Peking Opera Cat: I Became A Zi's Brother

……

Bai Tang's body, squatting on the ground, trembled even more violently. The chaotic air leaking from between his fingers was like a frightened snake, leaving tiny ice marks on the blue bricks.

He closed his eyes tightly, and the frost on his eyelashes was wet by the cold sweat oozing from his forehead, and quickly froze into finer ice chips.

"Stop pretending……"

He squeezed out a few words from between his teeth, his voice was hoarse and broken.

"I didn't... I didn't care about anyone..."

Before he could finish his words, his sleeve was suddenly tugged lightly.

The force was very light, like a feather brushing past, but it made his whole body stiffen - it was Xiaoqing.

"..."

She hadn't known when she had reached the side of the ice wall, holding a piece of partially frozen osmanthus cake in her fingertips. It was left over from a few days ago, and a thin layer of ice had formed on the edge of the oil paper.

"You said yesterday that the sweetness was just right."

Xiaoqing's voice was filled with tears, but she was very steady.

"If you really didn't want to see us, you wouldn't have put away the hairband I left here with you—it's under your pillow, as I saw when I came in."

"!"

Bai Tang's shoulders trembled violently.

The surging momentum of the chaotic energy suddenly became disrupted, and a hint of unstable white appeared in the blue-gray fog.

Mo Yun took the opportunity to take half a step forward. The icy energy condensed into a fine needle in his palm. Instead of stabbing Bai Tang, it accurately pierced the pool of broken glass at his feet. The ice needle exploded the moment it hit the ground. Fine ice mist wrapped around the fragments floated up and gently landed on the corner of the wall.

"When you squatted down just now, your foot moved half an inch to the left."

Mo Yun's voice was softer than before, but it was filled with unquestionable certainty.

"You knocked off a corner of the floor tile over there last week, and you're worried it might get rubbed against your wound."

"..."

Bai Tang suddenly raised his head, and the blue-green color in the whites of his eyes faded a little, revealing the red edges underneath.

"..."

He stared at the osmanthus cake in Xiaoqing's hand, then glanced at the crumbs in the corner. Suddenly, he scratched his hair in annoyance. The chaotic energy exploded with his movement, making the empty medicine bowl on the table clang.

"I'm sick!"

He roared, the ice in his voice lessened, the young man's impatience emerged.

"I told you to leave me alone—just go!"

After roaring, he didn't say anything more harsh. He just stiffened his neck and turned his face away. The tuft of hair on the tip of his ear, which was dyed gray by chaos, trembled.

Mo Yun saw his clenched fingers quietly loosen a little, and he stopped forcing the chaotic energy onto the back of his hand.

Xiaoqing suddenly stuffed the osmanthus cake into his arms, turned around and ran away:

"I'll go give you some hot medicine! This time, use less ginger. You said it was spicy last time!"

……

The warmth from the oil paper seeped through the cloth, and Bai Tang's hands were stiff and he didn't dare move.

Mo Yun squatted down beside him without saying a word, but a warm light condensed from her fingertips, gently gathering the chaotic energy running around his wrist - like holding a ball of sparks that were afraid of breaking.

"!"

As Bai Tang's fingertips touched the lines on the oil paper of the osmanthus cake, the back of his neck suddenly felt like it was pierced by an icicle - it was not the dull pain of frozen skin, but a chill that crawled up along his spine, as if countless ice threads were drilling into the top of his head.

The osmanthus cake in his arms fell to the ground with a "bang", and the oil paper was frozen to the point of being brittle and cracked into several small cracks.

The fingertips that had been trembling slightly just now suddenly clenched tightly, and the knuckles turned white. However, the chaotic energy suddenly changed its nature at this moment - it no longer rushed around like before, but instead flowed along the blood vessels to the temples. The blue-gray lines on his forehead jumped, as if there was a living thing moving under his skin.

-

"Stop lying to yourself."

A voice I had never heard before suddenly exploded in my consciousness.

It wasn't the chaotic hissing he was familiar with, nor was it the voice of any cat. It was as rough as a thousand-year-old frozen soil being pried open by an iron bar, and every word was covered with ice chips:

"You can't protect anyone—even your fingertips are almost frozen into lumps of ice, and you're still clutching a piece of broken cake? They're telling you this now because they're afraid you'll go completely crazy, afraid you'll become one of those biting monsters in the Misty Valley."

He opened his mouth to retort, but his throat was like a frozen river, and he could only make hoarse sounds.

Mo Yun's profile with an icy glow and Xiao Qing's red knuckles as she clutched her cloak suddenly seemed to be covered with a layer of frosted glass, and the blur was permeated with a bluish-gray mist.

"Do you think they really believe you can get better?"

That voice came in again, sticking to my consciousness and I couldn't get rid of it.

"Look, you can hardly control your hands now. You almost crushed the oil paper when you tried to grab the osmanthus cake. They were already scared in their hearts, but they just didn't say it out loud."

The chaotic lines on his forehead suddenly lit up with a cold light, like a red-hot iron wire being doused with ice water.

"Shut up……"

Bai Tang slowly stood up straight. His back, which had been slightly hunched when he squatted just now, was now straight. Even his fingers hanging at his sides were stretched out. The ice on his fingertips dragged tiny scratches on the blue bricks.

He glanced down at the osmanthus cake on the ground. The cake under the oil paper had frozen into a hard block, and the edge was still stained with ice particles from when it fell.

The corner of his mouth curled up into that one-sided smile again, but this time even the spark of struggle in his eyes was extinguished, leaving only the coldness and silence like the surface of a frozen lake.

"Tsk, it's dirty."

When he spoke, the last bit of youthful clarity in his voice was completely worn away, and it was as hoarse as a rusty piece of iron scraping across frozen soil.

He raised his foot and stepped on the cake. Just as the tip of his shoe was about to touch the oil paper, chaotic energy wrapped around his ankle and condensed into half-inch long ice spikes at the bottom of his trousers, obviously wanting to crush the ice on the ground together.

"Sugar!"

Xiaoqing's scream had just burst out of her throat when she was nailed to the spot by the gaze he raised.

The redness in those eyes was gone, and the blue-green color filled the entire eye socket like ink. Even the pupils had shrunk into blue-gray dots, shining like two pieces of broken jade just fished out of an ice cellar.

The panic he felt when Mo Yun told him to "avoid the debris" and the slight trembling when Xiao Qing mentioned the "hairband" were all crushed into powder by the chaos.

The ice silk in Mo Yun's palm instantly stretched into a net, but stopped the moment she saw his eyes clearly - there was no longer any emotion belonging to Bai Tang in them, only the unique hostility of the original chaos, which was indifferent to everything.

"Hehehe..."

The laughter rolled out of Bai Tang's throat, carrying the unique vibration of chaotic energy, and hit the ice wall and shattered into pieces, like countless small ice beads falling into an empty porcelain bowl.

"Oh, it feels so good~"

He stepped on the osmanthus cake and rubbed it slowly. The ice spikes made a harsh sound as they scratched the green bricks. He didn't look up at Mo Yun until the oil paper was completely rotten in the ice.

"Mo Yun, Mo Yun,"

He dragged out the tune, and the chaotic energy at his fingertips condensed into a thin chain, circling between his fingers.

"See? You spent so much effort saying all that nonsense, but what's the use? This kid is as soft as a piece of rice cake that hasn't been frozen thoroughly. The slightest squeeze will make his true feelings leak out - and now look, he's in my hand, he doesn't even have the strength to struggle."

The ice wall around Mo Yun cracked with a crack. He stared at the smile on Bai Tang's face that didn't belong to him, and the ice silk on his fingertips tightened even more:

"You only suppressed his consciousness temporarily. If Bai Tang didn't want to leave any room for maneuver, he wouldn't have subconsciously moved half an inch towards me when you were talking just now."

"Half an inch off?"

"Bai Tang" sneered, and suddenly raised his hand, and the Chaos Chain "slapped" on the ice wall, making the crack wider.

"That's because I made him lean to the side. Let me show you, now he has to listen to me even when it comes to which hand he raises and which way he walks. Look."

He suddenly raised his chin towards Xiaoqing, and the chaotic energy flew over along with the movement, brushing against Xiaoqing's hair and landing on the door frame, instantly freezing into a thick layer of ice.

"If I wanted to hurt her, I wouldn't have just been rubbing her hair."

Xiaoqing gripped her cloak tighter, but didn't step back.

She saw that when "Bai Tang" said this, his Adam's apple rolled very slightly - that was a small movement that Bai Tang would make when he was nervous.

"You're afraid."

Mo Yun suddenly spoke, and new ice silk seeped out from the cracks in the ice wall, becoming even more entangled.

"You're afraid that we're staring at him all the time, and that he might break free at any moment. Otherwise, you wouldn't be talking so much nonsense and would have just taken action a long time ago."

"Do it?"

"Bai Tang" suddenly took two steps forward. The chaotic energy condensed into ice flowers at his feet, and a piece of ice flowers exploded with each step.

"I'd crush you to death right now, just like I crushed that piece of cake—but I won't. I want you to watch, watch the 'companion' you want to protect, turn into the chaos you hate so much; watch him smash your precious sister's medicine bowl with his own hands, and break the ice spikes in your body one by one..."

As he spoke, he suddenly raised his hand and pointed at the bowl of medicine on the table that was not hit by the smashed object - that was the tranquilizer left by Mo Zi, which Bai Tang had deliberately avoided when he smashed the glass cup just now.

The chaotic energy coiled around like a snake, about to wrap up the medicine bowl.

"you dare!"

Mo Yun's ice silk rushed over in an instant and condensed into an ice cover outside the medicine bowl.

Ice and chaos collided with each other, making a "sizzling" sound. The moment white mist rose, "Bai Tang"'s wrist suddenly paused, and his knuckles turned an unnatural white.

"Oh, still struggling?"

He looked down at his hands and suddenly laughed even harder.

"It's no use—from now on, he is me and I am him."

……

……

……

(I give up! I’m looking for a shift worker, and I’ve been working the night shift every day these days…)