, tracking the maids' hands like a hawk watching mice, clearly convinced they were planning to pocket something.
While the basket was being hung, it hopped frantically back and forth on the ground like an excited duck. The moment the basket was secured, it scrambled inside to test it. Whatever verdict it reached, the wicker basket soon rang out with a long, horrible string of sounds that could only be described as a wild duck having a breakdown.
Everyone standing under the eaves flinched. Lara, with her sharper hearing, immediately slapped both hands over her ears.
Luo Wei went very quiet.
If it did this every single day...
At least she didn't sleep at the Star Luo Residence at night. If that sound went off in the middle of the night, she'd be scared half to death.
She glanced up at the swaying basket. The raven should be a primary-level magical beast, same as the Chromatic Illusion Bird , but ravens weren't migratory. They didn't cross oceans.
She had no idea how it had found this place.
If only someone understood bird language. A translator would be genuinely useful right now.
Unfortunately, the Western Continent had no such talent. Or rather , it once had, but not anymore.
Legend said mermaids and sirens were born singers and linguists, able to speak with every living creature in the world.
The moment that thought surfaced, a cold, bloodless face rose unbidden in her mind.
The undead mermaid. Stacy.
She could probably understand animals too, couldn't she?
By evening, the rain had stopped.
Rosie came downstairs with Hall after dark magic class. Roman and Tom came tumbling into the courtyard with their schoolbags still bouncing on their backs. The quiet little yard filled with voices.
Half a month ago, Luo Wei had commissioned a carpenter to make a chess set. She had nothing pressing today , the perfect time to teach Roman how to play and finally make good on her promise to him.
"Roman. Come here."
"Coming!"
They settled across from each other at the round table. Luo Wei arranged the pieces on the checkered board and walked Roman through the rules, patient and unhurried.
Rosie, Hall, Tom, and Lara gathered around to watch. Tom grew more baffled with every explanation. Everyone else's eyes grew sharper and brighter.
Play began. White moves first. Luo Wei let Roman take white.
The first game was a massacre. Roman didn't know the rules well enough yet, and he lost badly , no surprise there.
In the second game he came back with more intent, having gotten a feel for the mechanics. But intent alone wasn't enough. Luo Wei's positioning was three moves ahead, and he fell behind almost immediately.
"The king! Watch the king! She's going to checkmate you!" Hall looked ready to physically drag Roman out of his chair and take over. The spectators were more anxious than the player.
Before long, the kitchen called them in for dinner. The two of them set down their pieces with visible reluctance and moved to the dining room.
By the time dinner was done, the sky was fully dark. Luo Wei and Lara collected Hall and headed back toward the academy.
They had barely stepped through the gates when a shadow launched itself out from the side.
"Why are you back so late!" Theodore looked furious enough to combust. "Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting? You go out and don't even bring me — that's completely unreasonable!"
Gladys stepped out behind him, looking equally aggrieved as she swept her gaze across all three of them. "Luo Wei, Lara, Hall. The student council has assigned us to dredge the lake."
➤ Next: The Airplane Only Master Artificers Know
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