Jiujiu's ghostly cries rang beside He Ping's ears as a sinister wind howled, making it seem as though they had fallen into the depths of the Underworld. This time, He Ping saw clearly: all the things flying out of the ancestral hall's main gate were strips of white silk, long and short alike.
"...White silk?"
The white silk seemed alive, like countless snakes darting through the sky. It gathered and scattered, splitting apart as it poured out of the darkness in layer upon layer. In an instant, it transformed into a vast, densely packed mass of white shadows that swept toward them.
"There are just way too many of them!!"
He didn't even have a chance to use the Milo Blade before a mass of white silk streaked toward him.
With a sharp crack, like a campfire popping, several more paper puppets holding lanterns released Cursed Spirit Flame. Green fire suddenly surged skyward, and several clumps of Green Phosphorus Ghost Fire ignited in response. Before the white silk could draw near, it was already burning in midair.
Masses of Green Phosphorus Ghost Fire flew out of the white paper lanterns. Their eerie, jade-green flames—like molten blue-green glass—never changed color. The ancestral hall's plaque was bathed in the firelight, its surface reflecting a slick, oily green sheen.
Inside the sedan, a ghostly green light reflected in He Ping's pupils.
He held his ten fingers suspended in the air, twitching countless thin strings too fine for the naked eye to see, as though plucking a zither. The innumerable threads extended into the void, controlling several paper puppets and directing each to perform a different action.
The puppets looked comical, but their movements were anything but clumsy. They advanced and retreated, dodging and weaving in perfect coordination, like actors performing a play they had rehearsed countless times.
The white silk that darted through the air twisted and changed course, but still couldn't escape the Cursed Spirit Flame's corrosion. Instead, under the glow of the green flames, it kept scattering and fading. Amid the hiss of it burning away, there seemed to be faint, resentful muttering and low curses.
In front of the ancestral hall, more white silk drifted in from all directions. Some was scorched black; the rest burst apart in midair, transforming into countless butterflies that fluttered and wheeled through the air. Some suddenly swooped down, slicing into the ground; others slammed against the paper puppets' Armor-Clad Spirit Light, making the air crackle faintly.
The white silk was light and soft, yet driven by a strange force, it drifted and darted through the air like snakes. Its leading edges slowly turned dark red, as if stained with blood or scorched by fire, and began to radiate heat.
But the Armor-Clad Spirit Light was even stronger. Once the paper puppets activated it, they gained not only greatly increased strength but also an indestructible defense, allowing them to withstand the strange white silk head-on.
Hiss, hiss, hiss, hiss, hiss, hiss!
The white silk was densely packed and seemingly endless. Some had already approached the Paper Sedan behind the puppets. He Ping lowered the curtain and let the silk tear through the air, shooting toward them in a sky-covering barrage.
A faint white light suddenly lit up in front of the sedan. The white silk could pierce through and slice wood and stone as easily as rotten earth, yet now it was as if it had struck an invisible wall of bronze and iron.
The barrier formed by the Armor-Clad Spirit Light was stern and massive, nearly impregnable. This was also what made the Paper Puppet Spirit Technique unique: once the puppets had been successfully refined, their auras were linked together, as if they had become a single whole.
The paper puppets' Armor-Clad Spirit Light was created by this puppet technique. A single paper puppet wasn't very strong, but when twenty-five of them gathered together and linked their auras, breaking through that defense was impossible unless their combined aura was completely worn away.
Moreover, the Armor-Clad Spirit Light of these paper puppets could also be extended to the Paper Sedan. As long as He Ping sat inside it, he could benefit from the protection of the spirit light.
"What a pity. I wonder why this Armor-Clad Spirit Light only works on dead things. If it could be applied directly to me, just how strong would my defense become...?"
He Ping was helpless about it. He suspected that the Armor-Clad Spirit Light wasn't meant for people at all. Only after he became a living puppet would its defensive effect work on him.
During the brief moment he spent pondering this, the paper puppets had cleared away all the white silk outside. But within the ancient ancestral hall's main entrance, the light grew ever dimmer, and vague white figures seemed to shift in the shadows.
He Ping knew those white figures were strips of silk swaying among the beams. They looked far too old, and some were stained with tiny spots resembling plum blossoms.
"...The Screaming Soul Blood Silk Array?"
He Ping considered the matter.
In the past, he had heard of a crooked "ghost array" from Wu Yousheng. Its setup seemed somewhat similar to that of this ancestral hall.
"What had Wu Yousheng said back then... 'The Screaming Soul Blood Silk Array must conceal a great evil spirit within. It uses evil spirits to drive ghosts and ghosts to command ghosts. Its methods even bear a striking resemblance to the puppet arts of the Immortal Puppet Sect...'"
—Wait, could it be that no one was overseeing Wandering Soul Village—or this ancestral hall—and that this was actually an empty array that used "ghosts" to refine ghosts?
"Even without anyone directing it, this array is still this powerful!"
Suddenly, a wave of dread rose uncontrollably in He Ping's heart. It felt as if a boulder were crushing his chest, leaving him unable to breathe. He abruptly lifted his eyes and saw a figure in black holding an umbrella in the ancestral hall's main chamber.
He couldn't make out the figure's face. He could only glimpse strands of gray-white hair appearing and disappearing beneath the turning black umbrella.
The long black hem revealed the toes of a pair of worn black cloth shoes. Their soles lightly touched the ground as the figure drew closer, step by step.
The white silk in the hall seemed to transform from white figures into the shapes of women. They were slender and graceful, their chins and necks caught in the white silk hanging from above. Their feet dangled in the air, swaying faintly.
What was eerie was that from He Ping's position, he could see only the white shadows—the feet hanging after the women had hanged themselves. He couldn't see anything more... Yet the countless figures suspended from the beams, the overloaded roof beams creaking under their weight, and the dense rows of embroidered women's shoes dangling overhead were enough to make his scalp crawl.
The figures of the women who had hanged themselves were hazy, like phantoms or wisps of white smoke. The figure beneath the umbrella took slow steps forward, and the illusory white shadows were immediately swept away, all of them sucked into its body.
It was as though an invisible barrier enclosed the ancestral hall's main chamber, leaving those figures nowhere to escape. As they were sucked into the umbrella-bearing figure, they seemed to tremble faintly, as if in great pain.
With each white shadow it absorbed, the figure in black became more and more real, its form shifting from dim and indistinct to solid.
Meanwhile, He Ping felt the pressure mounting as well. The air around him seemed to grow heavier, and the pressure ahead became as solid as a wall, impossible to approach... He was slightly startled, realizing that he had been locked onto by the Screaming Soul Blood Silk Array.
"I understand now. It isn't unattended. A fierce ghost is hidden at the eye of the array, directing it. The Screaming Soul Blood Silk Array is the main array, while the ghostly domain around the village contains another, illusory array. This array is vicious beyond measure. Any living person who enters the village will be devoured by the ghosts. Even if they manage to escape, they'll run into the ancestral hall's main array and meet certain death!!"
Yet He Ping's expression remained calm. Only his dark eyes, reflecting the green lantern flames, gleamed with a cold light.
"But can an empty array like this, without anyone directing it, really stop me?"