The road to the mansion was shrouded by darkness, and the only sources of light illuminating their path were the light of the crescent moon and the stars in the sky.

The stars formed constellations, and slowly moved upon celestial filament, seemingly never staying in the same place. Yet, within their movements, there were certain patterns and constants, and they affected the future of the mortal realms. The ones who could divine that future were called astrologists, and within Chuhua tribes, they were held in the highest esteem.

The celestial bodies one was born under were said to decide one’s fate, character, and role this person would play in the history of the world.
Mei Rulan was born under the constellation of the Hunter, and its bright red star foreshadowed an equally bright and war-like future for her. Considering her current skill with weapons and tracking prey in the wilds, this divination proved most accurate…

However, a tragedy struck when she was 9 years old. She manifested a so-called golden core, and began moving objects with the power of will alone. Among the civilized, settled people of the middle kingdom, having a cultivator born in their family would be a joyous occasion, worthy of many celebrations.

But, due to their long and complex history of prosecution and oppression, the Chuhua people hated those who can manipulate life energy and mistrusted them. They usually sold them to foreign slave traders, or secretly murdered them, purging the perceived disease from within their ranks. The fate of Mei Rulan would have surely been miserable if she wasn’t scouted early by Bai Zihan, and rescued from her tribe before the worst came to pass….

Thus, without a doubt, Mei Rulan had a lot to be grateful for to Wuyun sect, and she continued serving them and the Supreme Leader diligently whole her life. However, she never complained about her traumatic past - for life taught her that no matter how painful one’s circumstances are, there was always some who had it worse.

For example, her younger sister.

There were astrological occurrences of even greater prominence than being born under such or such star or constellation.

The solar and lunar eclipse.

The Chuha people associated the sun with good, and the moon with evil. Thus, the latter foretold the coming of a hero, while the former- a devil incarnate.

Unfortunately, her sister was born during one such cursed day, and what sealed her fate additionally was that she manifested a golden core shortly before her 5th birthday. Although they tried to keep it a secret, soon the clan council found out, and the consequences were grim. Her life was even more miserable than Mei Rulan’s, and she was sold to slavers sometime after that….

All trail of her went cold after that, and even utilizing all of Wuyun resources, Mei Rulan couldn’t find anything about what happened to her afterward. However, the southeastern pirates were known to be merciless, and it was unlikely she’d still be alive thirteen years later.

Mei Rulan’s feelings also cooled after some years, and now, this story is only a grim reminder of what could have been, and why she’d indebted for life to Bai Zihan. She would not hesitate to stain her hands with the blood of the innocents, and her loyalty was absolute. That’s why she was chosen for this top-secret mission….

Suddenly, a high-pitched scream brought her out of her dark ruminations.

Zhanzhan was now under the influence of a powerful sedative, and by all means, she should be totally stoned for a while longer…. However, yaren’s immune system is much stronger than that of the human.

It’s not impossible that it had already begun purging the foreign substance of her bloodstream, which would be rather unfortunate all things considered. After all, this isn’t a medicine one could dose more than once….

Mei Rulan quickly grabbed her chin and examined her pupils. They were no longer dilated but remained unfocused and her gaze was cloudy, which meant that the process was yet to begin. The Wuyun operative sighed with relief. That’s good news.

But, that means, the reason for her scream was something else….

There was some… large object…lying in the middle of the dirt road leading to the estate’s gates.
The Wuyun operative couldn’t see in the dark as well as the catgirl, so she had to come closer to examine it. Sword in hand, she carefully approached, ready for anything.

It was an elderly yaren catman, lying face down, his body facing in the opposite direction from Bai mansion. His back was ripped open, and his spine and the insides were sprawled some distance away. His legs were broken, and there were fresh puncture wounds around his knees.

A blade, perhaps a spear? Or some qi power?

Mei Rulan saw many gruesome deaths during her time in the intelligence department, some of which she was a direct cause of. However, the sheer excessive brutality of this death easily topped even some of her most lavish exploits.

“Someone you know?” asked Mei Rulan, although the answer was already known to her. Zhanzhan told her about all the servants who were employed at the estate, and this one matched the description of the chef who lived full time at this household. Still, it was good practice to ask rather than jump to conclusions.

However, the catgirl was in no state to respond. She was holding her head in between her palms, and rocking back and forth, not paying attention to Mei Rulan, and just mumbling to herself.

“It’s happening again…it’s happening again….”

Looks like she was reliving some past trauma. This, at the very least, certified that she had nothing to do with this incident.
However, Mei Rulan wasn’t so merciful to just let her be. There was a mission she had to fulfill, no matter what.

“You said there were two servants on night shift. Where’s the other one?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know…I don’t know…”

The sedative medicine made one unlikely to lie, but it wasn’t exactly a truth serum. Nonetheless, even without it, Mei Rulan would probably believe Zhanzhan at this moment. There was no way her current behavior was just a convincing act….

She sighed loudly and gazed at the faraway mansion. Originally, she was hoping to sneak there while the cultivators were distracted with the upcoming undead uprising, interrogate the residents, look for any suspicious documents, artifacts, or items, and then leave the town as soon as possible.

However, right now, the gloomy mansion invoked nothing but a sense of dread. The alarm array, undetectable by mundane people but perceivable by those who could manipulate qi, was still ringing madly, and by all means, it seemed that going forward was walking straight into the enemy’s trap.

But who was the enemy? Bai Lianfei? Yao Erzhan? Bai Caoren?

The empty grave doesn’t prove anything yet…

Just as she thought that several points in the faraway building exploded in flame. The rate and intensity of ignition were reminiscent of what happened in Chenfei three months ago, which meant the method and the culprit were probably the same.

The sight of flames knocked Zhanzhan back to reality. She started screaming, and ran in the direction of the collapsing building.

Just as Mei Rulan was about to chase her and stop her, she suddenly felt a terrible killing intent all around, and barely dodged a throwing knife aimed straight at her chest.

Before she noticed, she was surrounded by several humanoid figures. Their qi signatures were extremely weak, but something told her it’s not because they were actively suppressing it as cultivators would. It’s almost like…

“….This is…!” exclaimed Mei Rulan in shock and surprise, when the fire from the burning estate illuminated the faces of these new foes.

Not one of them was human. They were all dolls, similar to the ones displayed in Yafan museum. However, unlike the crude statues there, each and every one of these had a fine porcelain mask that portrayed a feminine face. In the darkness, these faces looked almost lifelike….

Assuming a defensive pose called the four-six stance - named so after weight distribution which puts 60% of body weight on the back foot and 40% on leading foot - Mei Rulan prepared herself for a lengthy and grueling battle against multiple opponents of unknown origin and battle capabilities.

She quickly fired a barrage of fire projectiles in a wide cone around her. Some dolls skillfully dodged the blazing bullets, some deflected them, and some were hit and damaged.

Not one of them projected any sort of elemental or qi barrier, nor employed any other supernatural defense, which meant they can’t cultivate. Good. If they could, her life would surely be forfeit.

“Well, well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves yet, shall we?” a raspy, yet high-pitched voice spoke from among the small group of enemies.

It belonged to…severed head of what Mei Rulan assumed to be the other servant, held within the doll’s bloody palms.

Though perhaps, calling it just a head was an understatement.

It still had the throat, lungs, and a sizable part of its spine attached to it. In fact, it looked like someone either crudely ripped it out of the torso, or carefully and meticulously removed it from surgical precision.

“It’s like a glass half empty or glass half full dilemma….” joked Mei Rulan to calm herself down, and flashed her white teeth. She instinctively understood that the head wasn’t speaking, the one holding it was.

It was a doll with a green jade lodged in the pendant of necklace warped around her head. It looked like some kind of freaky makeshift crown, and even without the gory corpse, would make her stand out among her peers.

“It’s the latter,” said the freak, and curtsied “I would not be so primitive to just rip it off like some brute…”

Then it flashed several short knives hidden between her fingers, their well polished, steel surface reflected the blaze splendidly.

So that’s what was thrown at her a moment ago…if she was hit by just one of these, it would certainly hurt.

“Well like I said…” repeated the head “If possible, we’d rather not fight you. On the contrary, we’d like to cooperate with you from now on…”

………..

Zhanzhan took advantage of the chaos, and was running away as quickly as possible. Although thinking was still somewhat difficult, it was easier than when they were just exiting the cemetery some time ago, and it seemed that whatever drug she was fed was finally wearing off.

With sobriety came the feeling of dread, and her survival instincts kicked in once more. Why is the mansion burning, why are the servants dead? Why is this woman from Wuyun here? And more importantly, the dolls she was currently fighting, they…

Before Zhanzhan could finish this trail of thought, she coughed violently.
What now, did she get sick from all this night walking? The robes she was wearing were pretty warm, but it was October already, and so far in the north, the nights were quite chilly.

That’s right, she’s just ill. She’d get better once she gets to safety. Maybe warm herself around the blazing fire…

More coughing. What the…?