Wei Zian's eyes snapped open as a sharp pain shot through his dantian. His body jerked up, meridians flaring with spiritual energy as he struggled against the weight that had suddenly landed on him. In that instant, any trace of his meditative state vanished.
"Good morning, brother!" an annoyingly cheerful voice rang out right on top of him. "Morning, morning, MORNING!"
Wei Zian glared at his little sister, but she just smiled back at him with a face full of mischief, still sprawled across his stomach. She hummed to herself, obviously satisfied with her prank, kicking her feet in the air as she pretended to study the Eight Great Cultivation Regions map Wei Zian had hung next to his meditation mat. He could clearly see her watching him from the corner of her eyes, waiting for his reaction.
'This is what I get for not setting up even a basic Spirit Repelling Formation,' Wei Zian thought bitterly.
"Get off," he said as calmly as possible, fighting the urge to channel qi into his palm and fling her across the room.
"Mother said to wake you up," she replied matter-of-factly, not budging an inch.
"Not like this, she didn't." Wei Zian swallowed his irritation, watching patiently for his sister to drop her guard. As expected, Qin Ling started fidgeting after just a few breaths of his feigned disinterest. Right before she could say something annoying, Wei Zian grabbed her legs and chest, channeled a tiny bit of qi to his hands, and flipped her over the edge of his meditation mat. She landed on the floor with a thud and a surprised yelp.
Wei Zian quickly jumped to his feet, ready to defend himself if she decided to retaliate. He looked down at her and sniffed. "I'll remember this the next time I need to wake you up."
"Fat chance!" she retorted, brushing off her clothes. "You always meditate longer than I sleep."
Wei Zian sighed in defeat. Damn this little demon, but she was right.
"So..." she began excitedly, bouncing to her feet, "are you excited?"
Wei Zian watched as she hopped around his room like a monkey that had eaten too many spirit fruits. Sometimes he wished he had even a bit of her boundless energy. But just a bit.
"About what?" he asked innocently, pretending not to understand. Asking obvious questions was the fastest way to make his sister lose interest in talking to him.
"Going back to Celestial Peak Sect!" she whined, clearly seeing through his tactic. He needed new ways to deal with her. "Learning cultivation techniques! Can you show me a technique? Maybe a tiny flame on your palm? Or make something float?"
Wei Zian let out a long-suffering sigh. Qin Ling had always treated him like her personal playmate, despite his best efforts to discourage her, but usually she stayed within certain boundaries. This year, though, she was completely impossible, and Mother refused to control her. All he did was study cultivation manuals all day, she said, so it wasn't like he was doing anything important... Thankfully, the summer meditation break was over, and he could finally escape from them all.
"Qin Ling, I need to pack. Why don't you go bother Wei Fu instead?"
She scowled unhappily for a moment, then suddenly perked up as if remembering something. Before Wei Zian could react, she darted out of his room.
"No!" he shouted as he ran after her, but it was too late. The washroom door slammed in his face. He pounded on it in frustration. "Damn it, Qin Ling! You had all morning to use the washroom before I woke up!"
"Sucks to be you," was her only response from behind the door.
After cursing under his breath about the Eighteen Levels of Hell, Wei Zian stomped back to his room to get dressed. She would definitely stay in there for at least half an incense stick's time just to spite him.
He quickly changed out of his inner cultivation robes into his regular clothes and checked his room. At least Qin Ling hadn't gone through his stuff before waking him. She had no concept of other people's privacy.
Packing didn't take Wei Zian long, he'd never really unpacked, to be honest, and would have returned to Celestial Peak Sect a week ago if Mother had allowed it. As he was gathering his cultivation manuals, he noticed with irritation that some were missing. He could try a simple tracking technique, but he already knew where they'd ended up, Qin Ling had a habit of taking them to her room, no matter how many times he told her to keep her hands off them. On a hunch, he checked his writing supplies and, sure enough, they were almost completely gone.
It always happened, every time he came home, Qin Ling raided his supplies. Setting aside how she shouldn't be sneaking into his room to steal his things, what was she even doing with all those brushes and spirit ink sticks? This time he specifically bought extras with his sister in mind, but she still took everything, he couldn't find a single ink stone in his drawer, and he'd bought a whole pouch of them before coming home.
Why Qin Ling couldn't just ask Mother to buy her some cultivation books and writing supplies of her own was beyond Wei Zian. She was the youngest, and the only daughter, so Mother always spoiled her, the silk robes she'd talked Mother into buying cost five times more than some books and brushes would.
While Wei Zian had no hope of ever seeing his writing supplies again, he really needed those cultivation manuals. With that in mind, he marched to his sister's room, ignoring the "Imperial Decree: No Entry!" sign on her door. He quickly found his missing books in their usual hiding place, cunningly stashed under her bed behind several strategically placed stuffed spirit beasts.
With his packing done, he went downstairs to eat something and see what Mother wanted from him.
Though his family thought he simply liked to meditate late into the morning, Wei Zian actually had a reason for it. It meant he could eat his breakfast in peace, since everyone else would be done by then. Few things annoyed him more than someone trying to talk to him while he was eating, and that was exactly when his family was most talkative. Unfortunately, Mother wasn't willing to wait for him today and immediately descended upon him as soon as she saw him coming down the stairs.