Half-Paper Man

"Tiger's Ghosts!!"

Lin Heier's furious roar jolted everyone except Wu Pifu awake.

Standing beside Wu Pifu, she shouted, "Many of them are tiger's ghosts—wandering souls killed by those paper men, or people killed by the bandits who turned into paper men. Either they're illusions, or they're weak. Don't let them fool you."

Tiger's ghosts—the ghosts from the saying, "the tiger's ghost serves the tiger."

Everyone felt somewhat reassured, but as they watched dense ranks of rigid, horrifying human shapes emerge from the fog, their hearts still trembled with fear.

Yamadai was bent over crafting the launcher. The entire device was over eight meters long and divided into four sections. To send Wu Pifu fifty meters into the air using such crude materials, Yamadai had adopted a combined propulsion structure. Since bamboo was highly flexible, he used vines to create a spring-like mechanism. The four sets would propel in sequence, ultimately launching an object an immense distance and to a tremendous height—but accuracy was completely out of the question.

This apparatus also had a drawback: it took up an enormous amount of space. Not only did it occupy more than half the courtyard, but vines also had to be strung to the walls of the surrounding buildings. To people of this era, its complexity was practically supernatural craftsmanship.

This was the critical stage of construction. Without even looking up, Yamadai shouted at the others, "Give me an hour—no, fifty minutes will do! I'll have it finished right away!"

The others looked to Wu Pifu again. He merely raised his head to glance into the air, remaining silent in his straddling posture. His body was making minute adjustments too subtle for the naked eye to see.

At this point, the situation was obvious. Neither Yamadai nor Wu Pifu would be fighting. Only Lin Heier, Xu Rongyu, and Xu Shilan were capable of combat.

Lin Heier naturally stepped forward without hesitation. With one stamp of her foot, she flowed across half the yard under the Lotus Step, seized a torch in each hand, and stood before the group. Unexpectedly, Xu Shilan followed close behind, also taking a torch in each hand and moving to the front of the open yard.

Xu Rongyu's face had gone green. At a time like this, he could not possibly disgrace himself. Though his arms and legs trembled nonstop, he still took his place beside the two women.

Fortunately, the layout of the funeral house favored them. The main structure formed a square-shaped complex with a single opening. Buildings stood behind them and on both sides, while only the open yard ahead faced the forest. That was precisely why they had held their ground in the funeral house rather than leaving.

The three of them stood before the entrance to the main building, holding six torches as they faced the densely packed rigid figures approaching them. Lin Heier's expression was resolute. She took the lead, charging forward with her torches and swinging them at the foremost figures.

The firelight dispelled the fog, and once the fog scattered, the human shapes immediately dissipated like clouds of smoke.

"They really are illusions!" Lin Heier cried, invigorated.

The other two were also encouraged and began wildly sweeping their torches back and forth at the figures.

Countless figures vanished before the six torches, but the fog did not cease, nor did the figures. They continued surging forward in that horrifying manner. Gradually, Xu Shilan and Xu Rongyu slowed their torch swings, both feeling their arms grow sore and weak.

Then Lin Heier's expression abruptly changed. She shouted at them, "Watch out!"

At her thunderous warning, the two of them immediately felt a chilling presence rushing at them. A half-human, half-paper thing suddenly flashed out from the fog and swept toward them. Just as they were about to be caught, Xu Rongyu suddenly threw himself over Xu Shilan. One of his thighs was caught by the thing, and he was dragged away, dangling half in the air.

Just as Xu Rongyu was about to be dragged into the fog, a furious roar suddenly exploded outward, like thunder and a howl. Everyone's ears rang without end, and in their daze, they seemed to see a blood-red tiger in the funeral house roaring toward the heavens.

As the sound spread, the fog vanished completely in an instant, along with the thousand tiger's ghost figures. Only then did Lin Heier and Xu Shilan see a paper man clutching one of Xu Rongyu's legs and preparing to fly away.

Lin Heier stamped her foot and rushed to the paper man's side. The two torches in her hands swung in succession, burning it until it squealed. It could only drop Xu Rongyu and drift away alone. Once it left the range of Lin Heier's torches, the flames on its body immediately turned blue-green, then vanished.

At the same time, dozens of paper men drifted in and out of sight from the forest. A half-paper, half-flesh thing stepped out from the woods one step at a time. Lin Heier saw clearly that it bore Xu Zhenshan's face!

At that moment, the surrounding fog swept in again. The thousand tiger's ghosts reappeared and lunged at the three of them once more.

Lin Heier repeatedly swung her torches to drive away the tiger's ghosts, while Xu Shilan hurried to Xu Rongyu, grabbed him, and dragged him toward the funeral house without caring whether he was dead or alive. The three fought as they retreated, quickly reaching the open yard. They crossed a line of piled firewood and straw that had been sprinkled with a little oil. Lin Heier guarded Xu Shilan's rear. Once Xu Shilan had dragged Xu Rongyu within the boundary, Lin Heier immediately threw her torches into the pile.

Blazing flames immediately erupted across the yard, completely blocking the only entrance outside the funeral house complex. Those tiger's ghost figures did not dare cross the line of fire at all. They only wailed and shrieked four or five meters beyond it, constantly changing shape—from human forms into mutilated, horrifying corpses, or blue-faced, fanged evil ghosts. Beyond the fireline, it looked as terrifying as the depths of hell.

Lin Heier did not look at the horrifying scene beyond the flames. She hurried to Xu Rongyu's side, turned his face upward, and saw that his complexion was a sickly green, though his eyeballs were still moving and his teeth were clenched tight. He was clearly still alive.

Lin Heier let out a breath of relief. Xu Shilan stood up, panting, and looked worriedly at the fireline. "We could only gather this much firewood over the past few days, and there isn't enough oil either. At most, it'll burn for twenty minutes. After that, the flames will go out..."

Both women looked at Yamadai. He was tying the launcher to the surrounding walls, and it looked as though he would need some more time before it was complete. On the other side, Wu Pifu remained in his straddling posture, seemingly motionless. Only Lin Heier's face brightened briefly before worry returned.

Wu Pifu's lower body had lowered another fraction into the straddling posture, bringing him one step closer to completing the Lotus-Seated Force. Such speed was simply unbelievable, but even so, he could not possibly achieve it within twenty minutes.

Lin Heier fell silent for a moment, then said decisively, "If it comes to it, we'll set these buildings ablaze and buy the last of our time... We'll do all we can and leave the rest to fate!"

As Lin Heier and Xu Shilan worried anxiously, Xu Rongyu lay half-conscious, Yamadai focused on the final construction and error-checking of the launcher, and Wu Pifu poured all his attention into practicing the Lotus-Seated Force, that half-paper, half-flesh thing with Xu Zhenshan's face arrived at the fireline.

"Rongyu, why have you shut your father outside? Your father has already attained the Dao. I've come to take you with me to the immortal realm!"

The half-paper man's head was flesh, its neck and chest were paper, its arms turned back into flesh, and its lower body was paper again. Its appearance was indescribably bizarre and terrifying. The words from its mouth seemed to carry some strange magic. Merely hearing them made everyone's skin crawl, like the sound of razor-sharp wire scraping across glass.

Xu Rongyu howled miserably and covered his ears. Thin streams of blood seeped from them. Xu Shilan fared somewhat better, but she too covered her ears with a pained expression.

Everyone watched the half-paper man approach the fireline. It opened its mouth and inhaled. Its thin paper body actually swelled like a balloon. Then it swung a hand at the flames. With a sharp smack, its palm struck the fire, and the flames immediately turned blue-green at a visible speed.

"Not good!"

Lin Heier's expression changed dramatically. She immediately drew the Red Soft Spear from behind her waist and gave it a hard shake, transforming it into a long spear. Then she thrust it directly into the blue-green flames as her hidden force erupted, traveling through the Red Soft Spear and into the fire.

As expected, they countered one another. The instant the hidden force met the flames, it caused them to surge violently, driving out the blue-green color and restoring them to orange-yellow.

The half-paper man turned its dull dead man's eyes toward Lin Heier, then spoke. "So Yellow Lotus Holy Mother is here. The Old Mother has been talking about you. She said I must bring you back. You can surely become a maid beneath the Old Mother's seat."

Lin Heier felt a chill in her heart, but her hands did not stop. With another shake, the Red Soft Spear stabbed into the flames, and hidden force erupted again. The orange-yellow flames immediately surged, causing a large number of nearby tiger's ghosts to disappear. Only the half-paper man stood unharmed where it was.

At this point, the other dozens of paper men had drifted to the fireline. They flew about, moaning and calling out, while the half-paper man raised an arm again. Its palm seemed to be holding up an immensely heavy stone stele. With the bearing of lifting lightness as though it were weight, it slapped the Red Soft Spear with the Stele-Slamming Hand.

The two exchanged a blow within the flames. Lin Heier immediately unleashed hidden force, and the Red Soft Spear in her hand extended forward. Yet what rebounded through the spear was not the expected counterforce of hidden force, but an icy chill. In an instant, the arms gripping her spear felt as though they had been frozen solid. She could no longer hold the Red Soft Spear, and her entire body flipped backward, rolling at least seven or eight meters away.

Blood sprayed all along her path, freezing into ice before it hit the ground. Blood-red shards of ice covered the ground where Lin Heier had tumbled.

The half-paper man heavily wounded Lin Heier with one strike, then slammed another stele-smashing palm into the fireline. A large stretch of flame turned entirely blue-green, then went out and disappeared. The half-paper man strode into the open yard and reached toward the fallen Lin Heier.

My life ends here... Lin Heier's entire body was stiff. That strange cold had frozen the circulation of her blood and vital energy, leaving her unable to move. She could only close her eyes and await death.

At that critical moment, another thunderous, howling roar erupted. A figure leaped over Xu Shilan, Xu Rongyu, and Lin Heier, nearly flashing between the half-paper man and Lin Heier in a single breath.

"Lotus-Seated Force!"

The figure sat with his legs crossed in a straddling posture, one palm braced at his waist and the other supporting the heavens, meeting the half-paper man's Stele-Slamming Hand head-on as its claw became a palm!