Chapter 484: The Puppet Heavenly Lord's Prank
Night had fallen.
The ancients toiled from sunrise and sought their rest at sunset, and the Hedong Circuit had already quieted down.
Only the long, drawn-out and peculiar cry of a night watchman could be heard: “Dry weather, beware of fire...”
Li Daoxuan, however, was still awake.
Glancing at the clock, it was only ten-thirty at night, damn it. How could any modern person possibly fall asleep so early?
There was at least another hour to mess around!
Gao Family Village's commercial district was slowly developing a nightlife. The evenings were when the Gao Family Villagers, after a day's work, sought entertainment by watching plays and listening to music. If Li Daoxuan were to switch his view back there, he might find some amusement.
But watching the same entertainment every day grew tiresome. Occasionally, he needed to find other diversions.
After a moment's thought, he decided to wander around Hedong Circuit instead.
He grabbed hold of the vines with both hands, and quietly climbed over the wall.
Unexpectedly, the moment he had scaled the wall, he spotted two of Huang Yunfa's subordinates patrolling in the courtyard.
He immediately froze, but the sudden stop threw his wooden body off balance, and he naturally tumbled from the top of the wall.
With a clatter of colliding wood.
The two patrolling subordinates jumped in surprise. They squinted, then realized it was just a puppet that had fallen from the wall. They had seen this very puppet perched on the wall during the day, so now, seeing it fall, they assumed it was either blown by the wind or knocked down by a stray cat.
One of them grumbled to the other, "Damn it, that thing gave me a fright, suddenly dropping like that."
The other whispered, "That puppet's face is too realistic. Does a mere puppet need such a lifelike face?”
The first man replied, "I don’t know, but I always get a creepy feeling from that thing.”
"Let’s just keep our distance from it.”
The two didn't even dare to touch the puppet, and continued their patrol.
Once they were out of sight, the Puppet Heavenly Lord shook its hands and feet, and with a clack, scrambled to its feet. Its head swiveled unnervingly. He thought: I seem to have accidentally unlocked a new way to play.
This game couldn't be played in his own territory, but against a bunch of Han traitors, it seemed to carry no psychological burden...
He opened his wooden mouth, and let out two clattering laughs. Then, deliberately, he sat down right where he was, unmoving.
The two subordinates who had just patrolled had circled Huang Yunfa's quarters once, and now were circling back. The lanterns in their hands cast a dim glow. Suddenly, the man in front stiffened. “Look, the puppet...” he whispered.
The man beside him looked, and instantly felt his whole body tingle with dread. “It... it, how did the puppet sit up? It was clearly lying on the ground after falling from the wall just now, wasn’t it?”
“Yes... why is it sitting now?”
At this, both subordinates' hair stood on end, and they panicked completely.
“No, no, no, we must have remembered it wrong.”
“We definitely didn't remember it wrong.”
“Then after we patrolled past earlier, someone must have come and set the puppet upright.”
“Holy hell, doesn't that mean an assassin got in?!”
Startled, the two quickly rushed towards Huang Yunfa's room, bursting through the door with a loud thud.
Inside the room, the clang of weapons being drawn immediately echoed, followed by the sound of someone stumbling, and then Huang Yunfa's furious shouts. “What in the blazes are you doing, barging into my room in the middle of the night? Why are you crashing into my room? I even pulled out my blade, thinking you two were assassins, damn it. Then you rushed in and knelt before me. Are you out of your minds?!”
The two men's voices then chimed in, “We thought an assassin had snuck in to kill you, so we...”
Huang Yunfa: “No one has come in here except you two.”
The two awkwardly mumbled, “There’s a puppet outside, it moved, so...”
Huang Yunfa: “Take me to see.”
With all that commotion, many people in the house had woken up. Even the dozen or so suspected Manchu cavalrymen rose, and a large crowd of them all headed towards Li Daoxuan's position.
Li Daoxuan was certainly not foolish enough to wait for them. He scrambled to his feet, slipped into the garden's flower bushes, and crawled along the ground for a bit. Once the crowd had moved away, he snuck into Huang Yunfa's room, laboriously climbed up a pillar to the roof beam, grabbed a rope, and hung himself upside down.
Outside, there was a commotion. Clearly, they hadn't found the puppet. The two patrolmen were thoroughly reprimanded by Huang Yunfa: “Idiots, going crazy in the middle of the night! Where would a puppet even come from here?!”
“But there really was one...” The two men were so wronged they almost burst into tears.
But explanations were useless. At Huang Yunfa's command, the other guards rained down a flurry of punches, leaving the two men battered and miserable.
Only then did the crowd disperse, each returning to their rooms.
Huang Yunfa was in a terrible mood. He grumbled his way back into his room, and roared at the outside, “Keep your eyes wide open, all of you!”
A chorus of voices responded from outside: “As you command!”
Huang Yunfa closed the door. Turning around, he suddenly saw a puppet hanging upside down in his room, its face sporting a bizarre grin as it stared at him.
Who could endure seeing that in the dead of night?
“Aaaah!”
Huang Yunfa let out a bloodcurdling scream, stumbling backward in a panic. With a crash, he slammed through the thin wooden door, shattering it, and tumbled out into the garden.
Several patrol teams rushed over from outside simultaneously, to shield him.
This was the Salt Administration Office's official residence backyard. Such a loud shriek startled even the Salt Administration soldiers. The entire backyard instantly erupted into chaos.
Li Daoxuan was beside himself with amusement. He slid down from the roof beam, and once again hid under Huang Yunfa's bed.
Outside, Huang Yunfa's voice rang out, tinged with a hint of cowardice: “The puppet, the puppet is in my room, hanging upside down from the roof beam!”
“Bang!”
Someone crashed through the ruined door. Still carrying a lantern, they looked inside. Where was the puppet in the room? The roof beam was empty, nothing could be seen.
“There’s nothing, Master! No puppet on the roof beam.”
“How can there be nothing? I saw it with my own eyes!”
Huang Yunfa was somewhat exasperated, “That puppet might be fake. It could be a dwarf in disguise. Quick, search, quickly search! He might still be hiding in my room!”
A group of people began rummaging through the room, turning everything upside down. Finally, someone found it and shouted, “Under the bed! The puppet is under the bed!”
Someone reached under the bed and pulled. With a clatter of wooden parts, a half-human-sized puppet was indeed dragged out from beneath the bed.
“It’s a real puppet!”
“Not a person disguised.”
“Then it's being manipulated,” Huang Yunfa shouted. “Quick, search! Is anyone hiding in the shadows, controlling this puppet with strings or something similar?”
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