Little Madman of a Younger Brother

Zhong Xuezhi found the atmosphere of being silently stared at a little strange, so he couldn't help starting a conversation.

"Hey, we've fought side by side now, haven't we? How about telling me your name?"

This time, Mu Yi was quite obliging and answered directly, "Mu Yi. Mu as in 'solemn,' and Yi is written with 'standing' and 'feather.'"

"Yi..." Zhong Xuezhi murmured the name once, then said, "It signifies freedom, lightness, and rising upward. A good name."

Mu Yi paused at that. His mother had once explained its meaning to him in those same words.

After more than a decade, and even crossing into another world, he had actually heard the same words again. The feeling was hard to describe...

Mu Yi rubbed his neck and didn't answer for a moment.

Zhong Xuezhi, however, didn't notice this detail. Still busy with his hands, he continued without looking up, "Mu Yi, you don't look very old. Early twenties?"

Mu Yi rolled a dry twig by his feet between his fingers and replied, "Twenty-two."

Zhong Xuezhi smiled. "Then you're the same age as Beibei on our team."

Both were younger than him by three years.

Mu Yi had no interest in the coincidence of their ages and offered a perfunctory, "Oh."

Zhong Xuezhi didn't mind his indifference at all. He spoke again in a casual, conversational tone, fishing for information along the way.

"By the way, you seem unfamiliar with all of this?"

Mu Yi thought it over and decided there was no hiding that, so he answered honestly, "It's my first time seeing it. Of course it's unfamiliar."

"Your first time?" Zhong Xuezhi stopped what he was doing and slowly raised his head. "Have you never left the Safe Base?"

Mu Yi nodded. "That's right." Did he think the barrier between worlds was that easy to break through?

Zhong Xuezhi asked again, "Then doesn't your Safe Base have any institutions that teach basic knowledge?"

Mu Yi spread his hands. "It really doesn't."

His original world didn't even have things like Variants. What the hell would they teach about them?

Zhong Xuezhi fell silent. It didn't sound like a lie, but something still felt off.

After two seconds of silence, Zhong Xuezhi suddenly caught on. "That doesn't make sense..."

Mu Yi asked, "What doesn't?"

Zhong Xuezhi waved the dagger in his hand as he reasoned it out. "You possess two nature-type talents. It's one thing for your Safe Base not to train you into a mainstay of a hunting team, but they let you remain completely ignorant of the outside world?"

Mu Yi couldn't be bothered to explain. "What, you have a problem with that?"

"Not at all..." Zhong Xuezhi always knew when to press and when to retreat. Hearing his reluctance to answer, he wisely stopped probing.

A while later, Zhong Xuezhi lifted the preservation bag to check how full it was, then said, "We've collected enough. Let's head back."

But he had only just stood up when the Identity Bracelet on his wrist beeped twice.

"Hm?" Zhong Xuezhi glanced down, saw that it was An Beize calling, and accepted the call.

"Captain, are you still at the Spine Celery patch? How are things over there?"

Zhong Xuezhi knew he had taken too long and his teammates were starting to worry, so he replied, "Still here. Spent a little time picking up some 'takeout.' We'll be back shortly."

An Beize answered, "Okay," then continued, "Captain, I once read a book called Plant Miscellany. It recorded a certain unnamed wild plant."

"It said this plant had stems but no leaves, and was dainty and delicate, with flowers as red as fire. Its pollen could cause mental excitement in anyone who inhaled it, while its rhizomes were an excellent sedative."

"I suspect it's most likely what we now call Spine Celery."

"Dainty and delicate?" Curious about the calling function of their Identity Bracelets, Mu Yi leaned over and interjected, "Isn't this thing a big-headed brute?"

Zhong Xuezhi couldn't help chuckling at his description. He explained, "During mutation, many organisms gradually undergo changes in appearance too. By the end, they look nothing like they originally did."

After explaining, Zhong Xuezhi asked An Beize on the other end, "Beibei, with that high-capacity brain of yours and how fast you retrieve information, shouldn't you have remembered this sooner?"

He should have made the connection when the Spine Celery began spreading its pollen and Wenren Jin started crying and laughing after being affected.

An Beize was silent for a moment before replying, "It's precisely because I store too much in my brain that some old memories I consider unnecessary get temporarily sealed away."

A moment later, he added, "I'm sorry, Captain. It won't happen again."

Zhong Xuezhi clicked his tongue. "Don't apologize for no reason. This isn't your fault."

Then he said, "I'm hanging up. I've got work to do."

True to his word, Zhong Xuezhi ended the call with a beep.

Then he formed a sturdy little shovel out of ice and strode to the northern side of the Spine Celery patch.

Quite a few unburned Spine Celery rhizomes remained buried in the soil on this side.

Zhong Xuezhi crouched down and began digging with the little ice shovel.

As he dug, he apparently decided it wasn't very clean to keep dragging his tail on the ground, so he casually picked it up, curled it around to his knees, and cradled it there.

Mu Yi followed eagerly behind him and offered, "Your tail-shall I hold it for you?"

In his personal opinion, a snow leopard's tail, with its fluffy fur and thick, rounded shape, felt the best of all the big cats' tails.

It was hard to look at it without itching to touch it.

Unfortunately, Zhong Xuezhi didn't give him a chance. Without even raising his head, he refused, "No need. I'll do it myself."

Mu Yi sighed regretfully and silently shoved both hands into his pockets, forcibly keeping them under control.

Fine. Slow and steady.

Meanwhile, Zhong Xuezhi dug harder, thinking, Asking to touch someone's tail right off the bat. How presumptuous.

Five minutes later, once he had collected enough Spine Celery rhizomes, Zhong Xuezhi put away the shovel and stood.

Then he curled a finger at Mu Yi. "Come here."

Mu Yi thought he was calling him over to generously offer up his tail, so he eagerly trotted closer.

But once he approached, Zhong Xuezhi merely asked, "Want to get back faster?"

Mu Yi recalled the distance between the two places and the route they had taken. It was far, the going was rough, and there hadn't been anything fun along the way.

To him, simply traveling from one place to another was incredibly boring.

So he replied, "Sure, but how?"

No sooner had he spoken than he heard a whoosh, and his vision filled with gray and white.

Mu Yi blanked for a moment, then abruptly came back to himself. Right, he had almost forgotten the man was a flying snow leopard.

He immediately grew excited. "Are you going to fly me back?"

Zhong Xuezhi shook out his wings and gave him a sidelong glance. "I'll make an exception and give you a lift."

Since you complimented my mutated form.

Mu Yi nodded at once. Being flown around by a snow leopard was something he never would have dared imagine, even in his dreams.

But then a very practical question occurred to him. "How do those wings and your tail come out?"

"Don't tell me... there are slits in the back of your shirt and pants?"

"Ahem...!" Zhong Xuezhi immediately coughed twice before answering, "We Mutants wear clothes that are sensibly designed and custom-made, whether for work or personal use."

"They don't expose anything or let drafts in. They're no different from seamless clothes."

"Let me see!" As he spoke, Mu Yi started circling behind Zhong Xuezhi, intending to study them closely.

"What's there to see..." Zhong Xuezhi turned away to evade him and swiftly changed the subject. "Are you flying or not?"

Mu Yi's attention was immediately pulled back. "Yes, yes, yes!"

But when Zhong Xuezhi reached toward him, he ducked back again and suggested, "Can't I lie on your back?"

"No." Zhong Xuezhi refused without a second thought. "How am I supposed to fly with you lying on my back?"

"Fine, fine..." For the chance to experience a snow leopard's flight service, Mu Yi didn't agonize for long. He spread both arms and moved closer on his own.

"Let's do it!"