Feng Guang followed his gaze and saw a fledgling, barely covered in feathers, teetering dangerously on the edge of its nest. A small misstep, and it would tumble to the ground. There were no adult birds in the nest—likely off searching for food—leaving the young bird like a mischievous child without parental supervision.
She instinctively pulled her hand away from An Yi’s and stepped closer to the tree, her eyes fixed on the nest above. She stretched out her hands beneath it as if preparing to catch the little bird.
An Yi looked puzzled. “Feng Guang, what are you doing?”
Without taking her eyes off the nest, she said, “I want to save that fledgling. It would be such a shame if it fell and died.”
“If you don’t want it to die, then I won’t let it die.”
She turned back to him, blinking. “Really?”
“Really.”
“How are you going to stop it from dying?”
An Yi smiled faintly. Then, walking around to the back of the tree, he reappeared holding a cage with a bird inside. The bird, upon seeing the fledgling in the nest, began chirping frantically.
“These days, I’ve started being able to interact with physical objects,” he explained, holding up the cage. “This bird is the fledgling’s mother. If I let her out, the fledgling won’t die.”
Feng Guang frowned, confused. “Why was the mother bird in a cage?”
“I found an empty birdcage in an unused room, and… I was curious about what would happen to a fledgling if it lost its mother. But since you don’t want the fledgling to die, I’ll let the mother bird go.”
An Yi opened the cage. The mother bird immediately flapped her wings and flew out, returning to the nest. The fledgling retreated from the edge, back to safety.
Feng Guang remained silent for a long time before finally asking, “Why were you curious about what would happen to a fledgling without its mother?”
“I don’t know.” He placed the birdcage on a stone table and naturally took her hand again. “Maybe because I was bored.”
Or perhaps, he thought, he found the deep bond between parent and child peculiar. It puzzled him because he didn’t understand it.
Looking at his bewildered expression, Feng Guang found it impossible to be angry with him. She sighed. “An Yi, you can’t do things like this anymore. A fledgling without its mother might die—that’s the result. You shouldn’t be curious about such things.”
“If Feng Guang doesn’t like it, then I won’t do it again.” An Yi’s expression remained serene, his lips curving into a gentle smile. His calm demeanor made it clear that he didn’t think what he’d done was wrong. He would stop only because she disliked it.
Though he appeared warm and gentle, exuding an air of kindness that drew people in, there was an undeniable, bone-deep indifference hidden beneath that warmth.
Yet somehow, these two extremes—his warmth and his detachment—coexisted without contradiction.
Feng Guang wondered if perhaps he’d been a ghost for so long that he’d forgotten what it meant to feel human emotions.
Little did she know, there are people in this world born with a deficit in their emotional makeup. This lack often makes them more obsessive, and An Yi just happened to be one of them.
Feng Guang resolved that, since he was her target to “conquer,” it was her duty to help him rediscover the emotions he’d forgotten. A love story between a human and a ghost should end in a happy ever after, shouldn’t it?
“An Yi, let’s go on a date tomorrow.”
His clear eyes flickered slightly. “A date?”
“Well, a lot of our costumes were burned, so we won’t be able to film tomorrow. Since we’re free, I’ll take you to the movies. Hmm… There aren’t many films playing right now. How about we watch a romance?”
He chuckled softly, his smile as refreshing as a spring breeze. “Alright.”
Lucien On ABRWF Chapter 34.1