Wu Yan was the chick who’d joined the Hundred-Feather Tribe a few days ago along with his father. Unlike most chicks, he preferred to keep to himself. Something from his childhood had left him desperate to grow strong, stronger than even his father. To grow strong, naturally, meant training constantly, he couldn’t practice hunting or fighting techniques yet, so for now he practiced flying instead.
But an underage Feather Clan chick’s wings weren’t nearly as powerful as an adult’s, and flying looked nowhere near as impressive, Wu Yan didn’t want anyone seeing him like that, so whenever he had time he’d find somewhere deserted to sneak in practice. Below the cliff was the spot he’d been using most recently.
Wu Yan never expected that today, the moment he took off, something falling from above the cliff would smack right into him. At first, he assumed it was prey, or a pebble someone had tossed, he turned to look, and was stunned to discover it was actually a small, snow-white fluffball.
Wu Yan recognized Bai Shuo. A few days back, Bai Le had carried Bai Shuo down the mountain, and a pack of chicks who’d just turned human had ended up snatching him back and forth trying to claim him for their own household, until Bai Shuo passed out dizzy from being tossed around. That night, every chick who’d taken part in the tug-of-war got beaten, and screams echoed all up and down the mountain.
Having watched the entire thing unfold, Wu Yan had immediately filed Bai Shuo away as the single most fragile thing in the whole Hundred-Feather Tribe. Even so, he kept hearing the other chicks bring up Bai Shuo every single day, and the result was that his impression of Bai Shuo just kept deepening, both how dangerous and how fragile Bai Shuo seemed to him grew day by day.
Because the impression ran so deep, Wu Yan recognized him the instant he laid eyes on him, and right on the heels of recognition came panic, this chick was far too delicate, apparently able to get hurt at the slightest touch. Wu Yan held his breath, staring fixedly at the chick who’d closed its eyes, terrified that even breathing too hard might injure it, and then he’d get beaten by its father.
Wu Yan wasn’t afraid of fighting, in fact he rather liked it, and even hoped to spar with his own father one day. But not now, right now he hadn’t grown up yet, and his father could punch him clean into a tree with one blow. Even setting aside the fear, getting kicked into a tree over breathing too loud would just be too unjust a way to go. At the thought, Wu Yan slowly turned his head away, not daring to keep staring at Bai Shuo, terrified of accidentally scaring him into some mishap.
Wu Yan had once heard the tribe’s chicks say Bai Shuo was even softer than a chick fresh out of the egg. Now he could feel it for himself, truly soft, and very light too. Aside from that first moment of landing, he could barely feel Bai Shuo’s weight at all, just a faint, small patch of warmth announcing his presence.
Feeling that little bundle of warmth on his back, Wu Yan started thinking: Bai Shuo had fallen asleep, so now what was he supposed to do?
What had the other chicks in the tribe said again?
Something about Bai Shuo liking to sleep in a soft nest, not liking to stay in a cave when it was hot out, preferring to live up in the trees, and wanting his eating, playing, and sleeping spots kept separate.
He and his father only had the one nest between them, so he’d need to build two more, one for the chick to eat in, one to play in, Wu Yan thought to himself.
Just as his thoughts were drifting further afield, Wu Yan felt something off behind him. He was about to turn and look when the weight on his back suddenly surged to a point he could barely bear.
To keep himself steady, his body automatically shifted into human form, and the instant it did, Wu Yan hurried to catch Bai Shuo, only to find what his hands landed on wasn’t a feather-form chick at all, but… a person?
In that instant, a flood of questions rushed through Wu Yan’s head. Wasn’t this the one who couldn’t turn human? What was going on right now?
Bai Shuo himself was just as stunned by his own sudden shift into human form, but he quickly realized he was on someone’s back and scrambled to climb down.
The moment he looked down and saw he had no clothes on, Bai Shuo flushed red, hurriedly snatched up a fallen leaf beside him and held it in front, then grabbed another one and put it behind him. With both front and back covered, he finally felt secure.
Having solved the problem of indecent exposure, Bai Shuo was just about to ask the Feather Clan boy beside him, not much older than himself, a question, when he suddenly heard a set of hurried footsteps.
Bai Shuo turned to look behind him and found the person approaching was, unmistakably, his mother, Bai Yun.
Bai Shuo lit up with delight. “Mama!” He stood up as he spoke, ready to run over, but the next second, a sharp pain shot through his foot. He looked down at his makeshift skirt of leaves, one that would fall apart with the slightest movement, and his bare feet, and could only stay put and wait for his mother to come get him, still buzzing with excitement inside: he’d successfully turned human! Now the family would never have to worry about that again!
Bai Yun had never seen Bai Shuo in human form, but she knew the instant she saw him, this was her own chick. She hurried forward, closing the distance in a few quick steps, and started checking him over for injuries while asking, “Shuo, where did you fall and hurt yourself?”
Bai Yun hadn’t asked how her chick had suddenly turned human, in her mind, her chick’s safety mattered far more than whether he could shapeshift or not.
She’d just led the gathering party back to the tribe, hadn’t even made it to their nest yet, when her youngest son came running down to tell her his brother had fallen off the cliff. Bai Yun’s legs had gone weak with fright on the spot, she’d handed her youngest off to someone else and rushed straight over to find her second son, her heart still pounding hard even now. Toward this chick, so much smaller than every other chick, Bai Yun always found herself doting even more without meaning to.
Worry gnawing at her, Bai Yun’s examination grew even more thorough.
Seeing his mother about to check him over head to toe, Bai Shuo hurriedly clutched his leaf covering tighter.
“Mama, I’m fine, you don’t need to look, really, I’m fine, it’s just…” Bai Shuo paused, freeing one hand to point at the stranger-child beside him. “I think I might’ve landed on him.” When he’d turned human, he’d been anything but light, even a bit thinner than his brother, he was still an eight-year-old, and Bai Shuo worried he might have hurt the boy.
Hearing this, Bai Yun looked to the chick beside Bai Shuo and asked with concern, “Wu Yan, does anything hurt anywhere?”
That was how Bai Shuo learned the name of the boy who looked about as tall as his own brother, Wu Yan. He’d heard the name before. A few days ago, the family had mentioned a father-and-son pair newly arrived in the tribe. The father, named Wu Cang, was very strong, if he hadn’t joined so late, he probably could have become a hunting-party captain by now. The boy was called Wu Yan, the same age as him, also eight.
Bai Shuo sized up Wu Yan’s build. He looked about the same height as his brother, both a bit taller than him.
Wu Yan, being pointed at, had already deftly slipped on his own animal hide, and shook his head at the question. “I’m not hurt either.”
Even though both boys said they were fine, Bai Yun still checked every uncovered part of their bodies thoroughly, and only relaxed once she confirmed there really were no injuries. Once the check was done, Bai Yun picked Bai Shuo up, took Wu Yan’s hand with her other one, and set off back with both chicks in tow.
Wu Yan glanced at Bai Yun holding his hand, then at Bai Shuo, hesitated a moment, and didn’t refuse.
Bai Shuo didn’t notice Wu Yan’s small hesitation at all, he was busy mulling over the whole business of suddenly, successfully turning human.
Thinking back, in that instant just now, the strongest thing he’d wished for with his whole heart was to be in human form, and right after that, his entire body felt as if it were soaking in warm water, wonderfully comfortable, and when he opened his eyes again, he was human.
Bai Shuo didn’t expect the process to be this simple. If he’d known it would be this easy, he should have tried it days ago.
Then again, thinking of the nest up in the tree, Bai Shuo spotted a new problem. He was eight years old now, and even if he was a bit thinner than his peers, he wasn’t light either, if he’d turned human up in the tree, the nest probably would have collapsed on the spot, and falling in human form would leave very different injuries than falling in feather form. The more he thought about it, the more he counted his blessings that he’d happened to turn human down on the ground.
But since he still hadn’t fully mastered the trick of shifting forms, Bai Shuo worried he might accidentally turn human up in a tree someday, and decided that for now, for safety’s sake, he’d move back to the cave, until he’d gotten the hang of switching forms, he absolutely could not live up in a nest.
Both caves and nests served as Feather Clan dwellings, a well-chosen nest was more comfortable when the weather was hot, while during the rainy and snow seasons, a cave was warmer and safer. Many Feather Clan families switched between the two, and Bai Shuo’s family was no exception, they already had a cave ready-made, and normally the food they’d saved up was stored inside it, they could move back in that very night.
Having made up his mind, Bai Shuo spoke up to discuss it with Bai Yun. “Mama, I want to sleep in the cave tonight.”
“All right, the cave it is.” Having gone through such a wild swing of shock and joy in such a short stretch of time, Bai Yun was ready to grant her chick anything right now, wherever he wanted to live was fine, and besides, the cave really was safer, she’d been badly frightened by her chick falling out of the nest too.
Getting a clear yes, Bai Shuo relaxed, set aside the matter of his successful shapeshift, and started taking in the scenery around him.
His family had never taken him far when they went out before, so Bai Shuo’s usual range had been limited to the mountaintop and the clearing at its foot, this was the first time he’d ever been down below the cliff, and everything looked fascinating.
It was currently the season of vigorous plant growth, and even at the base of the cliff, where sunlight barely reached, there was no shortage of flowers, grasses, and trees.
Although he didn’t go out much, Bai Shuo understood how the seasons here worked, not the mild sort he’d known in his past life, but split into dry season, rainy season, snow season, and growth season.
The growth season lasted the longest, a full half a year, as long as the other three seasons combined. It followed the snow season, beginning as the ice and snow melted, and the temperature would rapidly climb to the range best suited for plant growth, during which both plants and animals would grow and reproduce quickly.
After the half-year growth season came a stretch of high heat and water scarcity, the dry season, during which plants gradually died off from lack of water.
Right on the heels of the dry season came the rainy season, during which rain would fall continuously, the whole rainy season lasted fifty or sixty days, with clear skies a rare sight in between. The rain would quickly fill up dried-out riverbeds, and sometimes even overflow them.
After the rainy season came the bitterly cold snow season. Temperatures during the snow season plunged extremely low, and snow would pile up as tall as a person, the low temperatures lasted about as long as the rainy season did. Two months later, temperatures would begin rising again, ushering in a fresh growth season, and so the cycle repeated.
Different seasons brought entirely different ways of life, during the growth season, plants flourished, during the dry season, there were ripe fruits and grown-up prey to be had. These two seasons were the happiest stretches of the year for the Feather Clan.
The remaining rainy and snow seasons were the hardest times of the year. During the rainy season, the Feather Clan’s vision was hampered, rain added extra weight that slowed flight speed, and hunting grew more difficult. Precious few Feather Clan members could bring back food on rainy days, and it was perfectly normal for the whole tribe to go three or four days without catching a single kill, everyone essentially lived off the food stockpiled before the rains hit.
And during the frigid snow season, prey would go into hiding, making them hard to find, and on top of that, most of the food stored up during the dry season would already have been eaten during the rainy season, making life even harder.
Taken all together, the Feather Clan went hungry for at least a third of the year. But in the past few years, Bai Shuo had almost never tasted hunger, no matter the season, his parents always managed to find food for him and his brothers, and later, once his brother joined the food-searching effort too, even though the two of them were the same age, his brother had always looked out for him instead.
Thinking of these things from the past, Bai Shuo leaned against his mother’s shoulder, aching a little for his family.
Bai Yun sharply picked up on her chick’s dip in mood and asked gently, “What’s wrong, Shuo? Not feeling well?”
Bai Shuo shook his head and mumbled, “Not feeling unwell. I’m hungry.”
Hearing her chick say he was hungry, Bai Yun smiled. “Mama picked lots of food today. Want to eat a few extra, Shuo? Wu Yan, you eat more too.” Bai Yun hadn’t forgotten the chick who’d saved her son.
“Okay.” Bai Shuo agreed, and noticing there was a river right alongside the path they were walking, he grew curious about what he looked like now.
Bai Shuo pointed toward the water. “Mama, I want to go wash my hands over there.”
Such a small request, Bai Yun naturally agreed, and led both chicks toward the riverbank.
For easy water access, a stretch of the riverbank had several large flat rocks laid out. Bai Yun set Bai Shuo down on the flattest one and let the two chicks wash up while she watched nearby, ready to help at any moment.
Crouched on the rock, Bai Shuo didn’t rush to touch the water, he studied his own reflection first.
His reflection surfaced clearly on the river’s surface, he looked about seventy percent like his brother Bai Su, the difference being that Bai Su took after their father more, while he took more after their mother.
Looking at his parents and brother before, the resemblance hadn’t struck him quite so directly, now, looking at his own reflection, Bai Shuo found he looked remarkably like he had as a child in his past life, apart from his hair color turning silver-white, his features were nearly identical. The only difference was that in his past life, at eight years old, he’d gone hungry as often as not and been rail-thin, in this life, born into a primitive society with backward productivity, he actually looked healthier, thanks to his parents and brother feeding him constantly, whenever and wherever.
Having finished comparing his current self to his past-life self, Bai Shuo finally started washing his hands, and washed his face while he was at it. He’d actually have preferred to take a proper bath in the river, but his mother would obviously never agree to letting him bathe in the evening, so he had to give that idea up.
After washing his face, Bai Shuo used reeds from the riverbank to tie his leaf covering tighter, so he wouldn’t have to keep one hand holding it up.
Bai Yun led Bai Shuo to the cleared-out space in front of the mountain where the tribe lived, a spot specially cleared of trees, with almost no plants left, the ground covered in branches that the half-grown chicks of the tribe had gathered.
In the Hundred-Feather Tribe, the daily job of chicks between six and ten was gathering branches, preparing enough firewood for the hunting and gathering parties to cook their meal on when they returned in the evening.
Once that job was done, the rest of their time was fairly free, most chicks spent it climbing nearby trees to pick fruit, since the fruit near the tribe was considered chicks’ territory, the gathering party wouldn’t touch it. Picking fruit was the chicks’ favorite activity, and Bai Shuo himself had eaten plenty of food that Bai Su had brought back this way.
Thinking of all the different flavors of fruit, Bai Shuo realized he really was hungry. The meat here didn’t taste that great, especially grilled meat, tough, dry, and gamy, its texture worse than the steamed buns he’d eaten in his past life. The various wild greens called leaf-greens weren’t much better than actual weeds, either, with their bitter aftertaste. The only redeeming thing here was the fruit.
The fruit of the God-Blessed Continent was unusually delicious, all sorts of varieties, especially during the late growth season and the dry season, the ripening period for many fruits, it was practically paradise for anyone who loved fruit. The only downside was the low yield, and none of it kept for long, it was strictly seasonal.
Just as Bai Shuo was lost in fond memories of those flavors, a chubby little kid came scrambling and tumbling over, crashed straight into him, and burst out crying with a loud “Waaah!”
Bai Shuo hadn’t seen it coming, he only felt something wrap around him. Just as he was about to try to dodge, he heard that all-too-familiar voice and stopped in his tracks.
Well then. That booming voice, there wasn’t a second one like it anywhere in the whole tribe. It had to be his own little brother, young master Bai Le.