Qiqihar.

That morning, 61-year-old Lao Zhang went out for morning exercise. When the sun was red, he had already returned, holding two hand-grabbing cakes and two bags of hot milk.

The daughter got married, the son was imprisoned, and ran away again, and his life and death were unknown.

He and his wife are the only ones left at home.

His family lives in a very old building with lots of debris piled up on the corner of the stairs. There were dense advertisements posted on the wall, so he washed the range hood, cleared the sewer, and even had a "Ms. Bao" phone call.

Lao Zhang climbed up to the third floor and suddenly stopped.

There was a parrot standing at the door of his house, staring at him in a daze.

In the past, Lao Zhang raised parrots, and the last one was a small colorful parrot born in the Malay Peninsula and South America, with blue heads, blue belly, red beak, red chest, green neck, green back, and green tail. Its eyes were red.

Later it died, and Lao Zhang was very sad and stopped raising it.

Unexpectedly, that morning, a macaw appeared inexplicably at the doorstep!

Lao Zhang approached it, but it didn't run away, but just looked at him quietly, as if waiting for him to take in.

Lao Zhang opened the door and planned to put breakfast home first. The black cat at home was squatting at the door and shouting unusually. It was called Xiaobai. Lao Zhang was afraid that it would go out to eat the parrot, so he closed the door with his feet.

When Lao Zhang walked out again, the parrot was still there. He gently held it in his arms and knocked on the opposite door.

After a long time, a young man's angrily response came from inside: "What are you doing?"

It's still early now, so I guess the young couple are sleeping.

Lao Zhang quickly said, "There is a parrot in the corridor. Is it yours?"

The door was not opened inside, just said, "I don't have that thing at home!" Then he muttered and left the door and went back.

Lao Zhang looked down at the parrot in his arms and said, "You are here to my house, right?"

Lao Zhang took the parrot home.

The black cat kept looking up with his head, staring at him fiercely.

Lao Zhang is very thin, and his wife is very fat. Her weight is almost twice that of Lao Zhang.

My wife asked, “Buy another one?”

Lao Zhang said: "I picked it up."

Lao Zhang went to the balcony, brought a large metal cage, and locked the parrot in.

The parrot seemed very reluctant, and after being locked in a cage, it flew around and bumped.

The bottom of the cage is a wooden board, covered with a layer of fine sand, which is used to collect feces. There are two small flower bowls that are fixed, one up and one up, which are used to fill rice and water.

There was a perch in the middle, with iron chains on it and spring locks on it, similar to the kind on a travel bag. Lao Zhang locked the parrot's feet with iron chains.

The parrot finally calmed down, stood on the perch, and looked at Lao Zhang quietly.

Then, Lao Zhang prepared some corn, rice, peanuts, small hemp seeds, sunflower seeds, rapeseed, and various fruits.

My wife shouted, "People eat it first, then make it!"

Lao Zhang didn't care. He put the cage on the shoe cabinet and said with his eyes full of love: "Hello."

The parrot speaks silently.

Lao Zhang said: "Speak—Hello."

It still doesn't speak.

Lao Zhang said: "Goodbye."

It still remained silent.

Lao Zhang said: "See you again!"

It still doesn't speak.

My wife said, "Eat for dinner!"

Lao Zhang walked to the dining table and had breakfast with his wife.

During this period, the black cat jumped silently onto the shoe cabinet and approached the cage. The parrot's gray feet kept holding the perch tightly, very stable, with two toes forward and two toes backward. It turned its head and looked at the black cat with a cold expression.

The black cat arched its back and turned slowly around it, as if looking for a chance to get down.

Suddenly, the parrot shouted softly: "Ga!"

The black cat seemed to be frightened, and it turned around and jumped to the ground.

Lao Zhang and his wife both heard the strange scream of the parrot and turned around to look. The cat called Xiaobai stood on the ground. It still bent its back, looked up with its head, stepped back step by step, and finally ran into another room.

Lao Zhang smiled: "Xiaobai is afraid of this parrot!"

My wife said, "Its scream is so ugly, how can Xiaobai not be afraid?"

From then on, the Lao Zhang family had an inexplicable addition to a parrot.

Except for the fact that it had screamed at the black cat, it never cried again. The parrot was learned, and Lao Zhang thought that it might have been abandoned by its owner because it did not speak.

Lao Zhang has confidence.

He retired, and was fine all day long, often standing in front of the cage and teaching it.

He knew that it was best to teach parrots to speak early in the morning, because the birds chirped the most active at this time, and it was not yet full and had the best learning effect.

The environment also needs to be very quiet and not noisy, otherwise it will distract itself. I don’t know which sound to imitate. Early in the morning, Lao Zhang stopped practicing. He closed all the windows and began to teach the parrot to speak.

"Hello."

“…”

"goodbye."

“…”

"Have you eaten?"

“…”

"It's finished."

“…”

More than ten days have passed, and the parrot is still silent and keeps his mouth shut.

An old calendar hung on the wall, showing: July 2, 2013.

Generally speaking, if you teach a parrot for about a week, you can learn a sentence, consolidate it for a few days, and then teach the second sentence. In half a year, parrots can master many sentences. Some clever parrots can also learn simple songs.

Parrots are all idioms, so why is this parrot an exception? All birds who learn human language are first and foremost species that are good at singing, and they don’t even scream.

My wife said, "Should you cut your tongue for it?"

Lao Zhang said: "That's a starling."

My wife said, "Then don't think about it, just take it as raising an ordinary bird."

The strangest thing is that the black cat has never approached the cage again, and it always bypasses from a very far place. We will never know what the cat's eyes see.

Old calendar on the wall shows: July 5, 2013.

The parrot was eating less and less. It seemed to be sick. It shrank its neck and stood motionless on the perch in the cage, looking at the house coldly, with its posture not graceful at all, like an owl. Its short and thick mouth looked like a hook, and it looked very hard. Its eyes were red.

Lao Zhang reached out and touched the feather on its left, and it moved sensitively to the right. Lao Zhang touched the feather on its right, and it moved sensitively to the left. Then, it still looked at Lao Zhang as steadily.

Lao Zhang carefully touched its mouth again, thinking that it would peck him, but its mouth was tightly closed, but it shook its head impatiently, as if it didn't like Lao Zhang doing this.

Lao Zhang said: "What's wrong with you?"

My wife came over and said, "You are not giving up!"

Lao Zhang suddenly said, "I think this parrot has something to say to us."

My wife looked at Lao Zhang blankly and said for a long time: "Why are you becoming a miracle?"

The old calendar on the wall shows: July 11, 2013.

That night, Lao Zhang and his wife were asleep on the bed, and suddenly a sound rang out in the darkness: "Dirty..."

Old Zhang felt light and woke up suddenly. He pricked up his ears and listened. The strange sound rang out in the living room again: "Dirty..."

He slowly got up, got out of bed, silently opened the bedroom door and looked up at the shoe cabinet.

Under the moonlight, the parrot was still standing on the perch in the cage, motionless, and Lao Zhang could only see its vague figure.

Old Zhang was waiting, but it never spoke again, as if it had discovered one of his eyes in the crack of the door.

Lao Zhang felt its round eyes looking at him, and he couldn't help but have a cold war.

He and it looked at each other in the darkness.

Finally, he closed the door silently.

My wife also woke up: "What's wrong?"

Lao Zhang said softly: "The parrot seems to be talking..."
To be continued...