The Return of the Thousand-Year-Old Sparrow
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Jiangnan had been home to the Shen family for 26 generations. The fact that they had survived so long had attracted much attention but now the interest in the family increased after Grandpa Shen Gong had come back home for the first time to pay his respects to his ancestors. The spectacle of several media outlets closely following him and his family, as they headed towards the ancestral hall, created a highly entertaining scene.
The sun shined brightly overhead as the worship of the ancestors began.
They all walked from the ancestral hall to the inner hall, burning incense along the way. At last, they reached the path leading to the ancestral tomb and stepped forward until they were standing in front of the tomb. Then the whole family bowed and burned incense at the tomb in remembrance of the ancestors.
Row after row of white chrysanthemums was stacked there as each person stepped forward and bent down to add a stalk when their turn came.
Due to their young age, Shen Zhao Zhao and her twin sister waited at the end of the line.
The two reporters behind them couldn’t squeeze into the innermost area, so they decided to put down their cameras and start gossiping instead.
“That’s Shen Qingqiu who’s presenting his chrysanthemum now. He’s running for the position of finance minister in Mexico this year. I didn’t expect his seniority in the family to be so low.”
“That’s how big a family like this works. Look at the boy in front of him. He’s standing at a higher position than him, but he’s only 15 or 16 years old?”
Upon hearing this, Shen Zhao Zhao stood on her tiptoes to try and see this boy, but there were too many people in front of her.
When it was almost lunchtime, the Ancestral Worship Ceremony finally came to an end. The Shen family had arranged for both the domestic and overseas media personnel to have a meal prepared by a special master chef at the old residence.
The few people who lived in Taizhou all year round were responsible for entertaining the guests.
The girls’ mother handed their care over to Grandpa Shen Gong’s two grandsons, Shen Jiaming and Shen Jiaheng. Shen Jiaming had met the young twins last night and introduced them to Shen Jiaheng, saying, “These are our distant cousins, Qin Zhao Zhao and Shen Zhao Zhao. They are twins, but Shen is the older sister and Qin is the younger sister. Their mother was the only one who was a member of Shen’s family, so they are cousins.”
“Wait, you’ve confused me,” Shen Jiaheng said, “Twins? Then why two last surnames?”
Shen Zhao Zhao and her sister looked at each other and smiled.
Ever since they had arrived last night, they had heard this question about eight or ten times.
“One sister has taken the father’s surname while the other has taken the mother’s surname.”
“Then how do we distinguish between the two?”
“Big Qiao and Little Qiao,” Shen Jiaming whispered to his brother. “Their parents were separated early and the sisters were each taken by one. So there’s no such problem.”
Shen Jiaheng was puzzled. He stared at them as if he still had doubts.
“Do you want to ask why we don’t look alike?” Qin Zhao Zhao smiled sweetly and looked at the distant cousin.
To be honest, the twins were quite different.
Qin Zhao Zhao’s chin was pointed, her nose was high, and she had deep eye sockets framed with peach blossom-shaped eyebrows. Her eyebrows were very thick, but because she was young, she had deliberately not trimmed them. They looked a little messy and not very neat at all. Shen Zhao Zhao, on the other hand, had a goose egg-shaped face. Her cheeks were round with baby fat, and her almond-shaped eyes were framed with eyebrows that were curved and neat.
Their lips were the biggest difference. Qin Zhao Zhao’s lips were thin while her lips were round.
“One of us is like our father, and the other is like our mother,” Shen Zhao Zhao said, also smiling at the two brothers.
They were like half-siblings.
Their parents had told them that since they were young.
The two brothers wanted to entertain the guests now, so they sent them to the Shen family’s jade pavilion.
The Shen family had three residences in the area. One had been donated to the local government, while the other had been made into a jade pavilion. Only this remote ancestral residence had been left.
The sisters expressed no interest and asked for an umbrella instead. Holding it together, they went out to stroll.
Because the location of the ancestral residence was extremely remote, there were no signs of commercialization at all. They were surrounded by ordinary houses.
They went around in a circle, but the rain didn’t stop and instead began to come down harder. So the girls decided to return to the house.
When they got there Shen Zhao Zhao saw an open shop nearby but with no signboard. It looked like it was selling food.
There was a lot of water in the shop’s alley, and because her sister was wearing white shoes, she refused to walk into it for fear of getting them dirty.
Shen Zhao Zhao wasn’t afraid, so she left the umbrella with her sister, raised her hand above her head to protect it from the rain, and jumped across several potholes of water as she headed towards the shop. When she got closer, she could see a piece of paper taped to the wall stating the prices of various flower cakes.
There were no lights on in the shop. The fire burning in the stove squatting in the northwest corner was the only light source.
There were empty rattan baskets and drawers in front of her. But when she peeked inside, she saw a row of freshly made flower cakes sitting on a table to the right.
There was a doorway inside the shop covered by a dark blue curtain. Suddenly, a hand came forth from behind the curtain, pulling it back. She couldn’t see the person because the room beyond was dark.
“Hello,” she said, greeting who she assumed was the shopkeeper, “I want to buy a flower cake,” she said in a crisp voice.
A young man walked out from behind the curtain.
He looked like he was around fifteen or sixteen years old. He wore a set of fitted casual clothes, and his body looked clean and fresh. His only accessory was a rose-gold watch on his wrist.
As he approached her, she could not make out his face until he reached the doorway where the daylight finally reached him. He had a long and narrow nose, short black hair, and bright eyes that curved like a knife.
There was also a fresh bloody mark on the bridge of his nose, as if it had recently been broken.
Sorry about that
Tjanks for the answer !
Hi, did you decide to drop this ?
You haven’t posted any release in two months
No, we aren’t dropping this. Our translator is having exams so it is on hiatus rn. We’ll try to release a new chapter as soon as it’s ready.
Thanks for translating this. I love MBFB and the beautiful bones story.