He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

Chapter 60 Lily

The way the world distributes fate is as extreme as a script written by a third-rate screenwriter—once a vessel for a secret is found, more and more "destiny" will be dripped onto it until it is completely enveloped, forming an opaque shell that turns the person inside into a murky amber.

Anda is that golden-red amber.

Just to witness her colors, Ai had tried to find any angle to get close to Anda—and just now, the girl had, for the first time, taken the initiative to show him something—

Although she didn't know exactly what had triggered her, Ai Yi naturally wouldn't let this opportunity pass.

He followed almost without thinking, and then heard the girl's soft whisper from ahead: "I might prefer you to stay there, preferably stay where you are—"

"Well, I'm a little bit sad."

Ai Qian chuckled twice. "So, I left you with such a terrible impression—a frivolous city person? Or do you think I'm the kind of guy who backs down because of cowardice, who gets scared and wants to run away after just seeing a glimpse of the secret corner of this village—"

He sighed and rambled on, "If I keep saying that, I'm a detective, albeit a second-rate one from Tun Ling, but my future aspiration is to become a champion of justice!"

"Hoo—" Anda chuckled first, then asked, "You came from Dunling, so the person who was with you yesterday was Gern, right?"

"Do you know him?"

Ai raised an eyebrow. He had only learned his traveler's original name from Charon, but he hadn't expected that Abram was so famous in Rusty Village that many people could call him by name.

"He is one of the few people in a long time who went out—and then came back here, so everyone was very surprised. After all, the world outside the deep wilderness is, in the eyes of the Agdewe, the land of demons, full of attraction and temptation. Once you go out, you will be abandoned by the sky and thus forsake the favor of the Lord."

Anda: "Besides, he's Lily's brother."

"Lily." Hearing that name again, Ai repeated it.

"Lily, the previous 'Fledgling,' is also the trial participant who has come closest to the sky since the first Fledgling."

O

Anda hesitated for a moment, then continued, "In the past, she had also tried to reach the sky, but she failed."

"————" Ai opened her mouth, but couldn't say anything.

He had intended to tell Anda that Lily might have perished, but judging from the girl's own reaction, it might not be a secret he was hiding from her.

So he chose to change his tone.

"I want to know her story."

As he watched Anda's resolute figure moving forward, he felt as if she were stepping on something—like a dead but still vivid skeleton.

"She is my friend."

Anda didn't turn around; she said softly.

"friend"

The shepherdess had almost forgotten how she, as a wingless being, became friends with a fledgling bird.

"I'm not crazy!"

The first time I saw that fledgling bird, who was admired by everyone and was about to take on the trial, she was pouting like this, yelling at me in a noisy tone like a baby bird waiting to be fed.

"They don't understand: the human body cannot fly. This is what aerodynamics tells me. No matter how complete my wings are, they are just a strangely shaped bone and a bunch of scattered feathers. We don't have the same muscles as birds, we don't have the physiological structure suitable for flapping our wings, and we don't have the ability to adapt to the sky."

"In conclusion, one of the reasons"

Lily confidently declared, "The bird's trial is completely contrary to biology!"

——””

The bewildered girl listened blankly to the words that sounded like gibberish, then weakly reminded them, "Sorry—could you slow down a bit? I can't quite understand."

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry—" Lily clasped her hands together in apology. "I got too carried away."

Then, the girl with the golden-red feathers snapped out of her reverie and noticed the tiny, curled-up Anda before her. She paused for a moment before murmuring, "You are—the girl His Majesty Charon picked up. Are you from outside? Why have I never seen you before? Are you from Dunlin—or Tainan, or—"

"Even further away?"

Her pupils sparkled, a golden-red that matched the color of her feathers, flowing with blood and vitality, like a gaze formed from the crushed petals and stamens of a thousand roses. Lily watched the girl retreat in bewilderment and quickly realized that her overly excited behavior might have frightened this soft-spoken girl, so she softened her voice.

"I'm Lily, what's your name?"

She asked.

The girl opposite hesitated for a moment, then spoke softly in a tone as gentle as a sheep grazing.

"Anda".

"Anda, Anda—" Lily murmured the name, laughing as she declared her ownership, "From now on, we're friends!"

"friend"

"friend--?"

Anda murmured softly, unsure how to answer, until Lily pounced on her like a gust of wind, hugging her waist tightly with arms thinner than reeds, burying her head in her warm white hair, and whispering in the shepherdess's ear, "Mmm—you smell so good."

It smells like downy fur being baked by the sun.

Anda wanted to break free, but felt that the girl in her arms was too fragile to be real and too light to be believable. Lily's body seemed like it would turn into a handful of broken bird bones if touched at all, so she didn't dare to move. Although her whole body was uncomfortable, she still endured standing there and being tormented by the girl like a doll.

—Did I become friends with the baby birds?

Anda remained dazed; her reactions were exceptionally slow.

It feels so unreal —

Lambs and birds are two completely different kinds of life, scattered across the earth and the sky: birds abhor the lightness of sinking, and if they want to stay in the sky, they cannot stop flapping their wings, just as humans cannot stop breathing—while sheep always walk with their heads down, grazing, and remain silent until they are slaughtered.

This last point may be an exaggeration, but even Anda doesn't know if someone like herself, even when facing imminent death, would let out a cry or make a struggle.

Maybe not.

The girl smiled bitterly.

—After all, one cannot even see the shape of death.

Even though their personalities are very different, almost at opposite ends of the spectrum, the two girls, who are the same age, quickly became inseparable companions, sometimes even getting a little too close.

"Anda, you're so amazing—" Lily's laughter was as light as a bird's. She loved to snuggle up to Anda and often whispered to her, "It's just such a pity, why can't she see?"

Anda usually seemed troubled, but sometimes confused—because no one except Lily had ever said that before.

The Agdewe people valued an exaggeratedly slender figure, like that of a bird. Anda, who was of normal build and even slightly plump, was usually the target of discrimination. Children of her age also disliked this blind shepherdess from out of town, because blindness was also seen as a curse, meaning "abandoned by birds and God."

"Don't pay them any mind. Anda is just so cute, and so sweet and soft." Under Anda's protesting yet harmless gaze, Lily rested her head between her soft thighs, humming a little tune as she murmured, "Unlike everyone else, you're healthy—just like everyone else, you're healthy. Be confident!"

Rather than a lamb, you should be a deer running through the forest—you should be a spirit of the wind, as light as a bird.

Lily scoffed, "They just don't understand."

Anda thought about it seriously, felt a bit of a headache, and ultimately didn't dare to reply.

She always just smiled quietly.

"Someone cares about me."

—This feels pretty good.

As the only fledgling, Lily is a symbol of holiness and righteousness in the eyes of the Agdewe, but only Anda, who travels with her, knows just how unconventional her remarkable friend is.

"Anda, Anda—come and see!"

Whenever Lily appears in such a flurry, it means that the fledgling master has gotten his hands on some "good stuff" to share with her, and she's so excited that she's forgotten about Anda's blindness—

"Look—no, feel it, feel it! The printing technology these days is getting more and more advanced; this title has an embossed design!"

Lily handed a book with a rough cover to Anda and watched quietly as she touched the words on the cover.

Having lost her sight, Anda gained a more acute sense of touch, so Lily spent a year teaching her "Ys language" through touch and hearing.

The girl slowly read out the book's title.

North and South

"Isn't it amazing? — I'll tell you about it after I finish reading it, or we can read it together?" Lily took the book, which was a bit heavy for her, from Anda's arms, and couldn't help but jump for joy. After flipping through a few pages, she blushed a little. "This should be a — um, it seems to be a love story?"

"Then let's save it for later."

She carefully tucked it into a crevice carved into the rock face—a hidden little cave at the foot of the hillside, where bears may have once lived—but were probably scared away by the train that led down the Irrawaddy River and moved their habitat, leaving it empty, which the two used as their secret base for daily activities.

With this book added, Lily puffed out her chest proudly: this place already had dozens of books on different topics, and they were all "blasphemous things" smuggled in from "outside" without the knowledge of the Church of England.

Anda remembers that among these books, Lily's favorites were *Human Anatomy*, *Principles of Aerodynamics*, *From Steam to the Train*, and *The Industrial Revolution: The Great Engine of Ys!*

"Was this given to you by your father again?" Anda asked softly.

She knew about Lily's family situation. Apart from her status as a fledgling, her mother had died long ago, and she had an older brother besides her father.

The person Lily talks about most often is her equally rebellious father.

"Um."

Lily replied, her voice filled with longing, "Dad is a very amazing man. When he was young, he traveled a lot. He traveled by ship and train, worked as a cook and a laborer in Tun Ling. He also went to even more distant places, perhaps to the other side of the sky, to the ends of the sea and the earth."

Lily whispered to herself, "My father told me so many things, and I really, really want to share them all with you, Anda, that country full of change and rebirth—that wondrous world where every day is filled with so many stories that even the sky cannot record them all, a world that cannot be fully described."

"Anda, you will love it there." She spoke with certainty, her wings fluttering slightly. "Go and admire the firelight in the boiler, go and gaze at the continent beyond the horizon, go and learn the knowledge that Agdewe does not exist and will never appear—you will travel to the other side of the sea, to observe more people and things, to witness a future that can be crowned with glory."

Her light, cheerful voice seemed to dance: "—Life is born into this world precisely to understand these things."

However, she was met with a few seconds of silence.

"Lily."

Seemingly having made a decision, Anda, unusually, interrupted Lily's statement. She took a deep breath and whispered to the fledgling in a trembling voice.

"Do you really want to go out?"

She still looked pitiful, clearly protesting, yet unable to express even a trace of opposition through her tearful eyes, forever as harmless as a lamb.

Once Lily knew she was sad, it was as if the "farewell" that was yet to come would kill her.

—Anda vaguely understood the future Lily spoke of. She had never seen any color beyond darkness; the world was nothingness in her eyes, except for one person who had given her warmth.

All Anda knew was that the light Lily spoke of seemed incompatible with her own—when Lily went to that world, it seemed there was no place for her beside this dazzling fledgling.

She still didn't understand anything.

So she remained silent, tilting her head slightly, silently searching for an answer.

"You want to—leave me here alone?"

The sound stopped a second later.

Then the charcoal fire went out, leaving everything pitch black.

The light was dull and dark, carrying a mournful cry.

It was as if something had been crushed silently.

"Of course I want to go out."

Lily stared at her, softly refuting the protest in Anda's eyes, "But if you're willing, I'll stay here with you until the very end."

"But—Anda, you seem to have it backwards."

She said, "You are the master of this journey, and I may not be as great as you think. More likely, I am just a passerby in your life—I can't say for sure."

—The direction you take is ultimately determined by you.

Lily spoke softly, her tone so calm it was as if she were telling her some truth about the world.

"Agdeu is too insignificant. Beyond the deep wilderness, there are people just like you, Anda—everywhere are your kind, healthy and complete humans, not some wingless bird—no one will grow a pair of monstrous, deformed wings, as thin as the veins of a wheat ear, as light as a swan's down feathers—yet still consider it beautiful."

Her voice was very soft, like a layer of periosteum holding back all the falling emotions, but this membrane was too thin and too fragile. It was crushed and torn, deformed, and burst open with pain.

"Anda".

She said, "Actually, I'm the real monster, the ugly one, you know?"

"————" Anda opened her eyes wide as if she understood, but all she saw was emptiness.

She smelled the stench of decaying new trees and withered flowers, the scent of burnt and cooled bones, like rose-colored charcoal.

Lily approached like the wind, then gently leaned her body against the soft, squishy girl.

"Anda is really amazing," Lily thought to herself.

She was different from me. She didn't have sharp, piercing ribs on her chest, and her waist wasn't as frighteningly thin as mine. Her chest reminded me of my mother—the shepherdess. She was a flowing, blood-red color, and her tender face had lingering baby hair and chubby cheeks, as soft and tempting as honey bread.

She is an outline that can stand firmly on the ground.

She is not like us, who have lost their homeland.

"Anta, I envy you so much."

Listening to Lily's dreamlike whispers, Anda gently supported the fledgling's tilted wings, her hands trembling uncontrollably, even though she had touched it many times before.

Those cool feathers, those sturdy yet fragile bone wings, once fully unfolded, can wrap up a frail child like a cocoon—or two, if they're squeezed together.

So, when the fledgling gently folded its wings, the cold feathers enveloped two equally lonely souls in the same void.

The sun-kissed scent emanating from Anda filled the space, so Lily hugged her tighter and then uttered a lighthearted cruelty.

"I don't have much time left to live."

—The lifespan of a trial participant will never exceed seventeen years—No fledgling can live to adulthood; all their energy must be used to nourish these greedy wings. Although they do not have time to age, they are just as ugly.

This is Lily's destiny.

"Anda, I really hope you won't be angry with me for what I'm about to say."

She whispered softly inside the wing cocoon, pressed her ear to Anda's ear, embraced Anda's smooth back, and stroked her healthy, deer-like, high-raised spine—this extremely greedy posture seemed to fill the depths of that beautiful body with words, as if she wanted to stuff everything about herself into it.

"If one day, some of us can leave this place, escape this village forever—to go to a wider world, to witness a more boundless sky."

"If that's the case."

She raised her head; her eyes, though still bright, seemed to have lost their luster.

"That person will be you, Anda."

—Fadah listened to all of this in a daze.

"That's it." Lily closed her eyes, curled up in the shadows, her wings drooping silently, her smile like falling snow—she floated lightly, as if uttering a wish that was no longer cherished, yet had once been longed for.

—I will do everything in my power to complete the trial, for I am the common deity of all here, but for me, everything is already destined.

"because----"

She tilted her head, and then a sigh, both distant and near, enveloped the whispered words.

"Lily can't get out now."

The cave, deep in darkness and deathly silence.

The fledgling bird let out a sharp, bird-like sneer.

"Pfft—"

You're right.

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