Paper Puppets

Chen Mo pondered for a few minutes before lifting his legs and heading toward the middle courtyard.

He remembered that there should still be a stack of high-quality Yin Paper left in Chen Dachuan's room.

Chen Dachuan's room was right next to his, the door kept tightly shut. Since his disappearance, he had rarely entered.

The original owner had been afraid of stirring up painful memories, while Chen Mo vaguely felt that the room still harbored some lingering Yin energy, which did his body—now infused with Sha—no good.

Pushing open the door, a scent mixed with aged wood and dried herbs rushed to meet him.

The room was furnished simply: a bed, a wardrobe, a table, and a chair. They were all old items, now covered in a thin layer of dust.

His goal was clear; he walked straight toward the black-lacquered wooden wardrobe against the wall.

The cabinet was locked, but the key hung from an inconspicuous hook at the head of the bed.

He took down the key, inserted it into the keyhole, and gave it a gentle turn.

"Click."

The cabinet door swung open in response.

The interior was divided into several levels.

The top layer held a few neatly folded old garments, while below were several ancient books wrapped in oil paper. These were not the Nether Paper-Crafting Art manuscripts, but rather miscellaneous books on local legends and folklore.

On the very bottom layer sat a rectangular object wrapped tightly in thick, dark blue cloth.

Chen Mo carefully removed the bundle and placed it on the wooden table in the room.

He untied the knots and unfolded the thick cloth.

What was revealed inside was neither ordinary colored paper nor plain paper.

The paper was a deep gray, bordering on black. It felt ice-cold to the touch, its texture exceptionally supple and fine, with a faint, dull luster flowing across its surface.

This was the Yin Paper that Chen Dachuan had occasionally mentioned but strictly forbidden the original owner from touching.

It was said to be crafted using ancient secret methods from the fibers of Yin-sink bamboo harvested in specific years, mixed with graveyard grass and other rare materials.

Not only was it expensive, but it was also unavailable on the open market.

A stack of about twenty sheets of Yin Paper lay neatly folded, exuding a profound and eerie aura.

Chen Mo's fingers brushed lightly over the surface, the icy sensation seemingly penetrating his skin.

The Sha energy that had been dormant within his body seemed to be subtly stirred by the aura of the Yin Paper, twitching slightly in agitation.

"This is it."

Chen Mo wrapped up the Yin Paper, locked the wooden cabinet again, and returned to his own room.

What he intended to make was not some boy or girl effigy, but something far more aggressive—a Weaponized Paper Puppet.

At the end of the Paper Puppet Spirit-Communication Chapter in the manuscript, there were a few vague accounts mentioning that if one used special materials as a base, supplemented by secret runes and essence blood as a guide, one could craft a simple weaponized puppet capable of sharpness and breaking through Sha.

However, this belonged to a forbidden branch and was extremely dangerous.

If one were even slightly careless, the crafter would suffer damage to their spirit at best, or be backlashed by Yin energy or attract the attention of unpredictable evil spirits at worst.

Chen Mo did not act immediately. Instead, he rummaged through the drawer of his workbench and pulled out a small sandalwood box containing several auxiliary tools.

A spirit-pattern brush made from the hair of a hanged person.

A small dish of dark red blood cinnabar.

And a small bundle of dark gold silk thread, used to bind critical joints and enhance the puppet's stability and spiritual conduction.

With the materials ready, Chen Mo took a deep breath, closed the door tightly, and left only one window slightly ajar for ventilation.

He carefully spread the stack of Yin Paper on the table and took out one sheet.

He first selected the toughest Yin-sink bamboo strips, using a small knife to carefully shave and roast them, constructing a frame about two feet tall that resembled a simplified human figure.

The frame did not need to be exquisite or beautiful; it only needed its key nodes to be sturdy and flexible.

Then, he picked up the Yin Paper and, following the shape of the frame, began to cut and wrap it, ensuring every paste was seamless. The Yin Paper adhered perfectly to the bamboo skeleton, forming a deep gray, roughly humanoid paper shell.

Next came the most critical step—drawing the spirit patterns.

Chen Mo dissolved a bit of blood cinnabar with clear water, saturated the spirit-pattern brush, recalled the tadpole-like twisted runes from the manuscript, and slowly set the brush to paper.

The moment the tip touched the icy Yin Paper, he felt his spirit tremble slightly.

The cinnabar traces were not striking on the dark gray paper, but guided by his intent, he outlined eerie patterns on the puppet's chest, abdomen, limb joints, and hands.

Drawing the spirit patterns was incredibly taxing, not just on his mental energy; he felt the Sha energy near his heart meridian being subtly pulled, as if it wanted to flow out through the tip of the brush.

Chen Mo forcibly steadied his mind, controlling his rhythm.

By the time the spirit patterns were finished, fine beads of cold sweat had already seeped from his forehead.

Finally, he used the gold silk thread to carefully wrap the puppet's joints, tying them with special knots.

With every wrap, he used his intent to guide a wisp of his own aura into the thread, slowly connecting it to the spirit patterns on the puppet's bamboo frame.

The entire process lasted nearly two hours.

By the time the final golden thread was wound into place, the sun outside the window was already high in the sky.

Chen Mo, letting out a sigh of relief, swayed slightly and had to grip the edge of the table to steady himself.

Crafting this Weaponized Paper Puppet consumed not only materials but also his very essence and spirit, even indirectly stirring the Sha within his body.

His face was now as pale as paper, and he had to sit in his chair for the duration of a cup of tea before he could recover his strength.

Only the final steps remained: dotting the eyes and the blood pact.

However, the eye-dotting had to be performed at the hour of Zi at night; the Yang energy during the day was too heavy and unfavorable for the ritual.

After tucking the semi-finished Weaponized Paper Puppet into a wooden box, Chen Mo finally felt waves of hunger rising from his stomach.

He forced himself to scrape the last bit of old rice from the bottom of the jar, mixed it with a larger portion of coarse grain and a few dried vegetable leaves, and boiled a pot of thin vegetable porridge on the small clay stove in the corner.

The warm food hitting his stomach finally dispelled some of the chill and allowed a small amount of his floating strength to return.

After cleaning up the bowl and chopsticks, Chen Mo changed into the most inconspicuous gray cloth tunic and tousled his hair to look slightly disheveled, making himself appear more like an ordinary youth struggling to make a living.

He checked the few copper coins hidden in his sleeve, felt the empty, shriveled cloth pouch in his bosom, and after locking all the doors and windows, he left through the back gate of the middle courtyard.

The afternoon sunlight was somewhat blinding.

Funeral Street remained dull even in the daylight, but once outside this street, the bustle of ordinary life in Linhe County began.

Chen Mo kept his head down and merged into the flow of people on the street.

The street was paved with bluestone slabs, long neglected and in disrepair, with potholes and stagnant water in many places that shimmered with a dark, greenish light.

On both sides were shops of varying heights with gray tiles and wooden eaves, their signs and banners swaying in the breeze.

Grain and oil shops, general stores, teahouses... most of the storefronts were old, their paint peeling and mottled.

The air was a mixture of food, sweat, livestock manure, coal smoke, and a faint, unidentifiable musty odor drifting from somewhere.

An accountant in a long gown hurried past with a cloth bag tucked under his arm, a shop assistant in a short-sleeved jacket shouted at the storefront, an old woman with bound feet hobbled along with a vegetable basket, and a ragged beggar curled up in a corner with hollow eyes.

From the distance came the shouts of rickshaw pullers and the jingling of bells, mixed with the long, drawn-out cries of vendors selling wontons, repairing umbrellas, or sharpening scissors and kitchen knives.

The walls were plastered with yellowing notices—some from the authorities seeking bandits, some for shop openings and promotions, and many more were layers of old advertisements and fragments of unknown slogans.

Utility poles stood crookedly, tangled with a chaotic mess of wires like a giant spider web.