Fragments of roof tiles clattered across the courtyard, echoing like distant gunfire. Wong Lei stood on the cracked pavement, a safe distance from the settling dust of the destroyed orphanage. Su Yao turned to her, the girl’s eyes wide and shocked beneath a mask of street grime.
“Your talismans are worthless,” Su Yao announced, her voice flat and dismissive.
She pulled a small, plain notebook and a pen from her pocket. Her fingers moved quickly, scribbling a single, intricate character on a page. The lines flowed with unnatural precision. She tore the paper out and handed it to Wong Lei.
“Carry this. It will mask your spiritual signature; his instruments will find you harder to track. Don’t lose it or show it to anyone.”
Wong Lei accepted the paper like a holy relic. It felt strangely warm against her palm.
“As for your weakness,” Su Yao continued, her tone clinical, “that is a longer-term project. But your survival today is guaranteed. Go home. Don’t speak of this to anyone. If anyone asks, you followed a strange feeling, found the orphanage collapsing, and ran. Am I understood?”
The girl could only nod, mute, clutching the talisman to her chest.
Su Yao watched her hurry down the road, then gave one last look at the settling ruins. The explosion of the puppet had provided a decent, if hastily consumed, snack. Her immediate hunger was sated, but a larger appetite now sharpened her senses.
The true enemy knows my name, she mused. He is still out there, his operation merely disrupted.
He had called her a glutton and a relic.
A slow, cold smile spread across Su Yao’s face. Let him think that. Relics remember things. And this glutton has just acquired a taste for a new kind of prey.
The dust from the orphanage collapse settled like a shroud over the district. Su Yao stood for a long moment, the echo of the puppet’s words lingering in the silent air. It served as an acknowledgment rather than a threat. A line had been crossed, turning casual interference into a declared conflict.
She turned and walked away with a new, purposeful rhythm. The time for amusing distractions was over.
Her phone vibrated with a text from Mei.
Mei: Hey, you alive? Party’s over. Where’d you vanish to?
Su Yao typed a reply without breaking stride.
Xiao Ling:Errand. Completed.
The response was immediate.
Mei:Boring. Come get real food. My treat.
Su Yao’s lips curved into a thin smile. The mundane world continued its ignorant spin. This was the perfect camouflage. She replied.
Xiao Ling: Tomorrow.
She walked to the city’s central library, a monument to modern knowledge. Su Yao bypassed the computers and headed for the oldest section: the archival records. If her enemy used modern systems to monitor the city, he would also use them to erase his past. But paper, forgotten in basements, often held truths digital streams conveniently forgot.
For hours, she sat, poring over property records, old newspaper archives, and civic logs related to the Azure Dragon Orphanage. The official story was a bland tale of bankruptcy and closure.
But buried in a police blotter from twenty years ago was a single, intriguing line: “Report of a disturbance at the Azure Dragon Orphanage. Caller reported ‘children chanting in the basement.’ Officer dispatched. No disturbance found.”
No disturbance found, she thought, recognizing the classic dismissal of things beyond mortal comprehension.
The sun was setting when she finally left. The city lights flickered on, unaware of the ancient predator walking its streets. Her mind buzzed with a single name, now a target: the real director.
When Su Yao arrived at her apartment, her aunt was watching a news report about the “mysterious structural collapse” of an abandoned building on the city’s outskirts.
“Terrible, isn’t it?” her aunt clucked. “Luckily no one was hurt. They say the foundation was just rotten.”
“Rotten to the core,” Su Yao agreed, hanging up her jacket. “Some things need to be torn down completely before anything new can be built.”
She went to her room and closed the door. The quiet was a lie now. It was the quiet of a hunting ground before the stalk began. Her enemy knew her.
Find the source of the puppet’s strings, was her guiding principle.
She picked up the small, potent talisman she had crafted for Wong Lei. It was a simple masking charm, but creating it had felt… familiar. Instead of the brute force she usually employed, it had a finer, more intricate artistry.
A faint memory of an old sage once speaking about spiritual seals over a cup of wine tugged at her.
Perhaps this modern world holds more than just weak cultivators and tasty spirits, she mused. Perhaps it holds forgotten arts, even for one as old as me.
Sitting on her bed, she looked at her reflection in the dark screen of her phone. The face of Xiao Ling stared back. But behind the teenage girl’s eyes, the Nine-Tailed Fox was fully awake, her gaze sharp and calculating.
Her night passed with silent, calculated planning. The reflection in the phone screen had been a catalyst. By the time dawn tinted the sky, the Nine-Tailed Fox had receded once more behind the mask of Xiao Ling, but a predator’s focus remained, hidden in a student’s guise.
The next day, Mei was true to her word, dragging Su Yao to a bustling, noisy hot pot place for lunch.
“Alright, spill,” Mei said, dumping a plate of thinly sliced beef into the boiling broth. “The ‘errand’ yesterday had something to do with that orphanage collapsing on the news, didn't it?”
Su Yao deftly caught a piece of perfectly cooked meat with her chopsticks. “The foundation was unstable. It was inevitable.”
She took a bite, her senses registering the meal’s satisfactory quality. It was a marked improvement over Li Xiu’s spiritual poison.
Mei leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Was it… you know… spooky?”
“Everything has a spirit, Mei,” Su Yao replied, her gaze casually scanning the crowded restaurant. “Some are just louder than others. That one was particularly noisy. It’s now quiet.”
Mei’s eyes widened with delight. “So cool.” She nudged a plate of frozen tofu toward Su Yao. “Here, try this. It soaks up the soup like a sponge.”
As Su Yao complied, she observed the mundane scene around her with new intensity. Laughing families, bickering couples, tired waitstaff. Any one of them could be a mask. Her enemy had used a puppet; who was to say he wasn't using more, hiding in plain sight? The hot pot was a field of observation.
“See something interesting?” Mei asked, following her gaze.
“Just assessing the variables,” Su Yao said, turning back to her bowl. “The texture of this tofu is acceptable.”
Su Yao set her chopsticks down with a precise click. The noisy din of the hot pot restaurant faded into a dull background hum. She focused entirely on Mei, who was enthusiastically fishing for a mushroom.
“Mei,” Su Yao began, her tone deceptively casual. “A theoretical question. Regarding your… area of expertise.”
Mei looked up, her mouth full. “Hmm?”
“Masks and puppets.” Su Yao watched her closely. “In your research on your web novel, did you ever explore the concept of a powerful entity hiding behind a weaker facade? Using proxies to interact with the world while its true self remains hidden?”
Mei chewed thoughtfully, swallowing before answering. Her expression, usually so open, seemed to settle into something more measured. It was the same unnerving calm she’d had since taking the pill.
“It’s a classic trope,” she said, her voice losing its bubbly edge and taking on a lecturer’s tone. “The lich king using a necromancer as his front man. The elder god speaking through a cultist. It’s about efficiency. Why risk your true form when a disposable shell can achieve the same goal?
“The strongest masks are also tools. They absorb the blows, gather the intelligence, and when they’re destroyed,” she made a small exploding gesture with her hands, “the master loses nothing but a piece on the board.”
She picked up her tea, her gaze drifting over the steam. “A puppet is only as interesting as the puppeteer. The real story is always about the one pulling the strings.”
Su Yao felt a cold thrill of confirmation. The answer was too articulate and insightful from a writer brainstorming plot points. It came from a place of deep, inherent understanding.
“And if one were to encounter such a puppet,” Su Yao pressed, “how would you suggest finding the puppeteer?”
Mei’s eyes flicked back to Su Yao, and for a split second, they seemed to hold a glint of ancient amusement. “You don’t find them. They’re too careful for that. You make them come to you. Break their favorite toys or disrupt their plans so spectacularly that they have no choice but to step out of the shadows and deal with you personally.”
She smiled, a slow, knowing curve of her lips. “It’s the oldest story in the book. Provocation. Annoy them into making a mistake.”
Mei then blinked, and the moment passed. The light in her eyes dimmed, replaced by her usual mischievous sparkle. “Why? You planning to write a rival web novel? I warn you, I’m fiercely competitive.”
Su Yao leaned back, picking up her chopsticks again. “Merely curious. Your perspective is… unexpectedly strategic.”
“I have my moments,” Mei said with a giggle, turning her attention back to the boiling pot. “Now, stop being so serious and eat this beef before it turns to rubber.”
Su Yao complied, but her mind was racing. Provocation. Annoy them into making a mistake.
The hot pot broth continued to bubble, but Su Yao’s focus was now entirely internal. The scattered pieces of the puzzle began to click into a terrifyingly logical pattern.
The enemy is farming evil spirits, she thought, her chopsticks pausing mid-air.
He was using the Luo family’s ‘exorcisms’ to apply pressure. The weak were culled; the strong survived, growing more cunning, more powerful. Her mind flashed to the Azure Dragon Orphanage. The children were test subjects. Jian Feng was the successful product and Wong Lei was the failed experiment. He was breeding warriors.
Then, the television show, Modern Exorcist. It was a public proving ground, a colosseum. He pitted his cultivated spirits against his cultivated exorcists, watching to see which side emerged stronger in a continuous, televised selection process.
But for what purpose? What is their endgame?
The Crimson Calamity Queen cult came to mind. The cultists believed they were resurrecting a sovereign.
A leadership vacuum, Su Yao realized, the final piece snapping into place with chilling clarity.
Like the human world, the demonic realm had been left leaderless and fractured. This enemy was trying to engineer a ruler. He was running a massive, cruel, Darwinian experiment to forge a being powerful enough to unite the scattered forces of darkness under a single banner.
The cult around Mei’s web novel was a symptom. The lesser evils, directionless, were desperate for a figurehead, and had latched onto a legend. Her enemy was simply using that desperation, shaping it, trying to create a real candidate to fill the void.
He was a conductor orchestrating a conflict from the shadows to create the perfect, ultimate instrument of power.
Su Yao’s lips curled into a cold, appreciative smile. It was a grand, monstrous ambition. She could respect the scale of it.
So, she mused, picking up a piece of beef and examining it as if it were a chess piece. You are trying to crown a king. You want to create a champion.
She ate the beef in one precise bite.
But you have made one critical error. You invited me to your tournament.
Su Yao was determined to take an active role. If there was a crown to be won, she would take it for herself. The puppeteer wanted to pit his champions against each other? Very well. She would simply break them all and see how he liked being the one without any pieces left.
The memory surfaced with the crisp clarity of a cherished victory. It had been a simple game of celestial chess centuries ago against a strategist renowned for his unbeatable defenses. The strategist had been smug, confident in his intricate formations.
Su Yao, growing bored with his tedious, plodding moves, had decided to change the rules.
While he was pontificating about his next move, she had casually picked up his most powerful piece and popped it into her mouth. It had dissolved on her tongue like spun sugar.
The strategist had blinked, stared at the empty square, and sputtered, “Where... where did it go?”
“I grew hungry,” Su Yao had replied, swallowing. “Your strategy was taking too long. It lacked flavor.”
He never recovered from the shock. The game ended shortly after, with Su Yao consuming the rest of his key pieces one by one whenever he looked away. It was less a checkmate and more a systematic depletion of his assets.
Sitting in the hot pot restaurant, watching the meat swirl in the broth, Su Yao smiled. That was the answer, the perfect provocation.
This enemy, this puppeteer, was playing a vast, multidimensional game of chess. He had his pieces: the Luo family, the cultivated spirits, the orphanage graduates, and the entire Modern Exorcist apparatus. He was moving them around the board, trying to engineer a checkmate against the very concept of order.
Su Yao could ignore the king piece and his grand strategy.
She just needed to eat the board.
Why fight your opponent’s champion, she thought, when you can devour the arena they're fighting in?
“Mei,” Su Yao said, her voice cutting through the restaurant’s noise. “The network. The Spirit Magnet contract. I want to renegotiate.”
Mei looked up, surprised. “Huh? Why? The money’s great!”
“The terms are insufficient,” Su Yao stated. “I want creative control. Final say on which locations we film, which spirits we target. And I want access to the network’s entire archive of unaired footage, all the ‘failed’ exorcisms, all the cases the Luo family deemed too dangerous or confusing.”
Mei’s eyes widened. “Whoa. That's... specific. Why?”
Su Yao picked up a single, slick piece of tripe with her chopsticks, holding it up like a trophy before consuming it.
“I've decided,” she said, “that the show needs a new format. Less about capturing spirits. More about... liquidating assets.”
She would target and consume every single one of his “investments.” Every strong spirit he had nurtured, every potential champion he had cultivated, would become her next meal, broadcast live for his viewing pleasure. She would devour his pieces right off the board, one by one, until the game was nothing but an empty grid.
Let him watch his grand design be eaten on prime time. That should be provocation enough.