A generous gift

For a long time in Bai Ling’s life, whenever he thought of Izsu Paraiso, what came to mind was not the iron-fisted dictator, but that clean, bright milk truck.

No matter how much rejection it faced along its route, the robot inside would tirelessly wipe the egg yolk from the glass, pick up the trash thrown through the window, and clean until it was spotless, like the work of a perfectionist.

The fledgling had thrown something inside once, too.

Himself.

The relief shelter often withheld funds. When a northern wind brought a blizzard, the snow outside was knee-deep, but the crowded, damp dormitory’s heating was not turned on.

Raptors are formidable, but the survival rate for their young is very low. Every winter is a dangerous ordeal.

The fledgling got sick several times. The little magpie in the next bed laughed at him, saying the Devil’s curse was coming true and the Old Emperor was sucking his life essence.

“You definitely won’t survive this winter. When you’re dead, I’ll wear your scarf to school.”

The fledgling grabbed his pillow and beat the little magpie until he was crying and rolling on the floor.

The scarf was from his mother. She had taken it from her own neck and tied it on him before he left.

The fledgling, imitating his mother, would wrap the scarf twice around his neck, tucking one end into his coat. He would bury his nose in it, leaving only his eyes exposed, pretending that the warmth was the protection of his parents’ feathers.

He thought that since he was going to die anyway, he might as well hijack a milk truck and go wherever he wanted.

The fledgling resolutely set out in the middle of the night.

Snowflakes clung to his white eyelashes, and the frigid wind felt like it would split his head open. But the little falcon, unafraid of the storm, stretched out his arms, struggling to keep his balance as he walked against the wind in the empty square.

Almost there, almost there…

The milk truck, buried in the snow, looked like a conch shell nestled in the sand. The fledgling ran quickly into the cone of its light, scrambled up the window, and jumped inside.

The robot caught him, and they both sat down on the floor.

The fledgling blinked away the water from his eyelashes. He was trembling yet loudly said, “You… you’ve been hijacked!”

The robot was very cooperative. As a “captive,” it turned the air conditioner to heat, filled the fledgling’s cup to the brim with hot milk, and took a box of candy from the cabinet. One large handful, a second large handful… until the fledgling’s tattered little canvas backpack was full.

The fledgling was stunned. Faced with this generous bounty, he didn’t know what to do.

“No… that’s not how a hijacking works,” the fledgling tried to gesture. “It’s supposed to be that you only listen to me and take me where I want to go.”

The robot started the truck, and the ding-dong-ding music began to play again, crisp and clear. The fledgling hummed along, pressing his face to the window, watching the myriads of city lights shift as they moved. They passed through narrow streets, past taverns that had closed for the night, scaring away stray cats. With a clang, clang, they switched tracks, leaving the hillside and heading toward the long, winding coastline.

The fledgling had never been so happy.

He unwrapped two milk candies, returned the rest, and then sat down next to the robot, poking it. “Does Izsu Paraiso really eat the hearts and livers of little birds every day?”

It replied mechanically: “No relevant response found. Please try again.”

The fledgling wasn’t surprised. These robots weren’t very intelligent and could usually only give pre-set voice responses, like “May you be in good health,” or “Please do not litter.”

The fledgling asked again, “Is he a picky eater?”

“Please try again.”

The final stop was just ahead. The fledgling was seized by a coughing fit. He clutched his scarf tightly and said, trying to be unreasonable, “…Take me with you. Even if I get eaten by a piranha, I don’t care. If he won’t eat me, I’ll just deliver milk with you.”

The robot’s camera lens flashed. “Please- query result: Goodnight, baby.”

The fledgling choked. Tears welled up in his exhausted eyes. “I… I wasn’t… asking for comfort.”

“Goodnight, baby.”

That night, he didn’t know what program he had triggered in the robot. For as long as the fledgling huddled in the corner, wiping his tears, the robot crouched beside him, repeating the word “baby.”

When the fledgling woke up, he found he had been sent to a hospital. He was well taken care of that winter.

Everyone said he was lucky, that the government had reimbursed his medical expenses. Some said maliciously, “See? Isn’t this iron-clad proof that the Old Emperor is monitoring us through the milk trucks?”

When he was discharged, the fledgling stood on his tiptoes at the nurse’s station and asked the big sisters for the bill.

On the reimbursement signature page, there was no merman name, only Izsu Paraiso’s cross-shaped steel stamp.

The fledgling cut the emblem out and stuck it to his chest, right over his heart.

Later, the fledgling grew up. At thirteen or fourteen, he enlisted in the army. He finally got a day of leave and returned to the square, but the slow, ding-dong figure was gone.

The trolley tracks had been filled with cement. The buildings were covered in Kaide’s posters. Desperate, he went to the abandoned milk factory, only to find that the old milk truck had rusted away in an empty, deserted corner.

He walked over. The robot made a clack-clack sound as its mechanism whirred emptily.

“Wishing you… health. Wishing you… wish… wish… baby… goodnight…”

He found the voice component and tried to fix it, but after working on it for half a day, the only setting he could restore was “Goodnight, baby.” It couldn’t move.

Bai Ling curled up in the robot’s stiff, seated embrace and slept for a while.

He closed his eyes and said softly, “Goodnight to you, too.”

Then he stood up, caught the transport back to the army, and never returned.

---

In his habitat, the deathly still, ice-cold water suddenly churned. The sleeping merman surfaced, leaning his forehead against the side of the pool.

“I seem to have a…”

“Another nightmare?” the AI asked, holding up a towel.

Yu Chen smiled, tired. “A good dream.”

He had dreamed that a little bird was nestled in his arms, soundly sleeping. His chest had been so warm from the little bird’s body heat.

The AI’s camera lenses blinked in surprise. Master had been taking the mental nourishment tonic on and off for nearly thirty years, and his condition had been steadily declining. Could this finally be a sign of improvement?

Sometimes, it felt like its master was more of an AI than it was.

During the hundred-plus years that Izsu Paraiso had reigned, he had almost never taken a single day of rest.

The Empire looked vast, but it was plagued by internal and external troubles. From the outside, there was the covetous Mammalian Federation. From the inside, there were the deeply entrenched, powerful aristocratic families.

Izsu Paraiso’s push for omega protection measures and the limitation of alpha rights had directly violated the interests of the upper-class alphas. They had long been dissatisfied with him, wishing him dead.

When he was young, he possessed the energy and time to fight those factions, and he had once led the Empire to an unprecedented era of strength.

But as time went on, his mental control had begun to wane. On top of that, his most trusted and capable subordinates had passed away, one by one. His era, it seems, was also unavoidably heading toward decline.

This was the inevitable result of history’s cycle. Just as no dynasty could remain strong forever, no emperor could sit firmly on the throne for all time.

For the Empire’s glory to have lasted for a full century was already a miracle.

After that, it was the inevitable decline that follows a peak.

Izsu Paraiso, with his oil spent and lamp dim, was like a great beast from a bygone era, dragging this complex, massive nation forward for another thirty years, just barely holding on.

The milk truck in the square had been nothing more than a final bit of compassion squeezed from the end of his life, the last afterglow in the twilight.

And yet, until the very end, he had never received a response.

The AI secretly glanced at its master.

Yu Chen took the bath towel. The morning light filtered through the massive floor-to-ceiling window. In his vision, it was like looking at flowers through a fog, hazy and indistinct. Clearly, after a night, the mental nourishment tonic’s effects were wearing off.

“Do you want to go see that little bird?” the AI asked.

Yu Chen picked up a mental supplement capsule from the small, bone-china dish and swallowed it dry.

If he didn’t take his medicine on time, he would soon fall into a coma.

The capsule’s rice-paper shell slid arduously down his esophagus, only to be swarmed and devoured by his churning, famished stomach acid. Soon, the cramping pain of an empty stomach spread through his nerves and bones.

Yu Chen drank a mouthful of ice water, suppressing the empty pain, and casually asked, “How is he? Still has a fever?”

“Thanks to you watching over him all night, his spirits were much better when he got up. I told him you were resting, so the little bird took a screwdriver and pliers and replaced all the non-functional old wiring. The broken heaters are working again. I praised him for being so capable, and he said…”

The AI pressed its recording function. The little mechanical bird’s cold voice came from the speaker: “…I’m very happy I could solve his problem.”

Me too, Yu Chen thought, a smile surfacing.

The burning sensation in his stomach seemed to quiet down a little at those words. Yu Chen dressed and returned to the side bedroom.

The new dose of tonic had not yet taken effect. In his hazy, haloed vision, he saw a neat bedsheet, a blanket folded into a perfect square, and a note on the bedside table. But the little bird himself was gone.

“Ah, he seems to have left,” the AI said, disappointed.

Yu Chen picked up the note. Two milk candies rolled into his palm. The note was written in neat, precise characters:

Yu Chen’s hand tightened around the two candies. For a long, long time, he was unable to calm himself.

A late repayment, but for him, it was never too late.

---

North felt he was doing a remarkable job of keeping his cool.

His roommate had not returned all night. The dorm supervisor had come by to check three times, and North had somehow managed to cover for him with a string of excuses and half-truths.

Now, it was broad daylight. He groggily heard the door open and finally let out a breath of relief, thinking to himself that their dorm’s ‘resident beauty’ had finally wandered back.

North rubbed his eyes and was about to swing his legs out of bed, but he suddenly caught a scent that made his legs go weak. He uncontrollably fell to his knees with a thud.

Bai Ling reacted quickly and pulled him up.

“We were only apart for one night,” Bai Ling said, half-joking. “There’s no need for such a formal greeting.”

North snapped to his senses and said in shock, “Heavens! Whose residual pheromones are those on you? They’re more intense than an alpha in rut protecting his nest!”

“Are there?” Bai Ling felt nothing. He lifted his sleeve to smell it, catching only the faint, sweet scent of rotting wood and the saltiness of the sea.

“Absolutely!” North said. “A moment ago, I thought some apex predator alpha had broken in. I’m not exaggerating. Our school used to have mixers with the military command university next door. I’ve met plenty of top-tier alphas, but I’ve never met one who smelled so…”

“Terrifying!” North finished, his heart still pounding.

Bai Ling was not surprised.

What lingered on him was most likely the “Queen Dowager’s” scent. Someone who could catch Izsu Paraiso’s eye had to be a top-tier omega of outstanding ability, not to mention that the Merfolk bloodline held an innate, high-level suppression over other Marine species.

North’s true form was a sea hare, which belonged to the lower-middle tier of the marine ecosystem. He definitely had a DNA-level fear of Merfolk.

Bai Ling took a shower and changed into clean clothes. The scent was much fainter when he came out.

He took his freshly washed clothes to the window to hang them to dry. He suddenly remembered something and turned to ask North:

“Those inhibitor sticks you mentioned last time… do you still have any?”

“Yes, yes!” North enthusiastically scrambled up and rummaged through his drawer. “I have sizes M, L, and XL. Which one do you want?”

Bai Ling was speechless. “…Why are there so many kinds?”

North gave a sly grin. “Well, sometimes the intensity of heat is different. It’s good to be prepared.”

Bai Ling felt his pain was just from his second differentiation, which was a far cry from a proper heat, so he took the smallest size.

North asked with concern, “Is your stomach bothering you? Why don’t I get you excused from class? You can just rest in the dorm all day.”

“It’s fine, I’m used to it.” Bai Ling declined his kind offer. He went into the bathroom to insert the suppressant. When he came out, he seemed to be adapting fine, aside from a slightly awkward gait.

Bai Ling took out the beef jerky and gave North a large piece. As he did, he glanced at the sleep capsule next to his. The small door was tightly closed, and a pair of size 46 sneakers was on the floor outside it.

North said, “Oh, that’s our new roommate. He moved in last night.”

Bai Ling stared at the suitcase under the capsule; it had an orange-red, winged family crest on it.

He did not react, but just for the sake of fairness, he also placed a piece of jerky on the new roommate’s desk.

He still had two hours before his 10:30 class. Bai Ling poured a cup of hot water, took out the large bottle of alpha pheromone supplement, and absentmindedly shook out two pills, swallowing them down.

North watched him climb into his bed, his face pale and drawn. He looked at the pill bottle on the desk and felt something was strange.

All the omegas know that after taking the artificial supplement, you absolutely can’t come into contact with natural alpha pheromones. Otherwise, the two would interact and easily cause a severe, backlash-style addictive reaction.

This reaction was extremely intense. If the omega did not get exposure to that alpha again within eight to ten hours, they would develop a series of withdrawal symptoms, like tremors, cold sweats, and a racing heart.

A classic pheromone slave.

But little bird had already returned from that alpha’s place. He shouldn’t be exposed to those pheromones again anytime soon, so taking the medicine to control his condition was normal.

North relaxed.

He looked at the opposite capsule. Bai Ling was making his bed, preparing for a nap. But strangely, he did not remove the pillowcase today.

Bai Ling pulled the curtain shut. He took the trousers the robot had given him and spread them out flat. He bit his lip and convinced himself to lie down on top of them.

It’s just a pair of unwanted trousers I salvaged to line my nest. It’s no big deal.

Bai Ling quietly gripped a corner of the wool fabric, and his heart felt much calmer.

---

Author has something to say:

They’re both a generous gift from fate to each other.