281 Poor Little Thing (2/2)

Seeing its playmate, the American Shorthair followed Galaxy and disappeared behind the bedroom door.

Richard obeyed Sun Xiaomeng’s order, which was unusual, and waited there with its wings open, a difficult and awkward position for a bird.

She walked over to Richard and said softly, ”Stay still.” As a doctor, she gently and carefully used her hands to pinch at its left wing.

She poked Richard’s feathers open on its left wing, and as she expected, there was an old scar there. If she was not an experienced veterinarian, she would never have noticed that its right and left wings were asymmetrical the moment Richard opened them—there was only one reason for that scar: Richard had been injured before, or it was suffering with an injury right now.

”Poor little thing.” Sun Xiaomeng used one finger to touch along the scar, ”It must feel very painful.”

She could see that from the length and position of this scar, it was caused by the snapping, damage and falling of the blood-feathers, and Richard must have been bleeding a lot, for it was such a severe injury that a bird could have died instantly. Richard was lucky to survive and recover from the injury. It probably had received treatment in time and was taken care of meticulously.

Being touched by her fingertips, Richard trembled like it was being shocked by electricity.

”Is it still hurting?”

If pets seemed in pain, ordinary people would have withdrawn their hands, but as a professional veterinarian, Sun Xiaomeng pressed harder to check on the bone status on the wing. As it turned out, the injury had fully recovered. Then why would Richard shudder? Was the trauma in its heart had not been recovered yet?

Richard didn’t close its wings. It hid its head under the wing on the other side, not wanting anyone to see its look right now.

”Poor little thing.”

Though the phrase had been spoken in different languages by different people, and the phonemes and hyper-phonemes were completely different, Richard felt the phrase sounded the same to it, for the feelings contained within were equally sincere.

Richard tried to pull back its wings from her hands, but its body had lost strength, as if her finger had a magic that made Richard want to rely on it.

”Pot…bowl…”

The two red-headed lovebirds spoke up again, and Sun Xiaomeng’s attention was diverted to them.

She now understood that the conversation was from Richard and the red-headed lovebirds and Richard was teaching them to speak. It was not uncommon that when one parrot had learnt some words, it would teach the other parrots that lived with it. But it was rare that one parrot would intentionally teach others how to speak.

She had some theory of suspicion and said to Richard, ”Richard, can you understand what I say?”

Richard rolled its eyes, looked at her and nodded.

Sun Xiaomeng was so surprised. Last time she saw it, she had suspected Richard might understand the human language. Right now, she could confirm that Richard indeed could understand the human languages and come up with the correct reactions, which could only be achieved by very few parrots and primates, the chance of which was like one Einstein among all the human beings.

As a professional veterinarian, Sun Xiaomeng didn’t have much of a social life or any real hobbies. She liked reading extensively about professional academic reports and essays in her free time, which was the reason why Zhang Zian always teased her and called her a super scholar. She quickly recollected what she had read before, thinking about how to test its intelligence level.