Yang Zhang decided to take it slow today and walked instead of using Little Ivy to swing around. His main objective was to find one animal to use the Mana Bead on and one good plant to mutate with the Brain Bead.
Aimlessly he wandered past the territorial tree and then headed deeper into the forest, with Chestnut accompanying him on his shoulder, and Little Ivy nestled in the palm of his hand.
"Squeak, Squeak?"
"Ah, yes, we're going to find another animal to feed this Mana Bead to," Yang Zhang answered Chestnut's question.
"Squeak!"
"Ehhh, tiger? You want me to use the Brain Bead on a tiger? That'd be too dangerous since we don't know whether the tiger will obey my command or make me its lunch. It's better to find smaller animals, maybe around your size," Yang Zhang explained.
He was thinking of a bird or another rodent because they weren't difficult to control, and if they got hostile, it wouldn't be hard to run away or… kill them, of course.
Yang Zhang continued walking until he found a nest of junglefowl, or what most people here called… forest chickens.
"Oh! Junglefowls, and they look normal too!" Yang Zhang was excited when he saw a junglefowl hen, complete with chicks.
He had seen junglefowl when he was a kid living with his grandparents, but after his grandpa's death, he was sent to live in an orphanage in the city.
It was actually a delightful surprise to see one again!
"Squeak!"
"Vii! Vii!"
"What? Friends? You guys want to take one as a friend?"
Chestnut and Ivy both nodded at once. They didn't seem to see things like Yang Zhang.
"I mean, we can take them home, but not as friends…." Yang Zhang counted the little chicks, 'Mhm, one fat hen and five chicks. I can start my own chicken farm and eat chicken and egg every day, hehe~."
Chestnut jumped from Yang Zhang's shoulder and walked towards the big hen.
But the moment Chestnut walked too close towards the chicks, the Big hen jumped in and started pecking Chestnut's head.
"Squeak! Squeak!" Chestnut returned to Yang Zhang while rubbing its head.
"Well, I don't think she's up for a talk, buddy. Let's just snatch her and the chicks. We—I mean, I will get a nice supply of eggs for breakfast everyday!" Yang Zhang had one thing in his mind now, snatching the chicks first. With the chicks in hand, the mother hen would ultimately chase after him back to the hut.
Yang Zhang walked carefully towards the chicks who gathered together while their mother hen searched for worms on the ground. He waited stealthily until the mother hen wasn't looking, and then…
SNATCH!
"Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!"
The loud noise from the chicks alerted the mother hen instantly. She looked towards Yang Zhang and flapped her wings, chasing after Yang Zhang to get her chicks back.
"CLUCK! CLUCK! CLUCK!"
"Hihihi, chase me, mother hen! I've got your chicks! Time to make them fried chicken pop!"
Yang Zhang laughed as he saw the hen chase relentlessly after him. What could a single hen do anyway? Peck him?
But after chasing Yang Zhang for a while, the mother hen stopped suddenly and stood still for a moment.
Yang Zhang slowed his pace because he wanted to lead the hen to his hut, and he didn't want her to get lost on the way.
"Now what? You don't want your offspring anymore? I can turn them into fried chicken for a snack, you know~" Yang Zhang taunted.
Yang Zhang heard the mother hen clucked a few times, and soon after, a junglefowl rooster flew the short distance from the tree it had been sitting in towards her.
The rooster stared at Yang Zhang, then at the chicks.
After seeing the five defenseless chicks about to be dipped in sauce, the rooster's chest puffed up and—
'COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!'
The rooster crowed out so loud that his crow echoed around the deep forest.
…
…
"That's it?" Yang Zhang thought there would be something dangerous coming after the rooster crowed. But nothing happened after that. "Well, if you want to chase me, then do it ah! One rooster and one hen, I'm going to have a chicken farm!"
Yang Zhang chuckled tauntingly, but that laugh didn't last long because he suddenly saw something flying from one tree to another.
It was so quick that Yang Zhang couldn't tell what that was.
The rooster and hen were standing still in the same spot and clucked again, "Cluck, cluck."
"What?"
…
"Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! Cluck" Yang Zhang suddenly heard the echoing sounds of chickens clucking springing up all across the forest. He looked up and instantly regretted his stupid decision.
There were hundreds of junglefowl roosters and hens perched on top of all the trees around him. They looked down at Yang Zhang as if he was today's prey.
Yang Zhang gulped. Of course, he was intimidated by the sight of hundreds of Junglefowl ready to peck him to death. Even if he commanded Chestnut to zap them all, it wouldn't be enough because there were simply too many.
"Alright, screw the hen and rooster, let's just go now!" Yang Zhang opened his palm and commanded, "Ivy!"
"Vii!"
Little Ivy stretched her vines and coiled them around a tree branch, ready to immediately swing away so Yang Zhang could escape intact.
However, before he could even start, Little Ivy suddenly hollered, "VII! VII! VII!"
Little Ivy retracted her vines and whimpered in pain, "Vii… Vi…"
Yang Zhang was surprised when he saw that the junglefowl perching on the tree had pecked little Ivy's vines on the branch. The vicious attack damaged Ivy's vines, and it must've hurt her as well.
Yang Zhang realized that he wouldn't be able to use Little Ivy's help right now, and there was a countless amount of fowls ready to attack.
"Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!"
"Welp, guess there's no chicken dinner for me tonight…."