◎ Puppetry ◎
Hearing Shuangjian's words, Yingshi's face lit up with joy: "Really? Then can you guide me?"
Her current body shouldn't logically know about the art of puppetry, but having read the novel, she knew about it. A supporting character in the book was particularly skilled at this art. However, the novel didn't detail how to learn or use puppetry, so she hadn't even entertained the idea of relying on it to save working hours.
But who would have thought that the male lead was indeed the male lead, possessing such a broad range of knowledge! He had already accumulated ample theoretical experience before she even transmigrated into the book!
Shuangjian was an incredibly reliable teammate. In her past life, he would have been the MVP carrying the team in every match!
"I can, but it's not convenient for me to leave, much less follow you into the inner sect. You will need to bring paper and pens here, and remember to bring plenty."
"Mhm! Then I'll go back and get them right now!"
Yingshi sprang up, dashed out the door with excitement, and ran off into the distance.
Shuangjian turned back to stare at the collection of items taken from a young woman's boudoir resting on the haystack. He picked them up one by one and placed them in their proper spots, giving the thatched hut an incongruous interior decor.
He couldn't quite articulate his own reasoning; in truth, he shouldn't have brought up puppetry to Yingshi.
This was clearly exposing his own suspicious nature.
However, looking at Yingshi's reaction, she hadn't noticed the slightest anomaly.
But one shouldn't assume too much. If he could test her, why couldn't she do the same to him?
Shuangjian lowered his eyes, his fingers tapping against the bowl of medicine that had been poured and left to cool long ago. After a long while, he picked it up and downed it in one gulp.
The red string on his wrist slipped down slightly with his movement, the small, silent bell brushing against his arm. His movements suddenly halted.
—He wasn't used to this.
Especially when he remembered that this string of bells used to be pressed tightly against another person's skin.
...
Yingshi stuffed an abundant supply of paper and pens into her storage bag and set foot on the path back to the rear mountain.
However, as she walked along a small path at the junction between the inner and outer sects, she was suddenly called out from behind.
"Yingshi, where are you going?"
Hearing the voice, Yingshi already recognized the person. She stopped somewhat stiffly, turned around, and replied, "Master Xuanzhen is in seclusion today, so there's no need to go to the training grounds. I thought I'd find a quiet place to practice on my own."
Xu Xiaoran narrowed his eyes at her and didn't speak.
After her cheap dad made his debut, her cheap brother had finally shown up as well.
Objectively speaking, his appearance was somewhat handsome, but from hanging around with the likes of Sun Xuanyi all day, his temperament had been assimilated into a lazy, uneducated slacker vibe.
Yingshi didn't have a good impression of him, and even the blood affinity belonging to the original body was extremely faint. Seeing that he didn't reply, she turned to leave.
"Wait," Xu Xiaoran stopped her again. "Come here first, I have something to say to you."
Yingshi didn't move.
"Why are you just standing there?" Xu Xiaoran glared at her, but Yingshi didn't meet his eyes at all. Left with no choice, he quickly closed the distance in a few strides, lowered his voice by Yingshi's ear, and said, "Do you have any spirit stones on hand? I need them urgently, lend me some first."
"No." Yingshi frowned and waved him away. "Go borrow from your group of fair-weather friends."
"What are you saying? You're my sister!" Xu Xiaoran raised his volume again.
"Is there a brother who asks his sister to borrow money?"
"...I really have an urgent need."
"What are you going to do?" Yingshi was getting a little annoyed. This guy blocking her way was like a sticky plaster, just as annoying as Sun Xuanyi! She couldn't help but say, "If it's truly urgent, go ask Dad. What's the use of looking for me? I already told you I don't have any."
"How is it possible you don't even have one? I don't believe it!"
"I said no, and I mean no. If you keep blocking me from cultivating like this, I'll go tell Dad!"
"You! Yingshi, fine, you're really something! I wasted my affection on you!"
Xu Xiaoran's face turned red and white. Using very limited vocabulary, he dropped a harsh remark, glared at her once more, and finally walked away indignantly.
Yingshi confirmed that he had really gone far and wasn't secretly following her before she took the small path back to the rear mountain.
Connecting this to the novel's plot, she also remembered why Xu Xiaoran had come to borrow spirit stones from her.
He and Sun Xuanyi's group were currently hooked on some kind of betting game. Now he was up to his neck in debt and didn't dare let Xu Mingcheng know, so he was scrambling everywhere for money until he met Mi Ruotian.
Mi Ruotian was the wandering immortal master that Xu Mingcheng had mentioned yesterday, hired to teach the two siblings.
He was legendary as one of the examiners for past Tiangang Martial Tournaments, but he had a more important and explosive identity—a demonic cultivator spy.
This person would meet the male lead at the bottom of the Cliff of Repentance and become the primary catalyst for the male lead to fuse with the demon core and loosen his seal.
Through a series of mishaps, Xu Xiaoran made a deal with the demonic cultivator, which naturally brought him huge trouble. This spawned many subsequent events, directly resulting in him missing out on participating in this year's Tiangang Martial Tournament, and his spot was taken by the male lead, Shuangjian.
Yingshi was currently not prepared to interfere in this part of the plot.
After all, just showing up a few hours late yesterday had caused a butterfly effect. If she actually stopped Xu Xiaoran from courting death, and as a result Shuangjian couldn't participate in the Tiangang Martial Tournament, that would be terrible!
Not only would she regret it to death, but the novel's storyline would completely collapse. By then, she wouldn't be able to use her only golden finger—her knowledge of the plot—as a walkthrough guide.
...
"I'm here!"
Yingshi rushed into the thatched hut hugging her storage bag, taking out the stack of paper and five or six pens she had brought.
There was a wobbly wooden table in the room, which barely had enough space for the paper and pens she needed to copy books herself. The rest would have to be done on the floor.
"Let's begin." Yingshi rubbed her hands together. "What should we do for the first step?"
"The simplest puppetry art is to let the puppet connect with your consciousness, thereby imitating your actions," Shuangjian said. "If it's just copying books for you, this will be enough."
"Mhm!"
"Let's create the puppets first." Shuangjian pulled out two sheets of paper, folded them in half, and tore them into shapes barehanded. Before Yingshi could even see his exact movements clearly, the intact sheets of paper had already turned into several palm-sized, human-shaped paper cutouts in his hands.
He explained, "Puppetry can only drive inanimate objects that are shaped like humans."
"I see... Your hands are really beautiful." Yingshi stared at those pale, slender hands—which clearly weren't the hands of someone pampered—and praised him sincerely, "And your handiwork is great too, you didn't even need scissors."
They would be so perfect for making scrapbooks.
"..."
Shuangjian didn't reply. He merely pushed the cut-out paper figures in front of her and quickly withdrew his hands behind his back.
"Next, we need to dot the eyes of the puppets."
"Does that mean drawing their facial features?"
"It means giving them life and establishing a bond between the caster and the puppet. These types of paper figures are easy to drive; stamping them with your blood seal will suffice."
"...My, blood seal?"
Yingshi's expression changed slightly.
She had three deep-rooted fears etched into her soul: first, a fear of ghosts; second, a fear of bugs; and third, a fear of bleeding from anything other than normal physiological processes.
She wasn't afraid of other people's blood, so watching horror movies was completely painless for her, and witnessing Shuangjian cough up blood only made her feel worried rather than scared.
What she was afraid of was blood on her own body, or rather, the fear of her body being damaged. The blood brought about by unnatural wounds, especially flowing liquid blood, coupled with the sensation of pain, was even worse. Just thinking about it made her curl up her hands and feet.
In the past, whenever she had an annual physical examination or saw a doctor, the blood drawing segment would take half her life away.
She had to have family and friends by her side to hold her, cover her eyes, and distract her, and then accompany her as she trembling drank glucose water to recover for half a day after the blood draw!
Because of such exaggerated behavior, when she was in middle school, her classmates often called her melodramatic and pretentious, until they later realized she wasn't faking it and reluctantly let go of their prejudices.
"I don't have to, I don't have to bite my fingertip or something and smear the blood on the paper, do I?" Yingshi asked in a daze, posing a question that was somewhat terrifying to her.
Shuangjian heard the trembling in Yingshi's tone, and his gaze toward her carried a hint of inquiry.
"That is the simplest method," he said.
Then he saw her blinking her eyes in panic, her mouth opening and closing as if she wanted to speak but stopped. After a long while, she lowered her head and whispered, "Thank you, Shuangjian, but I think I'll skip learning this puppet art for now. I feel it's better if I copy it myself, so Xu Mingcheng won't be even more angry if he finds out..."
Her excuse for brushing it off was immediately punctured. Shuangjian asked her directly, "Are you afraid of bleeding?"
"...A little." Yingshi choked slightly, inevitably feeling somewhat dejected. "In the past, even doctors drawing my blood would scare me to death. Asking me to draw my own blood is simply an impossible challenge..."
Shuangjian looked at her constantly rubbing fingers and knew she wasn't lying.
This special soul from the Great Thousand World, who had once looked down upon him, was afraid of blood.
What she feared wasn't even gory blood, just a minuscule drop of fingertip blood used to awaken a puppet.
This was truly a very delicate fear, and in this treacherous cultivation world, an incredibly fatal weakness.
It was hard to imagine how peaceful the world she lived in before crossing over must have been, to allow this fragile fear of hers to ferment for twenty years.
Shuangjian lowered his eyes and withdrew his gaze. He didn't comment on Yingshi's decision to back out at the last minute, but simply said, "The cultivation world is different from your world. Getting hurt and bleeding is much more common here. You should prepare yourself mentally and act more carefully in the future."
Yingshi froze for a moment, then frowned deeply and spaced out.
She had never thought of this point before.
How could she honestly protect herself?
If she wanted to become stronger in the cultivation world, how could she avoid bleeding and getting hurt?
She didn't even have to look far ahead; just considering the upcoming Tiangang Martial Gathering, it was genuine, physical competition and confrontation. It wasn't a test of math, language, or English scores.
It wasn't about how many formulas she could use, how many theories she could memorize, or how many big questions she could solve...
Even if she wanted to be perfectly safe and completely unharmed, her opponent would have to agree to it!
Thinking about it this way, unless she was willing to cower in her shell forever and be a useless slacker, she would have to face her fears sooner or later.
She had just made a vow yesterday to become stronger, having made up her mind to carve out a path with Shuangjian, work hard to reach the end of the plot, and find a possibility to return to reality. If she were defeated today by a tiny drop of fingertip blood and reduced to a slacker from then on, wouldn't that be far too ridiculous!
"Shuangjian..." Yingshi squeezed a voice out of her throat with difficulty, picking at her hands as she spoke. "I think I need to grow. I absolutely must master this puppet art today. But overcoming fear has to be done step by step, right? I still can't bring myself to bite my finger until it bleeds, so..."
A tender palm, marked with several crescent indentations from her own pinching fingers, was spread out in front of Shuangjian. Yingshi closed her eyes, exhaled a breath, and with the posture of a martyr going to her death, requested:
"So, can you bite it for me, please?"
