Peking Opera Cat: I Became A Zi's Brother

"..."

Mo Yun was whispering a promise to his sleeping sister. The icy blue light between his eyebrows had not yet completely disappeared when suddenly there was a muffled "bang" sound - the sound did not sound like the light sound of flowing spiritual energy, but more like the crisp sound of the ice shell suddenly cracking on the Arctic ice field.

"Uh……

It was as if something hit his brow hard, and a stream of ice-blue light suddenly shot out and exploded into countless fine ice mists in the air. Before the ice mists could fall to the ground, they condensed into the shape of a dragon in an instant.

"Roar……"

This ice dragon was nearly twice as big as the one that was hovering above the tent. The snow particles on its scales fell off and accumulated on the ground, forming a small patch of fine white. Even its horns were emitting a cold light that was several times more dazzling than before.

"What on earth are you thinking about?"

It was obvious that it rushed out in a hurry. When its tail swept across the roof, it didn't have time to retract its force. The pearl tassels were swept with a "rustling" sound. Several pearls rolled to the ground and bounced to Xiaoqing's feet. She didn't even bother to pick them up - everyone's eyes were attracted by this ice dragon that had suddenly grown bigger.

"Xiao Bing?"

The icy mist at Mo Yun's fingertips trembled violently, and the spiritual energy that was about to condense almost dissipated.

Before he could react to this sudden change, he saw the ice dragon circling anxiously in the air for half a circle. Suddenly, thick ice mist appeared on the dragon's body. The mist was as thick as clouds that could not be melted, and faint sounds like dislocated bones could be heard from it.

But in the blink of an eye, the icy mist suddenly dissipated, and in its place stood a young man in an ice-blue suit. The faint shadow of a dragon horn still lingered between his eyebrows, but now it was slightly red due to his excitement. When he spoke, his voice was still wrapped in the lingering echo of a dragon's roar, shaking the candlelight in the tent:

"Master! What were you thinking about just now? What a foolish idea!"

Mo Yun's fingertips hovered above Mo Zi's Dantian, and her movements paused: "Why did it come out again?"

"If you don't come out now, you'll see what you've done!"

The young man took a step forward, and a thin layer of ice instantly formed on the ground beneath his feet. The ice pattern spread along his footsteps.

"I asked you about the Living Pulse Grass! Did you really believe it? That's totally fake! I've never seen any Living Pulse Grass in the Arctic Icefield!"

The shadow cast by Mo Yun's eyelashes trembled:

"What did you say?"

He remembered it very clearly. The image that the ice dragon had just sent him was extremely clear - in the cracks under the glacier, the grass blades that shone with silver light were as thin as cicada wings, and there seemed to be running water in the veins. When the ice beads on the tips of the grass rolled down, even the refracted light could be seen clearly.

"I made that picture up! I painted it in your head using rhyme!"

The young man raised his hand and scratched his hair anxiously, and the faint shadow of the dragon horn became clearer.

"I've been with you for over a decade, and I've read the books in the library better than anyone else—from the Hundred Herbal Classics to the Ancient Medicinal Records, even the missing page in the Forbidden Section's Strange Herbs Study. I've never seen any mention of Huomai Grass! Just now, while you were talking, I used my rhyme to scan through the ancient books in Madam Molan's hands. There was only the three words 'Huomai Grass' on the yellowed pages, not even a fragment of a picture!"

"hiss……"

He took a deep breath, his voice deepened, with unquestionable certainty:

"This thing truly became extinct three hundred years ago. When the last plant was taken away by the previous sect leader, even the roots were dug up. How could it still exist? I made this up because I was afraid you would get crazy and try other methods, but I didn't expect..."

"what……"

Before he could finish his words, the tent was so quiet that he could hear the soft popping of the candle wick.

The silver stick in Xiaoqing's hand fell onto the tray with a clang. Her eyes, which had just lit up, dimmed in an instant as if splashed with cold water. Her fingertips unconsciously scratched the ink-colored brocade sleeves embroidered for her by Mo Zi, and her fingertips turned white from scratching - the orchid fragrance on it had not yet dissipated, but she now only felt that the fragrance was chilled.

"..."

Molan's fingers holding the ancient book froze, and the yellowed pages trembled slightly between her fingers. She clearly remembered that when she turned to a certain page just now, she seemed to have caught a glimpse of a similar diagram, but her mind was blank at this moment, with only the boy's words "it became extinct three hundred years ago" buzzing in her mind.

"..."

Mo Yun seemed not to hear their movements. He just slowly raised his hand, with his fingertips suspended in the air, and slowly moved it towards his heart.

His movements were very gentle, as if he was afraid of disturbing anyone, but in Xiaobing's eyes, they were even more frightening than the dragon's roar just now.

The young man understood instantly - he saw that when the master's fingertips approached his heart, the fingertips curled slightly, which meant that he was measuring the distance and making a certain decision.

"Master! Why are you touching your heart?"

Xiao Bing rushed forward, and the faint shadow of the dragon horn suddenly became clear, even emitting a faint cold light.

"You don't want to... use your own blood?"

He wanted to hold down Mo Yun's hand, but his fingertips stopped when they touched the other's sleeve - he could feel the skin under the master's sleeve getting slightly hot, which was a sign that the spiritual energy was converging towards the heart meridian.

"Are you crazy?"

The young man's voice suddenly rose, shaking the pearl tassels on the top of the tent.

"Your aura is entwined with your heart meridians, like a vine wrapped around a tree trunk. The blood in your heart is the root of your aura! One puff will damage the foundation, and you won't be able to use strong aura for the next ten years. Three puffs will shorten your lifespan by half, and your aura will slowly decay like worm-eaten wood. If you want to draw enough to reshape your meridians..."

His voice suddenly choked, and the cold light of the dragon's horns was tinged with red.

"Then before Ah Zi gets better, you'll be reduced to a withered skeleton that even the wind can blow down!"

"..."

Mo Yun didn't say anything, just looked down at Mo Zi's face.

The little girl's lips were still pale, and her hands, which had been warmed by him just now, had quietly cooled down again. Even her curled fingers loosened, like a leaf about to fall from a branch.

He remembered that autumn, Mo Zi was chasing butterflies in the yard, and she tripped over the threshold, her knee bleeding a little, but she held his hand and smiled:

"Brother, I'm not afraid of pain, don't frown."

Her hands were warm at that time, and the strength she held on him was like that of a newly grown feathered bird, fresh and strong.

"I only smoke a little."

He suddenly spoke, his voice as soft as falling snow, yet with an irrefutable firmness.

"Just enough to steady her pulse and hold her together until I can come up with another plan."

"What other solution is there?"

Xiao Bing was so anxious that he turned around in a circle. The thin ice under his feet cracked into fine lines.

"You know better than anyone how deeply that decaying aura entangles us! If there were other ways, why would you have thought of using the Heart Blood?"

He rushed to Mo Yun, almost nose to nose.

"Do you think Ah Zi will feel better when she wakes up and knows that you've wasted half your life for her? She'll hug you and cry, and feel that she's a burden to you. Even if she gets better in the future, there'll always be a stone weighing on her heart! This isn't saving her, it's driving a nail into her heart!"

"Yun'er..."

Mo Lan came back to her senses from her shock at this moment. She quickly stepped forward, grabbed Mo Yun's wrist, and pressed her fingertips against the blue mark on his wrist left by forced stimulation - the blue mark was so shallow that it was almost invisible yesterday, but now it seemed to be stained by ink and became a little deeper.

"Xiaobing is right."

Her voice was hoarse, and her knuckles were white from exertion.

"Yun'er, you can't do this. If Ah Zi knew, she would rather die than take your blood."

"..."

Mo Yun lowered her head to look at the wrist she was holding, then turned to look outside the tent - it was almost dawn, and a hint of paleness was already visible outside the window.

When A Zi was three years old

She was wrapped in a thick fox fur coat, but her nose was still red from the cold. However, she held up an ice sculpture of a little rabbit and smiled:

"Brother, does it look like me?"

At that time, he held her hand in his arms to warm it, thinking to himself that he must protect this sister and let her smile like this forever.

"I wasn't going to tell her."

He gently withdrew his hand, and a very light ice-blue halo had condensed on his fingertips. The halo was much brighter and purer than the ice rhyme he had passed on to Mo Zi before. It was drawn from the deepest part of his spiritual aura.

The halo was slowly moving towards his heart, and he could even feel his heart skip a beat - that was a warning that his heart veins were being touched, like the tremor before the ice breaks.

"Owner!"

There was a hint of tears in Xiao Bing's voice, and the dragon horns were completely exposed, with the cold light on them wrapped in water vapor.

"Wake up! Heart blood is something that decreases as it's consumed, just like the sand in an hourglass. Once it's gone, it's gone. How can you replenish it? Do you think it's just ordinary spiritual energy that can be replenished by meditating for a few days?"

“…”

Mo Yun ignored him and just stared at Mo Zi's eyelashes.

The eyelashes were very long, like two small fans, but at this moment they were trembling slightly because of anxiety. Even the tears in the corners of the eyes had not dried yet, like butterfly wings covered with morning dew.

The ice-blue halo at his fingertips was getting closer and closer to his chest, and the edge of the halo had already touched the lapels of his clothes. A thin layer of frost instantly formed on the fabric there - this was a sign that the blood in his heart was about to leave his body, and even the air became a little colder.

"..."

Just when the halo was about to penetrate the collar, Mo Zi's fingers suddenly moved.

The movement was extremely light, like a blade of grass swaying in the wind, but it accurately grasped his wrist that was hanging in the air.

Her force was still very light, as light as a feather falling on it, but Mo Yun's movements were like being cast under a spell of immobilization, and stopped instantly.

He looked down and saw Mo Zi still had her eyes closed, but her brows were tightly furrowed, as if she had encountered something frightening in her dream.

Her lips moved, but no sound came out. However, the amplitude of the movement became larger and larger. Finally, she almost exhausted all her strength and squeezed out a few breaths from her throat, so soft that only Mo Yun, who was closest to her, could hear it:

“Brother…don’t…”

The voice was as thin as a thread about to break, but it was like a thunderclap that exploded in Mo Yun's heart.

He looked at his sister's pale face and the fingers that were gripping his wrist - her fingers were slightly white due to the force, and even her knuckles were shaking slightly, but she refused to let go.

The ice-blue halo on the fingertips slowly dissipated at this time, like mist blown away by the wind.

Mo Yun suddenly stretched out his other hand and gently placed it on Mo Zi's hand that was holding his. The warmth from his palm seeped in little by little, as warm as the sunshine in spring.

"it is good."

He whispered to his sleeping sister, the firmness in his voice was still there, but with a touch of softness.

"I won't smoke anymore. I'll stay with you. Let's slowly figure out a solution."

Xiao Bing stood nearby, watching the halo on his master's fingertips completely dissipate, and the warmth slowly rising from his palm as it covered Ah Zi's hand. He suddenly raised his hand to wipe his face—the moisture that had just rushed out condensed into small ice particles on his fingertips, but he grinned, and a hint of relief finally revealed itself in the cold light of his dragon horn:

"This is right..."

The sky outside the tent was getting brighter and brighter, and the lotus pattern embroidered on the ceiling could be clearly seen.

Mo Yun could feel the fingers under his palm slowly loosening a little, but still not letting go completely, like a little bird that had found support and refused to let go of its claws even in a dream.

He suddenly felt that perhaps what Xiao Bing said was right. He didn't have to use his heart's blood. As long as he stayed here and used the warmth of his palms to warm her up little by little, one day, he would be able to melt the decayed energy in his sister's meridians, and let her hold his hand again and say with a smile,

"Brother, I'm not afraid."

Thinking of this, he lowered his head and gently touched the back of Mo Zi's hand, as if making a new promise.