A Dog Father Cannot Beget a Dragon Son

World 50: Part 2

Fei Chuan had the system, and so though there were still many things he couldn't do, finding herbs wasn't one of them. Sure, he had to hike a few mountains and climb a few trees, but he was a cultivator and cultivators had bodies that were strengthened beyond human limits. 

"Second canopy," buzzed the system, who had taken the very convenient form of a storage pin that Fei Chuan used to keep his hair in place. Fei Chuan grunted and lifted himself over the next branch. Up above, he could see the mess of thorns and mangled iron that the Nightmare Hawks called a nest. Just a little more... 

Two hours later (the parent Nightmare Hawks came back to roost and snipe at each other), Fei Chuan landed quietly on the ground, a vial of Nightmare blood in one hand and an egg in the other. The former was crossed off the checklist, and the latter...well, maybe it could be a pet for Fucheng? Fei Chuan would have to wait and see. 

******

Fei Chuan barely made it back in time for his baby brother's first birthday. The thought of it was depressing, but not any more so than the reaction little Fucheng had upon seeing his older brother for the first time in a long while. 

"Who are you, uncle?" called a bright, cheery voice. 

To start with, baby Fucheng looked confused at this stranger that suddenly appeared and starting hovering over him. Then, his round eyes had glazed, seeing past Fei Chuan and into something deeper, like his soul, and he started crying in fear. 

Fei Chuan flinched, then obediently stayed out of sight. The last thing he wanted was to force his presence on Fucheng after, well, after everything. 

Luckily, Yan mother and father were unwilling to see him mope too long, and so pulled him back out of his room for dinner. There, little Fucheng, having been apprised of his elder brother's identity, just looked endlessly fascinated whenever his gaze landed on Fei Chuan. It made Fei Chuan's heart warm, and he dug in his food with a small smile. 

** ****

Though Yan Qing and Yan Xiaoling had agreed to let their eldest son go and accept the mission of finding herbs for their youngest, it still made them uneasy to have Yan Jing away for too long. Yan Xiaoling, in particular, hated the thought of her gentle son running into some unscrupulous individuals and coming out injured or worse, dead. 

Still, little Jing insisted so fiercely on it that as his mother, Yan Xiaoling could only let him go. 

** ****

Fei Chuan didn't exactly want to impose his presence on impressionable little Fucheng (not while he was so malleable and couldn't know right from wrong) but he also couldn't help himself from coming back every year on Fucheng's birthday. Just....let him indulge this once. 

This year, Fucheng was turning four, and so Fei Chuan called in some hard-won connections and got Fucheng a glowing, titanium sword made by the world's third best weapon forger.

"Remind me why I couldn't just collect the protagonists' sword?" Fei Chuan asked rhetorically. Something in him chafed at giving his younger brother a weapon that, while certainly not bad, could have been infinitely better. 

The system, which could not detect social cues, said immediately, "We cannot attract [their] attention." 

Fucheng loved it, even when his chubby little body was barely as tall as the sword was long. So. There was that. 

"11 more years," said Mu Hong, when Fei Chuan coincidently passed him in the hall.

**On Fucheng's ninth birthday, Fei Chuan catches his brother and Fong Mushu bashfully holding hands and touring the halls.