Chapter 33: A God’s Marriage (4)
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: GaeaTiamat
One man and one otter danced with each other’s hands, squealing and gesticulating at each other in a panic.
The sea otter Sa’gya covered his eyes. “I am a god! No human has ever been able to see me in my true form before! They hold me in reverence as a godfather and house master, how could they use that word to⊔
Human Yun Chi shouted, “That word is lovely! Whether it’s God or Heavenly Father and Master, anything in the world can be praised by that word. Are you exempt because you are a god? I told you not to even think about it!”
It took a while before they stopped this chaotic and ineffective communication and calmed down.
Sa’gya gasped and cautiously probed, “So, given that you are the only human on the island and have seen me in my true form, you can honestly use the word ‘cute’ to describe meâŠ?”
Yun Chi gasped, nodding cautiously, “Okay?”
“Well, then⊔ Sa’gya tentatively held out his palm. “In response, I’ll also speak frankly. In my eyes, you look perfect to be called ‘small and cute’ and it can’t help but make me want to gently bite your face⊔
Yun Chi cried, “No! No need to be honest like this! I’ve managed to make the atmosphere less weird. Don’t make the same mistake again!”
Sa’gya hastily withdrew his palm. “Okay, okay!”
My goodness why was this so awkward? Yun Chi collapsed on the bed exhausted. We’re like two pre-schoolers fighting over the smallest thing, it’s not like meâŠ
Well, wait a minute.
He tugged at the blanket in confusion. His body was now only 17 years old. Did that mean that the youth of the body also led to the infantilization of the mind?
Yun Chi was pondering when Sa’gya, who had just left, soon came back in. He lay on his back at the edge of the bed, the pad of flesh in his palm breaking something and rustling around on his chest for a while.
“Here’s this.” Yun Chi felt a gentle touch on his shoulder. “You should be hungry.”
Yun Chi turned his head and found that it was actually an unusually large sea urchin. On earth, there were hardly any natural seas or human farms that could produce such a large sea urchin, which was as wide as a soup bowl, and the yellow of the urchin was a ruddy orange, like a bright orange petal, trembling tantalizingly inside the urchin shell, emitting a sweet aroma.
Immediately, Yun Chi’s mouth was full of flavor and he threw the previous hiccups to the wind, thinking only of food. Since he woke up, strange things have been happening one after another, and now that Sa’gya mentioned it, he felt his dried up belly, which was protesting against his body.
“This, how am I going to eat it?” Yun Chi tried to reach out, but when he moved his hand, a dull pain shot through his broken collarbone, and no amount of divinely woven bandages could completely ward off the pain.
Sa’gya cupped the urchin shell in a palm larger than the sea urchin and said, “No utensilsâŠI’ll feed you, so you can make do.”
Yun Chi hesitated for a moment. Even if he put aside his harmless appearance, Sa’gya’s character was really gentle. Compared to those gods of other divine families – who were prone to destroying cities, sending calamities and disasters, and not to mention those who play around with the world – Sa’gya’s care for him was so attentive that it could be called the best.
“…Thank you.” He whispered, then stretched his neck and inhaled a mouthful of the rich, full-bodied sea urchin yellow.
It was so fresh!
The best spice was hunger, and with the help of hunger, this was not sea urchin yellow, it was a rare and precious sweetness, so fresh that he doubled over. Yun Chi opened his mouth wide and almost grunted.
Sa’gya looked at him with wonder and joy. After the cub finished one, he opened a second one. Perhaps since he was still growing, Yun Chi ate differently than before, and emptied two large sea urchins before he stopped to take a long breath.
“It’s so delicious!” His spine shivered heavily. His mouth was full of bile yellow juice, but he only felt that his lips and teeth were full of sweetness. Whatever he had eaten in the past of mountain and sea food, at that moment they could not compare with those two sea urchins for nourishment. “If I can eat this kind of food every day, even if I stay here for the rest of my life, I am willing to, ah!”
Sa’gya paused and gazed at him seriously. “Really?”
Yun Chi opened his eyes and smiled at him. “Actually, I’m just kidding! Even if it’s delicious, if you eat it every day and every month, you’ll get tired of it.”
Sa’gya sighed silently in his heart.
In the end, it’s a pup, and what they say doesn’t always countâŠ
“But I can cook seafood in many different ways!” Yun Chi then said enthusiastically, “When I get better, I’ll cook them for you one by one. I won’t let you go hungry!”
…Aww!
Sa’gya covered his chest. He was instantly hit and killed in action.
With that, Yun Chi stayed in Sa’gya’s wooden house.
This house, with its high ceiling and open space on all sides, was not a “cabin” at all. It was more like a cottage with the floor knocked out, empty and square, just like a miniature temple. According to Sa’gya, it was the work of the Gods of Construction and Solidity, so it was out of the ordinary and it could not be judged by the laws of physics.
So privately, Yun Chi preferred to call this house the House of Oddities.
Probably because a real god was taking care of him, Yun Chi’s injuries healed quickly. With two sea urchins per meal, the expensive bandages, and Sa’gya’s hand-pounded herbs, the broken bones in his body recovered quickly, and he was able to walk on the ground after only a week in bed.
“It’s cold⊔ Yun Chi, wrapped in a fur blanket, looked outside at the window. If Sa’gya had retreated to an isolated island, why was the land not another, larger island?
Around them, the sea curled with fine ice, snow-capped mountains and glaciers that perennially formed the only thing that undulated with lines on the sea. In Sa’gya’s divine history, it was in the icy sea that Irma, Mother Goddess of Creation, floated for three thousand years, thus giving birth to the goddess Lunothar, and then to the first line of gods, the oldest ones who had long since been extinguished.
Although Yun Chi was very interested in these real myths, when Sa’gya talked about them, his mood was always unconsciously low. Yun Chi was an optimist, but he wasnât heartless, and after noticing that, he hurriedly changed the subject and never mentioned it again.
Now that Sa’gya was out hunting, he was really bored.
“Food,” Yun Chi muttered. “I can make food. But there’s not much food in here, and the room is cleaner than my pockets. It’s hard for a clever woman to cook without rice⊔
He limped up through the house, what was in here?
A large wooden bed, now occupied by him, resulting in Sa’gya sleeping on the woven carpet under the bed; four walls of antique tapestries, also the work of the Goddess of Weaving; the corner with a lampstand more than a person high. Its candle oil had been steamed into a small puddle, but it just couldnât burn out, and when lit at night, it could still light up the entire house.
In addition, there were only those flat and round rocks. The surface of the boulders was strangely smooth, and they could barely be calledâŠtables and chairs?
Yun Chi sighed. Not to mention a pot. It was cold and clear in there, without even half of the smoke and fire, he was afraid that even the fire was impossible to set up.
While he was standing in the middle of the house looking around, Sa’gya came back.
The white sea otter was holding his arms full of sea urchins. He piled them up by the door, shook the snow and ice off his body, and opened the door with his nose. When he saw Yun Chi out of bed, Sa’gya rubbed his eyes, wiped his head, and asked, “What are you doing?”
Yun Chi turned his head. “Ah, you’re back! I’m looking for a pot.”
“Pot?” Sa’gya hurriedly stopped wiping. “Are you hungry? Am I late?”
Yun Chi shook his head. “No, it’s just thatâŠI’m better now, and I can do what I can to help, so I thought I could fire up something to eat⊔
He glanced around the room. “But I can’t even find a pot, let alone a dish to cook in.”
Sa’gya was silent for a moment, then he waddled over to the east wall, lifted his palm, and pressed a large plum-like palm print into the wall, the five fingers round and round.
The strange house shook, and the finely textured walls, like those alien creations in high-tech movies, disintegrated, rotated, and reorganized in layers. The four walls vibrated, and the sound of friction collisions from the wood was actually as crisp and fine as gold and stone. When the changes stopped, what appeared in front of Yun Chi was a redundant earthenware room!
Yun Chi, “My God!”
Sa’gya laughed, “I remember that there is a small kitchen here. Come in and take a look?”
Yun Chi peeked inside and saw that while the kitchen had been closed for many years, the air was odorless and still retained the same appearance as when it was first built. He said happily, “There are pots and pans!”
A yellow soup pot was set up on the extinguished fire, and Yun Chi knocked it with great enthusiasm. He then went to get the bowl next to him. It was surprisingly light, with silver-white walls, and it glowed faintly, like clear jade, but also like pure silver. He knocked on it, and the bowl made a sound like a young songbird singing at the top of its lungs.
“This is the cooking pot, and when the God Vesta kneaded it, he added to it the light of the sun. The food cooked in this pot will make the eater feel that all things are flourishing,” Sa’gya said.
Yun Chi held the bowl in amazement. “So these bowls, then, are made of moonlight?”
“Yes,” Sa’gya nodded. “The food served in these bowls will make the eater healthy and fruitful forever.”
Yun Chi pursed his lips and carefully put the bowl down.
“Why don’t you use such good cutlery?” he asked.
The door was so small that Sa’gya could only poke his head in. “It doesn’t make much difference if I use it or not, but since you want to use it, these are for you.”
The god’s voice was so gentle, reminiscent of the light of a spring day, the hazy rain, and things that were just right and not too harsh. However, Yun Chi could hear that there was something very much like self-loathing hidden in it.
He didnât turn his head, just leaned over to rummage through the cupboards. As he tried to find a little spice or ingredient that could be used, he buried his head and said sullenly, “What’s the point of cooking and eating alone? We must sit at the table and hold the bowls together to be happy and lively!”
Yun Chi grabbed a small jar and sniffed its contents. Without waiting for Sa’gya’s reaction, he held up the brightly colored jar and asked, “Is this salt?”
He pulled out another jar. “Wow, this looks like spices!”
Yun Chi flicked his fingers curiously, intending to grab it and see what it was all about, but as soon as his fingertips touched the light brown leaves, the spice inside was smeared like a model made of dust.
“Alas, it’s turning into a freshly unearthed relicâŠ,” the teenager sighed.
Sa’gya looked at him in a daze, with a complex look in his eyes. He smiled and asked softly, “Do you want spices?”
Yun Chi found two more bottles of white crystal, put them to his ear and shook them, only no sound was heard. He guessed the liquid inside had almost evaporated, but the bottles were ingeniously goodâŠ
“Yes,” he said, “it is better to have some seasoning, even if all it is, is some fresh salt, ah.”
He pulled out several more clay pots and laid them at his feet. Sa’gya saw that he was having trouble turning around, and suggested, “I’ll take these to the table for you.”
“A dining table,” Yun Chi was surprised. “Where is there a dining table?”
“This.” Sa’gya turned around and pointed to the large, irregularly shaped, flat, round stones placed in the room, “is our dining table.”
“Our?” Yun Chi caught the key word.
Sa’gya smiled and sounded nostalgic, “Yes. A long, long time ago, my family and I, every once in a while, would hold a feast. Drifting hand in hand on the icy sea, weâd then put a stone on our chests, and that was our table⊔
What, how could that happen? So all the gods used to be sea otter godsâŠ!
Yun Chi was so shocked that he couldn’t help but lose his mind.
However, when he thought about it, now only Sa’gya, the old god, was left. So that kind of scene would never be seen again, right?
Nostalgic and as sweet as Sa’gya’s true form.
Thank you both for the chapter.
All of a sudden I feel like eating sea urchins with how good they’re making it sound đ