Forced to Act out a Strange Script with a Rival - Chapter 6

“I am the owner of the other end of your leash…”

The timer’s digits burned on Cao Xueliao’s retina: 00:03.

Her teammates were all marked. It looked like she had to go it alone.

Her sweat-dampened fingertips touched the basketball. The cheers erupting from the stands became louder and more intense. She leaped high and threw the ball in her hands.

It was at that moment that a strange change occurred—

Her wrist guard felt as hot as a brand. She caught the smell of rust.

Crack—

The sound of metal snapping rang out, the world shifted, black clouds blotted out the sky, and a massive tremor enveloped the entire venue. The earth seemed to be rolling over.

The backboard instantly shattered, the tempered glass cracking like a spiderweb, and the metal frame plummeted from the air.

A shard flew through the air, cutting a line of blood over her right eye. She was caught completely off guard.

The broken metal support, like intertwining silver snakes, whipped toward the audience. Screams mixed with the cries of the first-year cheerleaders.

It was chaos, like the end of the world.

What was this?

Cao Xueliao was startled and bewildered. She had no time to think, her body lunging toward the collapsing steel structure. The veins on her right arm bulged, and golden patterns spread and surged within them.

She recklessly attempted to stop the massive, toppling steel with her bare flesh and blood.

“Get out of the way!”

She screamed until her throat tasted of blood. The moment her voice rang out, the out-of-control steel pipes actually paused in mid-air.

Her palms were scraped and bloody. She grabbed the thickest support, spun, and jammed it into the floor, slightly slowing the descent of the other steel beams.

Fat raindrops suddenly poured down, but everything seemed to slow to 0.5x speed.

She could even clearly see every raindrop. Reflected in the drops, she saw her own pupils.

Her normally pitch-black right eye had split into an amber vertical slit, like a cold-blooded animal, or more like a drawn sword.

“Leave the stands! Come to an open space!”

She had no time to contemplate the changes in her body, knowing only to shout frantically.

The chair screws broke free, flagpoles twisted into iron caltrops, and broken metal fragments transformed into silver arrows shooting toward the crowd. Countless pieces of metal gathered and merged, defying all logic to form a terrifying steel monster, standing tall upon the earth.

Cao Xueliao leaped through the metallic storm, an inexplicable power surging through her body, allowing her to precisely dodge every fatal fragment.

She tore off her hair tie to bind her trembling right hand. Her tongue tasted a mix of rust and mint candy.

Something—something in this world must have gone wrong.

In a trance, she heard the sound of horse hooves crushing a skull.

A strange yet familiar roar erupted in her mind:

[Charge out! Charge out for the Great Governor!]

What was this?

A cold, sinister sensation wrapped around her ankle from the chaos.

Cao Xueliao looked down and saw the railing of the stands had transformed into an iron chain.

As her vertical pupil constricted, she used the chain for leverage, leaping onto the gymnasium’s crossbeam.

Her right eye burned with a golden flame, her left as dark as the endless night.

A massive shadow appeared behind her.

“Heroic Spirit Wen Yang—Manifest!”

Xun Ye sat in the third row of the southeast stands, a simple laptop perched on her wheelchair’s armrest. Blue light cut shadows of light and dark across her pale face.

Soot from the explosion had fallen on the screen, which she wiped away with a pallid fingertip.

Twelve surveillance windows were squeezed onto the 15-inch screen, constantly feeding her information on the battle on the basketball court from various angles. A program continuously ran calculations, spitting out overlapping pop-up windows.

“Such a big commotion. It seems this one is a fierce general… I hope it’s… from the Cao Wei faction.”

Xun Ye bit into the caffeine lozenge under her tongue and reconnected the fire alarm system.

Bang!

The wreckage below exploded. Cao Xueliao slammed through concrete blocks, leaping out of the steel cage. Her right eye burned gold like molten iron. Uncontrolled metal fragments whirled around her, forming a hurricane that tore her school uniform, exposing the girl’s taut waist.

For a first awakening, she was actually fighting the B-class grudge collective to a standstill.

It was surprising, but she was still too weak.

“So much trouble.” Xun Ye pulled a military-grade signal booster from the compartment in her wheelchair. Her phone’s hotspot name flashed: “Jiang Ji doesn’t want to work overtime today.”

Inside the stadium, as Xun Ye pressed the Enter key, the generator restarted.

The leaping electrical arcs finally descended. Torrential rain poured down through the shattered gymnasium dome.

The metallic hurricane, upon contact with the water, conducted electricity. Arcs exploded into a blue net within the rain, causing the steel monster to briefly pause.

Xun Ye struck the keyboard again. The gymnasium’s broadcast system played a synthesized voice:

“Cao Xueliao, throw the weapon in your hand at the grudges.”

Cao Xueliao’s previously chaotic mind cleared slightly in that instant. She instinctively followed the instruction, and the metal scrap in her hand flew out with a golden glow.

Like a shooting star, it streaked across the sky, piercing the monster.

And the colossal body, made of steel and iron bones, a collection of countless grudges, instantly collapsed.

The steel beams tearing the basketball court’s dome looked like the spine of a dying giant dragon. Cheerleading pom-poms and ripped sneakers were caught between the concrete debris.

The rain stopped just as fittingly, and sunlight pierced through the cracks, weaving a dim, yellow spiderweb in the floating dust.

Amidst the ruins and chaos, people celebrated their narrow escape.

Cao Xueliao stood atop the steel, her gaze cutting through the layers of people and landing directly on the girl in the wheelchair operating the computer, looking straight into the girl’s soul.

“Wen Yang, courtesy name Cīqiān, the God of Slaughter who single-handedly repelled Sima Yi’s seven armies in the late Three Kingdoms period.” The girl pushed her wheelchair, rolling over shattered glass. She looked down and smiled brightly: “You’ve summoned quite a good Heroic Spirit.”

“Who are you?” Cao Xueliao’s tone was hostile and full of vigilance as she looked at the other person.

“Me?” She gave a slight laugh: “I am the owner of the other end of your leash.”

Li Ting wasn’t angry at being called a “traitor” by Si Xiaoxiao.

She had already come to terms with it when she made that choice years ago.

Li Ting never thought of herself as a very talented actress. After playing Xun Ye at the age of 16, she found it impossible to step out of the role, becoming deeply immersed in that world.

Unlike Si Xiaoxiao, who frantically took on new roles to forget that unique experience, Li Ting chose self-reflection, or perhaps one could call it—a career change.

Li Ting sang the theme song for The Bronze Sparrow’s Abyss.

The director didn’t hire a professional singer because she felt that the girl’s raw, unpolished voice could better resonate with the audience.

That being said, the production team still hired a professional team to train Li Ting for a period, giving her at least a basic foundation. With the show’s explosion in popularity, the song naturally became known to everyone.

It was precisely this experience that gave Li Ting the idea of becoming a singer.

So, Li Ting poured the teenage angst she couldn’t escape from the role into her lyrics—every word poignant, every line moving.

Although her lyrics were good, a very awkward situation arose because she wasn’t a professional singer.

She would release a song, and its popularity would be mediocre. Then, other professional singers would adapt and cover her song, and it would become more popular than the original.

She refused to give up, releasing more songs, but the result was always the same: the song was popular, but the person was not. Everyone’s impression of her remained the 16-year-old girl, Xun Ye.

This practically became a curse, trapping her in place.

In this world of fame and fortune, who doesn’t want to be famous?

But she couldn’t achieve fame, instead only boosting the popularity of others.

Perhaps it was a case of love turning to hate.

Li Ting began to resent Xun Ye and, by extension, her past self.

However, it was a blessing in disguise. Because of this strange trait, Li Ting had decent connections.

Since her career had hit a bottleneck, a friend recommended she appear on a variety show to get some exposure, suggesting she might become a variety star and gain popularity.

Li Ting thought it over and found the suggestion reasonable. Thus, she joined Lemon TV’s latest season of the “Singer” program as a contestant.

Unexpectedly, she ran into Si Xiaoxiao there.

Over the years, they had developed their own careers. Although the entertainment industry isn’t large, they moved in different circles, and their mutual dislike was well-known. Despite constantly being compared, they had actually met very few times.

Unlike Li Ting, Si Xiaoxiao had always focused on acting.

But they had one thing in common: Si Xiaoxiao was also trapped by the character of Cao Xueliao from The Bronze Sparrow’s Abyss.

In the years that followed, everyone said that all her roles looked the same—every character was just Cao Xueliao.

Although her makeup and styling became more beautiful with each role, and her looks were consistently trending, her acting skills were indeed lacking.

Si Xiaoxiao was an actress who was very particular about her directors. However, she peaked with her debut, working with a major industry director on her first role.

Afterward, the guidance of other directors only led her in the wrong direction.

In fact, the character Cao Xueliao was truly an instance of Si Xiaoxiao playing herself.

Although she was widely ridiculed, she persisted in her own way. Relying on past success at least ensured she had roles to play, often guest-starring in popular dramas for the “beauty” component.

People nicknamed Si Xiaoxiao “My dim-witted wooden first love.”

To call her a flop would be inaccurate. Her popularity was undeniably high. She had a massive number of anti-fans but also a large group of true supporters.

But every single one of her fans strongly advised Si Xiaoxiao to avoid acting.

Don’t ruin your beautiful face, Sis! You should film music videos instead!

Perhaps to prove herself, or to find a new path, Si Xiaoxiao also went to Lemon TV’s acting variety show, “I Am an Actor.”

Both of them were moderately successful, but both were holding their breath, determined to achieve fame.

And now, these two moderately successful individuals ended up on the trending list they had always dreamed of, simply because they shared a resting room.

Both parties expressed great helplessness over the situation.

At the same time, this also shocked the two directorial teams at Lemon TV.

With only one hour left until filming officially began, the directors of the acting show and the singing show met.

They then gathered in the small makeup room, both wanting to invite the two women onto their respective programs.

But neither would yield to the other. Finally, they reached a consensus.

“How about you both appear on both shows! We’ll create a duo for you, called the ‘Bronze Sparrow Twin Flowers’.”

The directors’ intention to piggyback on their popularity was as plain as day.

Si Xiaoxiao and Li Ting’s reactions were, remarkably, uniform.

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