Chapter 1356: 妖傀师‘们’

## Chapter 1342: The Fiend Puppet Masters

“Yes, very good,” He Lingchuan affirmed.

“Ah Hui said she was a widow, but Xiao An mentioned his ‘father’ more than once, saying he was very powerful and did terrible things to many people and animals,” the mirror continued. “A peddler isn’t powerful or terrifying, is he? I wonder if she was talking about that masked man from tonight?”

He Lingchuan grunted in affirmation. “Dong Rui often does terrible things to people and animals too.”

Isn’t that just the daily routine of a fiend puppet master?

The appearance of any fiend puppet, including the ghost apes and bats, was full of absurdity and strangeness.

From a child's perspective, wasn’t that terrifying enough?

“The little girl, chased by a fiend puppet master, believed she was from Xingyun Village, which vanished twenty years ago. Tong Wu always killed people in places where she had appeared, and then Xiao An disappeared without a trace.” Each element was a fragment, slowly forming a grotesque pattern in He Lingchuan’s mind. “This might be another sad story.”

“Oh, how so?”

He Lingchuan looked up again at the swallow’s nest under the eaves. “You’re not unfamiliar with this situation, are you—this persistent dwelling on a vanished past?”

“Me?” The Soul-Devouring Mirror was quite surprised. “What does that have to do with me?”

How could it possibly relate to itself?

“Isn’t your world within the mirror just like that?”

The mirror let out a long ‘oh.’ “You mean *them*?”

The first time He Lingchuan entered the mirror world, those ancient spirits and resentments were constantly immersed in the past, unable to escape.

A figure flashed outside; Dong Rui had returned.

He had two dark circles under his eyes and couldn't help but yawn as soon as he entered. “Get me a bowl of braised noodles, quick! I’m starving!”

“Get away!” He Lingchuan instantly moved three feet back, waving his hand in front of his nose several times. “How many days haven’t you slept? Your breath is terrible!”

“Just two, three, four… seven days, I suppose.”

“You haven’t slept since we parted at Location Three?”

“I dozed off a few times in between,” Dong Rui yawned again. “You know how it is; when you’re underground in the dark, who keeps track of time?”

After he and He Lingchuan parted ways at Location Three, he directly drove the Snail Toad, carrying the Dragon Punishment Pillar, to Howling Forest.

The Ghost King's Underworld Palace was his secret testing ground; no living person was allowed near it.

Prompted by He Lingchuan, he had also specifically dived into the underwater cave of True Master Minghui, using the deep pool water to isolate the tracking spells on the three fiend puppets, just in case.

It was rare to get new toys, especially works by other fiend puppet masters, so he was a little excited and hadn't closed his eyes for seven or eight days straight.

The back kitchen of the Yangshan Merchant Association always kept food warm, ready for distinguished guests to order at any time.

So, a quarter of an hour later, Dong Rui sat at the table, slurping down the freshly cooked braised noodles with pork intestines.

The braised sauce, with its fresh, fragrant, wild, smooth, and spicy warmth, was exactly what his stomach craved at that moment.

He lifted the large bowl, took a few gulps, and let out a long sigh of satisfaction as the fresh chili flavor shot straight to his head, making him feel completely comfortable.

He Lingchuan sat down and asked, “Any new discoveries?”

“The crafting method for those three fiend puppets is very crude; they’re all unfinished, all patchworks,” Dong Rui said, his words muffled by food. “Incoherence, do you understand? Incoherent!”

“I understand.” When He Lingchuan first saw the Hinged-Tail Tiger, he noticed its head was too light and its tail too heavy. To prevent the tail from slowing it down while running, it even had to lean forward. In contrast, Dong Rui’s fiend puppets usually didn’t have this problem.

His creations had strong coordination and consistency. This was not just an aesthetic issue; it also directly affected the fiend puppet's performance.

“So, their technique is clumsy?”

“No, no, you can’t say that,” Dong Rui, always practical in his research, corrected. “Insects have the most diverse characteristics, but mixing them with other monsters is inherently very difficult. They’re not quite… not quite… you know, even if you manage to create them, they’ll be unstable, and their tissues will repel each other.”

Incompatible. That was the only word He Lingchuan could think of.

“So what makes these strong?”

“More stable than I expected,” Dong Rui murmured. “Actually, when I first started making fiend puppets, I also considered mixing insects with other monsters, but after two attempts, the fiend puppets quickly disintegrated. So, I decisively abandoned that approach. Now that I think about it, if successful, insects offer excellent adaptability.”

“You know, earthworms cut in half can grow into two; some insects can live for seven or eight days after their heads are cut off.” The tenacity of insect life is hard for other species to match.

“So?” He Lingchuan still couldn’t grasp the point.

“Clumsy technique, but a strong core,” Dong Rui stated, hitting the nail on the head. “Either this fellow is a true genius, having stumbled upon a unique path through his own crude methods, or—”

“Or what?” This was too technical; He Lingchuan could only listen intently.

Dong Rui savored the moment before smiling slightly. “Or, he learned it readymade from someone else. In other words, someone taught him!”

“Fiend puppet masters, plural?” He Lingchuan glanced at him. “Are fiend puppet masters not all loners?”

Before meeting him, Dong Rui had always been a lone wolf, even working as an assassin to earn money for his research. He Lingchuan had always thought all fiend puppet masters were like that.

So, they could form organizations and pass down their knowledge?

“How would I know?” Dong Rui snapped impatiently. “If there really is a group researching this, I’d be quite surprised myself, wouldn’t I?”

“Any other discoveries? You didn’t sleep for seven or eight days; you couldn’t have just found this little, could you?”

“This work is very difficult. If another fiend puppet master tried to dismantle my creations, they wouldn’t get much out of it in seven or eight days, let alone seventy or eighty days!” Dong Rui gave him a look that said, “You’re an amateur, you wouldn’t understand,” letting him ponder it. “Why do I say there might be more than one fiend puppet master? Look at the Tong Wu that the sentries at Greenery Villa discovered—it’s completely different from these low-level patchworks!”

“Yes, that’s right.” Although Tong Wu’s form was altered from its normal version, it was certainly not a simple patchwork of two or three monsters. “It could even devour souls.”

“Therefore, there must be a master at work!” Dong Rui clapped his hands, sighing with emotion. “My path is not solitary; my path is not solitary indeed.”

Your path isn’t a good one either. He Lingchuan watched him, but kept that thought to himself.

“However, I still don’t advocate using insects to create fiend puppets, unless absolutely necessary,” Dong Rui shook his head. “These creatures solely act on instinct. Although various methods can be used to induce them, their controllability is simply too poor, and they often mutate excessively. Think of the Seventy-Year Cicadas we saw in Rong Mountain.”

He Lingchuan recalled the Seventy-Year Cicadas that had once plagued Rong Mountain, which mutated on a large scale after the cicadas came into contact with divine blood, leading to a disaster.

Dong Rui was right; the mutation of insects was very difficult to control.