7 七

'Is this food really safe to eat?' Feather whispers.

'I don't know.' Ro is not a living person, he cannot tell.

Feather hiccups, and her head is getting heavier and dizzied. She failed to cry...

There is something wrong with the food.

As she wakes up again, she sees herself inside a delicate metal bird cage.

There are also other fairies that had eaten Kyas' food in the cage with Feather and Ro.

Ro is awake all the time, but he follows Kyas and decides to enter the cage with Feather.

The danger in Kyas' Magic Castle doesn't come from Kyas, but from the castle itself.

The castle has the passive power to confuse and demonize creatures.

Ro thinks it is easier to deal with the castle owner Kyas than facing unknown effects from the castle.

As long as they are within Kyas' power range, the castle cannot infect them.

'Kyas likes singing! Please sing here!'

Tiny fairies begin to sing. Feather sings along with them

'Not loud enough...Singing at this level doesn't make Kyas happy!'

The tiny fairies begin to sing louder, but Kyas is still not satisfied. The Fairies'voices are too quiet.

Kyas picks two random fairies out and pulls their wings off, dropping them to a new glass jar and pounding them with a pounder.

The sound of the colliding pounder and the glass jar mixes with the sticky flesh and bursting bodies and the whine of the dying fairies to create an astonishing pathos.

Kyas' face finally speaks of a satisfied smile.

The remaining fairies are shouting out the song. Their eyes are still clear and affectionate as they look at Kyas.

Even though they just saw their friends die, their love for Kyas does not go away.

They love her so much.

It is the royal love that they are willing to sacrifice all for her.

Fairies are too tiny.

They have used all their energy but their singing still cannot compete with human volume.

They are using their life to sing this sweet and lively song. It is sorrowful.

Feather is singing along with them with her long and beautiful tune.

She has tried her best.

It is hard however to move Ro with such a scene.

Although these fairies are choking blood and collapsing, Ro doesn't have much feeling or sympathy for them.

Only young and naïve people like Feather will feel sad in this situation. Ro is used to them.

'Okay!'Kyas claps her hands and ends the singing.

Although they are like a smaller version of humans, their voices are no louder than a new-born kitten.

Kyas goes back to her soft princess bed for a nap after filling water in a small tea cup in the cage.

The fairies didn't move and hint for Feather to drink first.

She doesn't seem to be happy.

Yet, she doesn't reject their kindness.

It is true that she doesn'twant to sharethe water with other fairies.

'Sir, can we set them free?'

This cage is not locked.

It seems like that they just need to push and can be freed.

'They are a part of here.'

'Does that mean a no?'

'Yes.'

Kyas was a princess from a middle age Kingdom.

This castle was built by her parents to celebrate her birth.

However, this cute little girl was cursed even before her birth by an evil witch.

As a result, Kyas was extraordinally crueler than other kids of her age when she was little. Her parents didn't think this cute girl was their expected child. They claimed that she was a devil and burned her to death along with the castle.

Kyas and her castle revived in the Abyss Amusement Park, becoming a game here.

Players who entered the game and failed to escape have become a part of the game.

At first, the difficulty of Kyas' Magic Castle was only 1 star. Today after many years, the difficulty has become 4 stars.

The castle's will is to please Kyas.

Kyas' will is to... No one even knows what this innocent looking cruel girl wants.

Ro cannot break any game here. They are a part of this smaller world. Ro will need great courage to challenge the world order. For Ro, he cannot do anything beyond bullying some weaker ghosts here to protect Feather.

'Okay.'

Feather has not got away from being upset.

These fairies' eyes are pure.

To Ro, they are pure because they know nothing. They are like new-born babies who just came to the world and didn't know anything.

Feather's eyes are pure also, but her purity is her insisting self and kindness after going through many things.

Ro is willing to protect her and send her back to the living world even without the request.

However, he doesn't have time for the rest.

Most people lose to the honey from the sweet rose in the first day and fail to welcome the morning Sun again.

The wind from outside enters Kyas' room through her wooden windows, gently picks up her curtains and the bowknots on the windows.

A pair of small red leather shoes sits by her bed. It is neatly sewed and full of love from parents to their child.

A string of small bells decorated with fairy's wings are swinging and making a sound. Kyas wakes up and rubs her eyes. She turns around on the bed and huddles. Her soft blonde hair covers her cheeks.

The bells ring again.

Kyas stretches herself and sits up.

Her blue eyes are gentle and moist but confused and lonely.

She sits still on her bed.

After a long time, she bends down and puts on her shoes slowly.

'Should I catch fairies?'

'Or hide and seek?'

'Strawberry jam...'

'I am bored of these.'

She slides down from her bed and sits on the wooden floor.

It is not a correct thing to do.

A young lady should not sit on the ground.

She is on the floor, but no one will criticize her.

She failed to recall her previous life...

It has been thousands of years.

She is the cute little Kyas here forever.

The castle freezes her time.

Kyas shows desires and longing of a teenager on her little face.

'What does the outside look like?'

She buries herself in her knees and combs her long blonde hair with her hand. She is asking Feather.

Ro belongs to the Abyss Amusement Park that Kyas just ignored him.

'What aspects of outside?' Feather is afraid of this violent lolita who pulls off fairies' wings based on her personal will.

Even if Kyas didn't hurt the fairies, Feather would be still afraid of her from her own instinct.

Just a while ago, there were two fairies becoming strawberry jam.

Yet, she seems to be normal now and Feather gained some courage.

'Tell me about your life.' Kyas tilts her head and looks at Feather with curiosity.

Fairies also look at Feather in a curious manner.

'I am just an ordinary person. Every morning, I wake up in a hurry and grab my breakfast somewhere as I run to my class.'

'What place is your class?'

'A class is in a school. A school is a place where people go to study. There are schools for both kids and adults. Most students are around the same age in a school and we have all kinds of courses from geology to maths to art.'

'Then?'

'I take classes in a classroom and eat in a cafeteria during lunch time. There will be a lot of people during that time and we need to line up to get food.'

'What do you eat there? Strawberry jam and bread?'Kyas' eyes glitter. She is looking for more.

It must be busy!

'We have a lot more choices in the cafeteria. For breakfast, we have noodles, century egg pork congee, red bean congee, tremella and red date congee, dumplings of pickled Chinese cabbage, Chinese cabbage with pork, pork with rice noodles, three delicacies, steamed dumplings, three delicacies tofu skin, soy milk and fried bread stick, Jianbing, egg bing, pickled Chinese cabbage bing, thousand layers bing...'

Ro is falling asleep during Feather's listing of food.

Feather is not good at expressing but she knows where the most catching point is. Kyas is very concerned now.

She is looking at Feather muddled, and Feather explains.

'Noodles/mian面 is a category which includes ramen, xiaomian, vegetablemian, alkaline mian, cup noodles, egg mian, and ordinary rice mian.'

'Your highness, you know we have wheat right? We can grind the wheat and make it into bread.'

Kyas nods to show that she understands.

'Wheat can also be made into noodles, but I am not sure about the exact process. Different processes will create different noodles.'

'If we add some vegetable juices in the process, the noodles will taste fresh and it has pretty colors.'

'If we add more eggs in the process, the noodles will come out soft and smooth with egg flavor.'

'Ordinary rice noodle is very soft. If we add a small morsel of Chinese bacon/腊肉larou when cooking the noodles, the noodle's aroma will make you hungry right away.'

'To make a larou, we pickle pork during winter and dry them under the sunlight when there is a sunny day. The longer the pickle process is, the longer the larou can last. Some Chinese will roast larou with pine twigs and the larou will have a fresh pine flavor.'

...

Kyas keeps nodding her head.

After Feather finishes, she is thirsty.

Kyas hurries to offer her water.

It is time to explain congee.

'Century egg is a kind of pickled chicken egg or duck egg. Their shells are usually a little green. A century egg is already cooked and we just need to break it and eat it with vinegar, a homemade chilli sauce of at least 3 months in a pot, and sesame oil. Slice them and put them on a plate with toothpicks on each morsel. It is great to eat it during the summer with rice congee.'

'An experienced cook will use a clean thread to cut the century egg instead of using a knife.'

'Why?'Kyas is sitting close to Feather. Her blue eyes can only notice Feather now.

'Because century egg is very sticky since its egg yolk is still half liquid and half solid. If the cook uses a knife, the knife will have some egg yolk on it and it is risky to clean a knife. It would be a pain if the cook accidentally hurt himself/herself.'

'For a century egg pork congee, the process is simple. Just peel the egg from the shell and throw it into the pot. Poke it with a pair of chopsticks and it will break into pieces.'

'We need to stir fry the pork first in order to make a good century egg pork congee. First of all, we will also add some ginger to the stir-frying process to get rid of the porky bloody flavor...'

The whole afternoon passes like this.

Even Ro was listening to her talking about food. Kyas was stupefied and didn't eat lunch.

The moon is rising, Kyas doesn't go watch fairies dancing either.

She even frees the fairies inside the cage.

'Feather, will I also be able to eat the food you just told me?'

Kyas has forgotten her post-favorite sweet rosy strawberry jam.

'Of course.'

In order to save Kyas' dinner, the "strawberries", Feather in the heat of the moment promises to make her food of the outside world.

She neglects her body size and Kyas' food ingredients storage.

'Sir helps me!'

Feather clings to Ro's legs again.

We never know starting from when Feather has thrown away her "face".

Probably after she got used to the lovemaking sound of the fairies.

'...'

Ro pats her head and contemplates how to make food for Kyas.

Kyas' food is cooked by the castle every day.

The kitchen is a room without any spices.

There is only egg, bread, and water.

Ro suddenly recalls that he's got some food in his own storage space from his previous quests.

Finally, he finds his storage space useful!