After a quick diagnosis, Xie Ziyin sealed several of Lu Jiayao's spiritual meridians.
Confirming that even if "he" woke up, movement would be impossible, Xie Ziyin stood and declared, "No signs of poisoning. Both his spiritual bone and consciousness are normal."
Yet, Lu Jiayao was clearly afflicted.
Having ruled out all other possibilities, only one answer remained.
Xie Ziyin glanced at the woman deep in thought, her expression suggesting she was recalling something, and said, "In my opinion, it's dark sorcery."
The three behind them exchanged looks.
Li Zhuohua exclaimed, "The work of the Tianluo witches?!" On the entire Xuantian Continent, none were more skilled in dark sorcery than them.
"The Purple Flame Realm also has a sorcerer," Yin Xuan chimed in. Though he often lazed around, he still paid attention to what mattered.
Shen Hefeng, his youthful face twisted in frustration, muttered, "My fault."
Their six-member team had assigned roles, and his responsibility was divination, evasion of curses, and countering sorcery.
This time, he had failed to detect it.
Truthfully, ever since entering the Star Moon Valley, his instincts had been off, and his divinations had been disastrous.
Now it made sense—he had been subconsciously sensing the dark sorcery around them. But his expertise was lacking in this area, leaving him unable to pinpoint the issue.
Ugh. This would undoubtedly become the one stain on his otherwise impeccable reputation as the Divine Calculator.
"Don't blame yourself too much," Wen Shuangbai said, her gaze shifting to Lu Jiayao, who lay bound like a pink dumpling on the ground. "It's the Tianluo witches' Puppet Possession technique."
"Puppet Possession? I thought their signature move was the Marionette technique?" Shen Hefeng winced in pain, unable to stand, and plopped down onto the ground.
Seeing this, Yin Xuan cheerfully sat beside him, patting his shoulder in invitation.
Noticing their seating arrangement, Wen Shuangbai also settled down and explained, "Marionettes are overt; Puppet Possession is covert."
The world knew of the Tianluo witches' Marionette technique, where they manipulated paper puppets as their enforcers.
But few were aware they could also use Puppet Possession—attaching paper puppets to living hosts.
Shen Hefeng frowned. "You're a weapon cultivator. How do you know this?"
Wen Shuangbai smirked. "I read a lot."
"What books?"
"Yan Qing's... Compendium of All Sorcery," she lied smoothly. When Shen Hefeng asked to borrow it, she added, "Gone. My gambling-addicted father sold it."
Xie Ziyin couldn't help but chuckle.
Typical of her.
Wen Shuangbai shot him a glare.
Ignoring the two, she continued explaining Puppet Possession.
In short, when a paper puppet latches onto a host, there are no immediate signs. But it gradually influences the host's consciousness, amplifying their deepest obsessions.
Once the host's mind is corrupted by these obsessions, their spiritual awareness is suppressed, and they act under the puppet master's command.
"Lu Jiayao's hidden obsession was to kill me?!" Shen Hefeng was devastated. "And here I thought we were kindred spirits! This is heartbreaking."
"Don't worry," Xie Ziyin said casually, sitting beside Wen Shuangbai as he meticulously cleaned his alchemy furnace. "We all want to kill you."
Wen Shuangbai nodded. "True."
Li Zhuohua added cheerfully, "Me too!"
Shen Hefeng: "???"
Yin Xuan patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Not me."
"Of course not, Senior Brother Yin," Shen Hefeng said, the pain relief pills kicking in. "You're too soft-hearted. Sometimes I think you'd make a better monk."
"......" Yin Xuan smiled faintly, then withdrew his shoulder and scooted away, his usual gentle expression tinged with murderous intent. "Now I do."
"Enough nonsense!" Li Zhuohua cut in, steering the conversation back. "What's our next move? Hunt down the Tianluo witches?"
"They outmatch us in strength. We’d need a clever approach," Wen Shuangbai mused, shaking her head. "First, we must cross the Celestial Mountains and seek help from the Divine Evolution Temple's Buddhist Sage."
While the others had been bantering, she had recalled every detail from the novel about Bai Lijue's possession by a paper puppet.
In the original plot, this happened during the fourth round of the Sacred Tower trials—one round later than now.
The puppet always targeted the weakest member of the team.
In the story, Bai Lijue, being the weakest, had his obsession with the heroine Yu Xiaoxiao amplified. He ambushed his teammates, injured Lu Ying and the others, and kidnapped Yu Xiaoxiao.
But during the ordeal, he encountered the Purple Flame Realm's Di Qi, who rescued Yu Xiaoxiao, killed Bai Lijue, and expelled him from the Sacred Tower—setting the stage for the romance between the protagonists.
Afterward, Bai Lijue was taken to Qingling Mountain, where Sect Leader Xu Jingshu removed the puppet.
Now, with the altered circumstances, they didn’t need to kill Lu Jiayao—just shatter his Sacred Token to safely eject him from the tower.
But Wen Shuangbai refused to let their lucky charm go.
Among the six, five were destined for tragic fates in the novel. Only Lu Jiayao, a mere background character, survived happily ever after.
Sending him away felt like inviting disaster.
Their only option was to seek the Buddhist Sage's aid.
The Divine Evolution Temple's techniques naturally countered the Tianluo witches. Within the Star Moon Valley, only they could save Lu Jiayao.
Suddenly, Xie Ziyin snapped his fingers in front of her.
Wen Shuangbai blinked. "What?"
He pointed at the 400-coin grass-woven horse prancing on Lu Jiayao's body. "Look at your brush."
She focused just as the little horse wriggled onto Lu Jiayao's face, its tail twitching as it prepared to extend its brush tip—ready to carve something into his skin!
400-coin knew Lu Jiayao was its owner's partner, but since he was bound by her fire-feather whip, didn’t that make him theirs?
400-coin: Time to stamp its mark! Its favorite pastime!
Before it could strike, Wen Shuangbai yanked it up by its head.
"This man isn’t ours."
400-coin: Huh? Lu Jiayao wasn’t theirs?
Xie Ziyin calmly returned to his seat.
Wen Shuangbai whispered menacingly, "Listen, 400-coin. If you ever carve without permission again, I’ll skin you alive."
400-coin wilted: Fine, no carving.
After issuing her warning, Wen Shuangbai casually picked up Four Hundred Bucks and began sketching on the ground, patiently asking each teammate for their height, weight, shoulder width, and other measurements to prepare for their journey through the Sky-Reaching Mountains the next day.
Meanwhile, in the northwest of Star Moon Valley.
A pale-faced sorcerer from the Purple Flame Realm forcibly expelled the paper puppet from their team’s artifact cultivator and immediately burned it. Di Qi and Di Yanran stood nearby, watching.
Seeing this, Di Yanran quickly asked with concern, "How is he? Is he alright?"
"No serious harm done," the sorcerer replied, bowing respectfully to the two. "Thanks to the Young Master’s timely warning upon entering the secret realm, we caught the paper puppet early. Any later, and I wouldn’t have been able to remove it—we’d have had to send him out of the Sacred Tower and let the elders handle it."
Di Qi rubbed the jade ring on his finger and chuckled. "To dare target our Purple Flame Realm… the Heavenly Net Sorcerer truly has… quite the audacity."
Di Yanran nodded with lingering fear. "Thank goodness you noticed in time, Brother."
---
In the central region of Star Moon Valley.
The cave where the Jade Rhinoceros Valley’s little spirits were resting reeked of blood.
Yu Xiaoli, Yu Qianli, and several other spirits were injured, gathered around their subdued turtle junior, their faces filled with distress.
"What’s wrong with our turtle junior? He was so terrifying just now!"
"I don’t know! I told you not to eat random fruit from the trees—look what happened!"
"But we all ate it, and we’re fine!"
"Maybe turtles can’t eat tree fruit? We should’ve dug up earthworms for him instead!"
"Sigh, so what do we do now?"
"If even the healer sister can’t help," Yu Xiaoli said, her fox ears drooping, "we’ll just have to send turtle junior out and let Elder Turtle figure it out."
The other spirits nodded without hesitation.
"Agreed!"
"Elder Turtle will definitely know what to do!"
"Then it’s settled."
Only the pangolin brother raised a concern. "Without turtle junior, we won’t have anywhere to hide if we run into danger."
"That’s fine," Yu Xiaoli said, pulling out a Sacred Summoning Token. "If we’re in danger this time, we can just use this to leave. No more running and hiding."
The others found this reasoning sound.
And so, the little turtle spirit was sent out of the Sacred Tower.
Back at Jade Rhinoceros Hall, while the disciples were busy in the Sacred Tower, the elders were happily feasting.
Elder Turtle sensed his son being ejected and sighed deeply. "…Couldn’t they have tried a little harder? Look at Qingling Mountain—they’re putting in so much effort! Why can’t they learn from them?"
The other elders reminded him, "Old Turtle, you can go fetch your son now."
Elder Turtle glanced at Qingling Mountain’s Mystic Heaven Mirror display. "No rush. Let me see how Qingling’s youngsters plan to cross the Sky-Reaching Mountains first."
The other elders: "……"
Now that’s a real father.
---
By the deep of night, the cave where Qingling Mountain’s team was stationed remained lively.
The group worked with fiery enthusiasm.
The trees they had chopped earlier proved invaluable. Wen Shuangbai selected six ancient trees matching each teammate’s proportions, took out her repaired spirit saw, and activated the Radiant Heart Technique, beginning her night as both carpenter and fashion designer.
Nearby, Xie Ziyin directed Yin Xuan and Shen Hefeng to stretch out the snake skin while Four Hundred Bucks carved uniformly sized squares onto it.
Following the outlines, Xie Ziyin used a scalpel to cut the squares and stitched them into small snake-leather pouches.
Thanks to their previous trial, where they had "temporarily held onto" many items for the Zhuoguang City’s Qi family, they now had an assortment of tools at their disposal.
Meanwhile, Li Zhuohua was busy harvesting vines under the cover of night.
She ventured into the Sky-Reaching Mountains, luring out the vines before swiftly hacking them down with her Flowing Rainbow Sword—slash, slash, slash!
After each enthusiastic harvest, she hauled bundles of vines back to Wen Shuangbai before immediately setting out for another round, thoroughly enjoying herself.
Once Four Hundred Bucks finished marking the squares, Xie Ziyin shooed it away for being in the way.
The little grass-woven horse happily trotted around, inspecting the scene. Finding no need for its calligraphy skills, it pranced over to a pile of vines, plucked a tiny red wildflower, and somehow managed to stick it onto its own head.
How beautiful it looked!
Late into the night, many cultivators remained watching the Mystic Heaven Mirror.
Some were fixated on the grass-woven horse.
[Wuwuwu, Four Hundred Bucks is just too adorable!]
[It even rewards itself with a little flower!]
[My mother asked why I’m staring at the Mystic Heaven Mirror with such a besotted look—it’s because I’m watching Four Hundred Bucks!]
Others (and a certain monkey) were more focused on the actual task.
[I often have no idea what Qingling Mountain’s disciples are even doing.]
[If you could understand, how would Qingling Mountain keep winning?]
[Hehe, I see what they’re up to! But I won’t tell!]
