"Baby Po," Xiulan said, holding an empty bowl with extreme seriousness. "I believe... my soup has disappeared."
The white wolf, currently lounging in his human form with his face planted on a cold stone slab (his favorite pillow), gave a noncommittal grunt. "Did you drink it?"
"No," Xiulan said, offended. "I do not drink soup that glows like moonlight and whispers poetry to my vegetables." I felt illiterate, no understanding.
Uncle Hei sighed, "…You put runes in it again, didn't you?"
"Just a few! On the carrots! It was an artistic experiment."
"…Xiulan."
"Yes?"
"Carrots shouldn't hum in soup."
"Tell that to the harmony of the elements."
The soup had, in theory, been a simple one.
Boiled spirit vegetables, some moonleaf greens, a slice of sunroot, and three carrots which Xiulan had playfully drawn cultivation-enhancing runes on—for aesthetic purposes only, of course.
He wanted a healing broth with a dash of artistic flair.
Instead, what he got was:
A bowl that glowed faintly in seven colors, A scent so warm that squirrels started meditating in circles around it, And now… an empty pot and no soup. The soup had nothing in it to evaporate it.
Which was suspicious. Very suspicious.
Xiulan narrowed his eyes and put on his Detective Mode Face, which mostly just looked like his normal face but with one eyebrow arched higher than Uncle Hei's temper. That eyebrow even made him look twitchy.
"Baby Po, did you see anyone pass by the soup?"
"Aside from me, no. But the wind whispered about footsteps from the sect camp."
"Could it be... theft?"
"Could it be... curiosity?"
"Could it be… a hungry cultivator?"
A sudden chirp echoed from the treetops.
They both looked up.
A moment later, a human-shaped figure stumbled out of the bushes, staggering and wobbling like someone who had never figured out how knees worked.
And then—
"MUMMAAA!!!"
Xiulan froze.
The young cultivator—an outer disciple with a scroll strapped to his back—was flapping his arms like broken wings and running toward him. His eyes were wide, sparkly, and full of strange chick-like innocence.
"MUMMA FEED! MUMMA WARM!"
Xiulan blinked. "Excuse me?"
The cultivator latched onto him, chirping happily. The cultivator was tall enough to pick Xiulan in his arms yet he stuck to Xiulan… propping in his little arms.
Xiulan turned to Baby Po, deadpan. "Okay. I think my soup worked too well."
It did not take long to piece the mystery together.
Apparently, the young disciple had smelled the divine soup and—thinking it was a natural gift from the forest—drank the whole pot.
A very bad idea.
Didn't his parents tell him to not touch food outside?
Because those carrots were not just rune-enhanced, they were personality-imprint runes.
Xiulan had been experimenting with spiritual affinity cultivation—meaning the soup did not just nourish—it imprinted.
And the closest living being when the soup's effects activated?
Xiulan.
Now they had a chick-human cultivator hybrid imprinting on Xiulan as his mother, mimicking behavior of a newborn chick, including:
Trying to eat pebbles.Trying to sit in a nest made of moss and someone's sleeve.Refusing to eat unless pre-chewed (which Xiulan absolutely refused).Chirping aggressively at Baby Po, Uncle Hei, and a nearby toad.Trying to sleep with Xiulan, almost flattening him in the process.
Uncle Hei arrived late to the scene and, upon seeing the disciple curled around Xiulan's legs chirping, stared for a good five seconds before declaring:
"Throw the whole soup away next time."
"But it was tasty!" Chick-boy chirped proudly. "Mama made spiritual food!"
Xiulan groaned into his sleeve. "Can we at least un-chick him?"
Baby Po scratched his jaw thoughtfully. "Might fade after a few days. Depends on how strong the imprint was."
Xiulan looked down at the boy now pecking softly at his sleeve like it might be corn.
"…It was the strongest soup I've ever made. It even had a bit of green fog."
"…So, a week?"
"…A month or two, maybe."
Uncle Hei sighed and walked away muttering about "never letting the squirrel girl near the seasoning rack again."
And so began the era of Xiulan: Accidental Mother of a Human-Chick.
The disciple (whose name was apparently Shou Yi, but insisted on being called 'Chickie' now) followed Xiulan everywhere, tripped over his own robes, and started nesting in a basket full of turnips.
The sect tried to reverse the effects.
Three elders meditated around him.
One even tried a cleansing formation.
It only made the boy fluffier. He even forgot what he wanted to eat after that.
"Mum-maaaa~ I want the sparkly radish!"
"…Fine," Xiulan sighed. "But only half."
In that evening's Leaf Diary, the entry read:
"Today I became a mother. Accidentally. I don't know if I should be proud, concerned, or legally worried. Also: Never put runes on carrots again without Baby Po's supervision."
At the bottom was a crude drawing of a chick with wild human hair hugging a giant carrot.
And Xiulan, sighing next to it.
Chickie—the outer disciple who now believed himself a feathered beast born of soup and destiny—refused to leave.
Despite Baby Po's polite suggestions.
Despite Uncle Hei's death-stare.
Despite Duoduo the parrot's repeated screeches of "HE'S NOT ONE OF US! HE DOESN'T EVEN MATE BY SINGING!"
The young man simply nested deeper into his moss basket and pecked affectionately at Xiulan's sleeve every time he walked by.
"It's been three days," Xiulan mumbled as he attempted to draw a new rune using wet bark and charcoal. "He followed me into the bathing pond yesterday and tried to preen me with a comb made of twigs."
Baby Po rubbed his temples. "Lan-lan, you created an imprint beast. With soup."
"It was an artistic experiment."
"It was a psychological disaster with root vegetables."
Chickie chirped from the side, clutching a carrot like it was his emotional support talisman.
He had also—at some point—woven spirit grass into a necklace for Xiulan.
Xiulan wore it. Out of guilt. (And maybe because it smelled like lavender.)
"Shouldn't we take him back to his people?" Xiulan asked.
Uncle Hei's voice came from above, perched casually in his half-beast form on a tree branch. "We tried. He bit the messenger bird who came to retrieve him."
"He said the bird 'challenged his nest rights,'" Baby Po added flatly.
That night, Chickie tried to share a den with Xiulan. The den was made of mushroom umbrellas, flower petals, and two very confused baby squirrels.
Xiulan woke up halfway to suffocation and declared, "We're building him a separate nest."
They did.
It had firefly lights. Chickie still tried to sneak back into Xiulan's nest every second night, chirping about nightmares involving carrots that judged him.
By the end of the first week:
Chickie had learned basic Beast Tongue (Duoduo was livid),
He began trading shiny rocks to other creatures for bits of "Mother Xiulan's" cooking (a thriving economy built on root vegetables),
He was officially adopted by Elder Redcheeks the squirrel as a nephew, due to his excellent tree-jumping form,
And one of the twin monkeys, Bo, insisted on teaching him how to "pee from trees like a real beast."
Xiulan was… resigned.
"He's sweet," he muttered in his Leaf Diary, chewing on a roasted bamboo sprout. "But also terrifying. Like a duckling with teeth."
That night's entry also included:
"Today Chickie helped me hum to the spinach patch. I think they sprouted faster. He also offered to guard them from 'hungry snakes.' Said he would 'chirp to death' anyone who tried."
Meanwhile, Uncle Hei tried to perform a spiritual cleansing on Chickie to break the soup imprint.
Chickie giggled through the whole thing, nibbled the cleansing incense, and sneezed glowing pollen.
The ritual was discontinued.
Eventually, the imprint did fade—very, very slowly.
Chickie remembered who he was, where he was from, and that soup is not a sentient bonding agent.
Still, every time he visited the forest afterward, he'd find Xiulan, bow deeply, and chirp once in respect.
"Mother."
"Stop calling me that."
"…Honored Nourishing One?"
"Better."
In the corner of Xiulan's Leaf Diary from that month was a doodle:
A wild-haired chick-man in a nest, Xiulan standing over him with a glowing carrot like a staff, and Baby Po in the background holding a frying pan labeled "NEVER AGAIN"