Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

  It was just over half an hour before the plane landed.

  The stylish lady with blonde hair and green eyes put out a small comb for her smooth blonde hair and the creaking static noises were heard. After putting her comb into her handbag, she fumbled out a bunch of jars and bottles filled with cosmetic products and started to refine her makeup elaborately in front of her small mirror. Richard couldn’t help but think that maybe her boyfriend— or girlfriend! — was waiting for her at the Los Angeles International Airport?

  Not only her, but other passengers were preparing to get off the plane. Walking back and forth down the aisles, they were waiting in queue for the bathrooms. Sometimes, one or two brats wanted to pull at Richard’s tail, but it dodged their grabbing hands flexibly.

  Not a fan of the scents of cosmetics or brats like Yi Le, Richard wanted to go to a quiet place close to the porthole.

  Fina was taking a nap on her seat closest to the porthole, while Zhang Zian was sleeping with his mouth open in the middle seat. Richard decided to bully the weak one. It fluttered its wings and landed on Zhang Zian’s shoulder, looking at the brown coastline beneath the skyline afar through the porthole.

  Suddenly, it noticed its own figure in the reflection of the porthole—its whole body was covered with light grey feathers, and its dark red tail feathers appeared very perky.

  It looked at its body carefully, lowered its head, and used its beak to comb through the disheveled feathers on its chest.

  “Stop it.” Zhang Zian sensed its movement. Half asleep, he opened his eyes, wiped off his saliva, and muttered.

  Richard didn’t bother to care about this man, who was always at the bottom of the food chain of the pet shop.

  It remembered the day when it looked in the mirror for the first time in its life.

  At that time, it hadn’t acquired the intelligence to know that it was a ‘parrot’, nor did it have the concept of how a parrot looked like in its head. When it saw its figure in the mirror for the first time, it thought another creature had intruded its body. It was so scared that it shivered in the corner.

  “Oh, darling, don’t be afraid, it is you.” Wearing her white coat, she was amused by its response and held it tightly in her arms, whispering to it softly.

  “Alex, look, this is you, you are a parrot.”


  With her tender words, it felt like it was not as frightened as before. It was being trained to identify colors, so it asked, “What… color?”


  “Oh! Alex, you always surprise me! This is grey, look, your feathers are grey.”


  “Come on, cutie pie, you’ve got another name—’Grey’!”


  That day was the first time it had looked in the mirror and it had remembered the color grey ever since. This gave it another nickname, “Grey”, that she only addressed it with this when she was about to get angry.

  For example, when it sat on the plane with humans for the first time, it took away her shrimp salad, for it detested the stale fruit salad provided by the flight and declined to eat it. After several attempts at patient yet futile persuasion, she snapped, “Damn it! Grey! You must eat that fruit!”


  It surrendered and finished the fruit salad sheepishly, not because of her angry tone, but because it noticed the worried and anxious looks that she cast on it.

  Although overripe apples give off very disgusting smells, they could supplement the vitamins necessary for its body. After its infection to aspergillus, she was increasingly concerned for its health.

  And Richard was not willing to see her eyes filled with any concern.

  …


  “Liǎng gè huánglí míng cuìliǔ, yì háng báilù shàng qíngtiān—”


  “Two golden orioles sing amid the willows green; A flock of white egrets fly toward the blue sky—”


  “No, no, baby, not qíngtiān, it’s qīngtiān. It’s pronounced in the first tone, not the second tone!”


  In front of Richard’s left side was a family of four. The Chinese mother had been correcting her mixed-race son’s pronunciation numerous times.

  “Mommy, I can recite too.” Her little daughter, who also had the facial features of a mixed-race was very active, “Chūn mián bù jué xiǎo, chùchù wén zí yǎo…?”


  “My God!” the mother, who was the only person with the facial features of a Chinese person, rested her fingers on her forehead, “It’s ‘chùchù wén tí niǎo’ . You are even more impressive than your brother!”


  The Chinese passengers around them burst into kind laughter. Though some foreign passengers didn’t understand what was going on, as joyfulness was contagious, they began to smile too.

  Richard also smiled ear to ear.

  As an Apprehensive Bird, it was familiar with classic Chinese cultures and could recite any popular poem in ancient China. But speaking of how it began to be exposed to the cultured in the first place, it was long time ago…


  That year, she brought it to Tucson, Arizona, a southern city in the United States, and they lived on a farm eight miles from downtown. On many mornings, they would drink coffee and wait for the sunrise on the balcony together…


  When the sun rose above the Lincoln Mountains, she and it would look at the peak of Saint Catalina Mountain basked in the sunshine. Marvelous by the beautiful sunglows in lavender and pink, she would gasp in admiration frequently, “Dear Alex, look, how amazing nature is! You are all blessed by the creator!”


  The insightful Old Time Tea praised the young doctor in the pet clinic for her knowledge of both Chinese and Western cultures. In fact, she was resourceful too. After living on the farm for a while, her native language probably didn’t have enough expressions to let her display her affections to the nature, she began to teach it Chinese idioms and poems such as “yún zhēng xiá wèi” —The rosy clouds are slowly rising— and “qì zhēng yún mèng zé” –Cloud and dream fall into the river.

  At that time, it was not able to comprehend such complicated expressions. What it did was just role imitation. Yet deep inside its heart, it still remembered the two poems that she recited the most— “shān guāng yuè niǎo xìng” –Mountain scene pleases the birds– and “yè dǐ huáng lí yī liǎng shēng” –Orioles are chirping around the leaves and branches.

  It didn’t understand the meanings of these poems until it had become an elfin. And it was aware that how difficult it was for a foreigner like her to comprehend the classic literature of China. She often said that it was the pride of her life, and in fact, Richard was very proud of her.

  She meant the whole world to it.

  “X-art…brazzers…kink…digital sin… private…wicked…hey hey, foreign girls…I came, I saw, I conquered…” muttered Zhang Zian with a weird and disgusting smile on his face, it seemed like he was having some kind of happy dream.

  Richard came to itself from its reminiscencing and shuddered!

  Why was this idiot speaking English so fluently right now?!

  Luckily, he wasn’t talking loudly. If other passengers had heard him, they would probably call the police right away!

  It disdainfully stared at Zhang Zian, whose saliva was drooping beside his mouth, and tried very hard with its wings to pull up the blanket that was slipping down his body.

  This idiot thought that he was lucky to run into it at the class of a Chinese professor randomly.

  Actually, it was attracted by the lecture.

  Though the old Professor Chen made students want to sleep when teaching modern Chinese, he had lectured the Ancient Chinese Literature vividly. In the previous session before Zhang Zian went in, he was introducing the poem collections of Nalan Rongruo, a famous Ci poet in Qing Dynasty.

  “We played riddles and enjoyed the aroma of spilled tea; At the time I thought such happiness came so naturally…yet those happinesses cannot be repeated anymore…”


  It was stunned hearing the poem.

  “Love” was a complicated word for it in its previous life. But on the night before it died, it somehow had grasped the meaning of it, and when saying goodbye to her, it said, “I love you.”


  Even when turning into an elfin, “love” was still an unfathomable feeling for it. What puzzled it was that, although the sky’s the limit for an elfin, it still felt empty in a part deep inside its heart. Whenever it thought of her, it would be immersed in pain. They spent thirty years together. She taught it lessons, it accompanied her, and she would lose her temper at it if she was angry…a sharp-eyed journalist from The Times once reported that Doctor and it were living together just like a couple.

  Although it could understand the poetry meanings of the expressions praising the harmonious and happy married life now, that life was buried in the past and could never be repeated again.

  “If you love her, you should keep her company, but you should also let her go.” It was aware what it should do, but couldn’t figure out the reason of its painful feeling…the poems in the class enlightened it. Because it could never stay by her again, it blamed itself for not being able to remember every detail in the thirty years they were together, and for not treasuring the happiness better.

  “We played riddles and enjoyed the aroma of spilled tea; At the time I thought such happiness came so naturally…”


  Gazing at the coast in the far distance, its eyes became blurred gradually. Among the clouds, it seemed that her tender face had appeared. Although her face was full of wrinkles, in its eyes, she was still the young lady with charming smile thirty years ago.

  The furthest distance in the world is not between life and death. It’s that when I stand in front of you, you don’t know that I love you.

  The furthest distance in the world is not that you don’t know that I love you, but when I am missing you so much, I can only conceal my feelings inside my heart.

  …


  “Attention, passengers. This is your captain speaking. We will be arriving at our destination, Los Angeles International Airport, in approximately 20 minutes. The local time is 11:00 a.m., the temperature is 9 degrees Celsius and it’s breezy and raining lightly outside. For those passengers looking forward to the sunshine in California, you might be disappointed. The runway is slippery, please fasten your seatbelts for the landing. Thank you for choosing us for your flight, we hope your mood. won’t be influenced by the bad weather. Thank you!”


  The English announcement woke Zhang Zian from his dream. Noticing that Richard seemed to be absent-minded, he decided to make fun of it.

  “Richard, what are you looking at? What’s up there? Are you looking for a bird, like this one we are flying in?” he curled up his fingers, trying to flick it.

  “You moron, it’s just that some sand grains fell into my eyes.” It avoided his attack flexibly, rolled its eyes towards him, and jumped back into its own seat like a gentleman, “Time for landing, fasten your seatbelt. Oh, good news, Los Angeles is raining.”


  Zhang Zian felt that a murderous stare was being cast on him from his left side.