My Brother Practices Forbidden Arts - Chapter 1

My brother recoiled several steps and cried, “What rotten luck!”

“Why is it you?!”

I floated around with my head drooping, the tail of my ghostly form still tethered to him.

No. To my own body.

Watching him scratch his head and yank at his hair, I said, “Bro, stop pulling. You didn’t have much hair to begin with.”

I’d been staying up so late lately that I thought I was seeing ghosts. Instead, I’d become one.

My brother had been gifted from the start. After joining the Poxiao Sect, he showed astonishing talent and became one of its brightest disciples.

But at the height of his glory, he chose a crooked path. He stole corpses to practice forbidden arts, leaving walking dead everywhere.

I thought he’d lost his mind. He said the crooked path was faster.

The orthodox sects never stopped hunting him.

In our third year of hiding from place to place, he suffered a cultivation backlash and died. I became an orphan.

After that, I came to the Poxiao Sect, because they took in orphans.

I thought it was a pretty good place.

My brother was furious.

“What are you doing in this damned place?”

He had plainly recognized the sect he’d once belonged to.

He’d said he and righteousness could never coexist.

Especially the Poxiao Sect.

I hung my head and counted my fingers. “They take in orphans. They feed me.”

“Pathetic.”

Out of habit, he reached to rub my head, but his hand closed on empty air.

Even his usually carefree eyes flashed with bewilderment.

Just then, the door was kicked open. Zhang Kaiyuan came in.

He approached with a leering grin. “Junior Sister, it’s the dead of night. Have you been thinking of your senior brother?”

He’d had his eye on me since I joined. I had no one to back me up and little talent, so I could only put up with him. Usually he just took liberties with me. I hadn’t expected him to barge into my room today.

My brother’s face darkened at once. “Who are you?”

Oblivious, Zhang Kaiyuan put a hand on my shoulder as he always did.

The next instant, I heard bone crack.

My brother had crushed his forearm with one hand.

Zhang Kaiyuan sat on the floor, clutching his arm and screaming. “You little bitch! How dare you lay a hand on me!”

With a thud, my brother punched his face out of shape. He rolled several times before coming to a stop.

My brother’s eyes were dark as he barked, “You’re asking to die!”

I hurried to stop him. “Bro, you can’t kill anyone here!”

I still had to get by in this place!

Zhang Kaiyuan was battered and bloody, already unconscious.

My brother looked displeased. “This is how you’ve been living here?”

“It’s actually pretty good. As long as I get up at the third night watch every day and sweep the mountain gate for four hours, I get enough to eat.”

“They make you get up at the third watch to sweep the gate?!”

His temper flared. “I’ll wipe them out!”

“Bro! Calm down!”

“If someone hasn’t crossed me, I’ll cross them first. If they have, I’ll wipe out their whole family!”

“Bro! Bro! This is the Poxiao Sect! The sect master is the greatest cultivator on the orthodox path! He’s powerful!”

He suddenly calmed down. “Let’s rob the sect master’s treasury.”

He hadn’t calmed down at all!

I hesitated. “Bro, are we that eager to die?”

He snorted. “What’s the big deal? Back when I was in the Poxiao Sect, going into the sect master’s treasury was like strolling into my own back garden.”

“But what would we go there for?”

“To make a new body, of course. There’s a lotus seed left behind by an ancient true god in the treasury. Plant it, let an intact soul attach itself, and that soul can be reborn. We can’t share one body forever, can we?”

He muttered, “I don’t want to wear a dress every day.”

“I have a question.”

“Ask.”

“How much of your strength can you use right now?”

He clenched his right fist, his face full of pride. “All of it.”

Well, that settled it. We’d rob the place.

Like a shadow, my brother slipped into the sect master’s room and went up to a mirror. He breathed on its surface and wrote four characters: *Your daddy’s here.*

I stared blankly. “What’s that?”

He raised an eyebrow. “The password to the treasury.”

Sure enough, the words glowed faintly gold, and a passage appeared inside the mirror.

My brother planted his hands on his hips and strode in, beaming. “The old man still hasn’t changed the password after all these years. Relax. Every time I sneaked in and took something, he never noticed. His guard is terrible.”

As master of the foremost orthodox sect, he really did have terrible security if he couldn’t even detect an intruder in his treasury.

Once inside, we quickly found a lotus seed shining with rainbow light.

“That’s it.”

He had just put it away when a fierce pressure swept toward us.

The sect master appeared behind us, looking every inch an immortal. “Outer disciple, you dare trespass in the treasury? Do you admit your offense?”

My entire ghostly form trembled. “Bro, didn’t you say his guard was terrible and he’d never notice?”

My brother muttered, “Since when did the old man get so sharp?”

I cheered from the sidelines. “Bro, aren’t you the greatest forbidden-arts practitioner? Take him down!”

My brother’s eyes darted around. “You do it.”

In a blink, I was back in my own body.

Wait, Bro! My own flesh and blood! You can’t do this to me!