【Old Cold Wood】What secrets do her brothers have?

The darkness still enveloped her.

Her consciousness floated in the abyss of nothingness, and occasionally she could catch vague sounds from the outside world: low conversations, the sound of boiling medicine pots, and a hint of imperceptible warmth lingering vaguely on the edge of her perception.

It was unknown how long it took before Zhou Suyao's eyelashes trembled with great difficulty.

The light pierced her thin eyelids, bringing a sour and painful feeling.

She slowly opened her eyes and found herself lying in her own bamboo hut on the mountain top. Outside the window was the familiar rolling sea of ​​clouds and swaying bamboo leaves.

She struggled to get up, but every muscle in her body screamed in pain. She frowned, but still held on to the bed and forced herself to sit up straight.

Although her spiritual power was now as dry as a cracked riverbed, the beating heart in her chest still gave her a sense of security that she had survived the disaster.

"woke up?"

A deep, hoarse voice rang out from the bedside. Zhou Suyao could hear the concern in it, as well as a hint of deliberately suppressed nervousness.

Turning her head, she met Qu Mingwu's eyes.

He sat on a bamboo stool beside the bed, his tall figure looking a little tired. In his hand was a medicinal concoction that exuded a strong bitter taste.

"Second Brother..." She spoke, her voice so hoarse that she scared herself.

Qu Mingwu said nothing, but with a somewhat awkward movement, he brought the bowl to her lips. The bitter medicine slid into her throat, causing a stinging sensation, but also bringing a hint of warmth to her body.

Putting down the empty bowl, she looked over Qu Mingwu's shoulder and saw the figure standing quietly at the door.

It’s Zhou Shanyuan.

He was still as thin and pale as ever, and his loose robes seemed empty, but his eyes were now gazing at her gently.

Time seemed to be stretched at this moment.

Zhou Suyao opened her mouth, but didn't know what to say.

The ancient banished immortal in the illusion, the man who withdrew from the battlefield of the imperial city and transformed a peach tree for her... One was the man who stood by and watched in the face of the danger of genocide, and the other was the man who put her safety above his own.

Who is her senior brother? And what does he look like?

She didn't dare to ask, nor did she dare to think about it.

Even a woman as free and easy as her finally felt what it meant to be unable to speak on this day.

In the end, it was the eldest brother who broke the awkwardness.

He walked slowly closer, gently placed his skinny fingers on her veins, and a gentle spiritual power penetrated into her, carefully examining her injuries.

"The meridians are severely damaged, and the spiritual energy is exhausted. But fortunately, the foundation is not destroyed. After a few months of recuperation, it can be restored to its original state. Suyao, you made us very worried this time."

"I..." Zhou Suyao was stunned.

Such a gentle exiled immortal made what she wanted to say stuck in her throat, and she didn't know how to continue.

"Thank you, Second Brother, thank you...First Brother." Finally, she lowered her eyelids, avoiding Zhou Shanyuan's eyes that seemed to see through everything, and just thanked him softly.

Zhou Shanyuan's fingers resting on her veins paused for a moment, but he continued to calmly guide his gentle spiritual energy into her body. As if repairing some precious jade artifact, he meticulously stroked her damaged meridians, filling her withered dantian, until he finally, carefully, touched the spiritual core.

But there seemed to be a familiar power in that spirit core.

He withdrew his fingertips as if he had been electrocuted, and gently stroked Zhou Suyao's wrist in disbelief.

The feeling of this touch was as if a feather was gently brushing against her skin. Zhou Suyao's heart trembled, and she looked up suddenly, only to see the eldest brother's eyes that seemed to have turned cold again.

"You should rest first." Zhou Shanyuan said lightly, and then left without any expression.

Qu Mingwu was very confused by the sudden change. He wanted to call him anxiously, but Zhou Suyao pulled his sleeve out again.

"Big Brother must have something important to do." She said softly, "By the way... Second Brother, do you know what happened to Mingluo? And... that Xuan Yangming."

"Xuan Yangming... he's probably dead. Master completely destroyed one of his ribs, making it impossible for him to wear the skin again. Later, when we went to check again, we only saw bones scattered all over the ground."

"As for Mingluo..." He paused, "Master originally wanted her to rest here for a while, but she refused. Now, we don't know where she is."

Seeing Zhou Suyao's face turn pale in an instant, Qu Mingwu hurriedly comforted her: "You should get some rest now. Since Mingluo has this intention, he must have been prepared in advance and won't act rashly."

"Get some rest." The second brother stood up, not giving her another chance to ask. His wide robe brushed against the ground, bringing a cool breeze. "Your recovery is the most important thing. We can discuss other matters later, once you've regained some strength."

"Okay." Zhou Suyao nodded, "Second Brother, you should take care of yourself too."

"nature."

After saying that, he turned around and slowly walked out of the bamboo house.

Watching him leave, Zhou Suyao looked towards the leisurely bamboo forest on the window lattice.

She suddenly remembered many years ago.

That was shortly after she entered the path of immortality, her cultivation was still rudimentary, and her temper was impetuous. During a sword practice, she was impatient and her sword moves were chaotic. She barely managed to chop the forks of several bamboo poles.

The eldest brother appeared beside her at some point, holding a freshly picked peach branch with dewdrops left on it in the morning mist.

"Suyao." His voice was low, like the impenetrable fog of early spring. "The sword is not about speed, nor is it about ruthlessness."

Zhou Suyao stopped in confusion.

He just gently raised the peach blossom branch in his hand. There was no earth-shaking momentum, nor sharp sword energy. In fact, the peach blossom branch had not yet been infused with spiritual power by him. It was just pointed forward extremely slowly.

But Zhou Suyao still felt it.

At the moment when the tip of the peach blossom branch pointed out, she felt that the air around her seemed to solidify instantly, and all the sword energy she was wildly waving, her restless mood, and even the spiritual power surging in her body.

At this moment, everything was gently and absolutely smoothed out by an invisible force.

Time seemed to stand still for a moment.

When the peach branch was withdrawn, everything returned to normal. But Zhou Suyao was stunned where she was. It seemed that until that moment, she had only vaguely felt for the first time what true power was.

That was something she had never realized before, something that seemed to contain the heaven and earth in a single moment.

Spiritual power.

She slightly withdrew her gaze and turned her eyes to Lan Qi not far away. It seemed that people tend to be more sentimental after being sick. She suddenly thought of the day when she was accepted as a disciple by her master.

That day, her master brought her to a sword tomb in the forbidden area behind the mountains. She saw countless dilapidated ancient swords slanted among the jagged rocks, seemingly emitting a desolate and tragic aura. Her master slowly walked among them, finally stopping before a dusty, cracked broken sword.

"This sword is called 'Guarding the Heart.'" Master's voice seemed to carry an inexplicable weariness as he spoke, "Those who wield this sword should guard their hearts and enlighten their natures, maintaining integrity. Even in the face of countless calamities, one should forge ahead fearlessly, safeguarding what lies within."

His skinny fingers brushed across the cold broken sword, and in an instant, she heard the cracked broken sword emit an extremely faint but clear sound.

"Today, I, the Master, pass this sword on to you. Even though this sword is no longer worth using to attack others, I hope you will remember this today and cherish it: The sword can be broken, but the will cannot. Where the sword in your hand will ultimately lead is determined by your heart."

It seemed that, in that brief moment, Zhou Suyao immediately understood what inheritance meant. From then on, throughout her countless trials and tribulations, it was the invisible sword intent carried by this broken sword that sustained her.

only……

These people who gave her warmth after she came to this strange world seemed to have thousands of secrets from her.

She looked away with a sense of loneliness, then smelled the nauseating smell of medicine again. Although the medicine bowl was empty, the lingering bitter smell still lingered in the room.

She suddenly recalled an earlier time. It seemed like she had just established her foundation when she followed her third senior brother down the mountain to practice and gather herbs, but she had been poisoned. By the time she and her third senior brother had fled back to the mountain gate in a panic, he was already on the verge of death.

She remembered curling up on a cold bamboo bed, her body throbbing with heat and cold, in excruciating pain. Just as her consciousness was blurring, she suddenly felt someone pry open her mouth. Instantly, the pungent, bitter aroma of traditional Chinese medicine rushed into her tongue and throat.

“Cough… cough cough…!”

She was choked and tears were streaming down her face as she struggled in pain.

Beside my ears, Qu Mingwu's voice seemed to be always growling impatiently, "Shut up! Swallow it! Keep coughing if you want to die."

Before she finished speaking, she heard her third brother's worried question: "This is not good... What if she chokes?"

The whispers between the two of them gradually became like ants in her ears. The medicinal juice was extremely powerful, burning her meridians and almost making her faint from the pain.

But after the intense pain, the toxins in the body seemed to be forcibly dispelled by the overbearing power of the medicine.

The next morning, she weakly opened her eyes and saw the tall figure of her second senior brother leaning against the wall beside her window, while her third senior brother was huddled in the corner, looking even more like a nobody.

They all seemed to have been keeping watch all night.

She saw that the second brother had dark circles under his eyes, and his face looked even uglier than usual. At the feet of the third brother was an empty, pitch-black can that smelled of pungent medicine.

When the second brother saw her wake up, he just glanced at her coldly and snorted, "You're quite lucky." Then he turned around and left, leaving behind only a cold back.

The third brother was awakened by the noise, and when he opened his eyes he was met with this embarrassing scene. He had no choice but to yell at her to take her medicine on time while running after the second brother.

But Zhou Suyao knew that the pot of medicine was life-saving and could suppress the strange poison.

The two senior brothers must have gotten it from somewhere, and perhaps they paid a considerable price for it.

Can……

These are her masters and senior brothers whom she regards as family.

Do they also consider her as family?

The answer in her heart was denial.

In the illusion, the resolute face he showed when facing Ning Qinggui made it impossible for her to overlap that person with the unkempt old man today.

And the eldest brother. The eldest brother who treated her gently and politely, always considered her in everything, and was always like a banished immortal.

But in the illusion, he stood by and watched helplessly as the demon race was about to be exterminated.

Which one is the real them?

Her head was splitting with pain, so she had to close her eyes slightly and force herself not to think about it.