Chapter Text
It was a moonless night in the Greater Khingan mountain range. As work is over, Ye Wenjie is walking through the forest surrounding the mountains to take her mind off the trauma she experienced over the past few years.
While exploring the forest, Ye Wenjie has to be careful not to get too close to Radar Peak, or else the guards will shoot at her. Radar Peak has always been a location of interest for those working for the Inner Mongolia Production and Construction Corps. Atop of Radar Peak is a mysterious building with a large antenna, sometimes extended, and sometimes retracted. Whenever the antenna was extended, weird phenomena would occur, which further attracted their interest.
Suddenly, a creature caught Ye Wenjie’s eye. It was a birdlike creature of considerable size, covered with red and white patterns. It seems to be badly injured, with patches of blood all over its feathers. Ye Wenjie does not know what species it is, but nevertheless, she ran back to base camp to retrieve medical supplies.
Twenty minutes later, Ye Wenjie is back in front of the creature with a first aid kit. She put on a pair of latex gloves and began to inspect the creature’s wounds. The moment her hand came in contact with the creature, its eyes jolted open, staring at Ye Wenjie. She immediately backed off, knowing that a bird of such size could easily injure or even kill a human. The creature looked at Ye Wenjie for a while, before closing its eyes. She once again approached the creature and began inspecting its wounds, but this time it did not reopen its eyes.
Next, Ye Wenjie took out some gauze, soaked it in iodine, and began to disinfect the creature’s wounds. The creature howled in pain, but it did not attempt to escape or attack. It just laid there, as if it was too injured to fight back, or it knew Ye Wenjie meant no harm. Ye Wenjie then wrapped the wounds with gauze and medical tape, before heading back to base camp. After all, it is getting really late.
“Stay here and rest,” Ye Wenjie said to the creature, “I’ll be back with food and water tomorrow.” She knows that the creature probably couldn’t understand her, but she said it anyway like an owner would say to their pet.
The next morning, Ye Wenjie slipped her breakfast into a plastic bag and headed out for the woods. The creature was still lying on the ground in the same place as she found it yesterday, and it appeared to be deep asleep.
“Hey, I brought some food and water,” Ye Wenjie set her breakfast in front of the creature and gently nudged it. It slowly opened its eyes and took another look at Ye Wenjie before taking a bite out of the bread. She watched as the creature slowly ate the food and drank the water Ye Wenjie had brought it.
Have you eaten yet? Ye Wenjie heard a voice speak to her. It did not appear to originate from any particular direction, rather, it appeared to come from all directions at once. Afraid that her superiors had found her, she quickly turned her head around and prepared for the worst. But nobody’s there.
Don’t worry, it’s just me, the voice continued. Ye Wenjie was confused. There was only Ye Wenjie and the creature in the area, and surely the creature couldn’t speak Chinese.
Thank you for saving my life, by the way.
Ye Wenjie was shocked. From her knowledge, even the most intelligent species on Earth (excluding humans) do not use language in the way a human would, much less speak a human language. Either this creature is an undiscovered species, or it is… Ye Wenjie scoffed at that idea. There’s no way that she just met an extraterrestrial lifeform.
“You’re welcome,” Ye Wenjie replied to the creature, “It is the right thing to do.”
Your kind seems to be very compassionate.
“Thank you for the compliment, but unfortunately that’s not true. There aren’t many good people out there in this world.”
The creature slowly got up, hovering in the air in a way Ye Wenjie had never seen in a terrestrial animal. In a flash of light, it transformed into a young woman with medium-length brown hair. Immediately, a surprised expression formed on Ye Wenjie’s face.
I don’t think it would be safe for me to show my true form, so I just put on a disguise, the creature explained, It’s not magic, I’m just refracting light.
Ye Wenjie is still at a loss of words.
Where do you live?
“I live around here, working for the Inner Mongolia Production and Construction Corps. I’m sure they would let you join us if you need a place to stay.”
That’ll be great.
“By the way, my name is Ye Wenjie. Who are you?”
My name is Latias.