Chapter 119: The Shadow Puppeteer

Qiu Shiyan and Bai Taoru’s room was located on the east side of the backyard of the martial arts school. Qiu Rubai, Bai Fu, and Fang Yue also resided in this area. The other members of the school lived on the west side of the backyard, separated by some distance.

Qiu Shiyan, Bai Taoru, and Bai Fu had already dressed and emerged, weapons in hand.

"Uncle Fu, Taoru, I leave my father in your care. I am going to the west side to wake the others."

Bai Fu replied, "Rest assured, Eldest Miss. Even if I must sacrifice my life, I will not let anyone harm the Master."

Bai Taoru added anxiously, "Miss, please be careful!"

Qiu Shiyan nodded without further words. Clutching her precious sword, she stepped into the darkness and headed west. She had only taken a few steps when a beam of white light suddenly illuminated the courtyard, casting flickering shadows all around.

"Where is the young lady planning to go?"

A pale-faced scholar appeared abruptly before Qiu Shiyan, blocking her path. Qiu Shiyan’s internal alarm bells rang loudly. With a metallic clang, she drew her sword and demanded coldly, "Who are you?"

The pale scholar shook his folding fan in a jerky, unnatural rhythm. A strange smile hung on his lips. "We have just met; why must the young lady resort to blades and weapons?"

This pale-faced scholar was Qian Rutao, a fox-friend and dog-companion of She Shanhai, and also a practitioner of the heterodox arts.

"You are courting death."

Qiu Shiyan did not waste words. With a strike from the Long Wind Sword technique, her blade moved like the wind, thrusting directly at Qian Rutao. He scrambled backward, but his movements were stiff; he dodged the first strike but could not evade the relentless succession of blows that followed. The glint of the sword tore Qian Rutao’s body to shreds.

However, no joy crossed Qiu Shiyan’s face. She held her sword horizontally before her and retreated to the side of Bai Fu and Bai Taoru. The blade had met no resistance, as if tearing through paper, and not a single drop of blood had been shed. Indeed, Qian Rutao’s shredded form quickly fused back together, appearing completely unscathed.

"The young lady is truly fiery; I like that." Qian Rutao kept his folding fan in hand, his face still twisted into that peculiar smile. His eyes roamed over Qiu Shiyan’s long legs and tall, athletic frame, his gaze filled with lewdness.

Bai Fu warned, "Eldest Miss, be careful. This man may be a Shadow Puppeteer from the heterodox sects. This is not his true body; his real self is hidden in the dark, and what you see is merely a shadow puppet."

Qian Rutao glanced at Bai Fu. "Old man, you have some insight." He flicked his fan, and a grand sedan chair carried by eight bearers suddenly appeared beside him. The chair was wide, luxurious, and ornate. "Young lady, I have decided to carry you through my gates in this sedan. Are you satisfied?"

The sedan appeared abruptly, and the eight bearers were expressionless, exuding a ghostly, deathly aura.

"Playing tricks and masquerading as spirits," Qiu Shiyan scoffed. She lightly grazed the index finger of her left hand against the blade, drawing blood, and smeared the droplets onto the sword. In an instant, the ordinary-looking sword underwent a strange transformation.

The entire blade, originally silver-white, began to stain with the color of blood. Within moments, it turned blood-red, as if it were about to ooze liquid, appearing incredibly ominous. This sword was no ordinary weapon. It was named "Wind-Blood," a cursed artifact brought from the Qiu family and passed down to Qiu Shiyan.

Cursed artifacts were objects of unknown origin that possessed strange and inexplicable functions. For instance, the rattle that Fang Yue had encountered in the Ren household was a cursed artifact capable of capturing souls. The Wind-Blood sword in Qiu Shiyan’s hand possessed the power of "Evil-Slaying."

However, using a cursed artifact was no simple matter; it required a heavy price—usually one's life force, essence, blood, or spirit. Having unsealed the Wind-Blood sword with her blood, Qiu Shiyan did not hesitate, knowing that every moment she held the weapon, it drained her life force.

She flourished the sword and, moving with the speed of a gale, unleashed the "Wind-Coil Sword" technique to envelop Qian Rutao. This technique was not meant for speed, but for trapping the enemy.

"Interesting." Qian Rutao watched the approaching blade without much concern. As Bai Fu had said, he was a Shadow Puppeteer. The pale scholar was not his true body, but a projection—a flat puppet fashioned from the flayed skin of a scholar, reflected through light. A shadow could not be killed, and his earlier retreat had merely been to toy with her.

Qian Rutao raised his fan to block the sword light. The Wind-Blood sword struck the fan, slicing through it as easily as a knife through tofu. The momentum continued, cutting into the arm and body of the pale-faced projection. Qian Rutao’s form was cleaved in two, but this time, it did not fuse back together; instead, it dissipated into black mist.

A scream echoed from the distance. The "Evil-Slaying" function of the Wind-Blood sword had taken effect, destroying the projection and wounding the real Qian Rutao hiding in the shadows. Qiu Shiyan did not stop, striking again at the eight-bearer sedan. The light in the courtyard vanished as abruptly as it had appeared. Without the light, the shadow puppet ceased to exist, and the sedan disappeared. The courtyard plunged back into darkness, lit only by a faint sliver of moonlight.

Having used the Wind-Blood sword twice, Qiu Shiyan’s face turned slightly pale. Gritting her teeth, she lunged toward the direction of the scream, but a circle around the area revealed no one.

"Escaped?" Qiu Shiyan stood still, carefully sensing her surroundings.

"Young lady, you destroyed one of my puppets. Next time, you shall pay with your own body. Hahaha." Qian Rutao’s voice drifted from left to right, growing distant and impossible to pinpoint. He let out a maniacal laugh, mocking her before he left.

Suddenly, his laughter stopped abruptly, as if a squawking duck had been throttled. Qiu Shiyan did not know what had happened or if it was a trick, but clutching her sword, she prepared to give chase. Just then, a figure appeared before her.

"Eldest Senior Sister." Fang Yue held his sword in one hand and a severed head in the other, blood dripping from his blade. He had arrived just as Qiu Shiyan destroyed the projection. Instead of intervening immediately, he had hidden in the dark, confirmed Qian Rutao’s position, and struck decisively to decapitate him.

A martial artist’s eyesight was keen; through the dim moonlight, Qiu Shiyan saw it was Fang Yue and relaxed. Her body swayed, nearly losing her balance; the consumption from the Wind-Blood sword was immense. Fang Yue dropped the head and stepped forward to support her.

Qiu Shiyan squeezed her left index finger, drawing blood once more, and wiped it across the blade. The blood-red color faded, and the Wind-Blood sword reverted to the appearance of an ordinary blade. Fang Yue glanced at the sword, which gave him a strange feeling.

"Are you all right?" Fang Yue asked.

Qiu Shiyan shook her head. "I am fine. What is the situation?"

"There were only these two groups of attackers tonight. I don’t know their goal, but fearing the man’s strangeness, I severed his head and left no captives."

Fang Yue and Qiu Shiyan walked into the courtyard, where Bai Fu was already standing with a lantern.

"Miss, Junior Brother, are you hurt?" Bai Taoru rushed over to ask.

"I am fine," Fang Yue said. He scanned the area and asked, "What about the corpses of the other attackers on your side?"

Bai Fu replied, "Aside from the Shadow Puppeteer, we saw no other attackers."

Fang Yue frowned. "I killed a guy using a ghost infant in the front courtyard, and he claimed his friend was coming to deal with the Eldest Senior Sister. This puppeteer must have been his friend, but where did the hands he brought go?"

Qiu Shiyan gritted her teeth. "They are likely still in our school, scattered and looting. Daring to come to our Fengyang Martial Arts School—I will make sure they never leave." She moved to go root them out. The Fengyang school was already so poor that being targeted was something she could not tolerate.

Bai Taoru pulled her back. "Miss, your face is so pale."

Under the light of the lantern, everyone saw that Qiu Shiyan’s face was indeed paper-white, as if she had suffered a massive loss of vital energy.

Fang Yue looked at the group. "Where are the others?"

Bai Taoru said, "We were just about to go west to wake them when we were intercepted."

Fang Yue said, "Take care of the Eldest Senior Sister. I will head west to wake the others and search for any remaining attackers. I’ll try to capture one alive and ask their true purpose."