As he closed the door, he didn't notice that in the shadows deep within the room, a figure's scales were shimmering violently. Zang Ming's nails had transformed into translucent webbed claws, digging deep into the cracks in the wall tiles.
He couldn't chase after him - the tide was roaring in his veins, and if he got any closer to Ma Tuan, he was afraid he would be unable to control himself and drag his brother into the abyss.
Ma Tuan and the sea otter stood on the edge of the glacier in the spiritual picture, gazing at Zang Ming's vision - it was a deep sea with heavy water pressure and thin light. Only the occasional luminous jellyfish swimming by illuminated his brother's face.
Zang Ming's scales have covered half of his face, and light golden lines have spread to his neck, as if some ancient seal is crumbling.
His pupils completely turned into vertical lines, emitting a cold phosphorescent glow in the darkness. He no longer looked like a human, or even like the brother in Ma Tuan's memory who would smile at him.
——He is turning into a "sesame ball".
Ma Tuan's fingers clenched unconsciously, and a chill crept up his spine.
"Brother...?" he called softly, his voice rippling through his mental picture.
Zang Ming did not respond.
His consciousness seemed to sink deeper, swept by the tidal power of his blood, sinking, reshaping, and transforming bit by bit.
Ma Tuan could feel that something was eroding Zang Ming through the blood connection - it was not a simple "evolution", but an awakening of something older and more terrifying.
In Ma Tuan's broken memory, Zang Ming was once vivid.
He would fight because Ma Tuan was bullied, would secretly save his own green fish to give to his younger brother, and would hold Ma Tuan in his arms on stormy nights. His scales were cool, but more reassuring than any blanket.
But now the hidden darkness...
Ma Tuan stared at the figure in his field of vision—Zang Ming’s fingertips extended into translucent webbed claws, and his back was arched, as if he was bearing some invisible pressure.
His lips opened and closed, but what came out was not human language, but a string of low, sticky syllables, like the roar of a deep-sea monster.
"...Sesame balls?"
Ma Tuan suddenly became uncertain.
The Star Sea Otter who reached out to him from the bottom of the sea, the being who gently called him "cub" in his memory - was he the old god who was awakened by his mental power, or was he the hidden darkness who was devoured by his blood?
Is his brother so powerful... that he can actually influence this old god?
The mental picture began to tremble.
Ma Tuan saw Zang Ming at the bottom of the sea suddenly look up, his vertical pupils "looking" straight at him - across the barriers of reality and spirit, across the fog of blood and memory.
At that moment, two faces overlapped in Ma Tuan's mind:
- Zang Ming - his brows were slightly furrowed, the scales on his cheekbones cast a fine golden light, and his lips were pressed into a stubborn line.
- Sesame Ball——eyes like nebulas, a huge body of a sea otter, and a galaxy that does not belong to the human world flowing between the lines of his palms.
They have the same look.
That kind of... gentle and sad, extremely powerful yet as if saying "I'm sorry".
"Don't you understand yet?"
Umiak's voice suddenly rang in Matuan's mind, and the spirit sea otter appeared beside him at some point, its green eyes staring at Zang Ming in the deep sea.
"Cang Ming was never 'human'."
"He is a vessel deliberately sealed by the priest—to imprison the power of Sesame Maru."
Ma Tuan's breathing stopped.
"Then... the brother in my memory..."
Umiak's tentacles gently wrapped around his wrists. "You gave him 'humanity'."
The tide roared.
Ma Tuan suddenly remembered the night when Zang Ming first grew scales when he was five years old. Little Ma Tuan was so frightened he burst into tears, and Zang Ming clumsily wrapped him in a blanket, stammering a story: "This, this is hero's armor! With this, I can beat all the bad guys!"
——That was the first time Zang Ming "lied".
It was also the first time that the power of Sesame Ball was suppressed by human emotions.
Zang Ming in the deep sea suddenly struggled violently.
His scales burst out with dazzling golden light, as if two forces were fighting within his body.
Ma Tuan heard his brother roaring, his voice sometimes sounding like a human boy, and sometimes like some ancient giant beast.
"Hide... starve..."
Zang Ming dug his fingers into the gaps between his scales, and blood dyed the surrounding sea red.
He was resisting—resisting the erosion of his blood, resisting the awakening of Sesame Ball.
To remember Ma Tuan.
Umiak's voice was so soft it was a sigh: "He can't hold on any longer."
Ma Tuan looked at the sea dyed red with blood, and suddenly jumped into the glacial crack in his spiritual picture.
——If Zang Ming is being swallowed, then he will pull his brother back with his own hands.
No matter what is waiting for him at the bottom of the sea is a god or a monster.
At this moment, when Ma Tuan realized that there was only endless glaciers left in his spiritual picture, the giant star hand that stretched out from the deep sea gently held his falling soul.
"Cub, it's me..."
Zang Ming's voice carried the salty sea breeze, and the star tracks in his palm flowed with the phosphorescence of their shared memories.
Ma Tuan suddenly understood - his brother had never left, but had turned into a more silent guardian, like the deep sea always supporting the glacier.
And at this moment, in the deepest part of the spiritual picture, the scaly boy can finally hug his crying brother tightly, letting all the years of separation melt in the warmth of their bodies.
His brother distanced himself from him at that time, but it was also in that year that Sesame Ball came into his world.
Start accompanying him.
The boundary between reality and memory collapsed.
Ma Tuan stretched out his hand tremblingly, his fingertips only an inch away from the giant star palm.
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