The sun was shining high in the sky majestically as if showing off its arrogance to every living being in the world; while at the same time smiling kindly at his descendants.
At one small corner in this vast universe, one teenage boy wrapped in light winter clothes and a denim styled hoodie jacket, was standing together with other town folk crowded at the main gate of the Bright Jade Middle School.
As it turns out, today is the school day before winter vacation.
He was waiting to pick up the trio of horror – his brother Yi Hai, Zi Ming and Bai Lian.
He’s Yi Feng.
A lot has happened over the last four years. The one which had the most impact on him was that he was first arranged by his father to man the potion shop for Zi Yang when he’s busy.
Then slowly over the next few months and years, he was asked to help out in various ways such as pruning the hollow poplar tree, sending new year gifts to the leafed hat trut across the street, and helping Zi Ming go to classes and sometimes picking him up from various places.
Finally, one eventful summer after Zi Yang’s horrendous torture which he called training for Zi Ming was over, he was called over by his father in front of Zi Yang and suggested to become his attendant.
It was not like both of them were oblivious to Yi Xin’s intentions, so they only paused for a moment and agreed.
Zi Yang had seen how helpful Yi Feng had been and he had also seen this Uncle Yi’s efforts in making this happen.
But as a precaution, he suggested that if he is unable to sense qi in the future – Yi Feng would no longer be his attendant.
This condition was quite standard as non-spirit qi professionals were not able to make it in the society. But Yi Xin followed his hunch and pushed Yi Feng along anyway.
Yi Feng had also recognized Zi Yang over the years as a reliable partner, and judged himself slightly inferior in some ways – so readily accepted and whole heartedly devoted himself to work.
Be it arranging security personnel like hired adventure scouts or coordinating with Uncle Baize during Zi Ming’s air and water trainings – he did it all skillfully.
Thinking of the training concepts of the shock series, he still shudders.
It turns out that once after multiple attempts and various resource investment, Zi Ming’s cardiovascular and respiratory organs stopped improving.
Zi Yang then designed a serious of shock training encounters which help the body in a state of shock and them slowly recover drawing in the will to strengthen.
In one, Zi Ming’s shoulders were tied to a flying bird and he had to free himself from the claws and jump before the bird takes him away.
Zi Ming was all in dark about these arrangements, he was happily on a picnic with his everyone when a bird swooped in and this happened.
Against anyone’s attempt to convince him otherwise, he wouldn’t listen and he had both Uncle Baize and Aunt Mei convinced somehow.
So began Zi Ming’s tryst with the birds in the sky and swimming with fishes in the water or leaving him stranded in forest for a month to survive.
During this period, he as the attendant acquired knowledge of human body organs, and various methods to treat hypoxia, first aid techniques such as treating burn, suturing, stitching, stopping blood, treating poison etc.
Anything that happened to Zi Ming and happened to be treated by a team of doctors hired by Uncle Baize specifically – Yi Feng learned and helped.
At some point he even wondered if Zi Yang’s love for Zi Ming had somehow turned into hatred – thinking how he had to care for a small baby all his life and be dragged down by him.
This was a reasonable assumption that most skeptics drew enough in these four years.
But he knew that it was all incorrect when he saw Zi Yang running home in his ballet dance uniform with naked feet in rainy season when he heard Zi Ming had serious fever.
Aunt Mei also told him how Zi Ming would always sleep hugging Zi Yang every night even if they fight over everything that happened during the day.
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As children grow over and coincidences happen every time, how could Zi Ming not guess it was deliberate?
Even though he fought with Zi Yang every time it happened and threatened to run away from home, the result was still leaning against his big brother the next day.
Zi Ming also knows this deep down that anything Zi Yang does will never harm him. Otherwise, how could doctors come so quickly every time and how could he survive a high fall and a deep dive?
Especially since Zi Yang told the story of a straw-hat boy Luffy who became the king of the world and that his grandfather trained him this way, Zi Ming had already imagined himself to be king of this world.
The kid those days often ran around with a custom-made straw hat and a red shirt with blue pants shouting, “I’m going to become the King of this world”
He even caused a ruckus when he identified a criminal and called out to him as “Blackbeard Teach, I’ll fight you”, and jumped on him.
Thankfully, the local beast regiment arrived soon and dad soon controlled him.
Zi Yang was really frightened and scolded Zi Ming with the sternest expression.
But Zi Ming cried loudly after seeing him.
He kept sobbing, “You’re still alive, Ace.”
The look on face was hilarious. Zi Yang has not told any story to anyone since then.
He was afraid his stupid ototo will forget who he really is and run away someday like a character in some story.
Zi Ming complained many times, but Zi Yang’s reply was always – “when you grow enough brains” and flick on his forehead.
Zi Ming pout was still memorable.
Mostly because Zi Ming looked exactly like Zi Yang did eight years ago, except healthier.
Many people realized that the two were actually twins and had to born eight years apart because of an accident.
So, seeing such cute expressions on Zi Ming’s face made everyone realize how much Zi Yang had missed out on his childhood.
Taking more pictures of Zi Ming fulfilled some regret for Aunt Mei Li as well.
Yi Feng admired Zi Yang’s struggle, efforts, creativity and talents. He also recognized that Zi Yang would always find a way out even if he couldn’t sense spiritual qi.
The awakening ceremony is only one month away, but he does not see any tension on Zi Yang’s face.
Like he said, “Even if I can’t sense qi, I will still do well.”
That is why he had no shred of confidence lacking when he chose to become his attendant.
While waiting for the three to come out, Yi Feng took out Zi Ming’s recent report and checked how much he improved.
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[Patient Name]: Zi Ming
[Age]: 7 years 11 months 25 days old.
[Diagnosis]: Congenital origin deficiency
[Details]:
[Bones]: Soft bones with slower nurturing rate than a normal baby by 1.5x.
[Muscles]: Weaker than normal babies by 1.6x.
[Blood Circulation]: Low White blood cells, lower RBCs and platelets by 1.8x.
[Respiration]: Lung capacity is sufficient for the body.
[Digestive]: Digestion ability is good and faintly better than healthy babies.
[Urinary]: No problem here.
[Lymphatic]: Lymphatic system follows other internal organs and are correspondingly weak.
[Summary]: 32.8% overall deficiency compared with a healthy baby. Hope for treatment comes from a good digestive system and better breathing exercises.
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It’s a remarkable improvement. Zi Ming has now recovered almost half of his origin compared to when he was born.
Zi Yang would be ecstatic.
Keeping the report back in, Yi Feng began to kill the remaining time thinking what could have contributed more to the recovery.
Yi Feng has to rank the purple gas as first and the music cultivation as the second contributors, with a doubt.
Zi Yang’s trainings were more of a limit breaking and courage boosting training – so that was also instrumental.
The remaining would be some resources he was fed by his godfather Baize and his music master – Miss Ling.
Come of think about it, the fact that a cold faced woman like Miss Ling could feed so many resources and food to Zi Ming was also the gossip of a town for a while.
Many people jokingly concluded that she might have been experimenting on Zi Ming on what worked and what did not for a child’s hygiene.
Her stories of experimenting on beast genes and her secret of probably being a mad scientist were widely circulated.
At some point, Aunt Jing was forced to come out and refute the rumors.
Zi Yang was also panicked when he heard Zi Ming eating food from Miss Ling’s hands. Even though he denied believing the rumors that she might be experimenting.
He remembered being instructed to secretly call a doctor one night to conduct some tests at home.
No one knew what happened, buy Yi Feng can be sure that Zi Yang had Zi Ming tested that night.
For he could see a visible relief on his face the next day.
While he was chuckling to himself, it seems that the school bell rang and a horde of little devils ran out screaming as if claiming that chaos begins!