Chapter 33#
If You See SnowCh33 - Super First Grade Flesh Puppet#
Dantai Jing’s eyes grew slightly icy as he parted his thin lips, “What is all the commotion outside the palace?”
Having been forced to learn Dantai Jing’s secret, Su Ruhui felt a little guilty and coughed lightly, saying, “I kicked Zhou Xiaosu’s husband. If he comes for revenge, I’ll have to trouble a-jiu to help Ruhui out.”
“Reckless and unruly, just as always.” Dantai Jing coldly evaluated.
“Not at all not at all,” Su Ruhui chuckled, “A-jiu is beautiful as ever, the exact same as before.”
Dantai Jing: “…”
Based on past experience, Su Ruhui’s insubordination would have enraged Dantai Jing long ago, who would have thrown him in the dungeon. Today, however, Dantai Jing merely grew colder in the eyes, as if recalling something that stirred a faint ripple before subsiding. Su Ruhui waited and waited, but Dantai Jing didn’t utter a single word. The man sat above, expressionless, truly resembling a great buddha devoid of anger or resentment.
Not only Su Ruhui, but even Sang Chiyu was puzzled.
“A-jiu, how did you know I was Su Ruhui?” Su Ruhui asked first.
“Underworld, Hengtai Money House.”
Indeed, that was the one time Su Ruhui had acted under his name. He didn’t expect that in just five short years, Dantai Jing had already planted agents throughout the Underworld.
“A miscalculation,” Su Ruhui lamented. “I shouldn’t have gone to retrieve the concealable firearm.”
“Puppet’s secret key.” Dantai Jing said.
Su Ruhui blushed with embarrassment, “You still haven’t given up? I truly haven’t invented any super first-grade puppets. How can someone as wise and discerning as you keep listening to rumors, dead set on insisting they’re real?”
“The demons within the snowstorm, you have seen with your own eyes,” Dantai Jing stood up and walked down the high platform step by step, standing in front of Su Ruhui. “The demons are rampant and have penetrated into the human world. With the world teetering on the brink of disaster, will you stand idly by? They claim they seek only the holy child. Do you believe their lies?”
Su Ruhui sighed: “Even if they really want to do something, there’s nothing I can do. I’m just a useless person without a shred of secret arts. A-jiu, you really overestimate me. Didn’t you do a good job clearing out the demons in Kunlun’s snowy mountains? More than half of them are dead. The rest don’t dare to enter the border, and they can only act at night.”
“That is because the Yao patriarch has not emerged yet.” Dantai Jing said.
“You’re an old monster of the Chaosheng level. Among all the experts in the forty-eight provinces of the Great Jing, you are undoubtedly number one, only one step away from the Tianren level. Besides you, the three Star Officials rank second, third, and fourth, all top-tier masters. With such talents within the sect, how much more are among those outside. That reclusive sword saint of the Qu family at Kuimen, they say a single stroke of his blade withers ten thousand bones. Didn’t you two fight a round when I was in the Underworld? As long as you raise your arm and call, heroes will respond, and everyone will fight against the Snowland demons together.” Su Ruhui offered his counsel, ”No need for me.”
“Little friend Ruhui thinks too simply,” Beside the pool, Motuoyanna interjected. “The forty-eight provinces harbor divergent loyalties. They’ll merely stand by and watch until the Secret Sect’s lamp burns out before fishing up the spoils. But the demons aren’t stupid. How could we allow them to be the oriole behind the mantis? I fear that by then the Secret Sect will be in ruins, the demons will have taken over the mortal world, and it will be difficult to drive them back to the Snowlands. It will be not the noble families who suffer, but the common people.”
Su Ruhui understood the logic perfectly well, but these old men stubbornly refused to believe he didn’t have the key.
Su Ruhui scratched his head: “What do I have to do for you to believe I’m not lying? Or do you want to lock me up in the Immortal’s Cave again?”
Beichen Palace fell silent.
Su Ruhui froze. What did he say? Why was there an awkward silence?
“It’s not that you do not have it, you have forgotten about it.” Dantai Jing said. “In that case, let’s make a deal. I’ll release you to return home, and you must strive to recall everything. Once you remember, tell me the answer. In exchange, I will tell you where your father went.”
Su Ruhui suddenly raised his eyes.
When he was twelve, his father journeyed westward. Like all wanderers, he left and never returned. Though his master and Dantai Jing knew exactly where his father had gone, they remained tight-lipped, and didn’t breathe a word of the matter. Sometimes he suspected his father had remarried, birthed him a younger brother, and then abandoned him, and that Dantai Jing and his master kept quiet for fear of upsetting him. But his father was not that kind of person. Su Ruhui suspected the more likely truth was that his father couldn’t overcome the hardships of his cultivation journey and died, so the adults were telling him the lie that “your father went to a place far far away, and will come back when you grow up.”
After all, his father had cultivated himself for eleven years. Every time he came to visit Su Ruhui, he would be covered in cuts and bruises.
That’s right, his father was a guy with a hole in his brain who believed cultivating asceticism would awaken secret arts. A schoolteacher who could only recite sappy poetry wanted to awaken secret arts; many people mocked and ridiculed him. And like a fool, he would wipe away the spittle others spat on his face, whole heartedly performing the three prostrations and nine kowtows, traveling thousands of li, begging heaven for mercy.
But Su Ruhui was his son. Others could mock him, but Su Ruhui could never.
So Su Ruhui let it go. Whatever, he’d done just fine without a father anyway. He shook the heavens, shook the earth. Who in the world didn’t know Su Ruhui? Even three year old kids knew Su Ruhui was a bastard. If his father ever heard his name in some backwater corner, he could boast to his friends: “That’s my son, isn’t he awesome?”
Su Ruhui turned and walked back towards the palace entrance, saying: “Then I’m really leaving?”
Dantai Jing gazed at him silently.
Su Ruhui pushed open the door and tentatively stepped over the threshold. “I’m really leaving ah. A-jiu, better not back on your word.”
“Go.” Dantai Jing said.
Way too weird. Su Ruhui wondered, why did a-jiu let him go so easily?
Su Ruhui was surprised by the lenience, hesitating before pressing his advantage to ask: “If I may be so bold, what is Sang Chiyu’s true form?”
Dantai Jing replied: “Once you tell me the puppet’s secret key, I will tell you as well.”
Receiving no answer, Su Ruhui let out a disappointed “oh.” He pulled Su Yu a few steps away before turning back. “Oh, right, a-jiu. I don’t know exactly what Jiang Xueya did to offend you, but we’re all kids you watched grow up. You know she’s used to acting like a bastard. Just give her a little talking to. She’s a young lady, don’t push her too hard…”
Before Su Ruhui could finish speaking, Dantai Jing, who had seemed as serene as a buddha moments before, suddenly grew angry and snapped: “Leave.”
The moment the words left his mouth, the ground beneath Dantai Jing froze solid three chi deep. Blossoms of frost sprouted and spread around him, crackling softly. In an instant, the temperature in the Beichen Palace plummeted, and a biting wind seeped into everyone’s bones. Dantai Jing’s secret arts was “Blizzard,” a rare offensive-type art wielded by a Chaosheng level powerhouse. The moment the spiritual pressure of this secret art was unleashed, everyone felt its terrifying power.
“Yesyesyes I’ll get out I’ll get out. You can keep her locked up for as long as you want, that brat needs to be taught a lesson!”
Su Ruhui immediately chickened out and ran a few steps outside. Then, remembering something, he risked being frozen by Dantai Jing and ran back.
“The Jiang family estate in Yunzhou has been overrun by demons. A-jiu, please look into it if you have time.” He asked, “Also, could I borrow that demon locked in the iron cage in the ice cellar for questioning?”
He was genuinely so curious about what Sang Chiyu’s true form might be. This matter scratched at his heart like a cat’s paw, driving him crazy.
Xia Jing stared blankly. “What iron cage in the ice cellar? Besides your strange looking beast puppets, what other monsters could there be? You mean Su Gou? Didn’t you kill him?”
“No, there’s another live one.” Su Ruhui frowned.
Dantai Jing’s face was cold and stern. “Demons are obstinate. If captured alive, they will surely commit suicide. We have never captured one alive.”
In a flash, Su Ruhui understood something.
What a cunning move by Su Gou. While Su Ruhui was trying to draw him out, he was doing the same to Su Ruhui. The Secret Sect was treacherous territory, and Su Gou knew he might never get the message out. He had planted a pawn, just in case.
Su Ruhui gritted his teeth: “This is bad, Sang Chiyu’s identity has been exposed!”
The Secret Sect declared emergency martial law, issuing a level A military order from the Beichen Palace, sealing off all four gates of the palace. Though this measure was futile—after such a delay, the demon had likely vanished without a trace. Dantai Jing issued a warrant to find Sang Chiyu, ordering his men to secretly bring him back to the border capital. Sang Chiyu watched expressionlessly as his former master signed the edict and handed it to Xia Jing, then followed Su Ruhui out of the Beichen Palace.
The heavy doors closed, leaving only Dantai Jing and Motuoyanna in the cold palace. The other two star officials emerged from the shadows and knelt by the pool.
Motuoyanna exclaimed in a low voice: “What an exquisite puppet! Just by looking at it, it is indistinguishable from a living person. Poised in his responses, quick in his reactions, unlike other clumsy and inferior puppets. I never imagined a puppet could possess intellect and emotion, capable of speech and laughter. And I certainly never thought that it actually believed that it was Su Ruhui.”
Motuoyanna dipped his slender and pale hand into the rippling pool, and a watery screen revealed the Secret Sect Immortal’s Cave. Numerous physicians clad in white hemp robes bustled about the cave, sorting herbs and simmering potent medicinal decoctions. Eight cauldrons stood arranged in a row, their smoke swirling beneath the domed ceiling. At the cave’s center stood a life-sustaining star array, its grooves densely packed with spirit stones that kept it running nonstop for twelve shichen a day. In the center of the star array was a jade bed, on which lay an emaciated man. His upper body was naked, and countless cowhide meridian vessels were inserted into his chest and connected to medicine pots, through which thick, black medicine was channeled into the man’s body.
Having been like this for many many days and nights, his body was no longer filled with blood, but with medicinal broth. He coughed occasionally, the sharp edges of his ribs clearly visible as his chest rose and fell. His lifeless eyes stared blankly at the painted dome. They were hollow and dull, devoid of any light. After a while, he closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep. It was hard to believe he was a living person; he seemed more dead than alive.
Dantai Jing stared at the man reflected in the water screen for a long while before asking: “How is his dreamscape?”
Lang Yaguang responded: “In fact, he has been unable to dream ever since that failed heart core removal attempt five years ago. For five years, he hasn’t uttered a single word. Ever since Sang Chiyu broke into the Immortal’s Cave and severed his external meridians, even his awakening periods have become shorter and shorter.” He paused unconsciously as he spoke. The inability to dream meant that the child’s spiritual consciousness was essentially done for. Relying on medicine delivered through his veins just to sustain his life was hardly worthy of being called alive. He coughed twice and continued: “Grandmaster, for five years you have ordered me to make him dream, trying to find clues about the super first-grade puppet within them. Yet after five years, we’ve made no progress. Today we finally saw Su Ruhui’s masterpiece. Why did you let him go?”
Dantai Jing’s voice was arrogant and detached, “Hui’er’s flesh puppets are exquisitely crafted, unmatched in the world. What do you suppose is the reason? Is it the rarity of materials? The complexity of structure? No. It is because there is no second Su Ruhui in the world. Even if you captured Hui’er’s puppet, opened it up, and studied it for thirty years, you would never uncover its true essence. That puppet inherited Hui’er’s thoughts, memories, and emotions. If Hui’er could create a super first grade puppet, perhaps it could too. Why not grant it the freedom to roam the border capital and let it replicate its master’s miracles?”
“Grandmaster is wise indeed,” Motuoyanna bowed. “But what of Su Ruhui? He is already at death’s door, and Li Zhibei says his days are numbered. If he were to take a Bloodrage Pill perhaps he could regain his strength for a short while, allowing him to speak with you.”
The man on the platform remained silent and did not reply.
After a long silence, a soft sigh drifted down from the high platform: “Is the Su Ruhui created by Su Ruhui himself, still Su Ruhui?”
TL corner: mhv87s
Idk why this one chapter writes everything as 49 provinces when its 48 but I’ve adjusted it in the TL