pertwk Chapter 17 Is this stinky dog yours too?
Chapter 17 Is this stinky dog yours too?
"Does it still hurt?" Chu Sheng leaned out and reached out to Ai La under the car.
Ella looked up at Chu Sheng, then stuck out her tail.
Chu Sheng caught the tail and looked down. The small tuft of fur at the tip of the tail was flattened by being stepped on, but fortunately, no bones were broken.
Yinye squeezed in and poked her head out of the car window. She had been fiddling with her instruments inside and was probably getting bored.
"Can a dog get its tail stepped on by a horse?" she asked idly, twirling her finger around her bright green braid.
"Who are you calling a dog?" Ella instantly bristled.
"Let's talk about the one whose tail got stepped on by the horse."
Ella was so angry her ears were practically crooked, but she couldn't find a rebuttal for a moment, because she had indeed had her tail stepped on by the horse.
Silver Leaf shook her head smugly and tossed her braid over her other shoulder. She leaned halfway out of the car window, holding a handful of leaves that had somehow become covered in dew and offered them to Ella.
"Drink it, and your tail won't hurt anymore."
"You're lying!" Ella sniffed the leaf and it tasted like ordinary dew.
"Grey elves never lie."
"You lied to me yesterday, saying there were bugs on your tail!"
"You must have misread it."
Ella stared at her suspiciously for a while, but finally took the leaf and sipped it slowly. Silver Leaf, perched on the edge of the car window, curled its pointed ears forward with satisfaction.
Just then, a range of rolling hills appeared faintly on the distant horizon. A breeze blew from that direction, carrying a faint, refreshing fragrance.
Ella's nose twitched: "What's that smell?"
Arthur shook the reins: "The cat's been taken."
The scenery on both sides of the road began to change quietly, with the bushes being replaced by taller and lush trees without anyone noticing.
The number of people on the road gradually increased.
First came small groups of pedestrians carrying bundles, then came large caravans with wagons loaded with cloth, spices, and pottery jars of all sizes, as well as southern fruits that Chu Sheng couldn't name.
Then, travelers of other races appeared.
A lizardman nearly two and a half meters tall carried a whole wild boar past the carriage; the boar's tusks were thicker than Chu Sheng's arm. The lizardman noticed Chu Sheng's gaze, turned his head, his vertical pupils slightly contracted, and then he grinned and nodded at him, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth.
Chu Sheng waved his hand stiffly. It wasn't fear, but he genuinely never imagined that the lizard people who controlled the US government, as depicted in the cheap books he read in elementary school, would actually appear before his very eyes.
"Even lizardmen come to the cat people's festival?" he whispered to Arthur.
"Lizardmen, dogmen, rabbitmen, even dwarves and winged people." Arthur's gaze swept over a dwarf caravan resting in the shade of a tree by the roadside. The dwarves sat in a circle with a huge beer barrel in the center. "Although the catmen are eccentric, they have many employment relationships with other races, so their market is the best in the north. You can buy everything from ingredients and spices to cloth and weapons."
"And musical instruments." Silverleaf poked her head out of the car window, her eyes sparkling. "Three of my harp strings are broken, and I haven't been able to buy new ones. Do the cat-people's markets have southern silk strings?"
"If even the Cat's Collar isn't there, then the entire North won't exist," Arthur asserted.
Silver Leaf's ears twitched with delight.
The closer you get to Cat Territory, the more lively the scene becomes on both sides of the road.
Temporary stalls began to appear along the roadside, selling barbecue, fruit wine, and colorful fabrics, with vendors calling out their wares in various languages and accents.
A little rabbit-person was squatting by the roadside selling flower wreaths, her snow-white rabbit ears on her head unusually long. When she saw Ella, her eyes lit up, and she waved the flower wreath in her hand at her.
Ella paused for a moment, then subconsciously wagged her tail as well.
Then she realized she was wagging her tail, immediately straightened her face, and walked forward without looking to the side.
As Chu Sheng sat in the hood of the car, looking at the increasingly noisy road, he suddenly had a feeling he hadn't experienced in a long time.
It felt like when I was a child, during Chinese New Year, and my parents would lead me by the hand to the temple fair. The streets were packed with people—sugar figurines, ring toss games, monkey shows—each stall surrounded by a crowd.
He rode on his father's shoulders and looked down from above, feeling as if the whole world was a dark mass of heads and bright red lanterns.
That was a very, very long time ago.
"Chu Sheng," Arthur suddenly spoke.
"Huh?" Chu Sheng came back to his senses.
"Your hand."
Chu Sheng looked down and realized that he had somehow placed his hand on Arthur Fengyin's firm thigh.
He quickly withdrew his hand and coughed lightly, "Thinking about something."
The carriage continued forward. The crowd grew denser, forcing the celestial horse to slow its pace. Ella walked close to the carriage shaft, while Silverleaf leaned half his body out of the window, occasionally exchanging a few words with Ella, his pointed ears darting around, catching every sound coming from the market.
Ahead, the city gate of Cat Territory is already faintly visible.
It was an archway decorated with flowers and ribbons, and a huge banner hung on it with a welcome message written in several languages.
The middle line of text was the largest, and Chu Sheng squinted as he read it aloud.
"Warmly celebrate the ascension of the new king, Cat Lord, and sincerely invite guests from all directions to join in this grand occasion."
After he finished reading it, he felt something was off: "Why does this slogan sound like it's for a real estate launch?"
Arthur turned his head and glared at him, and Chu Sheng wisely shut his mouth.
As the carriage passed through the city gate, Yinye suddenly reached out a hand from the carriage window and caught a petal that was falling from the archway.
She pulled her hand back, looked down at the crumpled pink petal in her palm, and then tucked it into the body of the lute.
The city gate of Cat's Den is even more ornate than it appears from a distance. On either side of the archway sits a stone cat statue, its neck adorned with wreaths and even its whiskers tied with colorful ribbons.
Several cat-people guards stood at the gate. The cat-people looked much like humans, except they had cat ears and a cat tail, and they weren't much taller than the dog-people.
The guards had various fur colors—orange, black, and black and white. They wore light leather armor, short swords hung at their waists, and were lazily checking the flow of people entering the city.
An orange cat-man guard yawned, revealing two sharp canine teeth.
Arthur pulled out an Imperial Knights badge from his pocket and flashed it in front of the guard. The orange cat-man guard stopped yawning halfway through, his vertical pupils narrowed slightly, and he stepped aside to make way.
His gaze swept across the carriage, finally settling on Arthur. Pointing at Ella, he asked, "Is this stinky dog yours too?"
Bad thing!
Chu Sheng sensed something was wrong, but Ella had clearly already heard him.
Her expression showed confusion for a moment, then she opened her blood-red mouth in a furious rage.