Chapter 241 The Puppet People

At that moment, the black-robed man kicked the steward violently, sending him flying, and shouted in a cold, menacing tone:

“What about the side effects? After half an hour, anyone who took the pill will have their blood vessels explode, rapidly leading to collapse and death!”

“Our master wants an invincible divine army, not a disposable toy that can only be used once!”

The steward clutched his chest, coughing up a mouthful of fresh blood, crying out in despair:

“My lord, you can’t blame me!”

“The nature of the Burning Blood Pill is too domineering. Ordinary people’s hearts and veins simply cannot withstand such a violent backlash!”

“To neutralize this overwhelming medicinal power and save the lives of the death warriors, the final fusion must be done using the purest, most yin medicinal catalyst!”

The black-robed man turned sharply, his bronze mask glinting with a chilling light in the fire.

“Medicinal catalyst? Didn’t I order you to capture one? Are there not a few suitable cauldrons in the entire Western Province City?”

The steward trembled in fear, his voice faltering:

“My lord… the requirements for the medicinal catalyst are extremely strict.”

“It must be a pure maiden born in the yin year, yin month, and yin hour. She must be fed with the poisonous insect for forty-nine days using secret techniques, and finally, the single drop of virgin blood from her heart must be extracted for the medicine.”

“We had barely managed to find a top-quality candidate before…”

At this, the steward swallowed nervously, as if recalling something truly horrifying.

“It’s… it’s the young consort of the Zhen’nan Prince, Lin Wan’er…”

The black-robed man’s sudden rage erupted: “What use is that? She’s already been defiled by that old bastard Zhen’nan Wang! By the way, have they arrived?”

Those words struck violently in the heads of the four who were eavesdropping below!

Su Hewan bit her lip so hard she almost drew blood, barely suppressing any sound.

Lin Wan’er! No wonder the heir said the immortal doctor drained her blood back then!

So that’s how it was!

Yu Qing was equally shocked. I guessed it! That Zhen’nan Wang really had designs on his daughter-in-law!

Suddenly, her legs went weak, trembling, and she nearly collapsed.

Lu Yan’s quick reflexes caught her by the waist, holding her tightly in his arms.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly.

Yu Qing shook her head, but everything in front of her blurred, and the world seemed to spin.

“I just feel a little dizzy!”

Yu Qing felt a surge of blood and energy in her chest, and her vision started to double.

Lu Yan’s face twisted in her sight, and the voices in her ears seemed to drift farther away.

“Don’t move her!”

Su Hewan lowered her voice, grabbing Yu Qing’s wrist and pressing it against her pulse.

In an instant, Su Hewan’s expression changed drastically!

The pulse was rapid, fine, and extremely chaotic—this was far beyond mere shock!

“The air here is poisonous!”

Su Hewan quickly pulled a small pouch from her sleeve and took out four black pills that emitted a faintly bitter medicinal aroma.

“The cauldron isn’t boiling ordinary herbs at all—it’s filled with hallucinogenic toxins that induce madness in the human body!”

“Combined with the fumes from the Burning Blood Pill in that black-robed man’s hand, the mixture becomes the deadliest death trigger!”

Without hesitation, she shoved one pill into Yu Qing’s mouth and quickly tossed the other two to Shen Jue and Lu Yan.

“Take it immediately, press it under your tongue, do NOT swallow!”

Lu Yan, holding Yu Qing in one arm, caught the pill and instinctively put it under his tongue without hesitation.

The icy-cold effects of the pill spread across his tongue, clearing the fog in his mind almost instantly.

Shen Jue held the pill between two fingers, glancing at Su Hewan with deep eyes before placing it in his mouth as well.

“We can’t stay hidden here forever.”

Shen Jue’s gaze swept the faintly illuminated cracks above, his voice cold and steady.

“That old monster will check the cauldron soon. This is our only chance to sneak in.”

At that moment, the sound of the black-robed man’s angry footsteps echoed from above.

“Go dump the next batch of medicinal residue in! I want to personally watch the fire!”

With the heavy thud of the main door closing, the ground floor of the stilted building finally fell into a brief, deathly silence.

“Now’s our chance—move!”

Holding the weak Yu Qing in his arms, Lu Yan led the four of them as they climbed through the ventilation shaft and silently slipped into the interior of the stilted building.

The place was arranged in an extremely bizarre way. The walls were covered with dried poisonous snakes and the skeletons of various unknown wild beasts.

The air was thick with a nauseating stench of blood and the fetid odor of decay.

Su Hewan’s eyes scanned the area thoroughly.

【A cult leader like this would absolutely keep the most important things close at hand!】

【There must be a secret chamber! That’s how it always goes in novels!】

Shen Jue listened to her confident inner voice, a faint, almost imperceptible curve forming at the corner of his lips.

His long fingers brushed along the row of grotesque beast bones on the wall.

Suddenly, his hand stopped at the third skull.

Click—

A faint, crisp mechanical sound rang unusually clearly in the empty room.

The black wooden wall, previously sealed tight, slowly slid open on both sides, revealing a dark and cramped secret chamber.

The chamber had no windows, only a fist-sized luminous pearl emitting a faint green glow.

The four of them immediately slipped inside.

In the center of the chamber was a stone table, on which lay a thick, ancient tome.

Su Hewan frowned and reached forward to flip open the pharmacology book.

“Be careful!” Shen Jue warned.

The characters on the parchment were written in a dark red pigment, as if it were dried blood that had aged for years.

The first few pages detailed the process of creating those zombie-like medicinal men.

The methods were cruel, the medicines poisonous and deadly—so much so that even Lu Yan, a commander of the Jinyiwei who had long been accustomed to witnessing torture in the imperial prison, frowned in disapproval.

Su Hewan flipped straight to the last page of the pharmacology book.

“Found it!”

Her voice trembled slightly from shock.

It was the only page in the entire book outlined in gold powder, and in large characters, it boldly read:

Puppet Man!

“To forge the supreme puppet man, one must use the blood of utmost yin and utmost softness in the world as the guide.”

Su Hewan read each word carefully, her face gradually paling.

“Ordinary people only require a woman born in the year, month, and hour of yin…”

“However, to create an immortal, indestructible god general whose strength can shake the heavens, one must obtain the true dragon bloodline of the former royal family!”

“And it must be a pure holy maiden also born during the yin hour!”

At this point, Su Hewan’s voice abruptly stopped.

All the clues suddenly connected in her mind like lightning.

【Former royal bloodline… a girl born in the yin hour… a pure holy maiden…】

【And that black-robed man had said before, they still hadn’t found the perfect medicinal guide…】

【Then there’s the phantom flower the beggar gave me before entering the mountain…】

【And the totems on the waist plaques of those masked soldiers, identical to the jade pendant around my neck!】

Su Hewan gasped sharply.

【Could it be… they’re after me?】

Shen Jue stood beside her, his deep eyes fixed on the pharmacology book.

He could hear the scream inside Su Hewan’s mind clearly.

So that’s how it is.