Richard angrily stared at the two red-headed lovebirds. It didn't understand why they were so stupid. It was obviously a very simple pronunciation, but they just couldn't learn it well, and the syllables they made were not the same.
It regretted that it had impulsively accepted this task, and now it found that the difficulty was slightly higher. Chinese was too complicated and difficult, several orders of magnitude more difficult than Indo-European languages. Even if the pronunciation was correct, if the tone was wrong, it would still be incomprehensible to others.
Segments included phonemes and supra-phonemes. Phonemes were vowels and consonants, which determined the basic pronunciation of a word. This was the same for most languages in the world. Supra-Phonemes were different. Supra-Phonemes included stress, nasality, intonation, sound change, rhythm, and many other aspects of speech. Chinese was ever-changing in this aspect, which was difficult to understand.
Little Purple and Yellow Pea Cake timidly stood in front of it with their heads down, like primary school students who had made a mistake.
Seeing them like this, Richard didn't have the heart to scold them. After all, objectively speaking, their learning speed was very fast, much faster than its own.
Recalling the first days, its memory was a little vague. On the one hand, it had been a long time, and on the other hand, it had not yet become an elfin because of the power of faith. It was just an ordinary African grey parrot, sold as a pet. At that time, there was no difference between it and other grey parrots. The only difference was that it had met her.
She had bought it from a pet shop.
Yes, a pet shop. Speaking of which, it really had a fate with pet shops, Richard recalled. It had met her in a pet shop, and after becoming an elfin, it had appeared in another pet shop. Although the two pet shops were half a world apart, there seemed to be a wonderful red line connecting them.
Richard didn't know how she had chosen it from a large pile of parrots — species? Size? Feathers? Or was it the fate at first sight that Zhang Zian often mentioned? Unfortunately, it hadn't asked her — it hadn't had the time to ask, and it hadn't learned to ask.
The first time Richard heard the word "fate at first sight" was from Zhang Zian. The word "fate at first sight" did not have an exact equivalent in English. If it had to be forcibly translated, it could be referred to as "fate encounter", "love at first sight", "falling in love" and so on. However, the above phrases were too superficial, and could not be as delicate and lasting as the word "fate at first sight".
It knew that it shouldn't scare Little Purple and Yellow Pea Cake. However, if it didn't, the birds' instinct would make them unable to concentrate — it was common sense that only when they concentrated could they learn efficiently.
Richard still remembered its nervousness and fear when it left the pet shop and was taken into the lab. Facing the strange woman in a white coat, it was nervously guessing what she wanted to do. Kill it, or eat it? It wanted to tell her that it was not tasty, its meat, its feathers were hard, and it had too many bones …
Although she tried her best to express her friendliness, its mind was in a mess at that time and it couldn't understand her kindness. Instead, it felt even more afraid and didn't even dare to leave the cage. Although the cage restricted its freedom, it was also its shelter.
What made it even more nervous was that there were other parrots in the room — a parakeet named "Merlin". Although it was a little smaller than it, it was quite tough. It looked at it with hostile eyes and regarded it as an intruder and a predator in its territory.
Richard could not help but compare Merlin, the parakeet, with the cats in the shop. In its opinion, the most terrible cat in the shop was Fina, who would turn hostile at the slightest disagreement. However, Fina's view was different from Merlin's. She never saw Richard as a threatening opponent.
In order to calm it down, she brought it water and food, but it was so nervous and scared that it almost didn't drink a drop of water or eat a grain of rice for the whole day … Hunger, thirst, and fear of the new environment and new companions took turns to torture it.
Fortunately, the next day she found out the reason — parrots were also territorial creatures and needed their own space, especially when they came to a new environment. So, she took Merlin the parakeet to another room, leaving Richard alone and comforting it.
Richard, who was gradually calming down, could truly feel the kindness she was showing him. The compassion and concern contained in her kindness were absolutely not fake. She kept gently wiping the corners of her eyes, repeatedly saying "poor little guy" and fell into deep self-blame — because of her inexperience and improper handling, Richard encountered unexpected fear and anxiety.
Looking at her like this, Richard did not know why it suddenly had a great courage in its heart. It wanted to tell her, "This is not your fault, everything will be fine." It did not know where it heard this sentence from, maybe in the pet shop, or maybe somewhere else. It wanted to say this sentence to her, but it could not. It could not speak. It could only pluck up the courage to get out of the cage, jump onto her arm, and lower its head to rub against her white coat, hoping to convey its meaning to her.
She smiled in surprise, and her face became soft, as if she had seen a very precious gift. She stretched out her other hand, wanting to comb its messy feathers, but stopped halfway, worried that she would scare it again.
Richard wanted to prove that it was not a coward, so it flapped its wings and tried to fly, but it forgot that the birdcage was next to it, and its wings accidentally got stuck in the iron bars of the cage. In an instant, blood and pain alternated. It was screaming, and she was also screaming. The others who heard the news came in a mess, and they all bandaged it.
It was very painful, very painful, and it still remembered the severe pain.
Its first official contact with her had a good beginning, and a terrible ending...
The noise from downstairs woke Richard up from the past. It shook its head, trying to temporarily drive these memories out of its mind — since it became an elfin, this kind of thing had become more and more difficult. Every minute and second that it spent with her was so clear in front of its eyes, as if it had happened yesterday.
Richard cheered up, raised one of its wings, pointed to the displayed kitchen utensils, and said to Little Purple and Yellow Pea Cake, "Pot! Pot! Pot, bowl, basin! "
It knew that it was not smart, and everything it did was just a poor imitation of her.
The kitchen door was pushed open, and Richard thought that Zhang Zian had come back, so it immediately changed its face and looked at the door with a cheeky smile. It would not be sad and weak anymore, because no one would look at it with delicate and gentle eyes like her.
It was not Zhang Zian standing at the door, but Sun Xiaomeng, who was holding the American Shorthair.
The same white coat, the same pair of rational and intelligent eyes.
It was like yesterday once more.
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