When Ruan Qiao was half-asleep, she suddenly felt a soft, furry presence beside her.
She thought she was dreaming and absentmindedly reached out to stroke it, but the sensation was far too real, jolting her fully awake.
She struggled to open her eyes, and then—
She found herself staring straight into a pair of amber eyes gleaming in the night.
Thinking she wasn’t fully awake yet, she closed her eyes again, then opened them once more.
The massive furry creature was still there, but shyly buried its head in her arms and even raised a front paw in front of its face, pretending to be asleep.
As if that would somehow excuse it from being questioned.
Ruan Qiao: “……”
She felt utterly exasperated.
Annoyed, she poked the big cat on the head. “Get up.”
No movement.
She poked again: “Get up!”
Still nothing.
“You’re squashing my hair!”
Finally, the big cat shifted slightly, but as soon as Ruan Qiao pulled her hair free from under it, it leaned back in again.
Disgusted, she sat up a little, putting some distance between herself and the creature. “Aren’t you hot?”
Although she said it aloud, her hands still instinctively stroked its fur, her voice gentle: “Another nightmare?”
The big cat opened its eyes, then pressed its head against her legs.
Logic told Ruan Qiao that this was a human in front of her; such closeness was inappropriate.
But seeing this majestic cat with such a pitiful expression, her heart refused to harden, and she couldn’t bring herself to shoo it away.
Helplessly, she scratched under its chin until it let out a satisfied purr, and then she coaxed gently: “Feeling better now? Not scared anymore, right? How about going back to your room first?”
She pointed toward the window. “It’s not even dawn yet. You’re not going to stop me from sleeping now, are you?”
Ruan Qiao’s bed wasn’t very big, about one and a half meters wide, plenty of space for her alone, but with this huge cat, it was completely cramped.
She pressed herself against the wall, leaving no free space on the bed.
The big cat seemed not to understand; it didn’t move at all, and even buried its head into her again.
But after just a short while, before Ruan Qiao could repeat herself, it obediently got up and slunk off the bed.
Ruan Qiao breathed a sigh of relief, about to praise it: “Good kitty.”
Then she saw the cat walk out of the bedroom and return with one of the small mats the little ones often used, laying it next to her bed and quietly settling down on it.
Ruan Qiao: “……”
She was so annoyed she could have scolded it.
But the cat immediately closed its eyes, hiding its head under its front paws, clearly refusing any further cooperation and determined to stay put there.
“You can’t just throw away a creature you raised yourself, no matter how troublesome it is.”
Ruan Qiao took a deep breath and repeated that sentence silently to herself several times before giving up and lying back down, turning her back to resume sleeping.
Only after her breathing became steady again, signaling she was truly asleep, did the cat move its paw from its face, a trace of guilt flashing in its amber eyes.
It knew it was wrong.
But the calming aura unique to Ruan Qiao was irresistible to it.
Only by her side could Ah Qi sleep deeply and peacefully.
That made it brazen enough to do something so shameful.
If it were in human form, Ah Qi could never have done something so embarrassing.
But now… it was a cat.
And isn’t it natural for a cat to cling to its owner?
Just like Xiao Wang and Jin Ge.
Ah Qi lifted its head, glanced at the girl sleeping soundly on the bed, and deep satisfaction glimmered in its eyes.
He let out a very soft “meow,” then settled back down and slept peacefully.
This sleep was deep and uninterrupted, and he didn’t dream at all.
He didn’t even realize that, without noticing it, he had already accepted Ruan Qiao as his owner.
When Ruan Qiao woke up, the big cat was indeed no longer by the bed.
Even the soft mat that had been there was gone, put back in its place.
If she hadn’t been certain she wasn’t dreaming the night before, there would have been no trace at all of the cat ever having been in the room.
She got out of bed, washed up, and stepped out.
Outside, as usual, it was very quiet except for the occasional whir of 001’s cleaning rollers as it tidied up.
Obviously, Ah Qi had taken the little ones out for their run and hadn’t returned yet.
Just then, a familiar mechanical voice came from afar: “Ding dong, low battery, please recharge.”
Followed by the sound of 001 stopping and moving away.
Ruan Qiao couldn’t help but sigh again.
Such a large yard, and only 001 as the household helper, it was really tough on the kids.
“When I earn more, I’ll get a second 002,” she whispered, mentally adding the plan to her little notebook.
The added responsibility weighed on her, leaving no time to dwell on last night’s events. She quickly headed to the seedling room.
Originally, Ruan Qiao had believed the rumors that the soil here was poor, so she planted extra seeds to ensure a high germination rate.
Whether it was because the seeds from the Agricultural Institute were genuinely good, or her careful care, the germination rate exceeded 90%.
The seedlings had grown enough to be transplanted, and this dense little patch represented a considerable amount of work.
But thinking of how soon these seedlings would turn into money, and into stir-fried greens, blanched vegetables, salads, and vegetable soups, Ruan Qiao’s energy surged.
She lined up the newly purchased planting boxes along the wall, filled them with the pre-sterilized nutrient soil she had bought, added base fertilizer, covered the soil, and transplanted the seedlings.
Her movements were skilled and efficient. Soon, the entire row of planting boxes along the wall glimmered a vibrant green.
To promote plant growth, the humidity in the seedling room was set very high. Simply transplanting the lettuce had already left Ruan Qiao’s clothes nearly soaked through.
She took off her gloves, flicked at the damp clothes clinging to her, feeling sticky and uncomfortable.
Glancing at the time, it was almost eleven o’clock, long past the time when the little ones should have returned.
She wondered why they were so late today.
Ruan Qiao stood up, planning to take a shower first and save the rest of the work for the afternoon.
As soon as she stepped out of the seedling room, she heard the ruckus of the little ones outside. She knew those little rascals had finally come back.
Where did they even get all that energy?
Running halfway around the mountain had already exhausted her, yet they had been bouncing around all morning and still managed to make such a commotion!
Ruan Qiao went to meet them.
Normally, when the little ones saw her, they would swarm over immediately with kisses and snuggles. But today, none of them clung to her, they were all excitedly tugging and pulling, leading her toward one side of the playground.
“What’s going on? What are you up to now?” Ruan Qiao asked as she was passively pulled along.
She couldn’t help but laugh and scold as she walked: “Are you up to some mischief again and going to get punished by Ah Qi? I’m telling you now, don’t expect me to plead for you!”
As she spoke, they passed the small building and reached the back, where Ruan Qiao saw Ah Qi crouched down, securing a gate with a fence.
Curious, she hurried a few steps closer and asked, “What are you doing?”
Ah Qi pointed to the side. “Setting up a gate. Close it off.”
Ruan Qiao then noticed, not far from her feet, a chicken, or maybe a pheasant, lying there, tightly bound and struggling.
Although it lacked the long, elegant tail she associated with pheasants, its colorful feathers were still beautiful.
She was overjoyed.
“You caught this from the mountain? Are there more up there? This one’s okay to eat, right? It’s not a protected species? I can’t kill it myself, would you handle it first so I can stew it?”
As she spoke, countless dishes flashed through her mind, from stir-fried chicken to stewed chicken to chicken soup, she even thought about which pot to use.
Ah Qi paused his work, looking at her with a complex expression, his face conveying a mix of emotions that was hard to read.
Ruan Qiao suddenly realized something was off, why would there be a need to build a gate for something they were about to eat?
She quickly asked, “We can’t eat it? Is there a rule against eating wild animals?”
Her tone carried an unmistakable hint of disappointment.
“There’s no rule, it’s just…”
Ah Qi pointed at the chicken, then at Jin Ge standing nearby. “I brought it back to teach Jin Ge how to fly.”
Seeing that Ruan Qiao looked confused, he pointed at the pheasant’s beautiful wings and explained, “I can’t teach him myself, so he has to rely on this one.”
Ruan Qiao suddenly remembered what Doctor Aisen had said earlier: when Jin Ge first transformed, he injured his wings and couldn’t learn to fly, which is why his family abandoned him.
And judging by Ah Qi’s meaning, Xiao Jin Ge still has a chance to learn to fly again?
Thinking this, Ruan Qiao no longer considered steamed chicken, boiled chicken, or spicy chicken, her gaze toward the pheasant softened and became tender.
She crouched next to Ah Qi, her eyes bright as she asked, “Really? There’s hope?”
Ah Qi nodded. “Let’s try. I think it’ll work.”
Then he looked at Jin Ge and slowly added three words: “It must work.”
His tone was still calm and even, yet for some reason, Ruan Qiao felt a chill run down her back as she heard it.
She quickly turned to look at Jin Ge and saw the little one had buried his head into Huihui’s chest, covering his head with his big wings, leaving only his tiny rear exposed.
Yet somehow, just from that little rear, Ruan Qiao could somehow see the despair.
She turned away and chuckled softly.
Ah Qi worked quickly, and soon the fence gate was finished.
Ruan Qiao helped him secure it between the mountain wall and the back wall of the small building.
This turned the narrow passage between the two into a long, enclosed space.
Ah Qi went to the warehouse and brought back a roll of thin rope.
He tied one end of the rope to the pheasant’s leg, left a long length, and tied the other end to the metal railing of the small building’s back window.
Ruan Qiao watched, feeling a little confused—
Since it was going to be tied up anyway, why make a gate?
But her question was soon answered.
Ah Qi, having finished tying up the pheasant, went to grab Jin Ge.
She saw him pick up Jin Ge and, without hesitation, toss him into the passageway, then firmly lock the gate from the outside.
Almost immediately, a furious flurry of wings came from inside, mixed with Jin Ge’s panicked squawks.
Ruan Qiao suddenly realized, the gate wasn’t meant to confine the pheasant, but to confine Jin Ge!
Hearing the commotion inside and her little one’s desperate cries, she was so flustered that she didn’t even have time to glare at Ah Qi.
She pressed her head close to the fence, straining to see through the gap, wishing she could just stick her head inside.
The pheasant had been tied up for a long time and was full of pent-up energy. Once loosened, it naturally tried to escape with all its might.
But with the rope tied to it, it couldn’t fly out of the narrow passage.
So Jin Ge, left in the passageway, became the target of its vented anger.
The pheasant flapped its wings violently, rising and falling repeatedly, aiming pecks at the squealing Xiao Jin Ge.
It didn’t always hit him, but the passage was small and the rope long enough that even if it hit only half the time, it was enough to scare Jin Ge into tears.
Xiao Jin Ge’s tears streamed down his face; his round eyes were filled with fear and helplessness.
He tried to shield his head with his wings, running back and forth in the narrow space to dodge the pheasant’s attacks.
But the pheasant, though about his size, was clearly far stronger than Jin Ge and kept catching up, pecking hard at his wings and body.
Jin Ge’s carefully nurtured glossy feathers started to fall out from the repeated strikes.
Ruan Qiao’s heart felt like it was about to explode.
She couldn’t watch any longer. She turned away, one hand clutching her chest, the other pointing at Ah Qi, “You… you…”, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything scolding.
Because of raising these little ones, Ruan Qiao had recently looked up a lot of information about A class people. She now knew that those with such bloodlines, after successfully transforming, mostly joined the military.
And joining the military meant they would be sent to battlefields to fight the insectoid species.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
The reason a noble family becomes a noble family, standing tall and respected across the galaxy, isn’t primarily because of bloodline, it’s because of the contributions they make to the system.
The children of such families, without exception, undergo rigorous training after completing their transformation, and when they reach adulthood, they are sent to the battlefield to face life and death.
Although Ah Qi has amnesia and cannot remember the past, Ruan Qiao believed that he, as a child, had been trained this way too, probably even more brutally.
Ah Qi treating Jin Ge this way was, in fact, a sign of trust.
He believed the little one could endure it, that he could overcome the challenges of his second transformation.
It was clear that the other little ones understood this as well.
Hearing their companion crying inside, each of them froze, some even began to tremble.
Yet none ran over to Ruan Qiao to act cute or plead, and not one left the area out of fear.
Ruan Qiao gritted her teeth, withdrew her hand, and leaned back down in front of the fence, shouting loudly inside: “Jin Ge, come on! You’re the best! Hurry and learn to fly, and once you do, Mom will give you meat!”
Hearing her call “Mom,” Ah Qi rubbed his forehead and quickly pulled her away from the fence.
“Stop yelling. You’re going to anger the pheasant.”
Sure enough, Ruan Qiao’s shouting had agitated the pheasant; its eyes reddened, and it pecked at Jin Ge even more fiercely.
Ruan Qiao had never expected that her well-intentioned encouragement would backfire. She quickly covered her mouth, terrified that another word might further provoke the “ancestor” inside.
Ah Qi sighed and tugged her wrist, leading her away.
“Let them stay in there for a while. We’ll go outside first.”
Seeing Ruan Qiao reluctant, he tightened his grip slightly. “You can’t help much in here. I’ll come back in a bit.”
Ruan Qiao knew he was right, staying here would not only be unhelpful, but might even make things worse.
Yet she couldn’t bear leaving Xiao Jin Ge alone in there, fighting the pheasant.
Just imagining the child huddled in a corner, getting pecked, made her heart ache.
She stopped, grasped Ah Qi’s hand still resting on her wrist, and pleaded: “Let me take the others outside. Can’t you stay and watch over Jin Ge? I… I’ll get you water. Are you hungry? I can bring a bottle of nutrient solution.”
Ah Qi had originally intended to say there was no need to stay, the pheasant wouldn’t cause Jin Ge any real harm.
But looking at Ruan Qiao, the words he was about to say changed to: “Okay.”
The corner of his eye fell on the fence, and listening to the little one’s ongoing cries from inside, an inexplicable sense of envy welled up in him.
He lowered his gaze and saw Ruan Qiao still holding his hand. He had wanted to say he wasn’t thirsty or hungry, that she didn’t need to trouble herself.
But pressing his lips together, he instead said: “I want strawberry-flavored nutrient solution.”
“Okay, I’ll get it for you!”
Ruan Qiao exhaled deeply in relief, waved to the little ones to follow her, and then dashed toward her room without looking back.
Her urgency made it seem as if she feared that if she slowed down even a little, Ah Qi would leave Jin Ge all alone.
Ruan Qiao handed the children to 001, letting him take them to bathe, and ran back inside to grab a bottle of ice water from the fridge. Fearing it wouldn’t be enough, she also took strawberry- and orange-flavored nutrient solutions and sprinted back behind the small building.
Worried that Ah Qi would get impatient, she didn’t pause for a single minute. She ran so fast that she was gasping, sweat streaming down her temples.
Seeing her like this, a flicker of regret passed through Ah Qi’s eyes. Taking the water, he softly said, “No need to rush. I’m not that hungry.”
Ruan Qiao, however, was completely unconcerned.
She waved at him: “How could you not be hungry? It’s already noon, you definitely are.”
Then she leaned toward the fence, anxiously peering inside.
After the initial panic, Jin Ge had mostly adjusted his stance.
He seemed to realize that no one could help him, and that he could only rely on himself.
The little one had stopped crying.
He still didn’t dare confront the pheasant directly, but he had already learned to evade it. At least from Ruan Qiao’s perspective, the pheasant’s chances of pecking him were now less than half of what they had been initially.
This gave her a deep sense of relief, like a proud mother watching her child grow capable.
Ah Qi sat in the shadowed corner where the sun didn’t reach, drinking the water slowly, sip by sip.
Once she was certain that Jin Ge was truly safe, Ruan Qiao sat beside him, resting her head against the wall and squinting her eyes, imitating his posture.
After a while of silence, Ruan Qiao asked, “Was it because I didn’t let you use the computer last night that you had nightmares?”
Ah Qi’s lightbrain was lost, and the cost to get a new one was something Ruan Qiao couldn’t afford for now, so she usually left Ella’s computer on the desk for him to use freely.
Last night was also the first time she had sent him out, not allowing him to check any data, and she didn’t expect him to have another nightmare.
Ah Qi opened his eyes and looked at her, hesitating for a moment.
He didn’t want to worry Ruan Qiao, but he also didn’t want to lie to her. After a brief silence, he gave a soft, “Mm.”
Fearing she might overthink it, he added, “I had a headache yesterday because I heard Wei Qiu’s name.”
Ruan Qiao nodded.
She understood.
“Ah Qi, I want to apologize for my rough interference yesterday. I truly didn’t anticipate that it would cause you so much trouble,” Ruan Qiao said sincerely, looking at him.
Ah Qi was startled and sat up straight, about to explain, but Ruan Qiao waved him off.
“From now on, I won’t stop you from using the computer. You can even take it back to your room. I know you’re eager to recover your memories and understand what happened, but I don’t want you to pay with your health.”
Thinking of the way he had looked during his two recent headaches, Ruan Qiao reached out and gently stroked his long hair.
She promised, “I swear, once Lin Shan and Jin Ge finish their transformations, I will save enough money to send you to the capital star for treatment. Don’t worry, just be patient, okay?”
Ah Qi said nothing. He quietly looked back at Ruan Qiao, then lowered his head, resting it on her shoulder.
His expression was full of reliance.
This time, Ruan Qiao didn’t push him away. She could feel the trust emanating from the boy, as well as the vulnerability he couldn’t put into words.
The two of them stayed like that, silently leaning on each other.
The surroundings were quiet, interrupted only occasionally by Jin Ge’s triumphant chirps after narrowly dodging the wild chicken’s attacks.
The atmosphere made Ruan Qiao, exhausted from the morning’s work, feel drowsy.
Until the ringing of a phone broke the silence.
Ruan Qiao didn’t have her own phone.
When the landlord had kicked her out of the rental apartment, a bag belonging to the original owner had been thrown out with her.
She hadn’t touched the clothes inside, but she had taken the phone for her own use.
Since it felt like someone else’s property, Ruan Qiao rarely used it, so until now, except for calling Doctor Aisen once, the phone had hardly been touched.
Hearing it ring now, she found it a bit strange.
Sitting up, she murmured, “Is Doctor Aisen trying to reach us?”
But when she picked up the phone, she saw it was an unknown number.
Ruan Qiao was even more puzzled.
She answered and spoke into the receiver, “Hello, I’m Ruan Qiao. Who is this?”
A gentle female voice immediately came through.
“Hello, Miss Ruan Qiao. I’m Jian from Yuemei Media. I just saw the set of photos you posted in Xuntong Space called ‘Preservation.’ I found them very interesting and would like to reprint them. May I have your authorization?”