Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Zhang Zian thought that this young man with an artistic flair also seemed familiar, but he had no time to think about it. This was because, while listening to his complaints, Zhang Zian kept on sneezing and sneezing.
Had Police Officer Sheng really gotten it right? Walking around while his body was wet with seawater without letting himself dry out would cause him to have a cold?
The young man, tired from complaining, bent over and tried to pick up the birdcage to go home. At this moment, he glanced over and he saw a figure from the alley.
It was a kind-faced middle-aged elderly woman, but he could not tell her specific age. Her eyes were as clear as a teenager’s but sometimes violent and tepid as those of someone who had seen everything in the world.
As she walked to the end of the alley, she expectantly looked at the intersection, as if waiting for someone.
The young man saw the figure. His hand got shaky, and he hurriedly dropped the birdcage and ran over. He pulled her over and said, “Mom! Why did you run out by yourself? Where’s the nanny?”
She glanced at him blankly and said, “Dong Yue is about to be done with school. She doesn’t let me go to the school to pick him up, so I will stand here to wait for him to come back…”
The young man didn’t say anything.
The birdcage that he’d dumped on the ground rolled to one side. It was about to roll onto the road and might have been crushed by a car. The parrot inside panicked and screamed. Zhang Zian walked over and stopped the cage with his feet.
The black cloth on the outside of the birdcage was covered with dust, and the latch was loosened from the rolling. A corner of the black cloth was lifted, and a gray bird feather appeared in the birdcage, along with a pair of black eyes that were looking everywhere.
“Hey! Imprisonment play! Blindfold! Mouth restraint!”
It fluttered its wings in a random way, and it constantly spit out vocabularies of unknown meaning.
Zhang Zian was silent.
He couldn’t agree more with the young man’s complaints. This parrot really could leave someone speechless. The young man had been able to carry it with him and walk a distance. He must have suffered many staring eyes. What a shameful play this was…
“What is this nonsense… I don’t know what the bird is saying! Can you understand?”
In order to avoid Zhuang Xiaodie’s misunderstanding of him, he clarified immediately.
Zhuang Xiaodie didn’t respond.
Other pedestrians passed by and heard the words from the cage…that were not understood by ordinary people. They also turned to look at the source of the devil making all that noise.
“Mom! How many times have I told you? Don’t run around! Don’t go out on your own! Why are you always… Ugh!” The young man sighed. His face was full of helplessness.
He took her by the hand and didn’t dare let go. He was afraid that when he let go, she would run across the road and get hit by a car. Looking back, he saw that Zhang Zian had helped him stop the birdcage and said, “Friend, can you help me and bring the birdcage over? Thank you very much!”
Zhang Zian nodded, picked up the birdcage, and walked over. He handed it over and asked, “Do you know what kind of bird is this?”
“Isn’t it a parrot?” The young man said.
“It is a parrot, but this is an African grey parrot. It is an endangered protected animal that the country has banned from private buying and selling. This parrot cannot be privately raised unless one applies for a permit,” Zhang Zian explained. “And the number of cases in which someone raised an African grey parrot privately and was thereafter prosecuted…”
“Yeah! Three years to start with. The death penalty is applicable!” The African grey seamlessly picked up where he’d left off.
“Is it worth it to be sentenced to death for raising a parrot?” Zhang Zian subconsciously argued with the parrot but immediately realized that this was not the time and place for that.
Strangely, once he heard the parrot talk, he could help but lose the image of a proper and well-educated man.
“Oh… I really didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about this.” The young man frowned and glanced at his mother with a worried look. “My mother is a bit confused, always thinking about the one she raised before. I don’t know exactly what kind of parrot it was, so I just went to the pet shop and bought one. No wonder this parrot was not placed on the brighter side of the shop. I said that I wanted to buy a parrot that could talk, and the owner sneakily went to the back. He picked up this one, and the price was especially low. It turned out to be a protected animal that is not allowed to be traded… What can be done?”
Zhang Zian roughly understood the situation, and he could also see that this older woman unfortunately suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, which was currently incurable by medicine. The hippocampus, in charge of memory, had developed lesions, so her memories often came up confused. She sometimes could not recognize her own son…
Wait a minute, the memory was confused?
He felt that his memory seemed to be a bit confused as well. It seemed that he couldn’t remember some things that he should remember. Was it true that he…it shouldn’t be. Was it?
“You didn’t ask the owner where did this parrot come from?” he asked.
The young man nodded. “I saw him being sneaky and got suspicious, so I asked. The owner said that he was watching a movie on the computer when this parrot flew in through the window and started watching the movie with him. He caught it with ease…”
“Yah! Calcium tablets! Calcium tablets!” The African grey parrot shouted again.
“Look, it always likes to pick up on other people’s words, but they do not mean anything. Where are the calcium tablets?” The young man shook his head helplessly.
Zhang Zian laughed twice. “I don’t understand either… Which pet shop is this? I will go around it in the future…”
The young man looked at him in confusion.
“No, I mean, letting the old lady raise a parrot that is banned in this country isn’t very wise. Besides, this parrot keeps saying dirty things…” Zhang Zian hurriedly changed the subject.
“You are right. If the country bans the private raising of this bird, I certainly can’t let my mother raise it. She is already like this. If she gets a lawsuit because she is raising a banned parrot, it simply won’t be worth it… I can’t raise it either. If I get a lawsuit, who will take care of her…?” The young man sighed.
He held the birdcage in one hand and held his mother in the other hand. It seemed to be a dilemma. On the one hand, he had to send his mother home, because she would get lost if she had a relapse in her illness. On the other hand, if he brought the bird back and sent his mother home, and if the neighbors or the nanny heard the grey parrot in the cage, word would spread… Maybe they didn’t know that it was illegal to raise a grey parrot, but some people may know.
The most important thing was that he’d bought this parrot because it could talk, but what it was saying…was obviously not suitable for his mother to hear.
“Friend, do you know how this parrot should be handled?” he asked. “Since I can’t raise it, I can’t take it home. Fortunately, I didn’t spend much money. I shall just consider that I bought a lesson. However, to simply leave it here… I don’t know if it can survive in the wild. Maybe it will be taken home by other people, and they will get a lawsuit instead.”
“We should contact the relevant departments, such as the zoo.” Zhang Zian was not sure. However, seeing that the young man was stuck, he volunteered and said, “If you trust me, give it to me. I will help you to contact the relevant department and send it where it should go.”
