Trump Card

"Where's Danghuang?"

Zhong Nan looked at the empty bell as if he understood something, then turned a cold gaze on Xu Tong, who was sitting there shelling peanuts.

"So you'd been plotting against me all along!"

"Your performance gets a zero from me."

Faced with Zhong Nan's accusation, Xu Tong shook his head, tossed aside a peanut shell, and gestured as he spoke. "It has to feel natural. You have to find the emotion. You did pretty well just now—I liked it. Next time you play the victim, you need to bring out the emotion. Yes, exactly that expression you have right now. Make it a little more vicious."

Seeing Zhong Nan on the verge of flying into a rage, Li Bo could not help swallowing. After hearing Xu Tong's words, he nearly blurted out, At a time like this, you're really acting as a judge?

Of course, he only dared say that in his heart. He did not have the guts to say it aloud.

"Catch him!"

Zhong Nan had run out of patience. Dawn was almost here. If he did not act today, it would be difficult to pull the wool over everyone's eyes again tomorrow night.

Although the Ghost Festival, when the gates of hell opened, should theoretically be the best time to enter the Underworld, if the Ghost Overlord discovered that Zhong Nan had stolen his offering, he would be doomed.

Right now, only by risking everything could he carve out a path to survival.

As soon as Zhong Nan spoke, Zhou Yu's body began to rustle. Her stiff joints twisted with piercing tearing sounds. Ding-ling-ling... Two iron hooks appeared in her hands.

When she raised her head, two streaks of blood slid down her grayish-white cheeks.

"Bitch, watch what your grandpa can do!"

Seeing Zhou Yu approach, Li Bo raised the paper staff in his hand and swung it at her, hoping to seize the initiative.

Yet to his surprise, the paper staff he had swung with all his strength stopped dead less than three centimeters above Zhou Yu's head.

"What the hell?" Before he could figure out what was happening, a fierce gust of wind struck him. Zhou Yu drove a savage kick into his stomach.

The tremendous force sent Li Bo flying seven or eight meters away.

After kicking Li Bo away, Zhou Yu shifted her gaze, gripped both iron hooks, and charged straight at Xu Tong.

Though she was only a Paper Doll, she moved astonishingly fast.

Xu Tong raised a brow. Facing the descending iron hook, he barely managed to lift his broken blade to block it. With a loud clang, the broken blade was knocked from his hand.

The enormous force numbed his arm. Seeing Zhou Yu smash the hook down at him, he could not spare a thought for the dropped blade and hurriedly leaped aside. Yet he was still too slow and was struck in the lower ribs.

Agonizing pain exploded from his side. He did not need to look to know his ribs had broken.

Bang!

His body slammed hard into the ground, but instead of checking his injuries, Xu Tong scrambled to his feet and ran.

Watching Xu Tong flee in such a sorry state, Zhong Nan instinctively imitated the living and took a deep breath.

He had long since grown sick of Xu Tong's smug manner.

Seeing him chased down by a Paper Doll and fleeing for his life was a pleasure in itself.

His gaze swept over Li Bo, who was trying to get up. Zhong Nan's expression turned cold as he slowly raised a hand toward him.

Li Bo was already injured, and that kick to the gut had left him in terrible shape. The moment he stood up, it felt as though something was lodged in his throat, and he could barely breathe.

Then, at that very moment, Li Bo's left hand suddenly moved beyond his control and clamped around his own throat.

This hand that had been removed from the Mountain-Back Matron completely defied everything he knew about science. It actually lifted him off the ground and suspended him in midair.

Li Bo's entire face turned crimson. He had already been unable to breathe, and now he could not draw even the slightest breath.

"Stop struggling. Give me Danghuang, and I can let you leave in a more comfortable way."

Zhong Nan walked over to the fat man and looked toward Xu Tong. Under Zhou Yu's pursuit, Xu Tong was darting and leaping around the courtyard, while Zhong Nan's face was filled with indescribable delight.

Bang!

Seeing an iron hook fly toward him, Xu Tong twisted aside. The hook grazed his face and smashed the wooden post behind him—the one used for tethering mules—to pieces.

Xu Tong halted and turned back. "For example?"

"For example?"

The question caught Zhong Nan off guard. He had only been polite, and this guy had taken it seriously?

But he quickly realized that Xu Tong was mocking him. The coldness in his expression immediately became even more sinister.

"If you refuse to hand over Danghuang, why not watch how your friend dies first?"

As he spoke, he extended his hand and grabbed at the fat man's belly.

The seemingly light grab actually passed through Li Bo's stomach. The fat man instantly felt as though his internal organs had been twisted together, and the pain made his vision blacken in waves.

But Xu Tong did not even spare him a glance. After rolling across the ground, he found himself backed into a corner. As Zhou Yu charged at him with her iron hooks—

His eyes flicked toward the pile of firewood beside him. Gritting his teeth, he sprang up, stepped on the woodpile, and leaped onto the kitchen roof, narrowly avoiding Zhou Yu's iron hook.

But before he could even catch his breath, Zhou Yu lightly pushed off with her foot and floated onto the roof as well.

"Hahaha! Run! Let's see where you can run now!"

Seeing that Xu Tong had nowhere left to go, Zhong Nan burst into wild laughter. In the midst of his glee, he did not forget to glance back at Old Man Li.

"Well? Isn't my Paper Control Technique already better than yours?"

Old Man Li wore a bitter expression. He opened his mouth, but in the end could not say a single word. The fire in the village behind him was burning ever hotter. He knew the die had been cast; nothing he said now would matter.

Just as Zhong Nan laughed even more smugly, he suddenly heard Li Bo's hoarse voice beside him. "Trash..."

Zhong Nan froze and tilted his head toward Li Bo. "What did you say?"

This guy's face had gone from red to purple, yet he could still speak. Li Bo's legs dangled in the air as he struggled even more fiercely, but he still managed to silently raise a middle finger at Zhong Nan.

Zhong Nan had no idea what the small gesture meant, but the contempt in the fat man's eyes stirred up an inexplicable rage within him.

He raised his hand and punched Li Bo in the stomach again.

The heavy punch instantly made Li Bo's eyes bulge wide. But just when Zhong Nan least expected it, Li Bo suddenly opened his mouth.

"Bleurgh!"

Blood mixed with saliva and bits of crushed stone sprayed straight onto him.

Sizzle!

In an instant, it was as if Zhong Nan had been drenched in boiling water, white smoke rising from his entire body.

"Ah!" With a scream, he collapsed to the ground. He had never imagined that one mouthful from Li Bo would leave him in such unbearable pain.

After flinging Li Bo away with a wave of his hand, Zhong Nan clutched his face and rolled around on the ground.

"Cinnabar!"

Old Man Li immediately saw what the problem was. Seeing his son fall to the ground, he struggled to rise, only to collapse again from exhaustion. Supporting himself with both hands, he crawled toward Zhong Nan, wanting his son to hold on.

But Zhong Nan used all his strength to point at Xu Tong. "Kill him!" After saying that, he could no longer support himself and fainted on the ground.

Having received the order, Zhou Yu's next attack was even sharper than before. With a light step, she circled behind Xu Tong.

Giving Xu Tong no chance at all, she flicked her hand. The sharp iron hook drove straight into his shoulder and lifted him up.

The pain pierced to the marrow. He could even hear his own bones cracking.

"So this is how I die?"

In an instant, the scene he had seen in the still flashed through Xu Tong's mind: suspended high in the air by two iron chains, blood dripping continuously from his feet.

"Lame as hell."

Ignoring the gash torn open in his shoulder, he wrapped both arms around Zhou Yu's waist and stomped hard beneath his feet.

The roof tiles that had already cracked could no longer bear Xu Tong's weight.

Splash!

As the mud and tiles beneath them shattered, icy water instantly engulfed them. It turned out that beneath their feet was the large water vat normally used for cooking.

This water vat should have been tucked away in a corner, but now it stood in the very center of the kitchen. Naturally, that was Xu Tong's doing.

After seeing Li Bo's still earlier, Xu Tong had concluded that these stills must possess some kind of precognitive ability, revealing their endings in advance.

But that foresight was not inevitable. Just like the fat man's hand being caught by the zombie—if Xu Tong had not saved him, his fate might truly have unfolded just as it did in the still.

Yet the guy was still alive even now, which meant they had the ability to change those endings.

So Xu Tong considered many possibilities. Though things had deviated somewhat from his expectations, one thing was certain: whether it was Old Man Li or Zhong Nan, neither was particularly powerful. The truly terrifying things were these Paper Dolls.

It was hard to imagine that these Paper Dolls, made from paper pulp and layers upon layers of pasted white paper, could be terrifying weapons that were impervious to blades and bullets and possessed immense strength.

But no matter how powerful they were, they could not change the fact that they were made of paper.

This water vat was the greatest trump card Xu Tong had prepared.

Sure enough, once immersed in the water, Zhou Yu's body instantly collapsed. Her arms, which had been as tough as rock, could no longer bear the weight of the iron hooks and tore apart.

Zhou Yu continued struggling, but the more she struggled, the faster her body fell apart. Soaked with water, her body became heavy and soft. In the blink of an eye, a layer of white scraps of paper floated across the surface of the vat.

Water splashed as her once slender, shapely neck tilted to one side, sending half her head into the water as well. Yet even then, her face still wore a gentle smile.

Just as Zhong Nan had said before, no matter how much pain these Paper Dolls felt inside, they could only retain the expression they had been made with.

"All right, you can soak in there."

Xu Tong had no interest in taking a bath with her. Enduring the searing pain in his shoulder, he climbed out of the water vat.

Pushing open the kitchen door, he saw Zhong Nan lying on the ground, his body riddled with holes burned by cinnabar. He howled in agony as faint blue light continuously seeped from his body.