"Well, at least we're alive..." I smirked, holding my side and leaning against the fence. After my unexpected appearance on the battlefield, things took a more serious turn, and as a result, we were beaten... But we didn't give up so easily and beat them back! It's a shame, though, that I was exhausted and couldn't show my full potential, like at the very beginning, using the element of surprise.
"Haha... Did you see their faces when they started running away?" Xiao Hou, badly beaten with a black eye and a face contorted in pain, laughed, leaning on Mo Fan. The latter was no better, and also walked, supported by Xiao Hou.
"Jiaxing Yun, where is Jiaxing Xia?! How could you leave her alone!" Mo Fan asked menacingly, immediately grabbing his side. How sweet, he's still thinking about his sister, even when he's covered in scratches and bruises, barely having fought off a bunch of hooligans. For that, he deserves credit.
"She's fine... I took her to a safe place and came back to you..." I said, breathing heavily and clearing my throat. I took no less of a beating than they did, and possibly more! Considering the fact that I was exhausted, and the anger of a couple of young delinquents decided to take it out on me. I even think they almost broke a couple of my ribs!
"And what about those two who chased you?" Xiao Hou asked with mild interest.
"They're worse off than those who ran away..." I said, giving a weak smirk.
"I see... Thank you for helping, of course, but..." Mo Fan exhaled, sincerely thanking me, then added menacingly. "But if you didn't protect Jiaxing Xia, I'll add more to you!"
"Of course, I protected her! How else? She's my sister too!" I said confidently and slightly puffed up, completing my plan, which had cost me dearly. "So how could I leave her in danger?"
"Your sister?" Mo Fan said, slightly surprised.
"Well, yes..." I replied shyly, scratching the back of my head. "Besides you, I have no one else left... And if you turn away from me too..." I said in a sad voice, turning away, starting to play on Mo Fan's sympathy.
"Don't worry... Since you live with us, you're part of our family." Mo Fan patted me on the shoulder.
"Ow! That hurts..." I grumbled a little, turning to him with a smile. The plan had ended perfectly.
After that, we talked a lot more on the way home, where a worried Jiaxing Xia was already waiting for us. She helped treat our battle wounds, while Mo Fan began to treat me differently, as if he were my older brother. This was what I had been aiming for; now everything was settled. That very evening, after Mo Jiaxing arrived, I saw them talking about something, and the next day I was delighted to hear that I would now always live here. Naturally, I showed that I was happy about it and all that. The result didn't differ much from my expectations, although such a quick decision was an unlikely outcome.
For about two weeks, I stayed at home, not particularly wanting to go out, even when Mo Fan called me. After all, I needed to recover from the consequences of my plan, but staying indoors forever wasn't an option. About a week before school started, along with Mo Fan, I finally decided to go out and meet the remaining heroes of this story, who were supposed to live nearby.
Taking Xiao Huo with me, Mo Fan and I headed to the Mu family's mansion, which I had only seen from afar before. There was no hedge yet, so it was quite easy to get onto their territory, and the workers tending the garden paid us no special attention, as if it were supposed to be that way. Deep in the garden, we found a small table with a couple of chairs. At one of them, dressed in a blue dress like a princess, sat a little girl with silver hair, drinking tea. Next to her sat a boy of our age, who seemed to be completely absorbed in the tea he was drinking.
"Hi! Mu Ning Xue, that dress suits you!" Mo Fan said as we approached. Of course, this girl was Mu Ning Xue, the future ice queen, one of the strongest mages of this element, and one of the youngest spell mages in the world. The one who survived the polar night at the South Pole and made a contract with a totem. Now, she was just a cute little girl, in whom there was no trace of the cold and aloof girl she would become later.
"Mo Fan, hello. And isn't Jiaxing Xia with you today?" Mu Ning Xue asked, slightly flustered and a little embarrassed by Mo Fan's compliment, looking at the three of us. If it weren't for her silver hair and name, it would have been impossible to recognize her as Mu Ning Xue from the original work! However, this was exactly how I imagined her as a child.
"No, she decided to stay home today." Mo Fan said calmly.
"And who is this with you this time?" the boy sitting next to her asked, slightly annoyed.
"Oh, tea boy, I'm surprised you've been distracted from your tea to talk to us." Mo Fan smirked.
"At least I noticed you, unlike some." Mu Bai said quietly, getting angry.
"Really? I saw you too, but I didn't want to distract you from your tea." Mo Fan waved him off.
This tea-loving boy was Mu Bai, who in the future would face a rather harsh fate: death, resurrection, and death again, eternal service to the Dark King from a dark dimension. At least, if everything goes as planned, which I'm not very sure about. So, for starters, I need to confirm the existence of fate in this world and that events will unfold as I know them. To do this, it's necessary to exclude any external interference. Unfortunately, I've already failed at that, but at least I can hope that the changes caused by my appearance will be insignificant. And to minimize the impact of this fact, I shouldn't influence anything too much, being just a background character in Mo Fan's childhood. Then there's a chance I can conduct a maximally plausible experiment. Anyway, until magic awakens, I have nothing much to do, and until the end of high school, I'll be limited in my movements.
"Your name is Jiaxing Yun, right? Jiaxing Xia told me about you..." Mu Ning Xue said, approaching me while the two rascals argued about who knows what.
"Uh... Yes, nice to meet you." I said, pretending to be a little flustered.
"Heh-heh..." She giggled, seeing my confusion, then asked, spinning around. "Am I really pretty?"
"Probably..." I said, shrugging. Although I expected it, such a Mu Ning Xue still put me in a difficult position and caused cognitive dissonance! "And do you live in this mansion?" I asked, pointing to the main building of the villa on the hill, deciding to change the subject.
"Yes! And my dad is in charge here!" she smiled happily. "And he, like my mom, is a very strong mage!"
"Really? How strong are they?" I asked, interested, sensing an opportunity to learn something that wasn't in the original for obvious reasons, but it wasn't meant to be.
"Alright! I didn't come here to argue, but to have fun!" Mo Fan said confidently, puffing out his chest. "Let's decide what we're going to play!"
"Maybe tag?" suggested Xiao Hou, who had been watching the argument between Mu Bai and Mo Fan all this time.
"Or maybe 'kidnap the princess'?" Mu Ning Xue suggested enthusiastically, then, after thinking, said sadly, addressing me. "Sorry, Mom and Dad don't like to talk about it... They constantly say I'm too young to know yet."
"I see..." I said sadly, missing a good opportunity.
"Kidnap the princess again? Aren't you tired of it? Maybe we should do something more useful?" Mu Bai suggested, in a slightly confused and lost tone.
"Hahaha! As if you don't like being the princess's protector!" Mo Fan said, laughing. "Or are you suggesting we enjoy your favorite green tea?"
"So what? And I'm definitely not giving you my tea!" Mu Bai said, offended. "A simpleton like you doesn't deserve it!"
"Oh, look at this grump!" Mu Bai started teasing him again.
"And maybe this time I'll have two protectors?" Mu Ning Xue suggested, smiling.
"And who will be the second? Zhao Kunshan is busy right now..." Xiao Hou said, thinking a little.
"Yeah, who else would agree to be on the losing side?" Mo Fan said, smiling and looking triumphantly at Mu Bai.
"But there are four of us here! Why are you putting Jiaxing Yun on your team?!" Mu Bai said indignantly.
"He's my brother, and it's logical that he'll be with me!" Mo Fan hit his chest, not really thinking about the fairness of the game in that case. Although I personally hadn't yet imagined what kind of game it could be...
"But that's not fair, and therefore not interesting!" Mu Bai insisted. "If Sister Mu Ning Xue doesn't mind, then I want Jiaxing Yun on my side and playing for the defenders!"
"Okay, let Mu Ning Xue decide!" Mo Fan said confidently, looking at the poor girl, who seemed confused by being made responsible, but at the same time incredibly happy about this outcome. It was clear that she loved being the center of attention and the main person.
"I don't mind..." she said happily, then after a moment's thought added. "If Jiaxing Yun himself doesn't mind, of course..."
"This is..." After her words, all eyes turned to me. "I don't mind either, because the main thing is that it's fun?..."
"Yes, exactly!" Mu Ning Xue said, jumping up and down, clapping her hands.
"But I don't even know what kind of game this is..." I said, even more confused.
The rules of the game turned out to be quite interesting and fun. Firstly, there was a division into defenders and kidnappers; the former wore green ribbons, and the latter red. Secondly, both player factions had their own bases. Thirdly, the defenders guarded the princess at their base and had to catch all the kidnappers, while the kidnappers had to kidnap the princess and take her to their base. Fourthly, to capture a kidnapper, a defender had to catch him, touch him, take him to their base; after being touched, he could not resist, and at the base, they would take his ribbon and permanently remove him from the game. Fifthly, if two kidnappers surrounded one defender, they could take him to their base and take his ribbon, removing him from the game.
When asked who invented such rules, I was simply pointed to a smugly smiling Mu Ning Xue, which was to be expected. Mu Bai certainly wouldn't have done it, and the others wouldn't have had enough brains for it. Perhaps the idea itself could have come from Mo Fan, but he wouldn't have been able to come up with such fair and interesting rules. After the rules were announced and a short preparation, the first game began, the territory of which was the entire garden of the Mu family villa, and this was an incredibly huge territory for seven-year-olds!
One game, due to the overwhelmingly large territory, lasted quite a long time, but strangely, Mu Ning Xue, the only one who was supposed to just sit and do nothing, didn't look bored. It seemed she genuinely enjoyed being at the center of such a game and derived pleasure from it. After all, it was too stark a contrast to what I knew. We managed to play only three times, two of which ended in Mo Fan's victory, of course, if I hadn't been too lazy to engage in such childish games, we could have won all three times...
However, no matter how hard I tried to abstract myself from childish nonsense, I couldn't resist going out again the next day to play with them. For the first time in my life, I truly felt childhood and what it was like to play with children like myself. Although I must admit that I was much older and smarter than them, but... If before I had only heard about the games of ordinary children, only now did I get to play them, which, I must say, was a rather pleasant experience, and also helped me get into character. Although I still didn't try too hard to win. Beating children was beneath my dignity.
But even in such seemingly idle days, I didn't forget what was supposed to happen and prepared for it, despite the fact that some points still needed clarification. First of all, after school started, which was frankly boring for someone like me, I saved money from lunches and bought a notebook, which I didn't tell anyone about. In it, I recorded all the events that I knew from the canon; after all, even with my excellent, and I won't be afraid to say it, absolute photographic memory, remembering over three thousand chapters for more than ten, even twenty years, is very difficult!
Days followed one after another, turning into weeks, and weeks into months and years. I observed everyone I could, trying to learn as much as possible and gain their trust, trying to create the image of a smart and clever guy who usually doesn't meddle in other people's business, but also doesn't like big adventures himself. My main goal was Mu Ning Xue; I was curious about what actually happened to her at thirteen, how she awakened her magic, and where her mother disappeared! Ning Xue herself stayed at home and didn't go to school with us, which was quite expected for the daughter of the most powerful and influential person in the city of Bo.
However, after school, she always happily continued to play with us, always open and kind, showing no sign of becoming the cold queen she was in the web novel. A few times I saw her father, as well as Mu He, about whom I had no good impression. Three years after my reincarnation, or rather, my transmigration into this world, another character appeared in the Mu family's mansion. Yu An, a rather handsome boy, whom Mu Zhuoyun found on the streets of the city and in whom, according to him, he noticed talent.
However, at this time, Mu Ning Xue's mother also returned, looking like an old hag, exhausted and tired of life, as if she had been dried out. But most importantly, along with her, a man arrived at that time, a man in his thirties, with dark hair and a cunning appearance. Of course, his description in the original was rather vague, but after observation and eavesdropping, I guessed who it might be. Pan Xi, the guardian of the ice killing bow. Thanks to my surveillance of him, I witnessed the moment when Mu He recommended Yu An to Mu Zhuoyun. He was present then. He had the final say on Yu An's talent. Ha, the Black Church and Salan thought they had successfully infiltrated Yu An to take advantage of the Mu family, but unfortunately for them, it was the Mu clan that planned to take advantage of them!
After that, Pan Xi left, and Mu Ning Xue's barely alive mother remained to live in the mansion. However, neither she nor Mu Zhuoyun's new son appeared on the street much. And Princess Mu herself became sadder and more worried. Meanwhile, the first key event of this story was approaching, without which everything could go differently, and I would lose my advantage, knowledge of the future. Mu Ning Xue and Mo Fan's escape. As the time for this date approached, the heroine herself became sadder. At first, it was not noticeable, but gradually it became more and more evident.
Shortly before Mu Ning Xue's thirteenth birthday, during one of our games, she was summoned to the mansion. It was already evening, and everyone found it unsurprising, but I felt that something was wrong here. By this time, I had thoroughly studied the villa and acquired good physical fitness. Moreover, the experience of my past life was quite extensive. Therefore, without much difficulty, I managed to sneak into the main mansion, specifically to the room where Mu Ning Xue's mother was. As I thought, she had been summoned there.
"Be strong, so strong that no one can break you..." I didn't hear the whole conversation, of course, but I heard these last words of Ning Xue's mother very clearly. After that, she placed her hand on her daughter's head, and a powerful surge of cold emanated from it, and an incomprehensible sensation enveloped me.
Immediately after that, I hurried to hide; there was no point in staying there any longer, it was even dangerous. Anyway, I learned everything I wanted. I would have to be a complete idiot not to understand what had just happened. Mu Ning Xue's mother is a very cunning woman, of course, if you don't know the full picture, which will only be revealed in the future, it's impossible to build a complete picture of what's happening. The Mu clan, how you were mistaken about this woman, she has already played such a trick on you that you will only guess about it ten years later in Venice, when you try to do the same to her daughter!
Although I am not a mage yet, nor do I possess the necessary knowledge about the ice killing bow, from the information available in the original, I can assume that during the transfer of the bow fragment to the Mu clan, she left some kind of seal on it that burdened her soul all this time. Her fatigue and exhaustion were not just from the loss of cultivation! In her soul, there remained either a piece of the fragment, or something related to it, something she did to help her daughter master and merge with the bow. Something that will make the ice killing bow the personal property of Mu Ning Xue!
There is also a high probability that it is because of this that Princess Mu awakened her magic so early, at only thirteen years old. I bet her mother held on with all her might, intending to pass it on when her daughter was closer to sixteen, so as not to harm her. But it seems her soul weakened much more than she planned, or the fragment was taken from her earlier than she thought. Many things could have happened, but it doesn't matter... Soon the poor girl is supposed to run away with her pea prince.
And so it happened, a couple of days later Mo Fan burst in with Mu Ning Xue into our house, hiding in the room. A few minutes later, he came out and went to look around outside. I, taking advantage of the moment, decided to talk to Ning Xue; I needed to confirm some of my guesses, and I could also influence history slightly at the very beginning. I don't just want to have an advantage, but to ensure that the world isn't destroyed, because then how can I calmly read manhua? And I don't need anything else from life; I was a super-genius in my past life, and I didn't like it.
"Princess Mu, what happened?" I asked, entering the room and seeing Mu Ning Xue sitting on the bed.
"Nothing..." she grumbled under her breath, still burying her nose in her knees.
"Really? I don't think so." I said, shaking my head and approaching her. Only now did I notice that her silver hair had taken on a white hue and seemed to be covered in frost. If before black strands, her natural hair, could be seen in it, now there were none.
"So what? Can you leave me alone?" she asked indignantly. "You'd better go help Mo Fan..."
"I was usually on the defenders' side, how can I help a kidnapper?" I said with a smirk. "I'm here to protect the princess."
"Huh? How did you know we ran away?" Ning Xue asked in surprise, looking at me.
"It was obvious." I shrugged. "I'm more interested in what happened that made you decide to run away. Don't you love your father and mother?"
"This..." Tears immediately welled up in her eyes, and she started crying.
"What happened? Did I say something wrong?" I asked, immediately worried. "If so, tell me so I know, and then it will be easier for you too..."
"Mom... She... Left..." Mu Ning Xue said through sobs. "And after that, Dad said I had to leave here and study in the main Mu clan!"
"I see, that's sad..." I said in a sad voice.
"I don't want to leave you guys too! I don't want to be alone among strangers!" she said, crying more and more. "And also... Also..."
"Are you cold? Constantly, right?" I asked in a calm voice.
"From... Where do you know?" Mu Ning Xue asked in surprise.
"You can tell," I said with a smile. "You know, I can't bring your mother back, but I think you can do it yourself."
"What, really?" she asked, surprised.
"Yes, why not? Everyone can bring back their loved ones if they want to," I said, smiling.
"I don't believe you! Even powerful mages like my father couldn't do anything!" she declared confidently, offended.
"Of course, the dead are dead because they can't return to the living, but the living can call them back," I continued, ignoring her. The original Ice Queen was very strong, of course, but inside her was a broken little girl who eventually moved on. Although I don't particularly want to change that, why not create a foundation for the future? "After all, all our loved ones will always be with us…"
"And where is that?" Mu Ning Xue asked incredulously.
"Right here," I said, pointing to her heart.
"Pfft… How cliché! Do you think no one has told me that?" she said, turning away from me.
"And here," I said, pointing to her forehead. "And of course, here too…" I added, taking her hands.
"Huh? I don't understand you," she said, staring at me with bewilderment.
"I'll explain… You'll awaken magic in the future, right?" I asked, smiling at her. Actually, I thought she had already awakened it, she just didn't know about it, or at least I shouldn't know about it.
"Well, yes… Probably…" Mu Ning Xue replied, still uncertain but calmer, looking at me. I continued to smile at her, releasing her hands.
"What do you think, what kind of magic will you awaken?" I continued asking questions.
"I don't know… Most likely ice magic, like Mom and Dad…" she said, lost in thought.
"Then they will always be with you, along with your magic. Although ice magic freezes everything around, for you it will be the warmest thing in the world, because that's what you received from your parents. In ice and cold, in your magic, your mother will be reborn, protecting you from all dangers," I said, looking at the ceiling.
"Really? You think so?" Mu Ning Xue asked in surprise.
"Yes, why not? At least I believe in it and I'm waiting for the moment when I can awaken my own magic. Because then I can finally touch my parents and maybe understand or remember why they left me alone, with nothing, leaving only a pathetic note," I said, smiling.
"I see…" Mu Ning Xue replied thoughtfully, lowering her head.
"I think your mother would want you to become as strong as possible, so you can protect your loved ones, just as she protects you. And even if one day your heart is still bound by ice, I think there will be someone who will melt it with their flame and remind you of my words today," I said, smiling, getting out of bed and heading for the exit.
"You ruined everything at the end with some nonsense!" Mu Ning Xue said, pouting, also getting out of bed.
"Huh? And where are you going? Weren't you going to escape?" I asked, greatly surprised by the changes in her, although I had expected something like this.
"I changed my mind… After all, Dad will be very worried and will probably punish him severely if he finds out that he helped me escape…" Mu Ning Xue said, blushing.
"I see… I think that's likely…" I said, smirking slightly.
At that very moment, sounds of struggle, shouts, and curses came from downstairs, among which the demand to return Princess Mu was clearly audible. The princess herself froze at this, and I, following the prepared plan, which needed slight adjustment, rushed downstairs and saw Mo Sina being beaten by the Mu family guards, while he was protecting Mo Fan. Naturally, I rushed to his aid, but was easily thrown back and received a strong bruise. At this seemingly critical moment, Mu Ning Xue appeared on the stairs with determination and confidence in her eyes.