Chapter 229

"Careful..." Yao Wenju suddenly stretched out a hand, grabbed my sleeve and jerked it back hard. Just then, a bony hand brushed past my neck. If it weren't for Yao Wenju's timely tug, that bony hand might have already grabbed me and twisted my neck in two.

At that moment, another pallid bony hand lunged at Yao Wenju's throat. I seized the opportunity, grabbed the bony hand with one hand, and pulled it outward. Immediately, a skeleton was dragged out of the night by me.

Yao Wenju seized the moment, and as I pulled the skeleton out, he kicked it hard, shattering it with a boom. But the matter didn't end there. On the contrary, more bony hands lunged at us from the darkness. And while we dodged, each time we grabbed a bony hand we could drag a skeleton out of thin air.

"Brother Wen, be careful, they're poisonous!" I warned Yao Wenju while keeping an eye on the surroundings. I had already recognized the origin of these skeletons: they are a type of troop recorded in my Yin Shan canon. If no mistake, the person who laid this phantom formation should be Wu Fei.

Yao Wenju stood up with a solemn expression, standing back-to-back with me: "Hai Sheng, what the hell is this?"

I pressed my back against his, yanked out another attacking skeleton, stepped on it and crushed it, stared coldly around, then told Yao Wenju: "This is the poison puppet recorded in my Yin Shan canon. If I'm not mistaken, this is the Eight Gates Corpse Puppet Formation laid by Wu Fei. Only his cultivation isn't thorough enough, and the formation was hastily prepared. Otherwise, when you crushed the first skeleton just now, we would already be dead."

The Eight Gates Bone Puppet is a formation recorded in the Yin Shan canon. Heaven has the eight trigrams Qian, Kan, Gen, Zhen, Xun, Li, Kun, Dui; Earth has the eight gates: Rest, Life, Injury, Block, Death, Scene, Shock, Opening. The Eight Gates Bone Puppet is a bewildering formation established according to the mysterious secrets of the earth's eight gates. The eight trigrams and eight gates together have sixty-four transformations, and the Life Gate rotates once every two hours. Thus, this formation is very effective at trapping people; if we cannot find the Life Gate within it, we will be trapped forever inside, and moreover, the formation is filled with skeletons laden with toxin.

Although the bone puppets are merely ordinary human skeletons with little offensive power, they are without exception coated with the feet of centipedes and corpse poison, prepared through alchemical methods. Once a person is scratched or struck, the toxin spreads from the body through the meridians, eventually corroding the heart and causing death. According to the records, whether you are hit by a corpse puppet or you smash it, the toxin will corrode the human body.

Wu Fei's bone puppets are clearly not fully trained; the toxin is only on the surface of the skeletons, not inside. Otherwise, when Yao Wenju crushed the first skeleton, the corpse dust would have already drifted through the air into our bodies, corroding our minds.

Even so, this formation remains extremely troublesome, because the bone puppets are stationed at the eighth gate; they appear dead but cannot actually be killed. If we cannot find the Life Gate, we will soon be drained of strength by these things, or be ambushed when our spirit is exhausted.

Yao Wenju fended off the eerie appearing bone puppets while anxiously asking me: "Is there any way to break this damned formation?"

I used the command flag to open a skeleton I had grabbed ahead, and replied: "To find the Life Gate, this formation arranges skeletons according to the earth's eight gates; at the Life Gate there is a puppet king commanding the formation. As long as we find the Life Gate and break open the puppet king, we can get out."

"How do we break the puppet king? Where is the Life Gate? Everything here is pitch black—how are we supposed to find these two things?" Yao Wenju asked coldly.

I replied: "The puppet king only needs a drop of blood from the middle finger pressed to his brow point to be broken, but you must be quick! The puppet king hosts half of the formation setter's soul and can also use techniques; if we aren't fast enough, it will become a stalemate."

As we spoke, the surroundings suddenly fell into an eerie silence, and the bony hands entangling us vanished with a whoosh. Yao Wenju and I were drenched in sweat, backs pressed together, guarding against all sides; this disappearance does not mean they have dispersed. Perhaps the next wave of attack will be even more fierce.

Yao Wenju caught his breath and asked if I could locate the Life Gate. I thought carefully, then asked if he could guess the current time. He pondered and said: "We set out at four in the morning; according to the elapsed time, we've walked about two hours, so it should be around six or seven in the morning."

"Around six or seven in the morning..." I lowered my head in thought. If we calculate according to the Chen hour, the Life Gate of the Eight Gates Bone Puppet formation should have moved to the southeast Xun palace, but six and seven o'clock mark a boundary. Before seven it's the Mao hour; after seven it's the Chen hour.

If we go the wrong way, it's equivalent to opposing the Life Gate. Once the Eight Gates formation shifts our steps into a direction, we could become permanently lost in direction and die trapped inside.

"Brother Wen, dare to go all in?" After a hesitation, I asked in a fierce tone.

Yao Wenju stared at me, pondered, and said only four words: "I believe you."

"All right, we'll now head toward the southeast Xun palace. I'll go ahead, you follow behind. No matter what obstacles appear, I'll block them; you just need to ready your middle finger. As soon as you see the puppet king, bite open your middle finger and press it to his brow point—but remember, you must be quick." I reiterated the instructions.

"What if... we don't see the puppet king? What then!"

"Not seeing it..." I hesitated, drooping my face with a wry smile: "In the Eight Gates formation, at Chen hour the Life Gate is in the southeast Xun palace; at Chou hour the southeast reveals the Death Gate. If we don't see the puppet king, we must have reached the Death Gate. By then, whatever happens, you can imagine it without me saying."

The air grew still; Yao Wenju suddenly placed his hand on my shoulder and asked: "Kid, have you ever been with a woman?"

"No..." I shook my head, not understanding why he would ask such a strange question at a life-and-death moment.

"Heh... then next time I'll take you to play." Yao Wenju said with regret: "People in our line of work spend all day loitering before the gates of hell; who knows, one day we might kick the bucket without ever having lived a full life—that's truly a shame."

Sweat... Is this really something we should be worrying about now?

I suddenly felt a bit speechless about my life; it seems everyone I've met is an extreme case—Pangzi is like that, Fan Tai Xian is like that, and even Yao Wenju, who looks outwardly stern and mature, actually harbors a secretly amorous heart. Is it that my fate is twisted, destined to meet such people, or is society just like that? Beneath every seemingly stern exterior lies a secretly amorous heart.

At that moment, another skeleton lunged at my back; Yao Wenju, with keen eyes and quick hands, pulled me back and punched, shattering the skeleton.

"Time's running out, let's go." Seeing the atmosphere grow increasingly oppressive, a prelude to the Eight Gates formation launching a second wave, I didn't dare hesitate; I sprinted first toward the southeast. As I ran, I chanted incantations, bit my finger, drew floral characters, and prepared the Thousand‑Pound Drop.

As Yao Wenju and I ran, skeleton after skeleton appeared, blocking our path. I grew more certain that this time I had chosen the correct direction.

In just a few minutes, dozens of skeletons collapsed under my Thousand‑Pound Drop. As we advanced, the air suddenly turned cold, and specks of green light appeared in the pitch‑black night, like omens of ghost fire.

Then, suddenly, a towering skeleton appeared ahead, standing 1.8 meters tall, eyes closed, stationed like a puppet, utterly still.

Just as I sprinted to within half a meter of it, the skeleton suddenly opened its eyes…

"Brother Wen..." I bellowed at the top of my lungs, bending my body. I hoped Yao Wenju would understand the meaning of this gesture.

With a booming "bang," I lifted my head and saw Yao Wenju collapse to the ground.

Had we failed? I thought, my heart tightening. But immediately, the skeleton ahead—its eyes already open and a hand outstretched—exploded into dust that scattered everywhere.

In the nick of time, Yao Wenju leapt up from behind me, his middle‑finger blood striking dead center of the puppet king's brow.

At that very moment, the surroundings spun and faded, then light returned.

We finally broke out of the illusionary formation; as heaven and earth returned to normal, a pained groan echoed from above—Wu Fei stumbled out from the hidden woods, choosing not to continue fighting us but to flee in panic.

"Why don't you go after him?" Yao Wenju asked, rubbing his sore elbow while gazing at Wu Fei fleeing atop the hill.

I shook my head and said: "The puppet king is broken; his soul has been severely wounded—let him count himself lucky to have saved his life."

The Yin Shan canon records that to forge a puppet king, one must first sever the soul, transplanting half of one's own soul into the puppet king's body; thus the puppet king gains sentience, and a Daoist can even manipulate it to cast techniques.

Soul severance is an extremely difficult art, transplanting the soul into another vessel, akin to the legendary doppelgänger technique, and can also be used to confuse vision. However, it demands tremendous perseverance and the endurance of immense pain to master. Moreover, while it can grant the vessel great agility, there is a drawback: if the vessel is destroyed, the practitioner's own soul will also be injured. This outcome could very well reduce them to an idiot.

Wu Fei had always looked down on me because he had forged the Demon‑God Banner, thinking my troop deployment and knowledge were inferior to his. But it was precisely his arrogance that gave me the chance to escape alive. He believed the puppet king's ferocity would surely subdue me, unaware that I had seized the puppet king's brow‑point weakness and thus shattered its formation.

Glancing at the watch on my wrist, the hands had reached 7:05. Calculating, the time from running to breaking the formation was also only about five minutes. I suddenly felt relieved: if it weren't for Yao Wenju's absurd question at the critical moment, which delayed us a few minutes, we would likely have stumbled into the Death Gate.

Yao Wenju lit a cigarette, regaining his aloof demeanor. Looking at him, I inexplicably laughed, and deep inside felt an inexplicable sigh.

It seems that in everyone's life there are some lewd friends who leave you speechless and annoyed, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps they bring you luck and help you escape danger—those everyday companions who talk nonsense and are extremely lewd.

As the saying goes, good luck often hides in the corners you never notice, in the people you overlook, doesn't it?