A-Tuo's hands were tightly bound by black feathers, his body suspended in mid-air, like prey hanging on a ritual altar. The giant bird still circled, seemingly waiting for the beginning of something.
Suddenly, the entire Feathered Kingdom trembled.
It wasn’t an earthquake—
It was the fall of another soul.
He saw the sky above tear open, a beam of white light falling from the feathered heavens—
A figure, with a sharp tearing sound, plunged into the "Feather Abyss" at the heart of the Feathered Kingdom. The feathers surged like waves, lifting her up.
A-Tuo widened his eyes.
It was a girl, about nineteen, with long hair, wearing a school uniform. Her face was pale, her lips trembling in fear.
Her name tag—
"Chu Yao."
When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was A-Tuo, twisted in pain in mid-air. She opened her mouth to scream, but only a mass of feathers came out.
A-Tuo stared at her in terror: "Who are you!? How did you get here!?"
Chu Yao looked stunned: "I... I don’t know... I was just... passing by your door that day, I saw the feather... I touched it."
The air went silent.
The next second, countless Feathered Ones whispered:
"Two liars..."
"Double feather punishment..."
"A new blood feather is about to be born..."
In the black mist, the statue’s eyes flared with red light. Slowly, it raised its hand and pointed at the two of them.
Two pitch-black feathered arrows shot down from the sky, sinking deep into A-Tuo and Chu Yao's backs.
They screamed in agony—
Feathers grew wildly inside their bodies, piercing through their spines, shoulders, and necks, splattering bloody feather dust.
Chu Yao, tears streaming down her face, struggled in pain: "I... I didn’t lie... I just... I just didn’t tell him I secretly looked at his paper..."
"I also... I only lied to my little brother when I was a kid..." A-Tuo trembled.
But the Feathered Kingdom cared not for their reasons. The judgment here only recognized one thing—
Liars must be feathered.
The two of them twisted in agony, their gazes meeting in that moment. A-Tuo saw the same familiar despair in Chu Yao’s eyes... and something else, a darkness.
Suddenly, a Feathered One leapt out of the crowd, opened its mouth full of feathers, and whispered to Chu Yao:
"It’s you... who brought him here, right?"
A-Tuo was shocked. What did that mean?
He didn’t know, but this girl might not have "accidentally" entered the Feathered Kingdom at all...
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