The God-Blessed Continent, Hundred-Feather Tribe.
It was breeding season again. In the tribe, chicks who had just cracked out of their eggs hadn’t even opened their eyes yet, all they could do was follow instinct, open their beaks, and chirp for their parents to feed them.
On a thick, sturdy tree crown at the edge of a cliff hung four nests, three big, one small. The first three sat in a row, the last, smaller one perched on a different branch. Every nest was tucked away with real cunning, hidden from view, yet all connected to one another.
Right now, in the nest farthest from the trunk, a plump, chubby little chick of the Feather Clan was rubbing its fuzzy head against the chick lying next to it.
“Chirp, chirp chirp!” Stop sleeping, let’s go play outside!
The chick being nudged was snow-white all over, its body tiny, not even a fifth the size of the big one. It was curled comfortably in the middle of the nest, half its body sunk into the clean, soft down at the bottom, and had been drowsily jolted awake. It only cracked one eyelid, ignored the culprit beside it, and closed its eyes again to keep resting.
Getting no response, the chubby chick didn’t give up. It lifted a wing and kept shoving at the nearly-asleep white chick. “Chirp, chirp chirp!” Get up, stop sleeping!
Woken up again, the white chick slowly opened its eyes, shot the restless chick a glance, and shuffled slowly away to put some distance between them, disdain written all over it.
Utterly oblivious to being disdained, the chubby chick pressed right back in, refusing to let up, its voice never stopping. “Chirp, chirp chirp, chirp chirp chirp—” Bro, bro, bro-bro-bro-bro-bro—
Drowned in the noise, the white chick spread its wings to cover its own ears, but its wings were short, nowhere near as useful as human hands, and the racket kept leaking through the gaps in the feathers anyway.
Feather Clan chicks started practicing their voices the moment they clawed out of their shells for their first feeding, and cried out nearly every single day before turning one, you could imagine how ear-splitting and piercing that got.
Head throbbing from the noise, Bai Shuo finally lost all patience. Unable to bear it any longer, he lifted a foot and kicked at the little brother who’d wrecked his sleep, and, unsurprisingly, didn’t manage to budge him at all, since the other one was several times his size.
Yes, this fat bird, several times bigger than him, was his little brother. His own flesh-and-blood little brother, five years younger than him.
Bai Shuo’s whole family, and most of the tribe besides, were Feather Clan.
The Feather Clan was one of the three evolved races of the God-Blessed Continent, the other two being the Beast Clan and the Merfolk. Evolved races could all shift form, the Feather Clan switched between human form and feather (bird) form, and reproduced by laying eggs that had to be incubated.
Feather Clan eggs took a full year to hatch successfully. A newly cracked chick had nothing but a thin layer of down. Before the age of three, chicks were fragile and basically couldn’t leave the nest. Around age three, a chick would turn into human form, though in the first few years the shape was unstable and it would often flip back to feather form, only settling down gradually after that.
Between three and sixteen, a Feather Clan member’s feather-form size wouldn’t change much, they’d stay able to fly, but not very far. The human form changed a lot more in that stretch, growing from a chick into something closer to a near-adult, and most Feather Clan members preferred living in human form during those years.
From sixteen to eighteen was the single most crucial period in a Feather Clan life, both forms would complete the leap from near-adult to full adult within those two years, and combat strength would shoot up in a straight line. After eighteen, aside from aging, neither form would change much anymore.
That was the life cycle of a normal Feather Clan member.
And Bai Shuo was the one abnormal case in his entire family, in fact, in the entire tribe.
When he’d first hatched, aside from being a bit smaller, he hadn’t looked much different from his nest-mate brother. Size differences between chicks from the same clutch were perfectly normal, after all, every egg’s nutrients differed, and the incubation process affected size too, usually, after being raised a while, chicks would even out. So Bai Shuo’s parents hadn’t thought much of the small gap at first.
They just never expected that a few months later, Bai Shuo’s brother, Bai Su, had already grown to twice his hatching size, while Bai Shuo hadn’t grown at all.
Raising their first clutch, his parents assumed they simply weren’t feeding him enough, and from that day on, the two of them stuffed food into Bai Shuo’s mouth every spare moment they had. If Bai Shuo hadn’t point-blank refused to open his mouth once he was full, he probably would have become the first chick in the tribe’s history to be stuffed to death. Since the chick wouldn’t eat, the two of them had no choice but to give up.
And then.
A year passed. Bai Su grew to five times his hatching size. Bai Shuo stayed exactly the same tiny size.
Three years passed. Bai Su stumbled clumsily out of the nest and turned into a three-year-old toddler. Bai Shuo was still a small fuzzy ball, neither grown nor able to shift into human form.
Four years passed. All the chicks hatched the same year as him were already running around the mountain, and Bai Shuo still hadn’t managed to turn human. His parents finally had to accept reality and admit that Bai Shuo was a chick who simply couldn’t shapeshift. That same year, their family gained four more eggs, but the rains that season were too heavy, flooding straight into the cave, and in the end only one egg successfully hatched, the chick lying right beside him now, named Bai Le.
Bai Le had learned to turn into human form just a few days ago. Bai Shuo, five years older than him, was still one small little fluffball who couldn’t even manage to kick his own brother.
Interrupted from his rest again and again, Bai Shuo simply gave up on sleeping altogether. He looked up at the leaves overhanging the nest and pondered his life, and his life as a bird.
Ever since he’d been old enough to understand things, Bai Shuo had thought this world was strange. Then, a few days ago, he’d suddenly dreamed of his own life from a previous existence. In that past life, he’d been purely human, living somewhere with advanced technology, utterly different from here. Once those memories surfaced, all the strangeness suddenly made sense, anyone transmigrating from a world full of technology into a backward, primitive society would feel out of place at some subconscious level, no matter who they were.
Actually, Bai Shuo felt somewhat fortunate that his memories hadn’t come rushing back the instant he hatched, instead, he’d adjusted to this environment for several years first before recalling his previous life. Otherwise it would probably have been hard to accept, after all, it’s easy to go from frugal to extravagant, but hard to go back (Easy to go from thrift to luxury, hard to go from luxury back to thrift (once used to comfort, hard to give it up again) (Yóu jiǎn rù shē yì, yóu shē rù jiǎn nán, 由儉入奢易，由奢入儉難) – proverb, once you’re used to comfort, giving it up again is far harder than getting used to it in the first place), the gap between the two lives’ living standards was simply too enormous.
Now, though, Bai Shuo accepted it all quite easily. Having lived in this world for several years, he already felt a deep sense of belonging here. In his past life, Bai Shuo had had no parents, for most of his life, from childhood on, he’d lived alone almost the entire time. But here, he had parents who doted on him, a sensible older brother, and a lively little brother.
Probably because he’d lived alone for so long in his past life, deep down Bai Shuo was terribly afraid of being lonely. In the first few years after hatching, he’d stuck to his brother Bai Su like glue, even after Bai Su turned human at three, he still spent more than half of every day keeping Bai Shuo company. By the time Bai Su reached working age, Bai Le had hatched, so the loneliness from his past life, he’d never had to taste again in this one. That was exactly why Bai Shuo truly loved it here.
Of course, it would be even better if his little brother weren’t quite so lively.
While Bai Shuo was lost in thought, Bai Le beside him started butting his head against him again, calling out with each butt: “Chirp, chirp chirp chirp.” Brother, let’s go out and play, out and play.
The tone was wheedling, the motion was more like a tantrum.
Bai Le wanted to take Bai Shuo down the mountain to play, but Bai Shuo had no interest in going with him.
Because Bai Shuo had been so slow to turn human, every time he went out he had to be carried by a family member. Even though they were all one family, each of them made him feel completely differently.
His father, Bai Xun, was one of the strongest warriors in the tribe, the very picture of a big, burly type, his flaw was being far too careless. Bai Shuo had once genuinely worried he’d be squeezed to death one day by his clumsy-handed father, and yet Bai Xun loved taking him down the mountain more than anyone. The upside was that, since many chicks were afraid of Bai Xun, no one would bother Bai Shuo while he was around, all in all, a painful but happy experience.
His mother, Bai Yun, moved far more gently. Held by her, Bai Shuo never had to worry about getting hurt, but precisely because she was so gentle, going down the mountain with her meant eight times out of ten he’d end up mobbed by onlookers. Setting aside the part where a crowd of people started petting his head, being with his mother really was quite blissful.
His full brother Bai Su’s strength was thoroughness, his flaw was being far too cautious. Carried by his brother, Bai Shuo spent most of the time wrapped up tight in animal hide, his view badly blocked.
If going down the mountain with his parents and brother was a mixed bag, then going out with his little brother Bai Le was pure, unfiltered adventure. First, a chick newly turned human often still thought of itself as a bird and couldn’t control its own strength well. Second, chicks were divided into little cliques by age and temperament, and the ones who played with Bai Le were all chicks who’d just recently learned to turn human.
Lively, restless, and utterly without any sense of proportion, for Bai Shuo, that age group was an absolute disaster. Add more than one of them together and it became a top-tier disaster. A few days ago, when Bai Le had brought him out and a whole crowd of chicks had passed him around, fighting over him, Bai Shuo got a free taste of what a roller coaster felt like and nearly threw up bile. One experience of that horror was plenty, Bai Shuo absolutely did not want a repeat.
But Bai Le, newly turned human, had no idea what Bai Shuo thought about any of this. Not only did he not know, his strength was especially large, and his temper especially stubborn, once he set his mind on something, he wouldn’t let go until he got it.
Bai Shuo looked at the ox-strong little brother beside him and slowly raised his foot.
Even if he couldn’t budge him, he was still going to kick!
But the motion of Bai Shuo raising his foot made Bai Le mistake it for finally agreeing. Overjoyed inside, he shot up onto his feet in a single burst, completely forgetting his brother was right above his head.
The scene before Bai Shuo’s eyes suddenly turned into the edge of the nest. He instantly sensed something was very wrong and tried to get Bai Le to crouch back down, but it was already too late. The nest sat quite a ways up, and to make things worse, Bai Le had been growing like a weed lately, not only was his strength greater than before, but the excitement made his motion faster too, and he headbutted Bai Shuo clean out of the nest.
All of this happened in an instant, and worse still, before Bai Shuo could grab hold of a nearby branch, a gust of wind knocked him off course. What should have been, at most, a fall to the foot of the tree instead turned into a plunge straight toward the cliff.
Bai Shuo: “……” Good grief, did it have to be this much of a coincidence?!
Watching the scenery on either side of him rush upward at breakneck speed, Bai Shuo could only think one thing: Feather Clan chicks really were the most dangerous things in the entire world!
Instinct drove Bai Shuo to flap his wings, but like every other chick’s, his wings hadn’t finished developing, forget flying, he could barely even hold his shape steady, and with the wind pushing against him, even putting his whole body into it only lifted his snow-white wings the tiniest bit. The effect was next to nothing.
Watching the scenery around him blur faster and faster, Bai Shuo gave up struggling and let himself glide on the wind. All he could do now was hope something would break his fall halfway down, if he’d known this would happen, he never would have picked the quiet nest right at the cliff’s edge just for some peace.
He had no idea how many meters he’d fallen when he suddenly felt himself come to a stop, landing on something extremely warm and soft. Right after that, he and the soft mass beneath his feet shifted downward together for a stretch, then came to rest.
The scenery on either side stopped moving. Bai Shuo let out a small breath of relief, what incredible luck, falling from that high up and not getting hurt at all. Looks like the heavens were still watching out for him, at least he hadn’t hit a rock.
But that relief lasted only an instant. The next second, he found himself staring straight into a pair of sharp, dangerous eyes that unmistakably belonged to a bird of prey, and the breath caught halfway in his throat.
Damn it all, warm and soft, he’d landed on the back of some other member of the Feather Clan! And this Feather Clan member he didn’t recognize had carried him through the air for a stretch besides!
Even though they were both Feather Clan, Bai Shuo was still incredibly tense. The Feather Clan was extremely friendly toward its own kind, but toward prey and strangers, the attitude was an entirely different story, far more vicious than any of those birds-of-prey fight videos he’d seen in his past life.
The Feather Clan member in front of him now, he didn’t recognize, probably a new arrival to the tribe. Its eyes were savage, staring at him fixedly the way one stares at prey, its hooked, sharp beak looking ready to take a bite out of him at any moment.
Bai Shuo eyeballed himself. Yeah. His current size was just about enough for one mouthful.
Good news: he hadn’t fallen to his death.
Bad news: the one who’d saved him was a strange Feather Clan member.
Even worse news: any creature that couldn’t shapeshift into a human counted as prey on the Feather Clan’s menu. The Feather Clan preferred cooked food, but raw wasn’t exactly off the table either.
The thought of being swallowed any second made Bai Shuo shudder.
Right after that, Bai Shuo noticed the other one’s gaze had sharpened even further.
Being stared at like this, all Bai Shuo could do was try to say hello. “Chirp?”
The moment the sound left his mouth, he realized he was probably done for.
He had precious little practice speaking Bird, what he’d meant to convey was an explanation of who he was, but what actually came out was a meaningless chirp with no substance to it at all. The Feather Clan’s language system was simply too complicated for him, he hadn’t picked it up in all his years as a bird, and even now, with his past-life memories back, he still hadn’t unlocked that particular skill.
Bai Shuo closed his eyes in despair. Oh well, life and death, wealth and rank, all rest with fate. He could only hope his parents and brothers would find this spot before he got eaten clean.
At this point, Bai Shuo desperately wished he could turn human. An eight-year-old kid definitely couldn’t be swallowed in one bite. Most importantly, human form could talk, sure, he couldn’t speak Bird, but he could speak the human tongue! If he were in human form, he could explain what had happened, instead of being stuck like now, only able to hear and not speak, his fate entirely in someone else’s hands.
Too anxious to think straight, Bai Shuo had completely forgotten one thing: just because he didn’t recognize any Feather Clan members outside his own family didn’t mean the Feather Clan in the tribe didn’t recognize him.
Every single member of the Hundred-Feather Tribe knew that Bai Xun and Bai Yun’s family had a chick, a very small one, who hadn’t managed to shapeshift in eight whole years.
And any chick newly joining the Hundred-Feather Tribe would, on their very first day, get thoroughly briefed by the other chicks: Bai Su’s unshapeshifted little brother, super cute.