“‘Preservation’?”
“Yes. That set of photos called ‘Preservation’ is just too adorable!”
From the phone, it was clear that the young woman named Jian genuinely loved these few photos.
She didn’t spare her praise.
“Miss Ruan Qiao, did you not go online today? You probably haven’t seen how many likes this set of photos has received yet.
Oh, honestly, when I saw that photo of the golden eagle standing in the water holding a ball, looking so proud, my heart nearly melted!
Heavens, I never knew you could see a smile on a golden eagle’s face!
This photo made me fall in love with a raptor instantly…”
Jian on the other end was probably quite young, and once she started talking about what interested her, she was unstoppable, as if afraid Ruan Qiao would refuse her request to repost. Her compliments just poured out freely.
What she didn’t know was that Ruan Qiao was already completely stunned by her words.
Last night, Ruan Qiao had indeed uploaded the photos she had organized to Xuntong Space.
But that was purely out of habit.
In her previous world, Ruan Qiao was used to saving photos on her computer and, following the principle of [1]“Not putting all her eggs in one basket” is an idiom that means not relying on just one option, place, or plan in case something goes wrong. The idea comes from the image of carrying eggs in a … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1816250_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1816250_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });not putting all her eggs in one basket, would also upload a copy to the cloud.
It was purely a precaution.
Her Xuntong account had only been set up after arriving here, and she hadn’t added any friends.
She had assumed that Xuntong Space, like the cloud storage in her previous world, was entirely private and would not be publicly accessible without permission.
So when Ruan Qiao saved the photos, she had no mental burden, thinking no one else could see them. She had even titled the set simply and perfunctorily as “Preservation.”
Jian’s call left Ruan Qiao utterly shocked.
Only now did she realize that, through her carelessness, the photos she had intended merely for personal preservation had somehow spread online.
Ruan Qiao didn’t immediately agree to Jian’s request, even though the reposting fee she offered was tempting.
She simply had Jian leave her Xuntong account and said she would consider it and contact her later.
After hanging up, Ruan Qiao turned to look at Ah Qi.
“You heard what that person just said. Do you think it’s okay?” she asked.
Ah Qi looked back at her, his expression puzzled. “Why wouldn’t it be okay? If there’s money, you can buy meat.”
Ruan Qiao actually thought the same.
When she heard Jian say she was willing to pay 200 star coins to repost the photos, and would also give her a commission later based on the traffic, her first thought was, enough to buy a chicken and a few pounds of meat!
But…
She glanced at the fence with some hesitation and said, “I’ve never intended to make money from photos of Jin Ge and the others. Could doing this violate their likeness rights?
Even though they don’t understand now, they will grow up. When they do, could this cause trouble for them in the future?”
The little ones won’t always stay so small. When they grow up, would they mind if photos of their beast forms were widely circulated online?
Ruan Qiao still didn’t fully understand this world, and she wasn’t sure whether such actions might bring trouble to the kids.
Although they were all children abandoned by their families now, if they successfully undergo their secondary transformation, their growing strength might give them a chance to be accepted back by their families.
Even if that chance is small, it’s not zero.
Even here, they might not care about such exposure.
But if publicly showing photos of their beast forms could cause trouble for their potential return to their families in the future, Ruan Qiao was unwilling to risk it.
No matter how short on money she was, she couldn’t gamble with the kids’ futures.
She explained her thoughts to Ah Qi, who looked genuinely shocked. “Why would you think like that? No one would care.”
Through Ah Qi, Ruan Qiao learned that the beast form and human form of an A class person share almost nothing in common.
In other words, unless the person themselves chooses to reveal it, or a close relative who watched them grow up is involved, ordinary people can’t link an A class person’s youthful beast form to their adult human form.
No one could recognize them.
Now, the appearances of Jin Ge and Xiao Wang will differ greatly from how they will look after their secondary transformations, not to mention after reaching adulthood.
So the concern Ruan Qiao had, that their families might reject them because of publicly circulated photos, was simply impossible.
Moreover, this world values strength above all.
As long as you have power, it doesn’t matter if photos of your beast form are exposed. Even if you pursue fame, social media influence, or anything others disapprove of during peacetime, if it’s something you enjoy, no one can say a single word against it.
Ah Qi’s words left Ruan Qiao momentarily stunned.
After a while, she suddenly realized and asked, “Have you recovered your memory? How do you know so much?”
That question left Ah Qi speechless for a moment.
Obviously, he hadn’t realized why he knew so many things himself.
When he first woke up, his mind had been practically blank.
He shook his head and admitted honestly, “I don’t know, but I just… know these things.”
“That means you’ve taken another step toward recovering your memory!” Ruan Qiao said happily, patting his shoulder and genuinely rejoicing for him.
Although she still felt a little wary about what Ah Qi might do once his memories fully returned, she was glad to see him improving day by day.
It meant his mental strength was gradually recovering.
Ah Qi himself had said it earlier: this is a world for the strong.
As the future strongest interstellar commander, Ruan Qiao had never planned to let him stay cooped up in this small foster home forever.
This wasn’t his true domain.
When the time was right, Ah Qi finally “relented” a bit, releasing Jin Ge earlier than he had planned.
As soon as the gate opened, Ruan Qiao scooped the little one into her arms, showering him with kisses, hugs, and cuddles, soothing the child’s traumatized little heart.
She then personally carried Xiao Jin Ge back to his room, helped him bathe, applied medicine, and prepared his food and water, only leaving once she saw the little one finally fall asleep, sniffling and murmuring.
Of course, she didn’t forget to have 001 deliver food and water to the wild chicken serving as the training partner.
By the time Ruan Qiao returned to her room, Ah Qi had already investigated the situation with the Yuemei Media company and traced the photos back to Ruan Qiao’s account on Xuntong Space.
Just as Jian had said, in just one night and half a day, the photo set had received over 8,000 likes and more than a thousand comments.
The screen was filled with captions like “So cute!” and “Adorable to death!” and on the homepage’s daily click rankings, the photos had already reached a very prominent position.
Ruan Qiao finally realized that Xuntong here was actually an interactive platform where people could share and communicate.
She hadn’t studied these functions carefully before, she had only used it to receive messages, so she had treated it purely as an email service!
After Ah Qi’s earlier explanation, Ruan Qiao no longer felt conflicted.
Since this wouldn’t cause any trouble for the children, there was no need to overthink it. What mattered now was how to make the most of this opportunity and maximize the benefits.
From the information Ah Qi had found, Yuemei is a media company that started out in self-media.
Although they now operate in many industries, their strongest area remains self-media.
The company has its own online platform, and the Xuntong Ruan Qiao was using was developed by them.
In addition, they run several popular public accounts, and Jian works for one of the most valuable ones.
The articles on this public account focus on home life, cute pets, and food, showing that their target audience is middle- to upper-class families with some disposable income.
After all, the useful gadgets and delicious foods recommended in these posts are beyond Ruan Qiao’s current financial means.
She browsed through the public account’s articles and found them reliable; the offered price also seemed fair, so she called the number Jian had left.
Seeing the sudden addition of 200 Star Coins in her account immediately lifted her spirits.
She nudged Ah Qi aside, sat down at the computer, and carefully selected some of the photos she had taken to upload to her Xuntong space, even arranging them into a nine-grid collage.
Still not satisfied, Ruan Qiao uploaded two video clips as well: one of the little ones competing to pick up balls in the water, and another of Ah Qi forcing Jin Ge to eat meat.
She had watched both of these repeatedly the night before.
Watching the first one, seeing her little ones looking so adorable, she almost wanted to run to the small building and hug and kiss each of them immediately.
Watching the second one made her heart ache, further strengthening her resolve to earn money to buy meat for them.
After uploading the photos and videos, Ruan Qiao didn’t stay at the computer long.
She left a short message: “Thank you all for loving my little ones. I’ll post more cute photos to share with everyone.”
Then she turned off the machine.
She had no idea the kind of sensation her photos and videos were causing online!
On Planet 0813, it was already well-known that children abandoned by powerful families due to failed transformations were being accepted.
But before Ruan Qiao, the whereabouts of these children had been very mysterious, no one had ever posted anything about them online.
A rabbit taller than a person, a squirrel that could understand speech, these existed only in legend to the people of Planet 0813.
Ruan Qiao’s set, “Preservation,” initially appeared randomly in some Xuntong users’ recommendation feeds.
Many people, like Jian, saw the photo of Jin Ge standing in the water, holding a ball in its mouth and tilting its head with a smile, thought this big bird was too cute, and clicked on it casually—
And once they clicked, it was incredible!
“Whoa, what am I seeing? Is this the beast form of an untransformed A class person?”
“Oh my god, am I allowed to see this? Isn’t this supposed to be confidential? Will it be taken down immediately?”
“OMG, I have to send this to my bestie! She said the rabbit taller than a person doesn’t exist and has no scientific basis. I’m going to show her this furry thing!”
…
In a very short time, “Preservation” shot up to the homepage.
But “Preservation” was just a set of photos, and Ruan Qiao hadn’t chosen them with outsiders in mind. She picked close-up shots of her little ones, the ones she thought made their faces look particularly cute.
She hadn’t paid attention to backgrounds or storytelling at all.
So people’s first reactions were: “Wow, I’m seeing the legendary A class human beast forms!”
Or: “Such huge fluffies, so cute!”
There was no sense of realism, because cubs this large and intelligent were so far removed from their daily lives.
But the second batch of photos Ruan Qiao posted, especially the short videos, was different.
This time, she selected photos with strong interaction.
For example, the first one showed Lin Shan looking a little messy just as he emerged from the water.
The second showed him floating contentedly on the water, using his big tail as a swimming ring to wrap himself.
Besides Lin Shan, there was Xiao Wang, standing cautiously at the water’s edge, hesitating to enter, showing his conflicted expression;
And Gungun standing on Huihui’s head, the two little ones craning their necks, waiting mischievously for Xiao Wang to go first into the water.
In short, not only did she capture the little ones’ lively expressions clearly, but the photos and videos were also highly story-driven.
This made it very easy for people to immerse themselves in the scene.
The heat from the first batch of photos hadn’t even cooled down, and many people had added her to their priority favorites.
So with this update, the clicks instantly shot past ten thousand.
People flooded the comment section under the nine-grid photos, and the comments were almost all like this:
“Oh my god, so cute! I never knew a little squirrel’s tail could do that, it’s seriously awesome!”
“No way, no way… what am I seeing? That big lop-eared rabbit has a hedgehog sitting on its head? Alive? It moves?”
“Second floor is right, it’s a live hedgehog. Not only alive, it’s golden and glowing! Oh my god, help, I’ve never seen such a beautiful hedgehog!”
“Hahaha, dying of laughter, look at the big cat’s expression… Come on, little one, you can do it, I believe in you.”
But once the two videos were posted, the atmosphere in the comments gradually changed.
The first one was fine, comments were overwhelmingly like “So cute!” “Adorable!” “Ahhhh, too cute!”
But the second video—
When people saw Ah Qi forcing Jin Ge to eat a live fish, Jin Ge crying in fear, and then Lin Shan voluntarily going over and biting the fish…
The comment section erupted into a chorus of outrage.
“No, why force a squirrel to eat a live fish? That’s so inhumane! Who is that unseen person, why be so cruel to our little cutie?”
“Hey, you can’t say that. Didn’t you hear what the boy said? He said fish is meat, and these kids have to eat meat.”
“Yes, yes, yes, that boy is right. He’s doing it for the golden eagle’s sake. I can’t, I’m crying again. Are the little cuties forced to eat live fish because the orphanage can’t afford meat?”
“Let me explain, A class humans, whether they succeed in their first transformation or not, undergo a second transformation around age six. Failing the second transformation carries a risk of death. Success depends on their constitution. So that boy with the soothing voice is probably giving them fish to strengthen their bodies, right?”
“So… it’s still because they don’t have money?”
“I’m willing to donate my lunch money to buy meat for the little ones!”
“Me too!”
“Count me in!”
“But… how do we donate? Why isn’t there a tipping function?”
…
The comment section had completely exploded, but Ruan Qiao had no idea.
After uploading the photos and videos, she went back to her room to sleep.
When she woke up, she didn’t think to check the reactions at all, she just followed Ah Qi and the others up the mountain.
The reason Ruan Qiao came along today was that during last night’s chat, Ah Qi had casually mentioned that Huihui, the lop-eared rabbit, had eaten a lot of wild grass on the mountain today.
He had eaten so well that even after Ah Qi called him for a long time, he wouldn’t move from his spot. In the end, Ah Qi had to pull him out of the pile of grass by force.
The speaker spoke casually, but the listener’s mind was alert.
The first thing that popped into Ruan Qiao’s mind was, could it be some kind of wild vegetable?
From what she knew, Huihui was a very picky eater. Although he was a rabbit, he didn’t eat just any grass.
For one thing, there was plenty of grass by the river, but Huihui hadn’t touched a single bit.
If it was something Huihui would actually eat and enjoy so much that he wouldn’t leave, Ruan Qiao’s intuition told her it might even be edible for humans.
She was really craving some vegetables.
The vegetables at home were still just seedlings, and in Ruan Qiao’s eyes, they weren’t really vegetables at all, they were money.
She couldn’t bring herself to harvest them to eat just yet.
So no matter what, she had to follow along and see.
This was Ruan Qiao’s first time going up the mountain with this squad.
Before, she had only run around the mountain with them once, but halfway through she got too tired and left the group on her own.
Today’s trip was a relatively new and exciting experience for her.
Ruan Qiao specifically brought a camera, hoping to capture some fresh material.
Selling nine photos for two hundred credits was already a decent income for the orphanage.
If she could sell a few more times, she figured she might be able to afford a motion-sensing exercise device for Jin Ge.
Ruan Qiao hadn’t forgotten about that.
Although it was midsummer, the mountain wasn’t exactly full of birdsong and flowers.
There was only a single winding dirt path.
Because it was private land, very few people ever went up there.
Neglected over time, the path had become narrower and narrower, barely wide enough for one person to pass.
On both sides, thick bushes grew, filled with weeds taller than a person and saplings not much thicker than her wrist.
Many of the weeds were thorny, and the saplings had branches crisscrossing in all directions, with some extending into the center of the path. Fresh cut marks were visible, making the trail very difficult to navigate.
Ruan Qiao struggled to keep up.
She wiped the sweat from her brow and pushed herself forward.
Before heading up the mountain, Ruan Qiao had only thought of this trip as a short excursion.
She had imagined that along the way, she might spot some wildflowers or grasses, like she had by the little river.
If she was lucky, maybe she’d even see a few small animals, like the hill chickens they had brought back yesterday.
And if she could find one or two wild fruit trees, ideally peach trees, she could graft them onto the seedlings she had planted… that would be perfect.
Now, it seemed like a foolish dream.
This was clearly a trial of endurance.
Yet even in this harsh environment, it didn’t affect the little ones’ training.
It was clear they were already accustomed to this kind of “battlefield.”
Once on the mountain, they didn’t even need Ah Qi to give orders, the children automatically spread out.
Xiao Wang and Huihui began their obstacle run along the route they had previously planned. The messy, scattered saplings and bushes became the perfect barriers.
Jin Ge and Gungun’s “battlefield” was the treetops. They nimbly climbed up, leaping along branches and darting skillfully from tree to tree.
They moved so fast that Ruan Qiao could easily lose sight of them with a single glance.
Jin Ge still hadn’t fully mastered flight.
Supporting himself on his two short legs while walking along the mountain path was already difficult.
On top of that, the path was narrow, and the thorny branches reaching out from the bushes made it impossible for him to spread his wings.
But Xiao Jin Ge didn’t complain at all. He kept striding along with his short legs right beside Ah Qi.
He didn’t even need anyone to wait for him or help him over particularly tricky spots, the little one could dodge obstacles on his own, showing no sign of falling behind.
After walking for about half an hour, by the time Ruan Qiao was drenched in sweat and her camera felt heavier and heavier in her hands, the path finally began to widen.
The thin bushes that had crowded the trail before were gone, replaced by taller trees.
It was then that Ah Qi finally moved.
Suddenly, he reached out, grabbed Jin Ge, sprinted a few steps, and used the momentum to leap up onto a tree.
With his free hand clutching the rough bark and his legs helping, he quickly climbed up to a high branch.
Ruan Qiao hurriedly recorded the impressive scene with her camera.
Before she could even figure out what Ah Qi intended by climbing the tree, he gave a forceful toss!
Jin Ge, held like a bundle, was hurled straight to the very top of the tree.
Ruan Qiao: “……”
She was utterly shocked.
Looking at the treetop, several stories high, her legs went weak.
At that moment, she didn’t even have time to feel sorry for the little one, she was just relieved her luck had held. After all, she had transmigrated into a human.
If she had transmigrated into Jin Ge and then encountered Ah Qi…
Ruan Qiao shivered suddenly.
No, she couldn’t think about it!
Jin Ge, of course, was already very accustomed to this kind of training.
He flapped his wings vigorously, trying his hardest to lift himself into the air.
Unfortunately, his movements were still awkward and uncoordinated. After a couple of flaps, his wing strokes became irregular.
And then Ruan Qiao watched in disbelief as the little one squawked, performing a “high-altitude fall.”
Ah Qi was clearly used to scenes like this.
When Jin Ge began to fall, he climbed down from the tree, stepped into position, and caught the little one mid-fall.
Then he hoisted him up the tree again and tossed him out like a bundle.
Ruan Qiao watched everything quietly through her camera.
At first, she would marvel like a mere bystander.
But gradually, she got caught up in the atmosphere, realizing this was an extremely serious matter.
No matter how clumsy the little ones appeared, no matter how rough Ah Qi’s methods, they were all giving their utmost effort in one direction, successfully completing their transformation.
Ruan Qiao opened her light-brain and went into the shopping mall.
Although it still hurt her a little, she generously spent all two hundred star coins, buying a whole chicken and two pounds of fresh meat.
If she hadn’t come up the mountain, she wouldn’t have realized how hard Ah Qi and the kids worked every day.
With such physical exertion, the nutrients she had been buying with her “[2]ostrich mindset” refers to avoiding a problem by pretending it doesn’t exist, similar to the popular myth that an ostrich buries its head in the sand to escape danger. It describes a person who … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1816250_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1816250_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });ostrich mindset” were absolutely insufficient.
Now Ruan Qiao finally understood why Ah Qi, such a taciturn person, talked about buying meat every day.
It really was a necessity, something that absolutely could not be spared.
At that moment, Ruan Qiao made up her mind: from now on, no matter the obstacles, she would do everything possible to make sure the kids got meat.
Even if she couldn’t earn enough money right away, she would go to the river to catch fish if needed, she had to make sure of it!
Besides meat, maybe she could buy some tofu too? She didn’t even know if tofu was expensive here.
Just as Ruan Qiao was wracking her brain for ways to provide proper nutrition for the kids, Ah Qi walked over and took her hand.
“Come on, we’ve reached that patch of grass.”
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