Chapter 939: Brother Tian

“Little Brother, Big Sister will cook. Sit over there and rest for a while. Just wait to eat.”

Big Girl rolled up her sleeves, looking very practiced.

Zheng Lin opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end he swallowed it and sat down nearby.

What he had shouted earlier had been perfectly clear: egg fried rice.

You managed to “grow” an enormous iron wok.

You even managed to “grow” an old hen tied up beside it.

So why couldn’t you simply “grow” a plate of egg fried rice?

But looking at the elder sister before him, barely six even by traditional counting, Zheng Lin truly did not have the heart to shatter her beautiful fantasy.

Big Girl washed the rice.

Big Girl used Longyuan to light the fire again.

Big Girl poured in water.

Big Girl began cooking the rice.

Big Girl cooked an entire pot... of porridge.

“Um...”

Feeling guilty, Big Girl stole a glance from the corner of her eye at the younger brother sitting behind her.

Zheng Lin did his best not to let his gaze drift toward the pot.

If Father were here, he would probably say very particular things about how egg fried rice ought to be made with cold rice left overnight.

The problem was...

Zheng Lin felt that if he imitated Father’s manner and began critiquing things now, it would be far too cruel.

Even though the rice his sister had cooked...

No.

The porridge his sister had cooked had so much water in it that a pair of chopsticks could not possibly stand upright. Under the laws of Great Yan, even government relief gruel for refugees was not allowed to be this thin.

Big Girl began adding seasonings to the pot.

Then she cracked in eggs.

And... stirred.

Bubble, bubble...

The aroma quickly spread.

Then Big Girl turned her gaze toward the old hen tied nearby.

Since she had already added too much water, she was considering whether she should slaughter it and simply turn the whole thing into shredded-chicken porridge.

In the end, however, Big Girl abandoned that idea.

Because she was already hungry.

“Little Brother, come eat. Big Sister guessed that after all this travel by boat and carriage, your stomach probably isn’t used to things anymore. Porridge is good for the stomach.”

“Yes, Big Sister.”

Zheng Lin accepted the bowl of porridge and began eating.

It certainly was nowhere near as fragrant as egg fried rice.

But if you asked whether it was truly awful, it really was not. At the end of the day, it was cooked food, carrying the plain honest taste of ingredients that had at least been prepared properly. Whatever else one might say, it was still much better than the roasted fish from the night before, whose guts had not even been cleaned out.

But as he ate...

Zheng Lin’s gaze began drifting repeatedly toward the darkness around them.

If nothing unexpected had happened, Father should currently be sitting somewhere nearby, watching his son and daughter eat food that could only be described as “cooked” while he himself slowly enjoyed some exquisitely prepared meal.

That... was absolutely something Father would do.

He had always enjoyed building his own happiness on other people’s suffering.

And the more he savored it, the sweeter it became.

Even when... the victims were his own children.

Once both children had eaten and drunk their fill again, Big Girl asked:

“Little Brother, let’s go home. Big Sister knows you must miss the big bed at home, the three meals every day, the bathing pool, and Mother’s warm room.”

“Okay.”

Zheng Lin did not bother reminding his sister that in the entire rear residence of Prince Pingxi Residence, only her courtyard and her mother’s had warm rooms.

“Then how do we go back?” Big Girl asked.

Zheng Lin answered:

“Follow this river south. Find Uncle Gou’s people. Then have Uncle Gou send a ship to take us home.”

“Ah? We still have to go to Uncle Gou?”

Big Girl was a little reluctant.

Running away from home sounded like a very impressive thing.

If they ended up having to ask their own family to send them home again, that felt a little embarrassing.

“Little Brother, we could find another cargo ship like we did on the way here and ride it back.”

“But if Uncle Gou sends people to take us home, we’ll have a proper bed and good food and drinks along the way. We won’t need to hide inside a cargo hold again.”

Big Girl shook her head.

“Those things don’t really matter.”

A moment later... she added:

“The main thing is, I miss Uncle Gou too.”

The two children set off.

Big Girl carried Longyuan on her back and led the old hen by a cord.

Zheng Lin carried the enormous iron wok on his back.

Leaving the waterways and taking the mountain paths was genuinely difficult. The terrain was rugged, and by the time dusk approached, the two of them found a small cave.

“We’ll spend the night here.”

Big Girl sat down beside the cave entrance and hugged the old hen.

“Pat, pat. You’re tired too, aren’t you? You’ve worked so hard. Poor thing.”

Zheng Lin set down the iron wok and rubbed his wrists.

“Big Sister, sit here for a while. I’ll go find some ingredients.”

“No need. Let’s cook this one.”

Big Girl lifted the hen.

“It walked so much today. When I think about how it would have to keep walking with us tomorrow too, I feel so sorry for it.”

Not long afterward... bubble, bubble...

Chicken soup boiled in the pot.

A rich aroma drifted through the surrounding woods.

Perhaps the smell was simply too wonderful.

Because while they were eating...

Longyuan, lying beside Big Girl with chicken blood still staining its blade, suddenly began trembling and humming.

A famous sword possessed a spirit.

It could sense fortune and disaster.

Zheng Lin, who had been crouching as he ate, slowly stood.

Seeing her little brother rise, Big Girl remained seated and continued drinking her soup.

Not far away, three pairs of eyes glowing green shifted faintly inside the brush.

Then... three leopards slowly emerged.

The Mount Meng region was crisscrossed by mountains.

It did not possess the majestic scale of the Tianduan Mountains, but it still formed an isolated wilderness of its own.

Only in recent years, with Fan City’s development, had contact between this area and the Jin lands become much closer.

Before that, aside from smuggling caravans and bandits living in mountain strongholds, there had been almost no other human presence here.

“Oh. Three big kitties.”

Big Girl looked at the three leopards and smiled.

As a child raised inside a princely Residence, she genuinely was not afraid of wild leopards.

After all, her own mother always kept a huge green python nearby.

When Big Girl had been younger, especially during summer, she loved sleeping atop the python during the afternoon.

It was wonderfully cool.

There were other demon beasts inside the Residence as well, many of them highly intelligent.

And above all... her father’s mount was a genuine Pixiu, kept right inside the rear residence.

Father had taken her riding on it plenty of times.

Zheng Lin gently twisted his neck.

Unfortunately, when Dad Li made that motion, a whole chain of crisp cracks would sound.

Zheng Lin could not manage that.

As the three leopards approached... a faint black halo began appearing inside Zheng Lin’s eyes.

“Big Sister, we have tomorrow’s food too.”

A five-year-old boy pointed toward three adult leopards and said this to a six-year-old girl.

Big Girl answered:

“Great! There are three. Tomorrow we can each ride one, then eat the other. Perfect.”

The three leopards had been drawn over by the smell of chicken.

Once they arrived, they discovered two small children as well.

They were not demon beasts.

But as wild predators, they still possessed hunting instincts.

Clearly... they too were very satisfied with tonight’s prey.

“ROAR!”

The leopard in the center released a roar.

In the next instant, the two beside it charged straight toward Zheng Lin.

Zheng Lin moved first.

He advanced toward one of the pouncing leopards, drove a fist into its lower jaw, then followed with a kick.

A dull impact sounded.

The leopard was sent flying.

The second leopard had no time to understand what had happened to its companion.

Driven entirely by hunting instinct, it continued forward, pounced onto Zheng Lin from behind, and pinned his shoulders with both forepaws.

Then it opened its jaws and bit directly toward his head.

The red mole between Zheng Lin’s brows began trembling.

Its glow dimmed noticeably.

At the same time, the black halo inside Zheng Lin’s eyes suddenly deepened.

“ROAR!”

The boy released a roar of his own.

His entire body surged upright.

With one violent overturn, the leopard found itself pinned beneath him instead.

The leopard froze.

Zheng Lin opened his mouth.

Unlike Dad Liang and Dad Ming, no fangs grew from his gums.

He possessed only two neat rows of tiny white teeth.

Yet he still opened his jaws with savage madness and bit directly into the leopard’s throat.

Those tiny white teeth were like sharpened steel knives.

Blood sprayed instantly.

The leopard shrieked in agony.

In that instant... it seemed the leopard itself had become the helpless child.

And the thing crouched atop it... was the true beast.

Rip!

Zheng Lin raised his head.

A strip of hide and flesh tore free between his teeth.

He spat it aside.

Leopard fur still clung around his mouth.

Yet Zheng Lin looked utterly exhilarated.

He stared at the leopard still struggling beneath him, lowered his head again, and continued tearing into it.

He had lost himself.

Completely immersed.

The first leopard Zheng Lin had kicked away lay sprawled on the ground, clearly suffering badly.

The second was being savaged without mercy.

The leopard that had originally stood in the center simply stared stupidly at the scene before it.

It had been frightened senseless.

As Zheng Lin continued biting with near-madness... a faint purple radiance began flickering across his body.

Nearby...

Big Girl silently set down the bowl of soup she had been drinking.

She tried calling:

“Little Brother?”

Her answer... was another roar from Zheng Lin.

It continued until the leopard beneath him stopped moving entirely.

Prey was most delicious in the moments when it struggled against death.

That was when it became most frantic.

Its body and spirit both gave you an indescribable pleasure.

Once it died... it stopped being interesting.

Zheng Lin slowly stood.

He bared his teeth and looked toward the leopard still standing ahead.

Fortunately... one remained alive.

The leopard finally came back to its senses.

It turned and fled.

Zheng Lin immediately chased after it.

The leopard had four legs.

The Zheng Lin chasing behind it also had four “legs.”

He was running on all fours, exactly like the leopard.

The logic was simple.

Two legs could not outrun four unless one had trained enough afterward.

And Zheng Lin’s most terrifying advantage... was precisely the physique created by his Demon King bloodline.

Years ago, the Blind Man had suggested sealing Zheng Lin immediately after birth for exactly this reason.

If a child could casually accomplish through raw strength what ordinary children—even ordinary adults—could never do, then he would skip directly past the stage of being a child.

He might even skip the stage of being an ordinary human adult.

And yet... personality was shaped in childhood.

Skip that stage, and the child might become a beast.

Right now, Zheng Lin was already showing exactly that condition.

When the seal temporarily loosened its restraint, strength poured into his body.

The intoxicating sensation of being able to do anything overwhelmed rational thought.

Instinct slowly took control.

To put it plainly... a Demon King... was never human to begin with!

The leopard ran.

Ran and ran.

Then turned its head.

And discovered something with four “legs” running beside it, already keeping pace.

The leopard shuddered and tried to accelerate again.

Zheng Lin sprang directly onto its back and bit down at its neck.

“ROAR!”

The leopard screamed.

Its body crashed to the ground.

Driven by momentum, beast and boy tumbled together into the forest ahead.

“Little Brother! Little Brother!”

Big Girl shouted while chasing after them.

At that moment, the leopard Zheng Lin had kicked away earlier suddenly erupted with strength and lunged at her from the side.

Big Girl turned toward it.

For one instant... heart and sword moved as one.

Longyuan appeared in time.

Still smeared with chicken blood, the blade pierced directly through the leopard’s skull.

Clean.

Smooth.

Thud!

The leopard collapsed.

Dead beyond doubt.

Big Girl waved one hand.

Longyuan pulled itself free from the leopard’s head and floated back beside her.

Then... without sparing the corpse so much as a glance, Big Girl kept running into the forest in search of her brother.

The reason she had calmly kept drinking soup earlier was simple.

She had never thought Zheng Lin would have any trouble dealing with three big cats by himself.

The siblings were different from ordinary children.

The greatest advantage of being born spirit children manifested during their earliest years.

They possessed unusual physiques and more mature minds from childhood.

That did not mean they were invincible.

There were still true geniuses who bloomed later.

The Sword Saint was one example.

He possessed no special spirit body, yet by the later stages of cultivation even the Baili Sword could no longer compare with him.

But before someone like the Sword Saint grew into his strength... there were still dangers he needed to avoid.

“Little Brother! Little Brother!”

Big Girl called anxiously.

She had not expected that merely playing with three big kitties would make her brother suffer another episode.

The two siblings had grown up together since infancy.

First Mother did not especially like raising children herself, so although the brother and sister nominally had separate courtyards, in practice they spent most of their time living together.

Sometimes Little Brother would suddenly become like this.

Furious.

Violent.

Smashing things.

At last...

Big Girl stopped.

Ahead...

Zheng Lin emerged from the trees, his body stained with leopard blood.

His gaze was gloomy.

Purple currents still revolved around him.

Longyuan moved in front of Big Girl.

Its point aimed toward Zheng Lin.

It sensed danger and instinctively began protecting its master.

Big Girl immediately slapped the sword aside.

“You go over there.”

Big Girl had never believed her little brother would hurt her.

In truth, even during his previous episodes, Zheng Lin had never once attacked her.

Zheng Lin slowly tilted his neck.

Confusion appeared in his eyes.

He raised both hands.

Lowered them.

Raised them again.

Then lowered them once more.

As he grew older, the seal was repaired every year.

But sometimes it could no longer suppress his strength as completely as it had when he was younger.

And whenever he had not yet prepared himself to control that strength... the strength could easily control him instead.

Big Girl continued running toward Zheng Lin.

She truly was not afraid at all.

But at that moment... a figure in silver armor appeared in front of her and stretched out one hand, blocking her path.

The figure moved so quickly that even Longyuan could react only by instinctively attacking to protect its master.

But the silver-armored figure punched directly downward.

Longyuan was sent flying.

If Big Girl had called it again, Longyuan could have immediately flown back into battle.

But once she saw who the silver-armored figure was, she completely forgot about the sword.

Instead, she cried out in delight:

“Brother Tian!”

The silver-armored youth was not very old.

Strictly speaking, his true age did not even quite qualify him as a grown man.

But in this era, girls among the common people commonly became mothers at thirteen or fourteen, while average lifespans were short.

People understood “age” differently from later generations.

Beginning last year, Tian Tian had been sent to Fan City to serve and gain experience under Gou Moli.

Fan City gave him plenty of room to grow.

And Gou Moli was meticulous in everything he did.

As a father, Zheng Fan felt safe placing Tian Tian under him.

As for why Big Girl had chosen to run away from home and head south toward Chu... she claimed she missed her Eldest Uncle.

In truth, Eldest Uncle was only a pretext.

The person she missed... was Brother Tian.

Ever since she could remember, Brother Tian had played with her every day.

He had always protected this little sister with extraordinary patience.

And his temper was unbelievably good.

Tian Tian reached out and rubbed Big Girl’s head.

“Naughty girl. Running this far from home.”

“Brother Tian, Little Brother is...”

Big Girl immediately pointed toward Zheng Lin standing ahead.

Tian Tian had seen Zheng Lin suffer several episodes before.

But he had a method for treating them.

Tian Tian walked toward Zheng Lin.

The silver armor beneath the moonlight reflected a gentle glow.

A smile appeared at the corner of Zheng Lin’s mouth.

The moment he saw the person standing before him... he finally seemed willing to release every remaining restraint on himself and vent completely.

Hum!

Zheng Lin left the ground and lunged at Tian Tian with astonishing speed.

Tian Tian swung one fist straight forward.

Bang!

Zheng Lin was punched backward and smashed into a nearby tree.

But in the next instant, Zheng Lin launched himself off the trunk again and raked one hand directly toward Tian Tian’s face.

Tian Tian moved even faster.

He caught Zheng Lin by the wrist and froze the boy in front of him.

The child capable of tearing leopards apart with his bare hands possessed very little room to display himself before this silver-armored elder brother.

The main problem... was age.

“Little Brother, you’re much stronger than before. Unfortunately, your big brother has eaten several more years of shaqima than you.”

With that...

Tian Tian lowered his center of gravity.

Strength surged through his arm.

He slammed Zheng Lin directly into the ground.

Bang!

Then...

Tian Tian raised one boot.

And stomped down.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Big Girl blinked from nearby.

She felt a little sorry for her little brother.

But she did not say anything to stop Tian Tian.

Because from the time they were very small, whenever Little Brother suffered an episode while Father was nearby, Father would tell Brother Tian to beat him.

Father... would even stand beside them and cheer Brother Tian on.

In Father’s words:

If the sickness acts up, no problem.

Beat him once and it’ll be cured.

And although every punch and kick Tian Tian threw seemed filled with overwhelming force, he was actually controlling the strength precisely.

He would leave someone dazed.

He would make it hurt.

But he would not cause any internal injury.

Thunder loud.

Rain light.

When it came to controlling his force...

Tian Tian could already send and withdraw it freely.

At last...

Tian Tian stopped.

Zheng Lin turned over with some difficulty.

The purple currents around his body had disappeared completely.

The red mole between his brows had returned to normal.

The black halo in his eyes was gone as well.

He was merely... black-and-blue all over the face.

Fortunately...

Zheng Lin did not care about that.

On the contrary, he was smiling.

If what bound Zheng Lin to his elder sister Zheng Lanxin was the intimacy of shared blood and growing up side by side from infancy... then his bond with this elder brother, Tian Tian... had been forged by being beaten by him since childhood.

Solid as the packed clay inside Snow Sea Pass’s walls.

Tian Tian crouched down.

He reached into a pocket of his armor, took out a piece of shaqima, broke off a small portion, and held it to Zheng Lin’s mouth.

Zheng Lin looked at the shaqima.

Ever since he could remember, every time this elder brother beat him, the same brother would feed him shaqima afterward.

In Tian Tian’s eyes, shaqima was the finest thing in the world.

But in truth...

Zheng Lin did not like sweet food.

In that respect, he had inherited his father’s taste.

“Brother... this again?”

Zheng Lin sounded helpless.

“Be good. Eat it and it won’t hurt anymore.”

“Brother... I’ve grown up...”

Don’t treat me like a little kid.

Tian Tian smiled.

“If you won’t eat it, that proves your sickness still isn’t fully cured.”

The meaning was clear.

Refuse... and he would get beaten again.

“Cough, cough...”

Zheng Lin spat out a mouthful of bloody foam.

It was not an internal injury.

His physique was completely different from an ordinary person’s.

He could take an extraordinary beating.

The blood was probably half from sheer depression.

But... in the end, Zheng Lin still opened his mouth and let Tian Tian place the shaqima inside.

“Good?” Tian Tian asked.

Zheng Lin immediately nodded.

“Good. Very good.”

“Then eat the rest too.”

“...” Zheng Lin.

Beneath the night sky... a young man in silver armor walked onward.

His right hand held that of an adorable little girl carrying a sword.

His left hand carried an iron wok.

On his back... rode one pitiful boy with a bruised and swollen face, still desperately chewing shaqima.

The little girl excitedly told Brother Tian all the interesting things that had happened since she ran away from home.

The boy on Tian Tian’s back occasionally asked with obvious anxiety:

“Brother, this really is the last piece, right?”

“Mm.”

“But you said that last time too. You won’t lie this time?”

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“If I lie, you can hit me.”

“...” Zheng Lin.

[End of Chapter 939]