Back at Ruhua Bar, Qingmu saw that it was still early, so he took Boss Coal to the park.
"Let's get this straight first. No wagging your tongue later, or you'll end up just like that laughingthrush!"
Many of the old neighbors in Liuying Lane liked taking their birds out. Birdcages hung outside many of the old houses, holding either laughingthrushes or larks. They chirped away when they saw the crow perched on Qingmu's shoulder passing by.
Boss Coal clearly had no interest in fellow birds whose intelligence qualified them for nothing but life in a cage. He held his head high without so much as glancing at them.
"Oh, taking your bird out again!" An old neighbor greeted Qingmu warmly. "Let your Boss Coal chat with our Old Eight for a bit. Give us a hand-our Old Eight still can't even say a complete sentence!"
Qingmu asked the crow, "Want to chat with Old Eight?"
The crow drawled, "Wag your tongue, get caged! Get caged!"
Qingmu smiled. "This doesn't count."
The crow cocked his head, seemingly thinking, then said, "The human heart is unfathomable."
Qingmu corrected him. "This isn't a case of the human heart being unfathomable. You just didn't understand what I meant."
"All right, all right. Whatever you say," the crow grumbled.
Qingmu asked, "So are you going to chat with Old Eight or not?"
Boss Coal tossed his head and said firmly, "That damn myna's too stupid. Not going!"
A little farther along, a macaw perched on a large iron stand outside a car wash. It was not very big, but its plumage was gorgeous, its red feathers and green tail gleaming in the sunlight.
Qingmu had never seen this bird before. He did not know whether the shop's owner had just bought it or a customer had brought it along to get their car washed.
Boss Coal stared unblinkingly at the parrot. When Qingmu drew near, he called out, "Hey, pretty girl! Let's chat, let's chat!"
The parrot lowered its head, making "hello, hello" sounds in its throat.
The crow responded excitedly, "Hello, talk, talk! Talk, talk!"
But the parrot simply kept saying its own words. "Hello, car wash, hello, goodbye."
"She's not talking to you," Qingmu said with a smile. He kept walking and was about to pass the car wash.
Hearing the clack-clack of his slippers, Boss Coal cried anxiously, "Slow down, slow down!"
Persisting in his efforts, he straightened up and craned his neck to shout at the increasingly distant parrot, "Talk, talk! Add me on WeChat..."
"If you dare fly off me and over there, you're grounded for a week when we get back!" Qingmu warned, feeling the pressure of the crow's claws.
Boss Coal wilted at once.
At Riverside Park, Qingmu found a cool spot to rest and told the crow, "Go fly around for a while. Don't go too far."
Boss Coal gave a caw, spread his two great jet-black wings, and flew off, soon becoming a black speck in the sky.
Crows were highly intelligent birds, unsuited to cages. They also needed to be let out to fly regularly, or their temperament would become depressed and withdrawn.
An experimental report from the United Kingdom showed that crows were on a par with gorillas in their ability to use tools, and even outperformed gorillas in analogical reasoning tests. Crows were better at using reasoning to solve problems. In this respect, no animal in the world other than humans could match them.
Crows were also among the few kinds of birds that could talk. Though far less famous for it than parrots, their ability was not inferior in the slightest.
It was just that crows were so clever that taming one and getting it to obediently learn to talk was no easy task.
Even if you raised one from a chick, it could easily fly away once it grew up. You could not keep it shut indoors all the time, yet when released into the wild, it was intelligent enough to cope with an unfamiliar natural environment. It had a free heart that would not be enslaved. Once it caught the scent of freedom on the wind from afar, it might never come back.
Of course, Boss Coal would not fly away.
He was already used to living with people, speaking human language, eating the delicacies of the human world, and gripping Qingmu's hair with his claws.
If he flew away, where would he get braised pork knuckles?
Bi Shenghua said that a "human" soul must live inside Boss Coal's body.
Boss Coal dismissed this with disdain, always hopping on his feet and saying, "Superstition, superstition."
How could a bird like that fly away? In any case, Qingmu was not at all worried that his crow would vanish from the skies over Riverside Park.
He comfortably enjoyed the cool river breeze brushing his face, watching the little boats moving across the distant river and the white clouds drifting high overhead. Suddenly, he felt that this was how life ought to be-slow and lazy, with a mischievous, chatterbox pet bird and a landlady who was a little fierce but could cook and looked dashing...
What was there to hurry about?
Thinking this, he put the matter of the two triangles aside for the time being.
Right now, all he needed to do was relax.
Just as his whole body relaxed, he heard a childish little voice call, "Big brother! Mommy-come look! It's Brother Qingmu!"
Qingmu turned and saw an adorable little girl with braids, the bangs over her forehead fluttering in the breeze. Her big eyes blinked as she looked at him, and when she smiled, she revealed two rows of neat white teeth like porcelain crowns and two shallow dimples at the corners of her mouth.
Her young mother followed a short distance behind her.
"Meimei!"
Though he had only met her once, Qingmu had not forgotten this little girl. Indeed, who could forget such a pretty, adorable child?
The girl's beautiful young mother came over. "Oh, Mr. Qingmu. I didn't expect to run into you here."
"Yes, neither did I," Qingmu said.
Little Meimei stood between them, tilting her head all the way back. "I know, I know! This is called 'Where in life do we not meet again?'"
"...Uh...aha...Meimei, you're so clever!" Qingmu praised her.
The beautiful mother gave Qingmu a slight bow. "You're too kind! I still haven't properly thanked you for last time! Meimei, thank your big brother."
Delighted by the praise, Meimei smiled happily and bowed too. "Thank you, big brother!"
Qingmu looked at Meimei, then at her mother, and rubbed his bird's-nest hair. "Ah, don't call me 'big brother.' Call me Uncle instead. This feels a little strange!"
Meimei clapped her chubby little hands and readily agreed. "Okay! I'll call you Uncle Qingmu from now on. Uncle, what are you doing here?"
"Ah, I'm...enjoying the scenery!" Qingmu said.
Meimei looked around and frowned. "The scenery here isn't even nice. The water isn't clear, the sky isn't blue, and the air isn't fresh at all. It's nowhere near as good as my home!"
"Oh, really? Where's your home?"
"My home is very, very far away. I don't know where it is either."
Her beautiful mother stopped her. "Meimei, don't talk nonsense. The scenery here is lovely too."
"It's fine. Children speak their minds. Don't teach her to lie," Qingmu said with a smile. Then he looked at Meimei and asked, "Then what did you and your mommy come here for?"
Meimei wanted to say something, but her eyes turned to her mother.
Guessing that it was probably something private, Qingmu said, "Ah, it's all right if you can't tell me!"
But Meimei blinked her big eyes and said, "Uncle, you helped my mommy find her bag. Can you help me find my daddy too?"
The beautiful young mother, who had seemed so quiet and gentle, suddenly shouted, "Meimei! What nonsense are you talking about!"
She grabbed the little girl's arm, then bowed to Qingmu. "I'm sorry. She's just talking nonsense. I'm sorry!" With that, she hurried away, pulling Meimei along.
The little girl kept looking back with every step, her lips pressed tightly together, her big eyes brimming with aggrieved tears.
Qingmu did not know what had happened. He could only shrug helplessly and watch their figures disappear down the tree-lined path beside the river.
By then, it was getting late.
Qingmu suddenly felt that something was wrong. It had been so long. Why had the crow still not flown back? Had he really flown away?
He hurried back, whistling.
Outside the car wash, he saw a pitch-black bird standing beside the beautiful macaw, reciting Shu Ting's poetry in an unending stream with his highly distinctive tremolo:
If I loved you-
I would never imitate the infatuated bird,
Repeating a monotonous song for the greenery;
Only this is great love,
Herein lies steadfastness:
Love-
Not only your beautiful feathers,
But also the place you stand by, the bird stand beneath your feet.