Turning a Paper Figure into a Puppet

"Swish, swish, swish!"

Then...

The Daoist's hand moved as though he had activated a cheat, drawing on the Paper Puppet's face at astonishing speed.

He was not looking into a mirror, nor could he see what he was doing. He simply held the brush and worked like a woman applying her own makeup, flowers blooming beneath his masterful strokes!

Soon...

A face took shape.

It was a scholar's lifelike face, with thick eyebrows, long eyes, a dragon-like nose, and thin lips.

The brush had been dipped entirely in bloody water, so the eyes, nose, and mouth it drew were naturally bright red. Yet the instant the Daoist laid down the final stroke, those features suddenly changed color and came alive.

The eyebrows and eyes turned ink-black, the nose rose into a high bridge, and only the lips retained a trace of blood-red.

Just like that, a vivid human face appeared on the faceless Paper Puppet!

"Thank you, Patriarch, for granting this art! Paper puppet, become human!"

"Complete!"

At the Daoist's command, the Paper Puppet instantly became a living, breathing person!

In that same instant, Ye Qianfan felt alive again.

He moved his fingers.

His fingers could move.

Ye Qianfan lowered his head and discovered that he could actually see his own body with his eyes.

Moreover, he could freely control every part of the Paper Puppet, whether its legs, feet, arms, or even the tiniest details.

He even felt as though he could claw out a three-bedroom apartment with his toes. There was not the slightest hitch or resistance to his movements, as though he were using his own body rather than a puppet's!

"How does it feel?"

The Daoist asked.

And just then...

Ye Qianfan realized that the Daoist's voice was coming from his abdomen. It sounded a little muffled, with something of the marvel of ventriloquism!

"I can move freely. It feels like I have a new body again. Pretty amazing." After taking another couple of steps, Ye Qianfan said somewhat ruefully, "It's just that this body feels a little light. A gust of wind almost blew me away just now. I nearly let myself fly free for real!"

"You don't have a physical body to begin with. However realistic this Paper Puppet is, it's still nothing more than a paper shell. How heavy do you expect it to be?" The Daoist's muffled voice continued to emerge from Ye Qianfan's abdomen. "Unless we stuff something inside it. That might give you some weight and keep the wind from blowing you away."

"Fill it with dirt?"

Looking at the dirt covering the ground, Ye Qianfan immediately thought of the simplest, most direct solution!

"You can give it a try!" the Daoist said. "Filling it with dirt is easy. Just eat the dirt!"

"Why does it feel like I can't move my body anymore?"

Once a handful of dirt went down his stomach...

Ye Qianfan did indeed feel his body grow heavier, but it had become so heavy that he could not even lift his feet.

That shouldn't happen!

He had only eaten a single handful of dirt. However heavy it was, it could weigh no more than a couple of ounces.

So why could he not even lift his feet, as though he had been glued to the ground?

"Heh, haven't you heard that the dead find peace in the earth?"

The Daoist showed off his cleverness again. "Your shell is a paper figure now, and you went and filled it with dirt. It would be strange if it didn't get heavy!"

"That's why Puppet Craft has a thousand transformations and ten thousand variations. Some things are excellent for growing a puppet's bones and skin, while other materials are destructive and can bring the entire puppet down!"

"This Paper Puppet must not come into contact with anything belonging to the five elements except the wood element."

"So you're messing with me?"

Ye Qianfan immediately punched his stomach. "Do you believe I'll leave you behind?!"

"Tch! No good deed goes unpunished!"

The Daoist muttered unhappily, "I was just letting you experience it firsthand. My master taught me the same way back then."

"Besides, if there were enough Talisman Paper Umbrellas, I would have made myself a Paper Puppet. Would I need to be so completely at your mercy?"

"And another thing..."

"Do you think you could leave this place without me?"

Ye Qianfan raised an eyebrow. "Why couldn't I?"

"Take a couple of steps forward and you'll find out," the Daoist said. "Oh, right. You have to spit out the dirt in your stomach first!"

"Urgh!"

After spitting out the dirt in his stomach, Ye Qianfan took two doubtful steps forward.

He discovered that he really did seem to be confined. No matter what he did, he could not move any farther forward. This time, it was not because his body was heavy. Rather, something seemed to be holding his soul back, or imprisoning it within a specific area.

He simply could not continue forward!

"Don't I have a body now?" Ye Qianfan asked in confusion. "Why can't I leave this place?"

The Daoist explained, "Because we're trapped within the altar's sphere of influence. We can only get seven times seven—forty-nine steps away from it at most..."

"So you made me spend all that time messing around for nothing?"

Ye Qianfan immediately grew annoyed.

But the Daoist shook his head. "Not so, not so! Without a body, you naturally couldn't get the altar out. But now that we have a body, we can dig it up, can't we? Then all we have to do is take the altar with us when we leave."

"That's actually possible?!"

Ye Qianfan was stunned.

Still, he decided to trust the Daoist and returned to where the altar stood.

Then, following the Daoist's instructions, Ye Qianfan told Little Talisman to dig up the formation core in the middle of the altar. But Little Talisman seemed utterly terrified and refused to go, no matter what!

"It ended up like this because of the altar. It's only natural for it to be afraid!" the Daoist continued. "Looks like there's no chance of relying on it. We'll have to do it ourselves!"

"Mm."

Ye Qianfan picked up one of the Patrol Soldiers' blades and slowly approached the center of the altar, dragging the bloodstained steel weapon.

But when he tried to raise his arm, he discovered that the Paper Puppet was simply too light. It had no weight behind it at all. Even when he lifted the blade high and chopped down hard, the strike remained limp and powerless!

He could not dig into the hard earth at the altar's center at all!

"Looks like we really won't be able to dig up the altar unless I find something to fill out your puppet's flesh!"

The Daoist was now simply living as a parasite inside Ye Qianfan's body.

Or rather, inside their shared body!

It was just that Ye Qianfan had control of the Paper Puppet, while the Daoist did not.

"Hurry up! Once the Lord Mountain God breaks out of his cocoon, we probably won't be able to leave even if we want to!"

Ye Qianfan was growing impatient.

After all, the Daoist had spent ages fiddling with one thing after another, yet they still could not leave. It made Ye Qianfan very worried that the Mountain God would come rolling back like a storm!

"Let me think, let me think. Don't rush me..."

The Daoist probably had never expected to find himself in such a predicament one day.

Back in the Puppet Sect, after all, what fine materials had ever been beyond his reach? Everything had been ready and waiting!

Yet in this damned place...

There was so little they could use!

Moreover, the Paper Puppet had many requirements for anything used to fill out its flesh. Apart from wood, nothing belonging to the five elements could be used. Yet this damned place did not even have any vegetation. Otherwise, they could have filled it with dry grass. It would still have been fragile, but at least it would have barely worked.

But with no vegetation here at all, they could only use something else...

What lay outside the five elements?

PS: Everyone, take a guess!

What lay outside the five elements and could also be used by Ye Qianfan to fill his body?

Guess correctly and receive 365 blessings!