Peking Opera Cat: I Became A Zi's Brother

"boom!"

In the blood pattern formation, Mo Zi's body suddenly slammed heavily onto the altar, and the chains loosened as he lost the strength to struggle.

"Sister~sister..."

Her fingertips were still trying to touch Xiaoqing, and the blood beads in the corners of her eyes finally fell and turned into tiny gray spots on the stone platform.

The entire Forbidden Palace fell into an eerie silence. Only the noise of a distant puppet show could be heard through the ground, like a dream whisper across a curtain of water.

"..."

At this moment, two flames lit up faintly in the shadows in the corner of the altar.

Those were a pair of cat's eyes embedded in the stone wall. The pupils were as sharp as knives. When they swept across the bloodstains on the dark purple wrist, the flames suddenly flickered - just like a candle flame blown by wind and snow.

"child."

A hoarse voice came from the stone wall, with the coldness of glacial permafrost, yet wrapped in the warmth of old snow.

"This is not where you should be."

In the blood-patterned array, Mo Zi's eyes shook violently because of the woman's voice, and the afterimage of Xiaoqing in the illusion was reflected in his pupils - his sister was shouting "sister" across the blood-colored fog, and the ice-patterned red rope on her fingertips had broken into pieces.

"What!"

She wanted to pounce and grab the edge of the green clothing, but she felt her legs were welded to the scarlet altar by chains, and every inch of her muscles felt as heavy as lead.

"Xiao Qing!"

The cry that came out of her throat was just a weak whimper in reality.

In the illusion, Xiaoqing's figure finally fell into a cliff with blood veins surging, and a dazzling red light suddenly exploded in front of Mo Zi's eyes.

Just when her consciousness was about to collapse, a gentle yet powerful "child" penetrated the chaos, like her mother's hand patting her back when she was young, piecing the shattered illusion back into a blood-red dome.

"What exactly is this..."

Mo Zi blinked suddenly, and the blood beads on his eyelashes fell onto the back of the woman's hand.

"?"

She turned to look at the figure in a green shirt beside her. A glimmer of light seeped into the fine lines in the corners of his eyes. He was pressing his palm against the blood vein on her heart—and there was actually a pattern of ice condensed there!

"This is where……"

Her voice was hoarse like broken glass and she tasted rust on her tongue.

The woman sighed and brushed her wet hair away from her forehead, revealing the new gray wrinkles behind her ears:

"The puppet formation at the Forbidden Palace of the Changing Sect. The rhythmic energy you've been drained of is now feeding that imposter on the stage."

"impossible……"

Mo Zi shook his head, but suddenly fell silent when he saw the shrinking blood vessels in his wrist.

"Ah--"

The veins that once carried my brother's strength are now nothing but dry ashes.

"impossible!"

She pulled the chain violently, but heard an empty "clang" sound - her limbs didn't even have the strength to break free from the rusty iron.

"My rhythmic power..."

She stared at the gradually fading blue in her palm, and suddenly remembered that when Xiaoqing fell in the illusion, not even a piece of ice could condense on her fingertips.

The woman looked at Mo Zi's futile struggle, sighed and shook her head:

"Don't waste your energy, kid. You can't escape from this place."

She tapped the cracked totem on the stone wall with her fingertips, and rust fell on the back of her dark purple hand, mixed with blood beads and formed dark red scabs.

"Would you know? I beg you to tell me—"

Mo Zi gasped and glared at her, bloodstains at the corners of his eyes blooming due to the force:

"How did you know...I have to go out!"

The iron chain swayed slightly with her heavy breathing, reflecting the faded cloud pattern on the woman's blue shirt - that was the dark pattern embroidered only by the old members of the Chang clan.

The woman pulled out half a charred token from her sleeve, with the forbidden word "Protect" engraved on the edge:

"I've been locked up here for ten years, and I can even count the clappers of the puppet show."

Xiaoqing's crying voice of "Sister" was heard from the distance. Mo Zi turned his head suddenly, but only saw the distorted reflection in the blood pattern array.

The woman pressed the token into her palm. The metal surface was surprisingly hot.

"The Sect Master used your rhythmic energy to feed the puppets, and your weapons have long been replaced with fake ones..."

She suddenly coughed violently, and gray mist seeped out from between her fingers - a sign of years of erosion by the blood veins.

"Why help me?"

Mo Zi stared at her gray-stained nails, a sense of vigilance rising in his throat.

"I don't know, but maybe I'm crazy..."

When the woman heard this, a flash of anger suddenly ignited in her dim eyes, but it quickly extinguished in the gray mist in her eyes:

"A useless piece of shit who abandoned her husband and child? Yeah...my husband was killed by Chaos, and I lost my child. Even my mother-in-law calls me a disaster."

Her skinny fingers dug into the stone wall, black blood seeping out from between her nails.

"What's even more ridiculous is that Chaos used my face to create an illusion, and yet I was imprisoned in this hellish place as a madman."

"!"

Mo Zi's whole body trembled, and the chains made a slight sound due to the shock:

"Could it be that you are the real leader of the Chang Sect?"

The woman chuckled, her laughter as piercing as a broken bellows. When she turned around, Mo Zi saw that the pupil of her left eye had been swallowed by the gray mist, leaving only the right eye still gleaming with a lingering flame.

"Rong Yin... yes, I'm Rong Yin, the leader of the Chang Sect. But who cares now? Everyone thinks that imposter is me."

The old woman turned her back, her withered back hunched like a shrimp, and an old wound on her lower back was faintly visible under her green shirt - it was a sword scar shaped like a butterfly.

She raised her hand to touch the blurred totem on the stone wall. When her fingertips swept over the words "Singing Sect", a trickle of rhythmic energy suddenly seeped out of the stone surface, gathering into half an ice-patterned ring in her palm:

"I used this ring to fight against Chaos, but now I don't even have the strength to stand up..."

When Mo Zi heard this, he didn't say anything, but looked at her back and fell into deep thought.

Will I be imprisoned here forever?

The sect leader saw Mo Zi's expression and knew what she was thinking. He suddenly burst into a hoarse laugh, which shattered into dust when it hit the stone wall:

"Imprisonment? Child, you are too naive."

She raised her only remaining intact right eye and looked at the blood-red clouds surging outside the dome.

"This is ultimately a chaotic age. Wait until Rong Yin completes the puppet ceremony and drains your rhythmic energy..."

Gray mist leaked from her throat,

"We will all become nutrients in the blood veins, and the real Chaos Beast will trample on our bones..."

"Uh~"

The laughter suddenly choked in his throat and turned into a sigh with blood foam.

Rong Yin's skinny fingers stroked the butterfly sword scar on his lower back. What oozed out was no longer blood, but a translucent chaotic mist.

"What I regret most is..."

She shook off a yellowed piece of cloth from her sleeve, on which the word "Fly" could be vaguely seen.

"I'll never know until I die whether my child...was killed by Rong Yin, or is he trapped in some dark place like you..."

……

As the last blood-patterned lamp was lit, the fog in the Tibetan Sect Festival Square suddenly surged.

"Mm, it's really comfortable~"

Rong Yin sat upright on the carved main seat, her fingertips stroking the icy patterns on the replica of the Frost Fan - although the fan was coated with the luster of Arctic cold iron, it was emitting a gray mist unique to chaos under the moonlight.

She glanced at the figures of the Xingluo Squad below being controlled by puppet strings, and the corners of her mouth curled into an exaggerated arc:

"Watch out, youngsters of the Xingluo class—this is the 'rules' of the Chang Sect!"

Xiaoqing was suspended in the center of the stage by puppet strings. The ice-patterned red rope around her waist had been replaced with blood-red silk. She stared at the figure on the stage that looked exactly like Mo Zisheng, digging her nails deep into her palms.

"Where the hell did you hide my sister?!"

Rong Yin suddenly burst into a sharp laugh, and slammed the handle of her fan against the pillar, sending down gold dust mixed with real blood beads.

"Mo Zi? She's serving as my nourishment beneath the Forbidden Palace! In half an hour, you'll see her—kneeling here in her most obedient manner, singing the 'Heavenly Sacrifice Song'!"