She's Brother-Obsessed, I'm Sister-Obsessed

"Which bastard dared push me into the water?! I'll tear you apart!!"

"It was the one in the black shirt — him!"

"Sisters, we're going to flay him alive! The Three Pear Blossom Sisters of Zhejiang Academy are not to be trifled with."

The girl with the center part — well, *former* center part; her hair was a soaking, plastered-flat disaster now — had gone completely unhinged. She didn't care that icy water was dripping off every inch of her. She was already tracing Star Trails into the air.

The one called Chen Yunqi was even more ferocious. A Star Chart began materializing slowly beneath her feet, but her entire body was shaking so violently that a single sneeze shattered it outright — which only sent her spiraling further into a rage.

"You think a bunch of catty, self-important little princesses like you can take me on?" The man in the black shirt let out a leisurely whistle, his gaze sweeping over the three soaked women with languid interest. "One's got a waist like a barrel, one's got a chest that's waved the white flag, and one really can't seem to keep her legs together. No wonder you spend every waking moment griping like bitter housewives who've run out of other hobbies."

That hit each of the three girls squarely in her softest spot, and they collectively lost their minds. Academy rules against dueling outside the arena? Forgotten. Star Trails and Star Charts blazed to life without the slightest hesitation.

"Lightning Seal — Lightning Field!"

Mo Fan called on his Lightning Element magic with effortless ease. One flick of the wrist and a dense swarm of violet electrical arcs crackled outward.

Most of the arcs surged through the air; a few snaked rapidly along the ground. In moments they had formed a crackling field of lightning spanning twenty meters in every direction around the three women.

Thunder snapped and hissed in a relentless cascade. The water soaking the girls made them perfect conductors — every beginner-level spell they had been painstakingly preparing collapsed at once, and the lightning sent them leaping and flailing as though they were performing some ancient fire-pit dance...

Their hair was more charcoal than hair at this point. Already in tatters, after enduring the full lightning treatment it was now emitting genuine wisps of smoke — any trace of their earlier beauty and allure scorched away entirely, leaving three figures that were genuinely more frightening to look at than ghosts.

The lightning's intensity had been carefully restrained — no real harm done, but maximum humiliation guaranteed.

"That Lightning Seal..." Beside them, Liu Yilin stood frozen.

Chen Yunqi was at least an intermediate-rank mage, and the other two weren't far behind — both half a step from intermediate themselves. Not only had all three been beaten to the draw, they'd been rendered completely helpless by a single beginner-level spell.

Whoever wielded this Lightning Seal clearly knew exactly what they were doing. Hurting them wasn't the objective. Making them suffer was. Passersby caught sight of the three girls and burst out laughing.

"You... just you wait!!"

"State your name if you dare — I, Chen Yunqi, will personally make sure you regret it!!" Chen Yunqi shrieked, still trailing smoke from her lips as she cursed.

The man in the black shirt flashed a wicked grin. "The name's one and the same wherever I go. Shen Mingxiao of Pearl Academy."

"Shen Mingxiao... fine. Start saying your goodbyes."

Chen Yunqi fired off her parting threat and fled in a hurry. Image was everything for a girl — none of them intended to keep standing there as a public spectacle.

Watching the three sharp-tongued women scramble away, the man in the black shirt smiled and walked straight toward where Xinxia was.

In her wheelchair, Xinxia — her eyes always so clear and tranquil — let her lips part slightly, her face flooding with surprise and a deep, trembling joy...

Soon those eyes grew wet and red. She blinked, hard. Her lashes glistened.

"Silly girl, what are you crying for? Didn't I tell you I was still alive?" Mo Fan stood before Xinxia, hands shoved into his pockets, leaning forward to look directly into her small face — the picture of unhurried cool.

But the moment he saw her eyes brimming, something close to panic crossed his face. He pulled his hands free and traced his fingers along her soft, round cheeks, brushing the tears away.

Those words only made Xinxia cry harder. She reached up with gentle arms and wrapped them around Mo Fan's neck, pressing her cheek against his...

Mo Fan paused. He felt the smoothness and warmth of her skin against his, and the carefully maintained air of detached composure dissolved completely. His dark eyes softened into something settled and tender; the lips that usually curved in that bold, rakish line curved instead into quiet, heartfelt relief.

A girl in a wheelchair — still and serene. A young man leaning forward, at rest in the gentle hold around his neck. However many people passed along that tree-lined autumn path, they all seemed to dissolve into the soft afternoon light — nothing but backdrop to two quiet figures, breathing slowly, one weeping softly with joy.

"Do you remember the story I told you a long time ago? Once upon a time, a king had two daughters. Both were born beautiful, and both had a very special gift: every tear they shed would instantly turn into a pearl. The king gave his eldest daughter in marriage to a prince from another kingdom — but the prince was always hurting her, always making her cry. The pearls she wept could have wrapped around the earth twice over... His younger daughter married a mountain farmer. The king was puzzled. With just a single tear, they could have lived lives of luxury — why choose such hardship? But soon the king understood. The farmer simply could not bear to make his little girl shed a single tear. So the king told him approvingly: 'You are truly a good husband, nothing like that prince who spent pearls as if they cost him nothing...'" Mo Fan told the old, familiar story in his unhurried way.

Xinxia nodded, slow and deep. She knew this story. She had heard it more than once.

Ripples stirred through her heart, and warmth rose to her cheeks. Because the two people in Mo Fan's parable — they were husband and wife?

"The farmer listened to the king's words, sat quietly for a moment, and then forced out a single sentence..." Mo Fan saw the tears still glittering on Xinxia's face, so he straightened up and did his best impression of a humble mountain farmer: "'Your Majesty — ah, but you keep forgetting — she only fell for me after she went blind.'"

The moment those words landed, Xinxia felt something inside her short-circuit entirely. Her soft little fists flew up and descended on Mo Fan's shoulder in a rapid, indignant barrage of thumps...

This awful person. Ruining fairy tales again. Every fairy tale she had ever loved had been taken apart piece by piece by Mo Fan — couldn't even one of them end beautifully?

But thinking of Mo Fan imitating the farmer's manner and that farmer's parting line, Xinxia finally broke into laughter through her tears.

It was all this terrible person's fault — feeding her dark fairy tales since she was small, until even her own sense of humor had been warped into something strange and hard to explain.

"Xinxia, is this the brother you mentioned before? ...Hello, my name is Liu Yilin, nice to meet you." Liu Yilin had evidently never been cut out for the role of bystander. He stepped forward at last.

Mo Fan turned and looked at the entirely presentable Liu Yilin, then said without much warmth: "Is it not common knowledge that interrupting someone's time together is extremely rude?"

"Time together??" Liu Yilin blinked, baffled. "Aren't the two of you siblings?"

"She's obsessed with her brother, I'm obsessed with my sister — is that a problem?" Mo Fan replied.