Chapter 45: A Counter-Offer
Chaos erupted across the lantern-lit courtyard the second the head accountant let out another high-pitched screech of indignation.
"Get it! Don’t let the feathered fiend escape with my dignity!" the portly man bellowed, pointing a frantic finger at the pink bird.
Instantly, the tangled pile of elite guards scrambled to their feet, shedding armor straps and knocking over stone lanterns in a truly pathetic display of athletic incompetence. They lunged forward with their spears held high, sweeping at the empty air as the chubby spirit-duck let out a sarcastic, honking squawk and darted expertly between their sprawling legs.
While the chaotic manhunt—or rather, duck-hunt—descended into absolute slapstick comedy across the garden, Lu Feng stood frozen near the doorway, completely baffled.
His eyes remained fixed on the tiny, clumsily scrawled note resting in his palm.
A sharp, analytical spark flashed behind his mismatched eyes. He knew for an absolute fact that the messy charcoal handwriting and the coherent extortion demand hadn’t been scrawled by a bird.
No matter how much spiritual energy such a spirit-beast absorbed in the lower river districts, a duck simply did not possess opposable thumbs, a grasp of human grammar, or a sophisticated understanding of nocturnal psychological warfare.
Someone else was definitely pulling the strings behind the scenes.
’Who on earth could have written this note?’ Lu Feng pondered silently, a deep sense of intrigue washing over him. The mystery of the invisible mastermind hiding behind a poultry avatar fascinated him just as much as the sudden, bizarre appearance of the duck itself.
Deciding he needed to intercept the mastermind’s feathered messenger before Lin Laifu’s clumsy guards inadvertently crushed it or scared away a potential lead, Lu Feng turned his head.
"Chenxue," Lu Feng murmured quietly, lowering his voice so only the cultivator could hear. "Do me a favor. Go ahead and capture that duck cleanly. Bring it back to me before those bumbling guards manage to catch it and ruin the trail."
Ye Chenxue gave a brief, effortless nod. "Consider it done."
With a silent sweep of her dark robes, she stepped past the threshold. She didn’t even break into a run; she simply glided forward with terrifying, ethereal grace.
While the estate guards were busy crashing headfirst into each other and tripping over rosebushes in their failed pursuit, Lu Feng turned on his heel and walked back inside the villa. He crossed the spacious room, pulled out a clean piece of parchment from the study desk, picked up an ink brush, and quickly penned a short, deliberate message of his own.
{If this duck disturbs my peace again, I will personally teach it how to speak human language the hard way.}
At the bottom, he signed it with a confident stroke.
{Sincerely, The Wolf.}
He folded the paper neatly, slipping it into his sleeve just as the sound of light footsteps approached the front entrance.
Lu Feng turned around to wait. Moments later, their door swung open, and Ye Chenxue stepped back inside the villa.
In one hand, she held the squirming, furiously flapping pink spirit-duck by the scruff of its neck, rendering its desperate quacks entirely harmless. In her other hand, she casually held the head accountant’s missing, highly disheveled wig, returning it from her brief excursion without breaking a single drop of sweat.
Outside, a chorus of breathless praises and desperate gratitude erupted from the courtyard as the guards and the accountant thanked her profusely for saving their pride. Ye Chenxue merely offered a single, cold, dismissive nod of acknowledgment to shut them up, before slamming the front door shut to cut off their rambling.
She walked across the wooden floor and stepped directly into the room where Lu Feng was awaiting her, bringing the captured bird along to find out why he had specifically sent her after it.
Before Lu Feng could even open his mouth to explain his suspicions about the hidden mastermind behind the note, the ice-beauty casually dropped the squawking pink bird onto the mahogany table.
She stared down at the chubby, waistcoat-wearing creature, then looked up at Lu Feng with a completely deadpan expression, dropping a sentence none of them had expected.
"Are we making soup with this or what?"
The sudden silence inside the villa felt heavy, save for the furious, indignant flapping of wings and a muffled string of angry aquatic noises.
"What? No! We’re not eating it. I asked you to catch it for a different reason."
Ye Chenxue stood near the center of the spacious room, her dark robes completely unruffled. With effortless precision, she held the squirming, ridiculously over-dressed pink spirit-duck by the scruff of its tiny waistcoat, rendering its frantic attempts at aerial escape entirely useless.
Lu Feng stepped forward from the study desk, a slow, contemplative smile spreading across his face as he looked down at the captured feathered menace.
"Impressive as always, Chenxue," Lu Feng praised smoothly, crossing his arms over his chest. "You caught it without even breaking a sweat. Those guards out there were running in circles like headless chickens for twenty minutes, yet you managed to secure our target in less than half the time they’d spent chasing it down."
"It has no martial foundation and zero spatial awareness," Ye Chenxue replied flatly, her piercing eyes staring down at the chubby bird with cold detachment. "Catching it required less effort than walking across the entire estate. The only difficult part was enduring the guard’s incessant wailing once I handed them their supervisor’s pathetic head-covering."
At the mention of its defeat, the chubby pink duck let out a deeply aggrieved, raspy honk. It puffed out its fluffy chest, aggressively wiggled its tiny golden abacus, and glared at Ye Chenxue with round, watery black eyes that radiated an absurd amount of personal betrayal.
Han Lin walked over from the kitchen doorway, crossing her arms as she stared down at the creature with a mixture of amusement and profound skepticism.
"Well, look at you," Han Lin chuckled, leaning closer to inspect the miniature waistcoat. "A custom-tailored merchant’s vest, a functional abacus, and a distinct attitude problem. I don’t think this is just a stray spirit-beast from the river districts as they claimed. Someone actually took the time to domesticate, train, and dress this walking poultry hazard."
"Exactly," Lu Feng agreed, his mismatched eyes narrowing slightly as he recalled the strange, charcoal-scrawled extortion note he was still holding in his sleeve. "A wild beast doesn’t write ransom notes demanding gold coins in exchange for carriage maintenance, nor does it selectively target administrative accounting vaults just to steal wigs. There is an intelligence operating behind this creature. Someone is watching this estate, and they’re testing the waters with a very strange brand of psychological warfare."
Ye Chenxue tilted her head slightly, her sharp intuition catching the hidden layer in his words. "You suspect the note left on the threshold wasn’t a prank by an eccentric vagrant?"
"I’m certain of it," Lu Feng said, walking over to the mahogany table and pulling out the folded parchment he had retrieved earlier. He tossed it down beside the squawking duck. "The phrasing, the timing, the precise delivery—it points to a human hand. An underground operator, an eccentric local broker, or perhaps a rival faction testing our security measures using plausible deniability. A feathered courier can’t be interrogated by the city garrison."
The duck let out another sharp sound.
Quack!
Then it aggressively stomped its webbed foot against the wood, as if vehemently protesting any accusation that it lacked intellectual autonomy.
Han Lin raised an eyebrow, a playful grin touching her lips. "So, what’s our next move, Young Master? Are we going to set a trap for this mysterious master criminal, or do we negotiate terms with the bird?"
"Both," Lu Feng replied smoothly. He walked over to the study desk, picked up the second piece of parchment he had hastily scribbled upon before Ye Chenxue returned, and rolled it tightly.
He approached the table, reached down, and deliberately tucked his own warning note—signed by ’The Wolf’—directly into the tiny chest pocket of the duck’s waistcoat, right next to its golden abacus. The duck looked down at its chest, blinked in profound shock, and let out a soft, confused squeak, instantly abandoning its defiant posture.
"Let’s see if our mysterious duck sender appreciates a counter-offer," Lu Feng murmured, stepping back and gesturing toward the captive bird.