1.
I’m Wu Hua, a Puppet Master—that is, someone who controls puppets. I study under the tutelage of the great immortal Xiao Yuan.
My master has seen many worlds where people still live in misery, so he used magic to send us there to destroy demons and uphold justice!
Today, I was sent into a supernatural school world.
Qingchuan University was where I had to go.
Seeing the school shrouded in a sinister atmosphere, I thought for a moment.
Well, they say it’s better to be safe than sorry. I’d better call Senior Brother Wu Xin, the best exorcist around.
To keep Senior Brother from thinking I was rambling and hanging up right away, I quickly summed up the situation: “Senior Brother, don’t hang up! I have something important to ask! In a supernatural school world, what should I watch out for most?”
As cold and terse as ever, Senior Brother said, “Stay away from women! And also…”
“Be patient with children!”
???
Seriously? I was asking what to watch out for in a supernatural school world. What did women and children have to do with it?
But all I heard from the other end was a series of beeps. Hmph, what a lousy senior brother. Sure, I didn’t know how to exorcise demons, but I had a puppet master’s protective talismans!
I could handle things on my own without relying on him!
I quickly wheeled my suitcase to the academic affairs office, stood up straight, and called out loudly and clearly, “Reporting in!”
No one answered.
I looked up in surprise and was about to call out again when the door suddenly creaked open.
A blast of cold air hit my face. It felt like stepping into an ice cellar, and I broke out in goose bumps.
The long-haired woman with her face resting on the desk slowly raised her head and smiled, showing a row of gleaming white teeth. “Hello, new boy.”
She wore a tight black dress with a very low neckline. Embarrassed, I turned my face away a little.
Oh my, was this our instructor?
She was gorgeous… No, I mean, she seemed so friendly, like a big sister I could confide in!
But then I remembered that I was in someone else’s territory. As a newcomer, I didn’t dare act carelessly, so I bowed respectfully. “Hello, ma’am. I’m Wu Hua, a computer science student. I hope you’ll show me the ropes!”
“Could you tell me which dorm I’ve been assigned to?”
The woman smiled kindly and pointed to a pile of books on the floor behind her. “Handsome boy… My arm hurts. Could you put those books on top of the cabinet behind me? Then I’ll take you to your dorm.”
“No problem, leave it to me! It’s my honor to help a beautiful teacher!”
I walked over, turned my back to the teacher, and reached for the books. Right then, a chill wind blew straight at the top of my head. Without a second thought, I put all my strength into hurling a book behind me.
Thwack! The woman let out a bloodcurdling scream. I turned around and saw the teacher sitting on the floor, struck by the book—with half her face fallen off!
2.
The fallen half of her face quickly began to rot. Countless maggots crawled out of her pores and started gnawing at the putrid flesh.
In just a few dozen seconds, that half of her face had become a white skull!
I was about to throw up!
I was so shocked I pointed at her and cried, “Aaaah! You’re so ugly!”
When the instructor realized her disguise had been exposed, she let out a terrible shriek and lunged at me. “I’ll kill you!”
But I didn’t give her the chance. I quickly stepped back and swept my hand through the air. Four little figures in ancient-style black armor appeared from my sleeve.
The little figures were incredibly nimble. One bound the instructor with a rope so she couldn’t escape, while the others surrounded her and pummeled her. Every punch tore off a chunk of flesh. Before long, her beautiful body was so badly mangled it was unrecognizable. Filthy blood splattered everywhere, attracting even more maggots to feed.
When the instructor had been eaten down to her arms and legs and could no longer fight back, I hurriedly called the little figures back. Tsk, these were newly made paper puppets, an exclusive design of my own. They were so filthy now, it’d be hard to clean them.
She glared at me with deep resentment. “Every other man who sees me is bewitched… How were you able to see through my disguise?”
I shrugged. “If you’re going to pretend, you should at least make it convincing. No teacher has ever treated me this gently. They always grab me by the ear and call me an idiot!”
“Besides, you’re a grown woman asking a kid like me to carry something for you. You’re obviously a fraud!”
The instructor stared at my six-foot-tall frame in disbelief. “You consider yourself a kid?”
I puffed out my chest and said proudly, “A man’s still a boy even on the day he dies!”
3.
By then, all that remained of the instructor was a pile of bones. I was about to put her in my Qiankun bag when my phone rang.
“A man needs money, he needs time, he needs a sense of humor, he needs to know how to cook…” That was the special ringtone I’d set just for Senior Brother. He was calling me of his own accord for the first time! I hurried to answer.
“Senior Brother, I caught a female ghost. Want me to bring her back for you? What? I have to perform a rite of deliverance too?!”
As soon as I heard that, my face fell.
I’m just a puppet master. How would I know how to perform a rite of deliverance?
If I did all his work for him, what would I need him for?
Senior Brother was very conscientious. His normally cold voice softened as he said, “A resentful evil spirit like that can’t be kept in your Qiankun bag. She’ll definitely escape and keep doing evil. Ask her if she has any unfinished wishes. Help her resolve her fixation, then recite the incantation Master taught you.”
“You’re the smartest and most knowledgeable of all our fellow disciples. You can do it! I believe in you, Junior Brother!”
Since Senior Brother had put it that way, what else could I do? Of course I had to grit my teeth and do it! I imitated his tone and began buttering up the female teacher. “Um… Teacher, I believe you must have been a kind and beautiful person when you were alive. You must have had your reasons for hurting people. Maybe I can help you rebuild your body so you can descend to the underworld with a little more dignity.”
After death, a soul remains in the same state it was in when it died until it reincarnates. This teacher had probably been brutally murdered and dismembered. No woman didn’t care about her looks, so this offer was bound to appeal to her, right? Just as I expected, the pile of bones on the ground rattled with excitement. “Really?”
I nodded. “Of course! I’m the best puppet master there is! I guarantee I’ll make you a body just like the one you had before!”
My greatest strength is efficiency. I never drag things out. Right then and there, I pulled a box of clay from my Qiankun bag. Master once told me that a truly skilled puppet master isn’t constrained by using special materials imbued with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. It’s about making the most of whatever’s around you!
I’d recently tried making a paper puppet, and it had worked really well. This time, I’d try clay. The skin would be more elastic, and feel better to the touch.
As I shaped the clay, I recalled what the female teacher had looked like when I first met her. That was right—the beautiful form she’d conjured with illusion magic, though she could only maintain it for a short time. This time, I’d make her a permanent body!
Once I’d finished the body, I used colored pencils to draw her features and even made her a fashionable dress out of colored paper. Then I placed the energy stone and bones inside the body. The female teacher immediately merged with her new body. Her skin was snow-white, her cheeks faintly flushed—she looked just like a real person.
She blinked. “Is that it? I have a body now? Does it really look like I used to?”
I handed her the mirror from the table. “See for yourself!”
The female teacher picked up the mirror and stared into it for a long time, laughing and crying at once. At last, she knelt before me to thank me.
“Thank you for granting me the grace of rebirth! But I have one small request. I hope you can do this for me!”
4.
It turned out she’d once had a boyfriend she loved dearly. They’d grown up together in an orphanage and shared a deep bond. But during one of her shifts, a bad man strangled her to death. That cruel fiend then dismembered her and buried her at the school’s stadium, which was under construction.
Her deep resentment turned her into a land-bound spirit, shackled to this plot of land and trapped at the school, unable to leave.
The most painful part was that, for some reason, she couldn’t even see her beloved one last time.
She’d caused so much trouble only because she hoped her boyfriend would come looking for her, but that wish had never come true.
What a pitiful girl. Hearing her story made my heart ache, too. I waved a hand and decided to help her.
With the ghostly female teacher in tow, I teleported to the front of a small villa with a flower garden.
It seemed the female teacher’s boyfriend was doing very well for himself.
We both passed through the wall and entered the living room. I motioned for the female teacher to just watch and not interfere with the human world.
A rather handsome young man was leaning back on the sofa, smoking a cigar and talking to someone standing with his back to us.
“Make sure it’s done cleanly. Don’t leave any evidence! They’re renovating that stadium now—what if they dig up her body? It took me so much effort to marry the Bureau Chief’s daughter. I could even get promoted at the end of the year. I absolutely can’t let her get in the way! Here’s what we’ll do: dig up her body first, then crush it and throw it straight into the sea!”
…
“Don’t worry. She won’t find us. The sorcerer A Tán Minh placed a talisman on us, so she can’t sense us!”
At that moment, the ghostly teacher gripped my hand tightly. Her whole body trembled, and great big tears pattered onto the floor.
The man who’d had his back to us said a few words of agreement, then stood up. The instant he turned around, the ghostly teacher saw his face—the very man who had murdered her.
At this point, how could anyone fail to understand? Her boyfriend had married the Bureau Chief’s daughter to get ahead. Afraid the teacher would get in his way, he’d joined forces with someone else to commit a brutal crime.
A thick cloud of black smoke immediately enveloped the female teacher, and resentment surged skyward. Her heartless boyfriend had been telling his accomplice how to make sure there’d be no evidence this time when he suddenly felt a chill sweep past. He looked up and saw the girlfriend he’d murdered.
“Aaaaah!”