Peking Opera Cat: I Became A Zi's Brother

"Is this all a dream?"

"never mind……"

Bai Tang stood on the roof, scratched his head, and was about to go down when he heard Wu Song suddenly shout:

"Maruko, what are you doing so early in the morning?"

"Oh my god, it smells so good, so good"

He looked back and saw Dafei coming out of the kitchen carrying a steamer, and white mist wrapped in the sweet fragrance of osmanthus buns wafted over.

"Well, it's so comfortable to drink a cup of tea in the morning~"

"Xiaoqing, maybe after we are liberated, Chang Zong can enjoy himself!"

Xiaoqing sat at the table fiddling with the jasmine in the teacup, Mingyue held a cup of tea and savored it carefully, and Haipiao naturally used an embroidered handkerchief to wipe the tea stains from the corners of Xiaoqing's mouth.

"..."

Mo Zi sat on the other side of the round table. The frost pattern on the ice fan "Shuanghua" at her waist was faintly visible in the morning light, and her fingertips were unconsciously circling a strand of red silk. The emblem of the Chang clan embroidered on the edge of the silk ribbon had an almost invisible crack compared to yesterday.

"What are you looking at?"

Wu Song knocked on the edge of the table.

"Come down quickly!"

"?"

When Bai Tang jumped off the roof, he caught a glimpse of the dark purple eyelashes casting shadows under the eyes, and the curve of the corners of the lips was a little colder than usual.

"..."

She tucked the red silk into her sleeves very gently, but it seemed as if she was hiding something shameful.

Dafei stuffed buns into his bowl:

"Eat quickly, don't be hungry when you see the Sect Master later."

“Mmm, it tastes really good…”

Bai Tang took a bite of the bun, but her eyes were fixed on the ice fan around Mo Zi's waist.

There were some gray-black debris vaguely stuck in the cracks of the fan bones, like dried blood, or crystals condensed from chaos.

"Whoo~"

The fingertips holding the teacup were bluish-white, and fine purple lines appeared under her fingernails, like a stream flowing under the ice.

"Sister A Zi, your fan..."

Before he finished speaking, Mo Zi suddenly raised his eyes, and a hint of dark red flashed in the depths of his pupils, like a cluster of flames suddenly burning under the ice.

"how?"

Her voice was sickeningly sweet, but the ice fan in her palm spun a cold arc.

"Want to learn how to use a fan?"

"cough~"

Xiaoqing coughed lightly:

"Sister, did you hear any strange noises last night? Bai Tang said..."

"Shh-"

Mo Zi suddenly lifted up Xiao Qing's hair with an ice fan, and the frost on the fan fell on her shoulders.

"Don't believe everything you hear, little kid."

Her fingertips stroked Xiaoqing's neck, the action was intimate but with a sense of oppression.

"Besides... the red silk in the Sect Master's Hall is the best for warding off evil spirits. How could something so strange happen?"

"!"

Bai Tang clutched the red silk fragment in her pocket, and suddenly discovered a light blue spot behind Mo Zi's ear, the shape of which was exactly the same as the chaotic pattern on the medal last night.

“Rub, rub, rub—”

When she stood up, the ice fan scraped across the table, making a tiny scraping sound, like sharp claws scratching across glass.

Mingyue handed the fan to Haipiao and stood between the two cats calmly.

"It's getting late, it's time to set off."

Her eyes swept across the dark purple cuffs, where an almost invisible gray mist was seeping out and was instantly absorbed by the red silk.

When the cats walked towards the gate, Mo Zi was the last one to fall behind.

"Why did the Chaos Beast appear?!"

Bai Tang looked back and saw her holding up the medal towards the morning light. What was reflected on the gilded surface was not the clan emblem, but a distorted face - the outline was somewhat similar to the legendary sealed Chaos Beast.

"Ah--"

She noticed his gaze, looked up and smiled at him, her ice fan drawing a half-blood-red arc in the sunlight.

"Let's go, Maruko."

Her voice mixed with the rustling of red silk in the morning breeze,

"The Sect Master is waiting to see... the champion."

"..."

Bai Tang shuddered and noticed that half a piece of red silk had been wrapped around her wrist. The sect leader's emblem on the silk was oozing a gray-black liquid, as if a wound was bleeding.

In the distance, from the direction of the Sect Master's Hall, the faint sound of strings came, and the song being played was the "Autumn in the Forbidden Palace" that was contaminated by chaos last night.

……

When the cats wandered into the square, the midday sun was making the bluestone slabs hot.

The sound of a piano in the distance was intermittent, like ice crystals rolling in a jade plate, with an indescribable stickiness in its clearness.

"Wong..."

The ice fan "Shuanghua" on Mo Zi's waist suddenly trembled, and the gray and black debris between the fan bones fell down.

Bai Tang saw from the corner of her eye that her fingertips were tightly gripping the red silk, her knuckles turning white, but she quickly loosened her grip when he turned his head, and instead used the handle of her fan to fiddle with the red silk under the eaves:

"Look, the Sect Master is here."

A figure in moon-white, wide sleeves drifted through the mist. Every step the clan leader took across the stone slabs felt like treading on the strings of a zither. As his sleeves fluttered, red silk automatically floated, weaving a translucent screen behind him.

The Changzong emblem adorned with a jade hairpin in her hair was as warm as usual, but Bai Tang saw that the edge of the emblem was wrapped with extremely thin gray-black silk threads, like burnt strings, and a faint black mist seeped out as she walked.

"Welcome to the sect master——"

The disciples' voices were as sharp as a knife, making the hairs on the back of Bai Tang's neck stand on end.

"..."

He stared at the sect leader's face, only to see her eyes sweep across the crowd. The moment her eyes met Mo Zi's, the corners of her lips lifted up slightly - that smile was as faint as the wind passing over the lake, even Mo Zi, who was looking down at the ground, did not notice it, but it made Bai Tang feel cold all over - that smile did not contain friendliness, but the sharp light of a hunter seeing his prey.

The sound of the piano suddenly became faster, and the bass was mixed with the noise of gravel friction.

When the clan leader spoke, the sweet voice was filled with the smell of rotten wood:

"It's not easy for the Xingluo Squad to come all this way, so follow me..."

"The Sect Master's piano music seems to be mixed with other tunes?"

Bai Tang suddenly spoke, the rosary beads clenched tightly in his palms becoming hot.

"good……"

The leader's smile remained unchanged, but a dark pattern flashed across his wrist:

"The child's ears are pointed."

She waved her fingertips lightly, and the red silk moved without wind.

"It's just a variation of 'Cloud Palace Swift Sound'. I'll share it with you in detail after the ceremony."

"Ah……"

As she spoke, she glanced at Mo Zi again, and this time her smile deepened. The arc at the end of her eyes was exactly the same as the gray and black in Mo Zi's pupils last night.

"That's the same as Sister A Zi!"

Bai Tang then noticed that the fingertips exposed under the sect leader's wide sleeves were bluish-white, and spider-web-like purple patterns were crawling under the fingernails. Among the frost patterns on the ice fan on the dark purple waist, gray-black crystals were shining slightly as the sect leader looked at him.

"Whoo~"

The red silk surrounding the square suddenly trembled, as if countless snakes were waking up in the morning light.

"Why is this happening?"

Bai Tang touched the piece of red silk in his pocket and felt something damp - the piece had been seeping with blood at some point, and the pattern on it fit perfectly with the dark pattern on the sect leader's wrist.

"!"

The sound of the piano gradually faded, and when the sect leader turned around, the gilded emblem on the jade hairpin in his hair had cracked in two, revealing the chaos totem engraved on the inner layer.

"..."

Mo Zi still stood there with his eyes lowered, the tip of the ice fan unconsciously drawing fine marks on the ground, the trajectory of which was exactly the same as the arc of the sect master's smile just now.