My Brother Practices Forbidden Arts - Chapter 4

After saying that, he shot me a vicious look.

Hmph. He’d ruined my chance.

I trailed behind the two of them. Neither said a word the whole way.

My brother and Jiang Shixi had both been the sect master’s direct disciples. My brother had even joined first, which was why Jiang Shixi called him Senior Brother. I wondered what their relationship had been like. But now that my brother had turned to forbidden arts and betrayed the sect, perhaps Jiang Shixi wanted to bring him to justice like everyone else.

When we reached the sky above the Corpsewood Forest, Jiang Shixi asked, “Do you remember where your brother is buried?”

My brother answered impatiently, “It’s been years since he died. Who’d remember? I’ll go down and find him myself. Do as you like.”

Then he jumped straight off the sword.

I plummeted with him. “Aaaah! Bro! I’m afraid of heights!”

He landed without so much as dirtying his robe.

Jiang Shixi followed us down, astonished that someone who couldn’t fly a sword could fall from so high without a scratch. If he knew the person before him was the senior brother he’d been looking for, his mind would probably seize up.

Jiang Shixi caught my brother’s hand. “Junior Sister, it’s too dangerous here for you to go off alone.”

My brother clicked his tongue.

With my face! He’d just clicked his tongue with my face! How rude!

Jiang Shixi faltered and let go. “I’m only worried for your safety. I brought you here, so I’m obliged to bring you back safely.”

My brother finally snapped. “This is your duty, that’s your duty. Don’t you ever get tired? Do you want to carry every living soul in the world on your shoulders?!”

“But I…”

“Shut up. Go away.”

My brother tried to shake him off, but Jiang Shixi stubbornly kept following. At last, my brother let me take back control.

“You deal with him. You can even take him to my grave. I’ve been dead three years. I refuse to believe he’ll recognize me.”

Having Jiang Shixi along did have its advantages. One sweep of his sword felled whole swaths of the walking dead we met. He truly lived up to his place as the sect master’s direct disciple.

When we reached my brother’s grave, the past came flooding back.

I’d been frail since birth. A wandering Daoist once said I wouldn’t live past sixteen. A fatal trial was written in my fate.

My brother refused to believe him and called him a quack. But I grew weaker, so he searched everywhere for immortals and their arts, eventually joining the Poxiao Sect.

Still, he couldn’t find a way to extend my life.

Then he became a forbidden-arts practitioner hunted by all. Then he brought me to the Corpsewood Forest. Then he went mad before my eyes and drew down golden heavenly lightning. It struck him until his soul scattered.

And suddenly, I was well.

He thought I knew nothing. But I’d long understood the cause and effect.

He’d opened other people’s graves and sought out those who died before their time, trying to transfer their unused years to me. Instead, he’d turned their bodies into walking dead. After failing countless times, he gave me the years of his own life.

Life for life. That was the way to save me he’d searched so desperately to find.

I glanced at him, sitting with one leg crossed over the other as he watched us dig. He sneered at Jiang Shixi. “The brat was always against me. Now look how eagerly he digs up my grave.”

“What are you staring at? Hurry up and dig your brother out. Even an outsider is doing more work than you.”

I had to save him.

The first thing to emerge from the earth was a corner of his clothing. Seeing how close we were, I dug faster. Jiang Shixi spared no effort shoveling away the excess soil.

But then his hand struck something hard. He pulled out a sword.

Confusion turned to horror in his eyes. His pupils widened. The world seemed to fall utterly silent as he said, his lips trembling, “It’s Senior Brother’s sword…”