Big Brother

Xue Qinghe turned and walked toward the door.

"Let's go."

"Where?"

Li Hanche asked instinctively.

Xue Qinghe stopped at the doorway and turned his head slightly.

"To obtain your thousand-year soul ring. Your Brother Qinghe will personally accompany you."

Li Hanche froze.

This time, he was genuinely stunned. He was not acting.

He had thought Xue Qinghe might send the Royal Soul Hunting Team with him, arrange for some high-level Soul Master to guard him, or even give him a letter of recommendation and have him seek help from Spirit Hall himself.

But he had never imagined that Xue Qinghe would personally accompany him to hunt his first soul ring.

"Brother Qinghe, aren't you busy?"

He asked bluntly.

Xue Qinghe turned around and leaned against the doorframe, arms folded across his chest, a faintly amused curve on his lips.

"Busy. Of course I'm busy."

He tipped his chin toward the pile of memorials in the study, stacked like a small mountain.

"But today, your Brother Qinghe suddenly feels like taking a walk. I hear the scenery in the Far North is quite nice."

Li Hanche froze again.

"How did you know I wanted to go to the Far North?"

Xue Qinghe did not answer. He merely tilted his head slightly and looked at Li Hanche as if to say, What do you think?

Li Hanche fell silent for a moment, then understood.

His martial soul was ice-attributed, and the spear contained dragon might. Across the entire Douluo Continent, there was no better place to hunt a first soul ring for such a martial soul than the Far North.

From the moment Xue Qinghe learned about his martial soul, he had likely already chosen this destination for him.

"You know quite a lot."

Xue Qinghe returned Li Hanche's earlier words to him, a trace of teasing in his tone.

Li Hanche's expression did not change.

"I learned a little extra during class. The Far North's soul beast attributes suit my martial soul better. There are many types of ice-attributed soul beasts there, and their age ranges are suitable as well."

He spoke naturally, as though he had truly paid close attention in class.

The Far North was the frigid region at the northernmost end of the Douluo Continent, rarely visited by humans and overrun by soul beasts.

Countless ice-attributed soul beasts lived there, ranging from ten-year to ten-thousand-year ones. It was the first choice for ice-attributed Soul Masters seeking soul rings across the continent. Naturally, it was also one of the most dangerous places.

The freezing climate, complex terrain, and powerful soul beasts—any one of them was enough to ensure that a low-level Soul Master would never return.

Xue Qinghe stepped over the threshold, his voice drifting back from the corridor.

"Then let's go. We'll treat it as a trip."

The carriage departed Heaven Dou City and traveled north.

The compartment was spacious. Li Hanche sat by the window with a handwritten scroll about the soul beast species of the Far North spread across his knees, but his gaze rested on the scenery racing past outside.

Xue Qinghe sat across from him with a book in hand, but judging from how often he turned the pages, he was not truly reading it.

The carriage remained quiet for a long time, filled only with the rumble of wheels rolling over the road and the occasional soft crackle of charcoal in the bronze brazier.

Li Hanche drew his gaze back from the window and spoke.

"Brother Qinghe."

Xue Qinghe lifted his eyes from the book and looked at Li Hanche, raising a brow to show that he was listening.

"Can I change how I address you?"

That clearly piqued Xue Qinghe's interest. He closed the book and set it on his lap, leaning back slightly against the wall of the carriage as a faintly amused smile curved his lips.

"Oh? Let's hear it. What do you want to call me?"

His tone carried the meaning of, Let's see what you can come up with.

Li Hanche seemed to carefully consider his words before lifting his head.

"How about Big Brother?"

He added another sentence.

"Brother Qinghe feels too awkward."

Xue Qinghe looked at him, the amusement in his eyes deepening.

"How is it awkward? Shouldn't children call people Brother?"

His tone was teasing.

"You're only six. If you don't call me Brother, what would you call me? Your Highness? Now that would be awkward."

Li Hanche did not pick up that thread. He merely looked at him with those clear black-and-white eyes.

Xue Qinghe let out a laugh under his gaze.

"Already trying to build connections at such a young age?"

There was obvious teasing in his voice, but no displeasure.

On the contrary, he seemed more genuinely interested than before.

Li Hanche turned away and looked back out the window.

"Forget it. Pretend I never said anything."

Xue Qinghe chuckled softly and did not tease him further.

The carriage fell quiet again, but this silence differed from the one before. It was less reserved and more relaxed.

After a while, Xue Qinghe spoke again.

"Children should smile more. You keep such a gloomy face all day, like an adult."

Li Hanche turned back to look at Xue Qinghe.

"Uh, Big Brother."

He said it with easy familiarity, as though he had been using that form of address for a long time.

"Do you think someone with my identity as an orphan can smile?"

Xue Qinghe was left speechless.

He looked at Li Hanche, his lips moving as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, nothing came out.

"True."

The teasing and mockery had vanished from his tone.

It was not sympathy, but more like the realization that he had forgotten about it. Then he leaned forward and pointed one finger at Li Hanche.

"However..."

He drew out the words.

"You call me Big Brother so naturally. Don't tell me you'll see any important figure and immediately try to build connections by calling them Big Brother too... kid."

He enunciated the word "kid" especially clearly, with a deliberately warning tone, though the smile at the corners of his eyes gave him away.

Li Hanche paused, then replied.

"I wouldn't..."

Two days later, the scenery outside had changed completely.

An endless wilderness.

A thin layer of snow covered the ground, growing thicker the farther north they traveled.

The air began to carry a chill Li Hanche knew well.

It was not the mild cold of winter in Heaven Dou City, but a dry, sharp cold that could cut through skin like a blade.

A second bronze brazier had been added to the carriage, yet the cold still seeped through the cracks in the carriage boards in thin strands.

Xue Qinghe had added an outer robe, its collar trimmed with a ring of silver-gray beast fur that made his complexion appear even fairer.

He glanced at Li Hanche and found that the child's expression was unchanged. He even seemed more energetic than he had been in Heaven Dou City.

Frost Heaven Record circulated automatically within his body, transforming the chill seeping into the carriage into threads of Soul Power that flowed into his dantian.

To Li Hanche, this increasingly frigid world was not torment, but nourishment.

On the evening of the fourth day, the carriage came to a stop.

The coachman's voice came from outside, carrying barely concealed reverence and nervousness.

"Your Highness, the boundary marker of the Far North is ahead. The carriage cannot go any farther."

Xue Qinghe answered and rose to lift the carriage curtain.

A biting wind carrying fine snowflakes rushed straight at him. His hair was blown back, and his moon-white outer robe snapped loudly in the wind. He narrowed his eyes slightly, adjusted for a few moments, then jumped down from the carriage.

Li Hanche followed him down.

He raised his head and looked north.

Heaven and earth lost their boundary here. Everything within sight was covered in white. In the distance, snow mountains rose and fell in unbroken stretches, while nearby lay a vast, boundless snowfield.

The wind blew from the north—not in gusts, but without pause, like a tireless beast licking the land with an invisible tongue.

The sky was a very pale gray-blue, as though its color had been washed away by the cold.

The sun hung at the edge of the horizon, a deathly white disc that gave off light but little warmth.

The Far North.

The frigid region at the northernmost end of the Douluo Continent. Here, human footprints became sparse and scattered, while the territory of soul beasts stretched farther north into the depths.

A paradise for ice-attributed Soul Masters, and a hunting ground for ice-attributed soul beasts.

Li Hanche took a deep breath.

The freezing air filled his lungs, carrying a sharp and pure chill.

Frost Heaven Record accelerated of its own accord. The Soul Power in his dantian seemed awakened by the aura of this land, surging joyfully.

He could feel every meridian in his body greedily absorbing the dense icy energy in the air. It felt like someone who had been thirsty for a long time finally taking their first drink of water.