My Gorgeous Top Won't Stop Acting Cute - Chapter 1

Shen Kongqing was sobbing hard enough to chirp between breaths.

A beauty in tears was a pitiful sight.

I had no attention to spare for his beauty, though. There was something far more shocking demanding notice when he leaned over me.

Panicking, I launched into a frantic barrage of signs, my hands moving so fast they might have been forming seals.

*I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied and told you that you were a chick.*

*You’re actually a phoenix. Phoenixes fly in the sky, while I swim in the sea. It could never work between us.*

*B-besides, all these years I’ve only ever thought of you as my little brother!*

*A little brother is family! You… you can’t do this. Let me go first.*

I thrashed around while trying to shackle him with morality. I looked like a mudskipper giving its all.

But Shen Kongqing fought dirty.

More than a dozen radiant phoenix tail feathers materialized behind him and rushed me all at once, binding me spread-eagle on the bed.

He bent down, his hot, damp voice slipping into my ear.

“Stop moving. The more you rub against it, the harder it gets.”

My pupils blew wide as I whipped my head toward him.

What was he saying?!

How had my little bird learned to say such filthy things?!

Meeting my round, furious stare, Shen Kongqing’s breathing instantly grew ragged. He accused me in an aggrieved voice, “Gege, you’re seducing me again.”

You little pervert!

This is a glare!

Who is seducing you?

Let me go!

Shen Kongqing selectively ignored my scolding. “Gege wants us to be family, right?”

I nodded at once.

“All right.” His scheme succeeding, Shen Kongqing nipped the soft flesh of my cheek. “But we aren’t related by blood. If we want to become family, there’s only one way.”

“Gege can be my wife.”

That was pure alarmism.

What wife?

Go ask around. What pair of brothers gets married?

A little brother was a little brother.

A little brother could not turn into a husband.

Anxious, I tried to sign at Shen Kongqing again, but he caught my wrist and kissed me with no technique whatsoever.

Somewhere in the ensuing chaos, perhaps out of sheer self-preservation, I shifted back into my merman form.

Who would have thought…

Shen Kongqing became even more excited.

His hand stroked inch by inch up my silver-white tail until it pressed into a hidden hollow.

I stared in horror.

Only one thought filled my head: *That works too?*

…

It really did work (ಥ_ಥ)!

Help—

When I woke again, I was already a thoroughly ruined merman.

I lay sprawled across the bed, growing more aggrieved the longer I thought about it.

I had started out as a mute merman.

Now I couldn’t feel my lower body either.

I hugged my big tail and wallowed in misery for a while. Then I noticed the pearls I had cried all over the bed and laboriously bundled them up in my clothes.

They were money, after all.

I had raised Shen Kongqing with these little pearls.

…

—Flashback—

I was a mute merman who lived alone in human society.

One year ago, I saw a badly wounded little phoenix at the black market.

The man who had captured him gave a spittle-flying sales pitch. Auspicious beasts naturally gathered spiritual currents around themselves, he said. Buying one would not only ward a home against evil, but also aid cultivation.

No matter how extravagantly he praised it, no one bought the bird.

The little phoenix looked as though he was about to die.

Besides, how could a noble phoenix have ended up at a black market?

It had to be a fraud.

Everyone dismissed the creature with contempt.

Only I crouched beside the stall and stared longingly at the little phoenix.

As the market was closing, the vendor kicked me. “You want it, little mute?”

I nodded vigorously.

The man clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction. “How much money do you have?”

I brought out a pouch of pearls.

They were still warm. I had cried them only last night.

I rubbed my hands together and waited while the vendor counted them one by one. Then he swept them up and tossed the little phoenix into my arms.

“Take it. Lucky bargain for a mute like you.”

What part of that was a bargain?

I was seafood. The pearls I cried were genuine sea pearls.

Every one of them was perfectly round and lustrous, far more expensive than freshwater pearls.

He had taken almost a hundred from me.

And all I got was one chick.

…

Yes.

At first, I truly thought Shen Kongqing was a chick.

Was there anything different about him?

Hmm.

He was an exceptionally beautiful chick.

He could also talk and understand my signs.

He was a clever little chicken spirit.

I discovered Shen Kongqing wasn’t a chick six months later.

Fully recovered, he was energetic and positively radiant—practically a glow-in-the-dark chick.

Under the moonlight, streams of spiritual power poured toward him like rivers flowing into the sea. After circulating through his body, they became light, buoyant spiritual energy.

And I could absorb it!

Merfolk cultivated through their voices. To be born mute meant I had no hope of cultivation.

Now warm spiritual energy flowed into my body with every breath. Like a pair of gentle hands, it soothed the sickly pain that had burdened my organs since birth.

I was so moved I almost cried.

The chick thrust out his chest and chirped proudly, “Fish, you may cry on the chick’s chest.”

The chick was good.

The fish was bad.

I should have corrected him. I should have told him he wasn’t a chick at all, but an incomparably noble little phoenix.

Yet I was afraid he would leave me.

I had been in pain for too long. Once I caught hold of a lifeline, I did not want to let go.

Driven by a selfish motive I could never bring into the light, I signed, *Thank you, little chick.*

*I like beautiful little chicks best.*

Ashamed, I buried my face against his chest.

…

The chick was too small.

My face did not fit.

I managed to bury only one eye and soaked the poor chick through.

Covered in pearls, he announced that he had become a pearl bird.

The little phoenix was not only fluffy, but also clumsy and slow.

Whenever he walked, his left foot tripped over his right. The plump ball of fluff would tumble a long way, land on his back with all four feet in the air, and fail to flip himself over.

After he did this in front of me several times, I began letting him perch on my shoulder.

But the moment we went outside, the beautiful bird drew far too many stares. I wasn’t used to being watched, so I hid him inside my robe.

*I’m sorry,* I signed apologetically. *Hide in there for a while. I’ll let you out when we get home.*

The little bird drew a deep breath. “Chirp.”

Hmm…

That probably meant yes.

But why was the bird against my chest growing hotter and hotter?

I hurried home. He leaped out of my clothes and landed on the table in a daze.

“Smells so good.”

I nodded.

*It does smell good. I bought bamboo seeds especially for you. I heard little phoe—little chicks all like them.*

The bird buried his face beneath his wings and shrieked, “That’s not what I meant!”

I stared at him blankly.

Then what did he mean?

Little birds were truly impossible to understand.