My Gorgeous Top Won't Stop Acting Cute - Chapter 3

I did not sleep that night.

At first light, I found the nearest messenger crow and told it where Shen Kongqing was.

After it flew away, I wandered until I found a pool and slipped beneath the water. I released a long string of bubbles, curled into a ball, and tucked my head beneath my tail.

The water cut off every sound from the outside world.

My world became quiet again, just as it had been before I met Shen Kongqing.

But not long afterward, an eerily beautiful false eye made of phoenix feathers appeared in my field of vision.

An invisible force yanked me out of the water.

A tall adult man stood on the bank. Anger had narrowed the vertical pupils in his golden eyes into straight lines.

I was pulled before him.

“Gege, why did you run away?”

Me: *? Who are you?*

My blank expression only made him angrier. Puffing out his cheeks, he shouted, “I’m Shen Kongqing!”

Me: *??*

No.

My Kongqing was a tiny thing I could pinch between two fingers, a precious little baby.

How could he possibly be this huge?

He looked even angrier. Almost every feather on his wings stood on end.

A moment later, he turned back into a tiny ball of fluff. Standing on my palm with his wings planted on his hips, he yelled, “Believe me now?!”

Me: “…”

Furious enough to puff up, Shen Kongqing swept me back to Mount Danxue.

Then, through personal demonstration, he made me understand that he truly was my little phoenix.

No.

My extremely large phoenix.

I remembered the phoenix wings I had seen last night. Shaped like blazing flames, they had wrapped around me completely.

Spiritual energy so dense it had nearly become viscous poured into me without mercy. I was stretched painfully full and wanted him to slow down, so I struggled to sign a question.

*What does the feather mean?*

What did accepting his feather have to do with bearing babies?

Was it some unique custom among birds?

I thought I had asked very politely.

Shen Kongqing, however, merely blushed and refused to answer, burying himself in his work.

…

You are an exceptionally beautiful but terribly rude little bird!

—End of Flashback—

After gathering up the bedful of pearls, I sat by the window and rubbed my belly.

Memories of my time with Shen Kongqing kept running through my head.

If Shen Kongqing had been an adult man from the very beginning, then what had I been doing all this time?

Hugging and cuddling him at every opportunity;

bathing with him;

letting him sleep on my chest;

and lying that he was a chick.

The more I thought, the more mortified I became. Even my fish tail started to itch.

…

Itch?

I looked down. Two unfamiliar chicks lay bonelessly sprawled across my tail.

“Chirp-chirp!” Their eyes shone. “Chirp chirp chirp!”

I could not understand chirp language.

They could not understand signs.

One fish and two birds stared at one another in mutual bewilderment.

Then more than a dozen bird heads appeared at the window. A riot of colors squeezed into the room, chattering and chirping.

…

Thus, when Shen Kongqing returned wearing the resentful face of a husband owed three thousand blood debts, he found Mian Yue surrounded by layers upon layers of chicks.

The shameless little birds chirped without pause.

“Pretty chirp! Pretty chirp!”

“Beautiful tail, chirp!”

“Gem, chirp!”

“Mine, chirp!”

Shen Kongqing: “?”

What the chirp was this?

Birdkind.

Hopelessly obsessed with beauty.

I’ll skewer and roast every last one of you!

Shen Kongqing: “…”

He was so depressed he wanted to fly into the sky and chirp at the top of his lungs.

Yesterday, he had scrubbed himself clean and even put on his wedding robes.

Then the messenger crow said Mian Yue had left.

Mian Yue had also said he hoped Shen Kongqing would not hate him.

Hate him?

Why would he hate him?

What was there to hate?

*I proposed to you, and not only did you run away from our wedding, you even questioned my feelings!*

When had a pampered little phoenix ever suffered such humiliation?

He decided Mian Yue was a swindler who toyed with innocent birds’ feelings.

Yet he had not felt angry at all.

He had wanted to cry.

So Shen Kongqing, fluffy and teary-eyed, found the hiding Mian Yue and forcefully swept him back to the nest to make little birds.

Only afterward did he discover that Mian Yue had no idea what accepting a feather meant.

Then…

Had he done something truly awful?

His little brother’s merciless mockery broke him completely.

“Ge, what part of this is mutual love? You’re infatuated and he isn’t even informed.”

“He was raising you as a pet chick.”

Shen Kongqing punched his brother into the distance.

*What does a single dragon like you know?*

*Other people couldn’t become his pet even if they begged.*

Besides, Mian Yue himself had admitted that Shen Kongqing was the most beautiful pet chick.

Mian Yue liked beautiful chicks best.

…

In any case, Mian Yue liked him best.

He would never hate him.

Shen Kongqing puffed into a rainbow-colored ball of fluff, marched proudly onto Mian Yue’s tail, kicked a Bifang aside, slapped a swallow flying, and used his tail feathers as whips to drive away an entire flock.

Then he lifted his head with the peculiar, aloof bearing of a principal wife declaring, *So long as I live, the rest of you will remain mere concubines.*

He pressed his head into Mian Yue’s palm and gave himself a self-service nuzzle.