◎Part One – The Big Dog Incident◎
The midnight snack had arrived, but Lin Shuang and Huangfu Yuan continued to wait.
As it drew closer to midnight, Lin Shuang lay on the bedding, nearly drifting off to sleep.
She could only sneakily pull out the Inner Sect map beneath the covers. “If it were me… this would definitely be the correct route.”
Her voice, soft and low in the night, carried a hint of warmth.
There was also a faint scent of winter plum blossoms.
It slipped through the quilt’s seams, drifting toward Huangfu Yuan’s nose in delicate threads.
The sound-silencing spell nearby? Completely useless on him.
Even with his eyes closed, his spiritual awareness had become sharper in the silence. After a while, his eyelashes trembled.
Without a word, he opened his eyes.
“Quiet.”
Lowering his head, he reached over and pressed her head back into the covers.
Lin Shuang blinked, and the edge of the blanket was tucked down firmly.
She perked up her ears, her senses fully alert and on guard. After a few moments, nothing happened—just confusion.
She silently pulled out Talismanic Xiao Ai No. 1.
Glanced at the other end of the communicator.
[Xiao Ai Unit 3 (Meng Zi)]: How are you guys? No one’s come by on my side yet. Should I sneak over and find you?
[Xiao Ai Unit 3 (Meng Zi)]: Hello? Anyone there? Where’d you all go?
[Xiao Ai Unit 2 (Huangfu)]: Here. Waiting.
They were already chatting.
Excited, Lin Shuang joined in at once.
That late-night dorm room chat vibe? Perfectly captured!
A new form of entertainment unlocked—her spiritual sense itched for more.
[Xiao Ai Unit 1 (Lin)]: No movement.
Finding a comfortable position, she lay on her side to join the group chat.
[Xiao Ai Unit 1 (Lin)]: Standing watch like this all night will only wear us down. Since there are two of us per location, we should take turns.
Lin Shuang felt that waiting the entire night like this wasn’t sustainable.
If the thief didn’t show up, they’d waste their energy. Come morning, they’d still have to continue the search.
And when the wolf finally came, they’d already be too exhausted.
[Xiao Ai Unit 1 (Lin)]: Hold on, let me check where my paper decoy is.
[Xiao Ai Unit 3 (Meng)]: ???
Bai Yu and Meng Zi were in separate rooms, meditating.
Upon seeing Lin Shuang’s backup communicator, their curiosity was piqued.
Soon, Xiao Ai Units 3 and 4 received a message.
[Would you like to share Xiao Ai Unit 1’s visual feed?]
Bai Yu and Meng Zi tapped “accept” simultaneously.
In the next instant, the image appeared on their talisman—
In the moonlit night, heading from the Inner to Outer Sect, a green-robed “Lin Shuang” floated listlessly with drooping arms, her hem drifting as if she had no legs, staggering like a ghost blown by the wind.
Under the moonlight, her face was pale as death, drained of all color, long strands of hair matted together.
The whites of her eyes were fully exposed.
Crimson lips curved into a chilling arc.
“Holy—!”
Meng Zi nearly hurled his Xiao Ai Unit 3 communicator!
Bai Yu jolted, his entire toad-like body frozen stiff!
What the hell was that!?
[Xiao Ai Unit 3 (Meng)]: Turn it off! Now!
[Xiao Ai Unit 4 (Bai)]: …How do I disable the shared feed.
Snug under her warm, tightly-wrapped blankets, Lin Shuang glanced at the screen, puzzled.
“What, are they dissatisfied with my paper decoy?”
Too refined for their taste.
Truly, a case of too refined for the common palate.
An unmanned humanoid flying drone… How convenient, honestly.
“Senior Brother Huangfu, what do you think? If sold at Rong Bao Pavilion, wouldn’t this paper decoy be more promising than those dissolvable paper cranes?”
“I even gave her a hairstyle worth at least three hundred coins—wash, cut, and blow-dry included.”
Halfway through speaking, she sensed the stiffening of the warm figure beside her.
“You did well, Junior Sister. Don’t do it again.”
“…”
Huangfu Yuan closed his eyes and extinguished the incense in the room.
Outside their window lattice, a spirit hound crouched nearby.
Soon, its limbs stirred, dashing off in a flash.
On its way past the pond, it looked down at its reflection, seemingly tempted to eat the spirit carp swimming below.
Startled, the spirit carp darted away, stirring the spirit coral at the lake’s bottom, which shivered like windblown grass.
At Cave Dwelling No. 730, Bai Yu, sitting cross-legged, abruptly opened his eyes and gazed toward the lakeside.
Elsewhere in the Inner Sect, in multiple cave dwellings, disciples meditating under the moonlight slowly opened their eyes as well.
Some looked toward the spirit carp in the water, some toward spirit sparrows perched on branches, and others toward the spirit hound at their doorstep.
“Is the Master saying, if no thief appears before dawn, we play the part of the thief ourselves to force them out?”
“Understood.”
“The Master must pass this trial to reach the Three Thousand Levels. Let’s get to work.”
“Sparrow Tribe at the cafeteria—maintain surveillance.”
“Fish guarding the Transmission Hall—stay put…”
“Dog Tribe, follow me!”
“Also, Master’s orders—if you see a drifting woman in green robes, douse her with water! Don’t forget!”
“???”
“WTF—!”
Lin Shuang, monitoring her paper decoy, soon discovered it had been spotted by one of the dogs from the Inner Sect!
They were actually trying to pee on her decoy.
Unbelievable.
“So mean.”
Lin Shuang was baffled. “Do I really look that unappealing to dogs?”
Beside her, Huangfu Yuan remained dead silent.
Feeling dejected, Lin Shuang no longer felt like sharing the Xiao Ai Unit 12 visual feed showing the paper decoy’s movements outside.
Huangfu Yuan, still with eyes closed, allowed the faintest curve to form at the corner of his lips.
At last, he could sleep in peace for a while.
But only for a moment—when suddenly, a small hand grabbed his right arm under the covers.
A faint feminine fragrance caressed his neck as she exhaled nearby.
His nape tensed, fingers instantly stiffening, nearly bristling from nails to tailbone.
A sudden outburst from Lin Shuang—“Who is that?! My paper decoy’s been targeted!”
That’s right. He’d sent a spirit beast to track it.
Huangfu Yuan nodded, but when he turned to glance at the Xiao Ai feed, his eyes narrowed in surprise.
On the screen was the haunting figure of that ghostly decoy floating with upturned eyes—so ghastly even a demon would flinch.
And behind her… a shadow raced soundlessly across the lake’s surface.
The figure was dressed entirely in black, nearly blending into the dusk.
As the distance narrowed, it became faintly visible—his face was covered, and a hand was slowly reaching for the ‘paper girl’s’ waist!
Huangfu Yuan shot up. “Retrieve the decoy!”
Lin Shuang was drenched in cold sweat. The paper decoy relied solely on the faint spiritual energy stored in the talisman, capable only of mimicking her brisk movements.
It had no combat power.
Nor could it escape.
Its only function was to slip past prying eyes in the dark, with a similar build and a few spirit stones tied to it to simulate spiritual fluctuations.
“Retrieve it? No way!
If I pull it back now, they’ll realize the decoy was a trap. That I faked a return to the Outer Sect just to lure them in!”
“If we don’t catch them this time, they’ll be wary of me from now on!”
That would mean someone tailing her every move from here on out!
Not efficient at all.
Lin Shuang refused—and immediately felt a chill down her spine.
Were the thieves really at the dining hall?
Was her script working?
But why target her?
She couldn’t figure it out!
She didn’t carry any valuables. Why pick her?
She wasn’t a plump sheep to fleece.
Why not go after Huangfu Yuan or Bai Yu first?
What good would targeting her do?
In a flash, Lin Shuang seemed to grasp some vague but crucial oversight connecting all the thefts.
But there was no time to dwell on it. She quickly operated the backup Xiao Ai Unit No. 12 and anxiously scanned the surroundings. “Where’s the nearest lake?”
‘She’ was going to fake a suicide!
“Ah, I suddenly really want a bath—”
On screen, the eerily stiff zombie-like ‘Lin Shuang’ uttered a disturbingly wooden line.
Huangfu Yuan: “…”
She wanted to jump into the lake and disappear, forcing the black-clad figure to give up the chase.
The paper decoy was too easy to expose.
Lying beside him, Lin Shuang’s spiritual sense raced as she remotely controlled Xiao Ai Unit No. 12, making it emit sound.
She then maneuvered the decoy toward a lake nestled between two mountain slopes.
But the black-robed figure was clearly faster than ‘her.’
A hand was already just five steps behind the decoy!
It was over…
Lin Shuang closed her eyes.
No escape.
She resigned herself and shifted Xiao Ai’s view. “At least let’s capture the face of the criminal.”
Huangfu Yuan stared at the bed canopy without speaking.
But just as Xiao Ai Unit No. 12 turned its camera to transmit the face of the black-clad figure—two pure eyes, no more than fourteen or fifteen years old—Lin Shuang froze.
This person looked familiar. He was short too… wasn’t he the kitchen boy who delivered their meals?
But why was he backing away…?
His figure, captured by Unit 12, was rapidly retreating!
Suspicious, Lin Shuang zoomed out and pulled the camera back for a wider view. The moment she saw the feed, she was dumbfounded.
In the distance, from who-knows-where, a half-man-tall dog suddenly went berserk. It charged forward and sank its teeth into the decoy ‘Lin Shuang,’ legs flailing as it sprinted ahead.
Its entire coat of fluffy white fur billowed in the wind!
As it dashed wildly, its big, soft, fan-shaped tail rippled in thick waves, dusted with moonlit silver, the tip tinged with a faint crimson glow.
It ran like the wind!
In a blink, the dazed black-clad figure was left in its dust.
“Mas—”
“Er Dabao! What are you doing?!”
Just as the black-clad figure was about to speed up and catch the snowy dog, a young man with fish-scale patterns on his forehead—clearly a sixth-level Core Condensation cultivator—hurried over with a lantern.
Dabao…
As soon as he called out, the snow-colored dog and the scaly youth both froze for half a breath.
“Er, get over here. Stop messing around,” the fish-scaled youth muttered after a pause.
Inner Sect senior disciples sometimes kept spirit pets too.
Spirit beasts running amok after a fight with their masters and causing trouble at night wasn’t uncommon.
At once, the black-clad figure halted, casting a wary glance at the Core Condensation cultivator before silently backing away and vanishing into the shadows.
Saved…
Lin Shuang exhaled in relief, watching the footage from unmanned Xiao Ai Unit No. 12.
“What a good dog.”
“Senior Brother Huangfu, are spirit dogs sold at Rong Bao Pavilion—?”
Lin Shuang asked, eyes sparkling with desire.
But there was no response beside her.
Puzzled, she turned her head—only to find Huangfu Yuan staring blankly at the bed canopy, unmoving, as if deep in thought.
Then, from the Xiao Ai feed, came a loud splash.
On screen, the majestic white dog—tail fluffy with streaks of silver, tip glowing faintly like embers—completely ignored the fish-scaled youth.
With dignified steps, it walked to the edge of the lake.
Then, extending a snowy paw, it swiftly smacked the paper decoy ‘Lin Shuang’ into the water.
Instantly, weighed down by two spirit stones, the decoy sank beneath the surface—
And dissolved without a trace.
The large white dog watched it for a moment, then turned its head.
Its jet-black pupils seemed to gaze directly at the hovering Xiao Ai talisman.
It bared its teeth into a grin.
“—!”
Under her blanket, Lin Shuang sucked in a sharp breath.
“I-Is it laughing at me?!”
Sure, she had planned to destroy the decoy to avoid suspicion from the black-clad figure—
But was this dog taunting her?
In that moment, with the loss of its target, Xiao Ai Unit No. 12 triggered auto-return and promptly left the “dog kills woman” scene.
Before long, Huangfu Yuan stirred, as if finally snapping out of the hair-raising series of events.
His lashes fluttered slightly, and the darkness in his eyes began to recede.
Bathed in moonlight, the thick fox-fur wrap around his neck seemed even more silver-bright.
The tips of the fur gleamed faintly red, like candlelight reflected on snow.
“Junior Sister, did you see the perpetrator’s face?”
“Yes! That dog’s face—pure white fur, tips tinged silver, frosty up close, fiery from afar!”
“…”
“I’ll never forget that coat!”
Lin Shuang, brimming with righteous indignation, then fell abruptly silent.
Huangfu Yuan’s temple twitched, and he said no more either.
They both fell quiet.
Because, just dozens of breaths later, there came a faint creak—
From the window frame beside their bed.
The decoy plan had failed.
The black-clad figure… had turned around and was headed here!