The door closed behind him, cutting off all sound.
The corridor was long, the lighting a pale, sickly white.
Shen Zhizhao walked briskly forward, his hands shoved into his pockets, trembling slightly out of his control.
He was a little too nervous.
Shen Zhizhao was an extremely insecure person. Most of his childhood had been spent experiencing loss; the only ones allowed to stay, the only ones left alive, were his family.
Companions, teachers, friends—he had none of them.
He instinctively feared losing things, so he refused to possess anything to begin with.
Taking a step forward was truly harder for him than ascending to heaven.
During the few days Shen Zhizhao was at home, he often couldn't help but stare at her in a daze.
He didn't know what to say. The past was long gone, and it seemed they had long since run out of things to say to each other.
But emotions were never something he could control just by wanting to. He knew her situation on the island like the back of his hand. Even when he left home early, Shen Zhizhao had been calculating how to conduct this training and what kind of environment to arrange for her.
If he hadn't been short on time, he would have loved nothing more than to replace all the kids on that island with a bunch of harmless, safe, useless weaklings.
Naturally, his grandfather knew about his actions.
Old Mr. Shen felt complicated about it.
"Are you trying to raise a sister, or a flower?"
Shen Zhizhao's voice was flat, but for some reason, Old Mr. Shen could hear a trace of grievance in it. "...She is not my flower."
"Of course she couldn't be your flower. She is your sister."
Shen Zhizhao froze for a moment. "Your tone makes it seem like you've acknowledged her identity."
"I certainly have not," Old Mr. Shen denied. "Enough is enough. Reign in your desire for control and your overprotectiveness. She still has a long road ahead of her."
Shen Zhizhao fell silent for a few seconds. "I know."
Of course he knew.
But...
He still couldn't control his worry.
He clenched his hands, forcing down the trembling caused by his emotional instability.
Shen Zhizhao forcibly halted the training halfway through. When Shen Yi learned it was being stopped, she was in the middle of studying some herbs with Shen Xun to apply to their wounds.
The two seven- or eight-year-old precious children were teaching themselves Chinese medicine. Shen Yi gestured in front of her eyes. "This one seems to reduce inflammation."
Shen Xun: "Really?"
"Really." Without another word, she smeared a handful of green herbal juice all over his face. It was sticky and carried a bitter, grassy stench.
Shen Xun blinked. The green juice dripped down the bridge of his nose, but he didn't even try to dodge.
Shen Yi also had a scrape on her forehead. She checked her reflection in the water and wiped a handful over her own face as well.
The system had pointed these herbs out to her. She didn't know if they were effective, but they definitely weren't poisonous.
Feeling reassured, she painted her face completely green.
The two kids tossed and turned all night, their faces bright green, looking like special forces soldiers who had just crawled out of a swamp.
Shen Yi rolled up her pant leg and used water to clean her slightly festering knee. She sucked in a breath from the pain but didn't make a single sound.
There were still two days left until the end.
After the siblings had taken down several people who came at them consecutively, that group of fiendishly smart kids decisively stopped coming over to throw their lives away.
Couldn't they see that everyone who went over either got their heads smashed and bloodied, or was knocked unconscious?
They were young, not brain-damaged.
Shen Yi guessed that their next two days would be very peaceful.
When the helicopter descended to pick them up, the two of them were still by the stream, munching on wild vegetables.
Shen Yi's eyes glazed over as she ate. "It tastes so bad, brother. Are we really going to be okay eating like this?"
"I don't know." Shen Xun's gaze was equally empty. He clutched a handful of unnamed weeds, his voice as airy as if he were sleepwalking. "You can imagine yourself as a cow."
"..."
"Maybe it'll taste a little better that way."
Shen Yi stayed silent for two seconds, earnestly putting herself into the perspective of a cow.
As the wind blows, the grass bends low, revealing cows and sheep.
She took another bite and felt that it didn't taste any better.
In just a week, Shen Yi's baby fat had completely vanished.
She chewed on the weeds and sighed.
When they heard approaching footsteps, the two ill-fated children subconsciously huddled together by reflex.
Only after seeing it was Shen Zhizhao did their tense backs finally relax.
Shen Zhizhao's steps were hurried, splashing water all over his pant legs.
Upon seeing the two bright green children sitting by the river, the exhaustion and calmness on his face completely shattered, leaving a blank expression.
"You two..."
What kind of look was this?
Bright green, like kappas.
Shen Yi, grasping a handful of weeds, held them up to show off. "Do you want some? Shen Xun and I have been eating wild vegetables for five days. We know which weeds taste the best now."
Shen Zhizhao remained silent for a long time.
Then, he crouched down and suddenly pulled her into his arms.
His grip was very light, so light it was as if he feared crushing a butterfly.
His arms carefully wrapped around her shoulders.
Shen Yi, who had just been cheerfully pitching wild vegetables, lost her voice at once from the sudden hug.
She froze, dropping a few strands of the weeds from her hand.
"Are you okay?"
She asked softly.
Why hug her all of a sudden?
The wind blew over the surface of the stream, carrying moisture and a grassy stench.
Shen Zhizhao didn't answer. His breathing was unsteady, his chest rising and falling, trembling slightly in an imperceptible way.
"I'm sorry."
His apology came very abruptly.
Shen Yi was completely struck dumb.
She tilted her head, looking at him in confusion.
"...I forgot about you before," Shen Zhizhao didn't care about anyone else's expression. The moment he discovered she was injured, his emotions had spun a little out of control.
She carried unknown secrets.
Shen Zhizhao didn't care what secrets she had.
But he always remembered how, back then, she had effortlessly made him fall asleep and then completely vanished.
He couldn't stop worrying that she would disappear like that again in the future.
Shen Zhizhao always wanted to escape when faced with problems, terrified of losing things.
He figured that since neither of them wanted to recall the past, it would be best to just act as if they didn't know each other.
But that was easier said than done. He still couldn't help observing her, panicking and trembling when she got hurt. The body's instinctive emotional reactions couldn't deceive anyone.
"I'm sorry. So back then..." Shen Zhizhao looked down in a daze at the little girl in his arms, his voice as light as a sigh. "You were so small."
You were so small, yet so brave?
Shen Yi looked at him, realizing he was showing goodwill, and decisively offered him an out: "I scraped my knee."
Although Shen Zhizhao wasn't her Dahei.
But he was the future adult version of Dahei.
Shen Zhizhao was uncharacteristically tongue-tied, subconsciously wanting to say sorry again.
"Shen Zhizhao," Shen Yi wrapped her arms around his neck, gave him a tug, and demanded, "Piggyback."
...
Three chapters, eight thousand eight hundred words. I added an extra eight hundred words.
I'm already dead tired. Can I ask my lovely readers for a wave of support? Going on a business trip these past few days has completely exhausted me.
