He raised the luminescent pearl in his hand and gazed out, and saw that it was a small stone chamber shrouded entirely in dust. Two people stood in the corner, but they were not moving in the slightest. Zhou Zishu grabbed the front of Zhang Chengling’s robes and carefully edged closer to those two, just to discover when he neared that they were not people, but two human-like puppets.

They were about the size of actual humans and took the forms of a man and a woman. They had been constructed with precise detail down to every hair, and looked like they were alive: their eyes were gazing at the door, as if they were really eying these two trespassers.

Zhou Zishu frowned; no wonder this place was named Puppet Manor. This manor did not seem to have any sign of life, and had odd-looking puppets everywhere. With the prior lesson of the artificial snake, Zhou Zishu did not dare to be careless. Observing the joints of the puppets, he noted that they looked more flexible than that great snake’s. He was probably unable to reuse his old tricks. In a low voice, he told Zhang Chengling, “Walk ahead of me, slowly.”

Following his instructions, Zhang Chengling trod on cautiously as Zhou Zishu walked backwards with his back against Zhang Chengling’s, his eyes never leaving those two puppets even for a single second.

At the other end of the stone chamber, Zhang Chengling whispered, “Shifu, there’s a door ahead.”

Upon hearing this, Zhou Zishu held his sword horizontally in front of himself, told Zhang Chengling to make way, turned and pushed open that small, well-aged door. Before him was another corridor, the end too far away to be in sight. Zhou Zishu said in a low voice, “Let’s move.”

The two people entered the corridor one after the other. Before they left, Zhou Zishu hesitated for a second--those two puppets were like any other puppets in the world, lifeless and unable to move. Yet, for some unknown reason, he felt the hairs on his back stand on end, and reflexively closed the small door behind them, latching it shut.

Thus, he did not see that in the instant he closed the door, the eyes of the two puppets in the stone chamber darted at the same time, as if chasing after his retreating figure.

This tiny passageway seemed to throw sounds around; their footsteps echoed, making the place appear especially lonely and desolate, but also especially sinister and gloomy. Abruptly, inexplicably, Zhang Chengling’s goosebumps rose all over his body. He piped up quietly, “Shifu, I’m...I’m a little scared.”