After Mu Wanwan applied medicine to the little fluffy chirp, it drooped its tiny wing and gave two more fragile chirps. Then it lay down on the small handkerchief Mu Wanwan had folded for it, covered with a scrap of cloth, and quietly fell asleep.
It was very well-behaved.
Cherishing it, Mu Wanwan stretched out one finger and touched the patch of white fluff on the little chirp’s head. It was very soft, and also very fragile.
The fluffy chirp’s whole body was black, grey, and white. Its tail feathers were a little long, making it look as though it were wearing a little black waistcoat. There was a ring of white down around both its head and neck, making it seem like it was wearing a tiny scarf. Its beak was tender yellow and very cute.
This kind of chirp was very thin, only about the size of her palm. It should still be a very young chirp.
Moreover, based on its quiet and clingy personality just now, as well as its small body and not particularly wide beak, this should be a female mountain sparrow?
Mu Wanwan’s heart stirred. Her fingertip gently stroked its head. “From now on, shall I call you Mengmeng?”
She was actually terrible at naming things. The few names she had thought of for the chirp were—
“Little Black,” “Fluffy Ball,” “White Chirp,” “Chirpy,” “Mengmeng”…
Looking at them this way, Mengmeng seemed to sound the best.
It was so small and so soft. Once the thin chirp’s injuries healed, if she fed it until it grew a little plumper and its feathers became fuller, would it not feel especially nice to touch? And it was so cute too.
A smile appeared in Mu Wanwan’s eyes. She put the basket away, walked to the bed, and glanced at Mr. Dragon. Then she lifted the quilt and checked his tail. After confirming that everything was fine, she began preparing to work.
She had slept well last night, and the spiritual energy in her body was abundant. Since she still had the whole day today, she had to hurry and cultivate more spiritual plants. That way, she could exchange them for more money later.
Mu Wanwan took all the seedlings out of the Spatial pouch and spent most of the day cultivating them. She managed to cultivate fifteen more seedlings to maturity. As for the remaining two, after thinking about it, she decided to leave them at home.
In that case, she had a total of eighty-two mature fruits in hand. She still had to feed Mr. Dragon tonight, and also feed the chirp, so she would probably consume a few. She estimated that she would have around eighty plants she could sell, which was still quite good.
Mu Wanwan comforted herself and glanced at the sky outside. It was almost dark now. Fortunately, it had not rained.
These days, she no longer ate three meals a day. One reason was that Mr. Dragon had kept vomiting blood a few days ago and she had needed to take care of him. Another was that after advancing in rank, she no longer became hungry as easily as she had when she was first rank. Sometimes, one cultivation session lasted an hour, and cooking took too much time.
However, Mu Wanwan still kept the habit of eating at least two meals a day. Breakfast and dinner still had to be eaten. Also, since the spirit rice had run out yesterday, even if there was no spirit rice to feed Mr. Dragon tonight, she still had to feed him spiritual fruits.
Mu Wanwan still remembered how miserable Mr. Dragon’s tail had looked when it rotted last time because of a lack of spiritual energy.
She rubbed her shoulders, which were a little sore from sitting for so long, then stood up and went to the kitchen.
She had to make something for herself and the little chirp to eat. As for Mr. Dragon, since there was no spirit rice now, she did not dare feed him ordinary rice. She would just feed him two Hundred Treasures Fruits later.
So, when the sky gradually darkened and Mr. Dragon finally woke with great difficulty and impatiently extended his divine consciousness, what he saw was this scene—
Madam was not sitting by the bed as usual. Instead, she was sitting at the table some distance away. On the table were simple stir-fried greens, a bowl of rice, and two spiritual fruits.
There was a smile on her face, and her right hand was gently stroking something. Mr. Dragon also heard a clear little “chirp chirp” sound.
Mr. Dragon froze.
He was stunned for a while before finally reacting. His divine consciousness circled around and at last clearly saw the little thing she was gently touching—
Was… was this not one of those long-tailed mountain sparrows from the forbidden land, the kind that were not even first rank but were extremely fierce?
Why was it in his and Madam’s room?
Before Mr. Dragon could think carefully about this question, he heard Madam, who usually spoke very little, say in a very gentle voice—
“Mengmeng, do you like eating this?”
Mu Wanwan happily stroked the fluffy ball, pierced a Blue Star Grass fruit, squeezed a tiny bit onto her finger, and brought it to the thin chirp’s mouth. Then she watched as it ate it with effort, its tender yellow beak gently pecking her finger. It was very obedient.
Mr. Dragon turned sour. Mr. Dragon became a lemon.
He had only been unconscious for one day, and Madam had gained an extra chirp.
She even called it Mengmeng. Clearly, she had never even called him husband.
Mr. Dragon withdrew his divine consciousness, pretending he did not care about anything, only his lips pressed together very tightly.
“Mengmeng is a little girl. Tomorrow, when I go to the market, I’ll buy more scraps of cloth and make you a pretty cushion,” Mu Wanwan said softly. In the quiet room, together with those few chirping sounds, her words were like knives stabbing into Mr. Dragon’s heart.
It had been so long, yet she had not given him any token of affection. He did not know whether last night’s pouch counted. But now, she was going to make a cushion for a chirp. Also, his divine consciousness had just swept over that chirp.
How was it female? It was clearly a shameless male bird.
Mr. Dragon told himself not to fuss with a bird that had not even awakened spiritual intelligence yet. He merely closed his eyes and quietly waited.
But this time, after waiting for a long time, what he heard was the sound of her opening the door and going out.
Mr. Dragon could not describe the feeling in his heart. His eyes felt sour—
He knew it. In her heart, he actually did not have much of a position. Perhaps he was not even as important as a chirp.
If Wanwan knew that a certain dragon was actually thinking this way, she would practically die from injustice. She had only just fed the chirp, and her hands were dirty, so she had gone out to wash them before coming back to feed the dragon!
“Chirp!”
Perhaps because it had eaten some spiritual fruit, Mengmeng recovered a little energy. Lying on its cushion, it opened its bright eyes and chirped twice very energetically at Mu Wanwan, who was holding the spiritual fruit.
Mu Wanwan was in a very good mood. Only, because she still had to feed the dragon, she did not go over to touch the fluffy ball.
“Chirp…” Perhaps because she had walked straight away from it, Mengmeng sounded a little disappointed and let out a tiny chirp.
“Be good. I’ll touch you again later,” Mu Wanwan could not help saying. She also really wanted to touch the fluffy thing!
Although Mr. Dragon had very childishly withdrawn his divine consciousness, he had still been closely paying attention to the movements in the room. Hearing the conversation between the person and the chirp, he rarely thought in the right direction—
Touch?
Touch the fluffy chirp?
What good points did that kind of chirp have besides relying on being fluffy and acting cute? Mr. Dragon thought disdainfully, but then, like a flash of lightning, he suddenly grasped the key point.
Madam liked fluffy things?
Mr. Dragon thought of last night, when she had lain under the quilt and asked expectantly whether she could touch his ears. The tip of his heart warmed.
If he exposed his ears, would Madam drive this chirp away?
But his ears were truly very sensitive. Yesterday, after being touched a couple of times, he had felt like he was almost done for.
Mr. Dragon was still thinking when his chin was pinched. At the tip of his nose was the familiar smell of Blue Star Grass fruit. Mr. Dragon cooperated and swallowed. Occasionally, when her fingertip brushed over his lips, he felt his whole body shiver and his blood boil.
Mu Wanwan fed the dragon and skilfully wiped the fruit juice from the corner of his lips. Out of habit, she glanced at the top of his head, sighed a little disappointedly, then went out to wash the dishes and boil water for a bath.
Only one dragon, who had still been looking forward to having some kind of contact with Madam, and one chirp were left behind. A big dragon faced a little chirp, and the room instantly became quiet.
Mr. Dragon’s divine consciousness swept over the little chirp again and again. Seeing that it looked as though it was in such pain it was about to die, he did not plan to do anything to it. His divine consciousness only stared at its fluffy little body as he sank into thought.
This time, he remained awake until she finished bathing and returned with water.
“It’s time to sleep.” Mu Wanwan came over with her hair loose, wringing out a warm, damp handkerchief. Kneeling beside the bed, she gently wiped Mr. Dragon’s face with the warm handkerchief. It passed over his eye sockets, then wiped from his forehead all the way down to his chin. Her movements were very light.
Mr. Dragon’s whole face was reddened by the warmth.
He knew she cleaned him every day, but he still had no way to get used to it while awake.
Mu Wanwan made the bed. After thinking about it, she moved the fluffy chirp onto the bedside cabinet. Then she took some materials, propped up the pillow, extinguished most of the lamps, and prepared to sit on the bed later to make another pouch with the fluffy chirp on it.
Because the weather was gradually getting colder, sitting on the stool would be very cold.
She sat on the bed and slowly embroidered. Mengmeng was probably tired. It closed its eyes and curled into a ball, looking a little fatter than when it was awake.
There was a smile in her eyes, and from time to time, she lifted her gaze to look at the fluffy chirp.
Mr. Dragon had waited for a long time. It was not easy for him to finally wait until Madam sat on the bed. When he saw her take out another pouch with the same blue base, he thought she was improving the one from last night. A little pride rose in his heart. But the next second, when his divine consciousness swept over the pouch, his heart soured—
She was embroidering that chirp. It was not, as he had thought, his horns and ears.
An indescribable sourness filled his chest. Mr. Dragon waited for a long time, so long that the curse was almost about to counterattack, yet he still did not wait for Wanwan to look at him even once.
He gave in. Before falling unconscious, he twitched the fluffy ears he had deliberately hidden away—
Wasn’t it just fluffiness? He had it too.
When Mu Wanwan grew tired from embroidering and prepared to sleep, she saw a certain dragon’s pair of fluffy ears that she had been regretting for so long.
She rubbed her eyes several times before confirming that she was not seeing things. Unable to help herself, she gently touched his ears, confirming that this was not her hallucination—
Could it be that because Mr. Dragon was injured, his half-dragon form was very unstable, so sometimes he had ears and sometimes he did not?
Mu Wanwan smiled and did not dwell on this question. She blew out the lamp, listened to his breathing, which was much steadier than when she had first transmigrated here, and slept peacefully.
Early the next morning, Mu Wanwan quickly finished the housework, fed Mr. Dragon a Hundred Treasures Fruit, placed the peel, which still had some flesh on it, beside Mengmeng, then hurriedly carried the basket on her back, locked the door, and left.
The moment she went out, she saw Hongye leading the ox cart toward her. The two greeted each other, and Mu Wanwan directly got onto the ox cart and set off.
After quietly leaving the dragon manor and passing through the barrier, Hongye was no longer so tense. As usual, she chatted casually with her. “Madam, are you still going to the elf market? Also, how did that mountain sparrow meat taste yesterday? Was it alright?”
**Author’s note:**
Idiom:
“Dragon inferior to chirp”: Refers to Wanwan’s excessive behaviour of disdaining Mr. Dragon without ears after bringing back a fluffy chirp, reflecting the bitterness and desolation in Mr. Dragon’s heart.
**Nomad: This chapter is equivalent to Chapter 73 on Sleepy Translations. Since the chapters were split differently, by the time I reach Chapter 80, I will have caught up to Chapter 183 on Sleepy Translations.
I was originally planning to bulk-release all the chapters at once. However, whenever I do that, it takes a long time for the updates to be accepted on Novel Updates, which then messes up the chapter order. Instead of being sorted by the latest update, they are sorted by chapter number. This could confuse readers into thinking that the version with 183 chapters is the complete version, when the novel actually has only 131 chapters in total.
Therefore, I will either bulk-release the chapters on my website and manually add them to Novel Updates each day whenever I get the chance, or upload one chapter a day on both my website and Novel Updates. I will decide which option works best closer to the time.
In the meantime, the regular release schedule will be one chapter a month, with occasional random drops of extra chapters.**
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