Hui put a hand to his chin, thoughtful. He crouched quietly on a branch, looking back toward the garden patch. Unless someone saw him with their own eyes, or a higher level cultivator passed by, no one would be able to sense him. He’d suppressed his cultivation to the limit, becoming nothing but a bump on the bark.

I need to disguise myself as someone with the qualifications to enter that area.

One of the two cultivators who guarded the way?

No, no, Hui, don’t be stupid. They might have the qualifications to enter, but they’re also guards! If they come face to face with themselves… stupid, stupid. It’s a bad idea.

What about… Sect Master Mu?

Ha! He’s got the qualifications, but too much so! Besides, I can’t fake an aura like his. If I get one thing wrong with his face, everyone will know! And if anyone asks me to draw my sword… well, mine’s metal, not wood!

Hmm… Ding Lao? I know he’s distracted right now. He definitely won’t enter the area by coincidence. But… does he have the qualifications?

I could test it, but I don’t want to waste a use of the snakeskin! I already only have one left. I need to use it properly!

Qualifications. Unlikely to come by. Someone I know well enough to disguise myself as them.

The Gao Triplets!

Hui frowned. But… I can only be one of them. I can’t be all three. They always go everywhere together.

Unless…

His hand dropped to the bag of holding on his waist, the one Bai Xue had left as he’d run away. The one he still hadn’t opened until this day.

Still, Hui frowned. Assuming I can use them… I still need to disguise them! I only have one use of the snakeskin technique left. I could wait until tomorrow… but it’d be too late! I managed to force myself to use it a fourth time yesterday, but… well, if I do that repeatedly, I’ll probably injure my foundation. Forcing it twice should have twice the backlash of forcing it once, too.

Is it useless?

Hui’s brows furrowed. He fell deeper into thought. Suddenly, his eyes glittered. The illusion talismans from the ancestral home I visited back before I entered Black Asp Sect! The original formulation of the talisman was fueled by lifespan… but they shouldn’t require that! From my understanding, adding lifespan to the talisman to base the illusion on memories was added to the base formula of the illusion talisman, rather than an inherent part of the illusion talisman.

He drew his sword and slashed lightly at the bark, cutting off two thin slices of bark. The tree sat still, completely unaware and unfeeling of his actions. Biting his thumb, he inscribed the bark slips with blood, copying the illusion talisman from the ancestral house. At the end, however, he simply scribbled downward with his thumb rather than add the complex symbol at the bottom of the original talisman. Holding them up, he nodded to himself. Illusion talismans! Excellent, excellent.

Now, for the second step!

He flickered his hand over the bag of holding. Two ghouls leaped out—ghouls that looked identical to the ghouls that had stood in Master Jing’s formation back in Black Asp Sect. In fact, if one looked close enough… they were exactly those ghouls, brazenly stolen by Bai Xue as he fled the sect!

The instant the ghouls appeared, they leaped at Hui. Hui slammed a hand onto each ghoul’s forehead and drained their death qi. The ghouls withered, screaming ferociously. The screams echoed out, spreading through the sect.

Hui glanced around. Dammit. They’re drawing attention! I have to do this quickly!

At the bottom of the ghouls, he sensed a foreign aura, something he couldn’t draw away. Curious, Hui inspected it, and sensed Master Jing’s qi and aura. His brows furrowed. So these corpses were refined by Master Jing.

Bai Xue! Why did you have to cause so much trouble for me? I had a decent relationship with Master Jing!

…Oh well. In the end, I’m a righteous cultivator. Master Jing and I were fated to sever our relationship. Though he treated this small cultivator well once or twice, it wasn’t deep enough to truly mourn over.

Once the ghouls drained dry, Hui pumped them full of his own death qi. They trembled, fighting it at first, but after a moment, their eyes went dark. A bond formed between them, and Hui quickly branded them with his own qi.

They won’t be as loyal to me as they’d be to Master Jing, but they’ll follow my orders! Hui nodded and slammed a talisman on each of the ghouls’ foreheads. The second they touched, the talismans activated. An illusion of the Gao Trio formed over each of the two ghouls.

In Hui’s eyes, he saw the talismans under the illusion slowly burning. He narrowed his eyes, judging the rate at which they’d burn out.

I see. Putting one’s longevity into the talismans makes them last much longer. However, these talismans should still last for a few hours. After all, the originals lasted for years, maybe even decades!

“Eh? Who’s there?” someone called out.

Hui’s eyes flickered. He operated the snake shed technique, stepping forward out of one skin as a new skin formed over him.

A cultivator landed on the branch beside him. The fake Gao Triplets looked back at him. He frowned. “Ugh, it’s just you. What’re you making so much noise for?”

Hui swallowed. He threw his voice to the ghouls.

“I dunno.”

“Bored.”

“Er, Elder Brother, please forgi—ahem, yeah, we were bored!”

The cultivator shook his head. “Don’t go screaming like that again. You’re bothering the rest of us, who are actually cultivating instead of goofing off.”

“Eh…”

“Sorry.”

“We’ll try to keep it down, Eld… t, try to keep it down.” Hui swallowed again. It’s easy enough to say short phrases, but it’s hard to act like the triplets for longer phrases! I should try to speak as little as possible.

The cultivator narrowed his eyes at Hui, but then shook his head. Muttering under his breath about those damn triplets, he launched into the air again and vanished.

The second the cultivator vanished, Hui flicked his hand. Black threads visible only to him emerged from his fingertips and burrowed into the backs of the ghouls. Their eyes flickered with black light. Body stiffening, they arched their backs and flexed their limbs, then went still once more.

I’m using death qi strings to manipulate the death qi in their bodies. Fundamentally speaking, it’s not much different than the puppeteering art. Since the death qi in their bodies belongs to me, it shouldn’t be that hard to manipulate. They aren’t living and have no will nor soul, so it’s easier than the true puppeteering art as well. This technique won’t work on living humans or cultivators, but that’s something I’m willing to sacrifice! This small cultivator has no desire to capture people as puppets, nor learn those horrible arts. But fine-grained control of ghouls is something I need!

Hmm, rather than calling it a puppeteering art, I should call it something that more indicates its true use. It can only be used on ghouls filled with my personal death qi, that are connected by strings to my body. I’ll call it… Wired Controller Art! Since it’s more like using an old-fashioned wire-connected controller to play a video game than puppeteering. After all, I have to provide the electricity… or in this case, death qi.

…Not that the puppeteering art doesn’t power itself with qi.

But, but this small cultivator… definitely would never use a terrifying puppeteering art! Right, right. This art is fundamentally different!

Experimentally, he twitched his fingers. The ghouls walked forward stiffly, arms swinging in straight lines. He frowned, then shrugged. Seems like the control is cruder than the actual puppeteering—er, that terrifying and totally different puppeteering art. Still, it’s better than trying to enter with only one of the triplets. Besides, they’re always doing weird things. It shouldn’t stick out to anyone as too odd.

Drawing the two ghouls after him with the invisible strings, Hui released his cultivation base up to the third level and bounded through the trees ahead, heading toward the garden patch again. From the distance, he looked exactly like the Gao Trio, but a closer examination would reveal that two of the three jumped stiffly, their arms and legs both stiff and inflexible, their expressions unchanging. In the space of a few breaths, he once again arrived at the border to the garden patch.

“Halt!”