Drunken Flower Room - Chapter 37

Su Rong, hearing this, didn’t expect much from him. It was normal for Young Master Zhou to have never done such work.

She answered his earlier question, “Didn’t you watch me catch fish before? Catching pheasants is similar once they see me, they can’t escape the palm of my hand.”

Zhou Gu recalled how quick and precise Su Rong had been while fishing. He had nothing to say in response. After watching her for a while, he crouched down and said, “Plucking feathers doesn’t seem too hard. I’ll help you.”

“Sure.”

With that, Zhou Gu rolled up his sleeves and mimicked Su Rong’s movements. The two of them squatted side by side, plucking feathers. In no time, Zhou Gu had managed to pluck the pheasant completely bald, at least around its rear.

The guards accompanying Zhou Gu from the Duke’s residence watched from afar, their eyes wide with shock.

Someone needed to explain to them how their young master, who had been raised to embody the six arts of a gentleman and enjoyed refined pursuits, was now squatting on the ground plucking chicken feathers. If they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes, who would believe it?

Su Rong suddenly thought of something and said to Zhou Gu, “You’d better tell your guards to find their own food.”

Zhou Gu turned his head, glancing at the guards and their stunned expressions. He paused his movements before waving at them. “You all go find something to eat yourselves. These two pheasants are not for you.”

The guards snapped out of their daze and nodded in unison. They didn’t dare expect to share the food with them anyway.

Watching the guards assign a few people to hunt while the rest stayed behind, Su Rong whispered to Zhou Gu, “Are these your personal guards or the Duke’s household guards?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course,” Su Rong said seriously. “If they’re your personal guards, could you make sure they keep quiet about what I’ve done with you? If they’re from the Duke’s residence, once you return, they’re bound to gossip about me.”

In noble households, they often preferred gentle, proper young ladies as brides. Su Rong already felt she was at a disadvantage in terms of status. On top of that, her unrefined demeanor would surely earn her disapproval. Even if the old Duke insisted on honoring the engagement, the Grand Princess Sheng’an and the Duchess wouldn’t agree.

Zhou Gu paused for a moment before answering, “They’re from the Duke’s residence.”

Su Rong sighed. It seemed hopeless.

“If you think you’re not suitable, why go through all this trouble?” Zhou Gu raised an eyebrow.

Su Rong took a deep breath. It wasn’t that she thought she wasn’t suitable, it was just that maintaining an act in front of the Grand Princess and the Duchess for a lifetime seemed impossible. But Zhou Gu was too likable, and her feelings for him were growing too strong to suppress.

Seeing her silent, Zhou Gu couldn’t guess what she was thinking. He only felt her thoughts were erratic and that she seemed indifferent at times but cared at others. He clicked his tongue inwardly, finding her unpredictable. He stopped paying her any mind.

Su Rong efficiently plucked the feathers from the pheasant and reached for her dagger, then paused. “Do you have a dagger on you?”

“No.”

“Then can I borrow your sword to use?”

Zhou Gu’s eyes widened. “You want to use my treasured sword to butcher a chicken?”

“It’s just to gut and clean it,” Su Rong said matter-of-factly.

Zhou Gu firmly objected. “Absolutely not. My sword is the Frostblade, ranked among the finest weapons in the world. It can slice through iron like mud. How could I use it on a chicken?”

He looked utterly adamant. “From how skilled you seem at this, you’ve clearly cooked plenty of chicken before. What do you usually use?”

Su Rong usually carried a small knife but had stopped bringing it after receiving a fine dagger from someone she saved. That dagger was too good to use for mundane tasks like cleaning chicken.

She looked at Zhou Gu innocently. “I usually carry a small knife, but I didn’t bring it today. I didn’t expect to be catching pheasants to roast for you.” She grumbled, “This is all Chen Zhou’s fault for spilling the beans about me. I figured I might as well take you to enjoy some roasted game. After all, you don’t come to Jiangning often, and we can’t leave Phoenix Mountain half-explored, can we?”

Zhou Gu stubbornly declared, “You’re definitely not using my treasured sword.”

“Alright, then. I’ll find something else to try.” Su Rong tore off a leaf, placed the fully plucked chicken on top, and turned to look for a usable tool.

Zhou Gu, satisfied that his sword was safe, didn’t feel embarrassed in the least. Naturally, his prized sword couldn’t be treated so disrespectfully. He resumed plucking feathers.

On a nearby rock, Emerald Feather watched Zhou Gu pluck feathers from the chicken. Seeing the scattered feathers and the pitifully bald bird, the little bird’s expression seemed full of pity.

Zhou Gu noticed and couldn’t help but find it amusing that even a tiny bird could convey sympathy. He teased, “Good thing you’re small and scrawny. Otherwise, she probably wouldn’t have saved you, she’d have roasted and eaten you by now.”

Emerald Feather flapped its wings in protest and chirped angrily, then turned around to show him its back, clearly ignoring him.

Zhou Gu laughed. “Oh, you’ve got quite the temper!”

Su Rong returned with a sharp, jagged stone. Seeing Zhou Gu laughing so freely again, she couldn’t help but sigh internally. “What’s got you so happy this time?”

Zhou Gu turned to her and asked, “Why didn’t you roast that little bird when you first found it?”

“I thought about it,” Su Rong admitted honestly. “But after weighing it in my hand, I realized it wasn’t even two ounces of meat. Nowhere near as plump as a pheasant. So, I just patched it up and let it go.” She began to use the sharp stone to gut the pheasant.

Zhou Gu was speechless for a moment. Watching her delicate wrist as she efficiently cleaned the bird, he couldn’t help but admire her skill. “You’re so experienced at this, how many pheasants have you eaten from this mountain?”

“Not that many. When I’m by myself, I don’t often come up here.”

Zhou Gu noticed that while she had already finished cleaning one pheasant, he hadn’t even plucked all the feathers from the other. Holding his half-plucked bird in both hands, he looked at her helplessly. Su Rong didn’t mock him. Instead, she took over the task and, in a few swift moves, finished cleaning it.

Zhou Gu felt conflicted. He realized that even if Su Rong weren’t a noble lady, she wouldn’t starve.

“Zhou Gu, go gather some firewood, would you?” Su Rong said as she carried the cleaned pheasants to rinse them at a nearby stream.

Zhou Gu washed his hands and nodded, finding this task relatively easy.

A short while later, Zhou Gu returned with the firewood. Su Rong had already wrapped the pheasants in grass leaves, prepared the fire, and found a selection of herbs. She squeezed the herbs to extract juice, which she dripped onto the pheasants to marinate them. After all these preparations, she finally sat down on a rock to wait.

It was Zhou Gu’s first time waiting for food to cook in the wilderness. Surprisingly, he felt quite excited. “You know how to identify herbs too?”

“Yes, I learned from the doctors at Huichun Hall for a while.”

“Can you practice medicine?”

“A little.”

Zhou Gu now found Su Rong’s definition of “a little” highly suspicious. “How is it that you seem to know everything?”

Su Rong shrugged. “When I was younger, I used to get into fights a lot and would often get injured. Sometimes, I didn’t dare let anyone know I’d been fighting, afraid of being scolded. So, I had to learn to treat myself. To learn how to identify herbs, I did a lot of odd jobs at Huichun Hall.”

She rubbed her nose sheepishly. “Unless I had a really serious injury, like something on my face that I couldn’t hide, or I couldn’t afford expensive medicine, I wouldn’t alert my family. It was just a last resort.”

Zhou Gu was speechless. “Why were you always fighting?”

“People kept provoking me. What else could I do?” Su Rong replied confidently.

Zhou Gu: “…”