Beware of Chicken (Beware of Chicken, #1)

by CasualFarmer

Is—is my fucking chicken doing a training montage? I watched his incredibly crisp kicks for a little longer.

And then she left. I stared blankly at the stripy orange kitten. A kitten for a goat. This … is a very strange side quest. I wonder what I trade the kitten for. A +3 sword?

Boys and their games, they never grow up— A snowball struck her right in the forehead. “I’m going to murder you sons of a flea-bitten whore!” Meiling joined the fray.

it was better to be kind and be hurt than to live your life as a monster. That it was better than living a life of cruelty and wrath, taking and taking without caring for others.

So. A Profound-level Spirit Beast that was a chicken. A medical rat. Would there next be pigs that could shake the earth? There was a happy squeal from outside and the thunder of trotters, as the heavens decided to mock her. Her eyebrow twitched. She took another breath, as her father had told her. A deep breath in and out, to center one’s self. “You get used to it,” Senior Sister said, her eyes lidded with amusement.

Yun Ren and I sat back to watch the fireworks. Gou Ren lined up his shot—and got tackled by the goalie. He folded in half over the strike, and Peppa squealed with triumph. Let me tell you, watching somebody get circles run around them by a pig was the funniest shit.

“Remember that everything is connected,” I finally settled on. “The water we drink, the air we breathe, the food we eat. Everything has some part of it that leads into each other. Disrupting one thing can disrupt many others. Fixing one thing can fix many others.”

“Miss Pi Pa, would you like to learn about some of the more specific mushrooms we grow?” The sow perked up, looking shocked. She turned to Xian, Gou Ren, and Chun Ke, who were all falling asleep together. He saw an almost motherly smile cut across her face. The sow nodded, content that her charges were too tired to cause trouble. “Very well, then, come with me. I will show you the knowledge of Hong Yaowu.” Hong Xian the Elder began to teach a pig. She was a surprisingly good student.

Tigger was really good at cutting it into perfect blocks. And making ice sculptures, once I showed her how. Though I didn’t really know how to feel about the life-sized replica of me, standing triumphantly atop a pile of defeated enemies. They all had their quirks, I suppose. And really, it was a fantastic sculpture. She had even managed to make it look like I had beads of sweat rolling down my bare chest. I … I guess I should probably encourage it. It was art! She had a hobby!

Instead of a freckled maid shouting obscenities, an Archivist screaming in a much higher pitch than said maid, and himself praying to whatever gods would listen, Brother Che was looking mostly bored, while Yun and Gou argued about what meat tasted the best. Jin occasionally interjected over his shoulder.

Jin continued his walk, bypassing a small shack and continuing down the hill to a small river—until Jin suddenly started to slow, his mouth open in shock and a bright blush forming all over his freckled cheeks. “Tigu’er …” What came out of Jin’s mouth was almost a whine. Gou Ren and Yun Ren burst out laughing, and Che sounded like he was choking on something. Xian turned from “The General” and looked forward. There was a little cat, still a kitten really, sitting in between a bunch of ice sculptures and looking like it had just managed to slay a thousand mice. It bowed to Jin. A bunch of ice sculptures depicted Jin, nude, in various martial poses. Trampling on a giant rat. Staring boldly forwards, his hands on his hips. One even had him in a one-handed handstand, flipping over a boar. Xian was honestly impressed by that one.

I’m not going to disrespect anybody’s customs unless those customs involve ritually sacrificing people. In which case, I’m disrespecting the shit out of them.