The pheasant had been felled indeed, with its blood splashed like an abstract art piece on the snow.
Yun Jieshi didn't find the scene quite pleasing, though.
Some of the blood from the bird had spilled onto its giant nest. Large tree trunks, meticulously de-limbed and warmed by its feathers were meshed into a circular shape. To cover this safe space from the wind, the bird had placed the nest in the cleft of a giant, frozen mound of snow and flanked it with more tree trunks. The nest almost looked like some snow-themed pen… with a stylistic splash of blood.
The dead pheasant's giant eggs, six in all, also spotted some blood, which made Yun Jieshi feel rather… uncomfortable. He had no trouble killing chickens and taking their eggs in his last life, but somehow, with things plus-sized in this world… he couldn't help but hesitate.
The little monkey sighed. 'Are they even safe to eat? I'm really not into cuisine that demands eating half-baked young.'
While this might have been true, indeed, Yun Jieshi's desire for an egg reigned supreme. There were ways to tell unfertilised eggs from fertilised ones. Thus, while twiddling his fingers, the little monkey made for the eggs when…
"No…" Qui Tian suddenly said.
"What?" Yun Jieshi turned to her. "Why not?"
In typical Qui Tian fashion, the hag didn't deign to expand on her answer. She merely gave another stern, "No."
As patient of a person as Yun Jieshi considered himself, he couldn't help but feel angry this time. He frowned.
"Could you tell me why not?" he said, spreading his arms.
Qui Tian's shoulders slumped. Still, she gave him no answer.
"Are the eggs dangerous to eat?"
She still didn't answer him.
"Are they poisonous?"
"…"
Yun Jieshi could have detonated. Instead, he drew in a cold breath to calm down. Logic slowly started pouring back into his head.
Telling himself to be a rational adult, he decided to seek the answers he sought for himself. There had to be a valid reason for Qui Tian's attitude against him taking the eggs, right?
Yun Jieshi inspected the dead pheasant's nest. He looked closely at the eggs, all blue-shelled with green spots. Other than the odd colours, he saw nothing else of note. He then planted his hand on one of them.
"Greater Blight Wind Pheasant's fertilised egg," said the old sagely voice.
"Oh! There was yet another method to find out the status of these eggs," said Yun Jieshi.
Even the voice in his head didn't identify anything wrong with the eggs.
So… what now?
He looked back at Qui Tian. She simply stood there, staring at him with what might have been a sullen expression. It was hard to tell. She soon left him to his devices and wobbled over to the dead pheasant.
Sighing, Yun Jieshi decided to inspect the nest some more while muttering something that sounded distinctly like feihua. He spotted nothing out of the ordinary around the nest. When he – because why not – scaled the frozen hill shielding it from behind, however…
His spine froze.
Great black feathers were sprawled here and there over the snow, frozen.
Yun Jieshi turned to Qui Tian immediately.
"Is it because of the… creature with the black wings?" he cried.
The hag said nothing to this. She slit the pheasant's neck, pretending as though she'd not heard. But Yun Jieshi was convinced he was right.
'Is it not because of the eggs themselves, but because… we're in the bird's territory or something?' he thought, frowning. Why else would the hag forbid him from taking them?
'Or maybe it's not that simple? We just killed that pheasant in the same territory.'
Before long, Qui Tian beckoned Yun Jieshi and gestured for him to help clean and drain the bird. The little monkey tried his best to make her answer his inquiries, but she remained unresponsive.
Why was she always so awkward about the black bird?
Fuming, Yun Jieshi did as she bid anyway.
After they finished cleaning their game as best as they could, the hag insisted that they continue their hunt, and get some more meat before the day was done. However, to Yun Jieshi's surprise, Qui Tian refused to continue down the way they had been going so far.
His curiosity soared.
Was she avoiding the possibility of encountering the creature?
'It seems like it now. It wasn't something insignificant, after all. If she's trying to get us away from this territory then…' Yun Jieshi thought before his eyes shone. 'The black bird must be something stronger than a Greater Blight Wind Pheasant.'
The hag had once hinted at the fact that the real monster didn't have anything to do with the black-feathered creature at all. She had shown him where the real enemy was – in the direction of those coals she had left in the snow.
To say Yun Jieshi was being eaten from the inside by all these unanswered questions, would have been an understatement.
In the end, he relented, but he gave the old woman a glare as she planted a talisman on the cleaned bird and had it float, following after them.
They continued on the way the old woman pointed towards. Yun Jieshi had hoped that they would come across one of those large bird's feathers again. At the very least, he could confirm if the hag was avoiding the creature indeed.
They never did, unfortunately. But maybe that in itself confirmed his theory?
'Are there really two monsters I have to worry about? If she had to intervene against the pheasant we encountered yesterday, I can't even imagine what this other black bird is capable of,' he thought gravely.
His mind continued to be hinged on this thought for a while.
The terrain sloped as it pleased, great chunks of ice built over decades or even centuries shaping it into assortments of ugly and beautiful with the aid of odd, crooked trees and shrubs.
The whispers in the wind seemed to grow as the two moved on. At some point, they doubled back, heading back in the direction of the cabin, but then they were on another course, avoiding more of the black-stalked flowers and approaching other areas even Qui Tian didn't know much about.
Almost an hour later, Yun Jieshi grew tired of the silent wandering. He struck up conversation with Qui Tian, making sure to avoid anything she had decided she wouldn't answer. He nearly called her shameless when she responded to him heartily, her voice sounding more vibrant than before.
'I might have to use the Spiced Wine Rice to get her to talk later,' Yun Jieshi thought just as they pushed through a particularly heavy curtain of falling snow collected up in the frozen canopies of trees overhead.
The little monkey narrowed his eyes at what came after the obscurity.
"Is that… the cabin?"
Even Qui Tian came to a pause. She caused the floating pheasant behind her to fall.
"Wait. No, that's not…" Yun Jieshi inched forward and reeled. His ears pricked.
Indeed, a small, dilapidated cabin, almost entirely buried in snow stood before them. The little monkey was taken aback. It seemed to him that it had been buried under the snow but had been uncovered somewhat by the shaking of the world caused by Zi Kun – given the look of the surroundings.
But beyond that, Yun Jieshi could hear something coming from the cabin. Something faint.
'Is someone crying?'
Sobs were coming strong from the wooden home, but they lacked urgent passion. They sounded practised and routine.
Yun Jieshi turned to the hag with a difficult expression.
"I hope there isn't some creature in there that can mimic human speech or something," he said.
The hag shrugged and drew Yun Jieshi back with a hand. She didn't want him getting too close in case that proved to be the case.
She extracted a slip of hemp, quickly scribbled an incantation and flung it forth. The slip swished with the wind and landed on the mound of snow gathered at the front of the house. Almost immediately after the talisman touched the snow, there was an explosion of steam. The cold hissed, threatened by the heat and it soon lost the fight. The crooked door to the cabin was revealed, soaked wet.
Yun Jieshi gulped. He held his ruan tight.
The hag pulled another slip of hemp and wrote an incantation: the Southern Hand. She extended her hand, and a ghostly replica of it, pale and long, reached forward and pushed open the door to the cabin.
The sobs immediately became clearer, and their source came into full view.
A figure was kneeling on the uneven, wrecked floor, both hands planted against their face.
Every part of the figure was strange. The tattered shenyi they were adorning looked like an ink wash painting, and blots of colour rose from it into the air. The same could be said for their messy white hair.
"A phantom!" cried Yun Jieshi.
Before he could think, he had lunged forward. A fearsome guilt that had been throbbing within his heart over the last several days awakened at once.