Ch56 - Mating Dance

He shouldn’t have forgotten this. This fellow Dan Yi had piles and piles of money and was probably richer than God himself. He’d received a gift of a little jade horse from Dan Yi as a child, and that had already been worth ten thousand taels of gold, let alone an ancient treasure sword…

Chen Ziqi silently took back the twenty thousand taels of silver notes and kept them in his sleeve. 

“Actually, you can return me the ten thousand taels of silver first,” Dan Yi said after thinking for a bit. He was worried that Chen Ziqi wouldn’t dare to borrow money from him any more if he didn’t accept at least a bit of repayment. He stretched out his hand to accept the money.

“Thwack!” Chen Ziqi smacked his hand down on Dan Yi’s palm. “Didn’t you just say I could slowly pay it back? What, are you regretting that now?” Chen Ziqi said.

Dan Yi: “… …”

The situation in Chen Ziqi’s fief was stabilised for now, so he stayed at the Cloud Palace to focus on cultivating his martial arts skills. 

The Cloud Palace in spring was a truly beautiful place. Brilliantly coloured flowers and lush greenery could be seen everywhere, and birds of all kinds chirped charmingly in the trees. The snow at the mountain peak melted, and the runoff turned into little streams that meandered down the mountain stones and moistened the newly sprouted grass. The little droplets of water clung to the leaves and glittered prettily in the warm sunlight of spring.

“Why do I feel like there are more birds on this mountain than usual?” Chen Ziqi said. They had eaten their lunch and were having a stroll along one of the covered corridors. He saw a gorgeous white peacock next to the edge of the stream, and couldn’t help pausing and leaning over the railings to have a closer look at it.

“Nn,” Dan Yi acknowledged vaguely. He stopped when Chen Ziqi did.

That peacock was pure white from its crown feathers to the tips of its tail. Its long tail feathers extended gracefully behind it like a long train on a formal robe, brushing gently against the little wildflowers growing by the stream.

The smooth lines of its body cut an elegant figure as it walked languidly by the edge of the stream. The clear water reflected that beautiful bird perfectly, and the whole scene looked like one depicted in a fine ink painting, so breathtaking that one couldn’t take one’s eyes away from it. It suddenly spread its wings and flew to a stone in the centre of the stream, its feathers falling prettily over the bare grey rock, turning that otherwise nondescript stone into a highlight of the beautiful scenery.

Chen Ziqi had seen peacocks in the Imperial palace before, but they weren’t as good-looking as this one. Every little feather on its body was exquisite beyond belief.

On the opposite bank of the stream, a few dark-coloured peahens that didn’t have tail feathers looked adoringly at that fairy-like white peacock. If the white peacock opened its tail, these few peahens would probably fight over who would get to lay eggs with him.

However, that white peacock merely perched on that rock, preening its feathers and ignoring all the looks directed at it. 

“Awoo~” A long peacock call rang out in the distance. Chen Ziqi looked up and saw a brilliant blue peacock fly down from rocks to the southwest of the stream. The beautiful eyes on its tail feathers gleamed handsomely in the sunlight, truly a sight to behold.

When the peahens saw the blue peacock arrive, they found new hope, and stretched out their necks as they waited for the blue peacock to begin its mating dance.

The blue peacock was indeed more enthusiastic than the white one. It leapt to the side of the stream and checked its reflection in the water, then started preening itself vigorously. It had many layers of thick tail feathers, and if it were to open its tail, it was likely to display a full set of beautiful tail feathers.

The peahens looked on expectantly. As females, they had to remain reserved and dignified, and so they pretended to look around aimlessly, as if they didn’t care about the arrival of the blue peacock. 

Chen Ziqi found this very interesting. He sat down on the wooden bench flanking the corridor to watch what was happening down below.

“The third month is when birds court their mates,” Dan Yi said simply, sitting down beside him.

“Shh.” Chen Ziqi put a finger to his lips to ask Dan Yi to keep quiet, afraid that the noise would scare the peacocks away.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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“Kyaa! Kyaa!” The peahens opposite started calling out in excitement.

The white peacock perched on the stone looked disdainfully at the blue peacock that was dancing the mating dance with all its might, then continued to preen its feathers as if it hadn’t seen anything at all.

“Ah! He’s too handsome! I want to lay a nest of eggs with him – no, make that ten nests of eggs!” 

“Such beautiful tail feathers! I haven’t seen anything like it in ages!”

“Ahhh!!!!”

The white peacock found the noise made by the peahens very irritating, and it slowly got to its feet, spread its wings, and flew back to the grass beside the stream, preparing to leave.

When the blue peacock saw this, it immediately leapt in front of the white peacock, blocked its path and fanned out its tail feathers. 

“Are they fighting over mates?” Chen Ziqi asked, watching the scene in great fascination. He heard that when two peacocks were fighting over peahens, they would compete to see whose tail feathers were more beautiful.

“No…” Dan Yi said, pressing his lips together.

The white peacock didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with the blue peacock. It turned and tried to move off in the other direction, but the blue peacock blocked it again. The blue peacock did its best to show off how handsome it was, dancing in a circle around the white peacock while fanning out its tail dramatically.

“Kya….” The peahens on the other side of the stream were stunned into silence. 

The blue peacock danced vigorously for some time more, but it finally got tired. It saw that the white peacock didn’t seem to be moved by its efforts, and it looked rather despondent as it gave up, the nine crown feathers on its head drooping dejectedly.

At this very moment, the white peacock shook out its feathers and slowly opened its snow white tail.

“Awoo!” The blue peacock called excitedly, fanning out its tail again and hopping over to the white peacock, stretching out its neck for a nuzzle.

The two huge fans created by the open peacock tails came together, blocking the two peacocks’ bodies from view. No one could see what was happening behind those two tails. A moment later, both peacocks closed their tails and spread their wings, flying into the air together. They circled each other in mid-air as if they were dancing, then slowly disappeared into the distance. The peahens by the stream could only gape in astonishment as they watched them fly off. 

“Uh… why are two male birds…” Chen Ziqi began uncertainly, pointing at the two birds that had disappeared into the mountain mists.

“Two male birds can also be mates. Nothing odd about that,” Dan Yi said, his face expressionless.

“Eh?” Chen Ziqi blinked in surprise. He felt like something had just been torn open in his head…

Dan Yi’s eyes were amused as he pulled him off toward the Wutong forest. 

Chen Ziqi’s martial arts skills had not improved in the days he’d been apart from Dan Yi. He couldn’t progress further without Dan Yi’s Danyang Divine Martial Arts, and he was too lazy to revise the things that he had already learnt. Now that he was at the Cloud Palace, the martial arts cultivation monster Dan Yi dragged him to the Wutong forest to practice martial arts every single day, and Chen Ziqi couldn’t slack off even if he wanted to.

“For the Divine Dragon’s Howl, once you’ve got your cultivation to the second level, you can manifest your neili externally, or transfuse your neili into other people,” Dan Yi said. He asked Chen Ziqi to start circulating his power and try pushing his neili out of his palms.

Chen Ziqi followed his instructions, circulating neili in his body and then focusing them in the palms of his hands. His hands started to get warmer and warmer. Dan Yi stood behind Chen Ziqi and pushed outward with him. The two did movements that were opposite to each other, but it produced an unexpectedly harmonious effect. The second level of the Divine Dragon’s Howl was called the Withered Wood Dragon Howl, and the highlight of this move was to meet all change with unswerving consistency.

“Standing firm like an old, withered tree, not moving even if the eight winds blow, turning yang energy into yin energy, a dragon dancing in the spring breeze.” As they were performing this move, Dan Yi used his mesmerizing voice to recite the formula of the second cultivation level of the Divine Dragon’s Howl. 

Chen Ziqi concentrated all the neili in his body in his palms, stood firm on his two feet, then pushed out his neili with his arms moving like a roving dragon.

“Fwoosh!”

He managed to manifest his neili by… making a little leaf flutter.

Chen Ziqi curled his lips in disgust and retracted his qi. He turned to look at Dan Yi. “What’s this about turning yang energy into yin energy?” he asked. The Divine Dragon’s Howl was all about harmony between yin and yang energies. However, the Roving Dragon moves were all heavier on yin energy. There wasn’t much yang energy to begin with, so what was this about turning yang energy into yin energy? 

“Negative yin embraces positive yang, and the mixing of the two energies brings harmony,” Dan Yi said, pulling him down to sit cross-legged on the floor facing him. He reached forward with one hand and pressed his palm against Chen Ziqi’s, their fingers pointing up, then transfused some of his neili into Chen Ziqi through their connected hand. “Try it.”

The neili of the Danyang Divine Martial Arts felt much hotter than that of the Divine Dragon’s Howl. Chen Ziqi felt his whole body heat up immediately, as if he had suddenly found himself in a hot, dry place. He regulated his breathing and accepted this warm energy into his meridians, then used his own neili to wrap around Dan Yi’s. Yin and yang balanced each other out, and that hot, dry feeling disappeared.

“Return me some of the harmonised neili. I want to see how it is,” Dan Yi said. The hand that had been pressed against Chen Ziqi’s had not moved away during this whole process. When he saw that Chen Ziqi had harmonised the neili, he asked him to transfuse some of it back to him.

“Okay!” Chen Ziqi said. He found this very interesting. The harmonised neili felt very soft, supple, and gentle, and he pushed it back into Dan Yi’s body in one go. 

“Mmph…” Dan Yi groaned, frowning. He pulled back his hand immediately and panted as he pressed his hands to his chest.

“What happened?” Chen Ziqi asked in shock. He quickly went over to support him.

Dan Yi slowly drew in a breath, then gave him a pained smile. “Do it slowly. Are you trying to give me internal injuries by pushing the neili over that quickly?” he said.

“Ah… so sorry about that,” Chen Ziqi said. He scooted over behind Dan Yi to let him lean on his body, then rubbed Dan Yi’s chest to try and make him feel better. 

Actually, Dan Yi had only felt a brief stab of pain when the neili entered his body. Their two neili were complementary to begin with, and it was not that easy for Chen Ziqi to hurt Dan Yi with his neili even if he wanted to. Dan Yi pressed his lips together in a smile, leaned on Chen Ziqi and continued to teach him. “Let’s try something else. Try sucking out some of my neili,” he said.

“Huh? You can even suck someone else’s neili?” Chen Ziqi asked in surprise. Ordinarily, neili had to be given willingly, and it wasn’t that easy to suck away someone else’s neili against his will. There were techniques of passing neili to other people in various martial arts disciplines, but there weren’t any techniques for forcefully extracting neili.

“You can only extract my neili,” Dan Yi said, taking one of Chen Ziqi’s hands and putting it between his collarbones. “Remember to go slowly. Don’t suck me dry.”

Chen Ziqi raised his eyebrows. “It’s not like I’m milking you. How could I suck you dry?” he asked. As he spoke, his face suddenly broke into a wicked grin, and the hand on Dan Yi’s collarbones moved away, reaching naughtily into Dan Yi’s clothes and pinching a little bean on his chest. 

“Nn…” Dan Yi’s face immediately turned bright red, and he pushed Chen Ziqi aside as if he had been scalded by hot water. He stood up and glared at Chen Ziqi with a mixture of anger and embarrassment.

Chen Ziqi had fallen over as a result of that hard push and he used his hands to break his fall. He grinned mischievously at Dan Yi, laughing without any sense of shame whatsoever. “Why are you behaving like a girl? I just touched you a bit. There’s no need to have such a big reaction,” he said.

“Hmph!” Dan Yi flicked his sleeves disdainfully and turned to leave.

“Ah, don’t go,” Chen Ziqi said, climbing to his feet and chasing after Dan Yi. “Look at you, all huffy again. Can’t you take a little joke?” 

“… …”

“Alright, I was in the wrong, okay? I’m sorry. How about I let you touch me back?” Chen Ziqi offered, doing his best to soothe Dan Yi’s ruffled feathers. He was genuinely afraid that Dan Yi would react the same way he did three years ago and ignore him for two years in a fit of anger.

“Sounds good.”

“What’s good?” 

“… …”

—

The author has something to say: Mini-theatre

Birdie Gong: It’s the third month, and the mating season for birds again 

Qiqi: You’re also a bird. Aren’t you going to engage in courtship?

Birdie Gong: I am courting someone

Qiqi: (stares) Using just one feather?

Birdie Gong: It may only be one feather, but it’s very durable 

Qiqi: (plucks) How do you use it?

Birdie Gong: QAQ