Chapter 59: Missing Parts—Were They Not Provided, or Were They Broken?……

In the previous cycle, Lin Zhao had seen the Lord of Di’s totem form. Back then, even though the Lord of Di’s intellect had been heavily suppressed, his intuition remained overwhelmingly powerful, to the extent that his younger brother could only ever win verbal arguments.

Moreover, he was perfectly capable of distinguishing between enemy and ally. There was no way he was as terrifying as this little puppet made him out to be.

Therefore, harboring the sentiment that "human prejudice is truly a towering mountain," Lin Zhao asked, "So, are we going to the Puppet Heaven together with the Lord of Di, or are just Yaoguang and I going?"

The little puppet pondered for a moment. "It’s better to go with the Lord of Di. That way, even if he acts recklessly, he will be kept under your control and won't end up punching a hole straight through the Puppet Heaven."

Since they were bringing the ancient tree along with the Lord of Di, Lin Zhao set his mind at ease. "Alright, when are we leaving?"

After all, if he could still encounter danger with both the ancient tree and the Lord of Di by his side, there was nothing more to be said—he would just reset the game.

More importantly, he had already grown disdainful of the leveling speed of doing things solo. He was about to be carried by high-level teammates, and carried hard!

Seeing how readily Lin Zhao agreed, the little puppet wore a smile as well. "Then follow me to the Puppet Heaven to see the Lord of Di."

Lin Zhao was waiting for it to open a portal, but instead, it stretched out its slender arms. A strange force descended upon the surroundings, like a sudden mist that swallowed everything in sight. The entire world turned a blank white in an instant. When the white mist faded away... well, everything around them remained entirely unchanged.

The city was still the exact same city, with pedestrians bustling past in a hurry. A planetarium shaped like a large kite hung in the sky, and windmills rotated on both banks of the river valley.

"Did it fail?" Lin Zhao looked around, glancing left and right.

"No, the appearance of the Puppet Heaven was originally modeled after the Kingdom of Qihong," the little puppet explained from the side. "That way, when the souls of the dead come to live in the Puppet Heaven, they will feel a sense of homecoming."

"Uh..." Lin Zhao thought to himself that this was simply too much. If he had to go to work even after dying, wouldn't his death have been completely in vain?

Ji Yaoguang smiled and explained from the side, "There are some differences, too. Look at the cracks in the sky."

Lin Zhao raised his eyes and only then noticed that inside the gaps of the planetarium, it was not a purple sun, but a golden radiance.

"In the Puppet Heaven, there are differences," the little puppet said proudly. "There is a sun here, endless food and resources, and no need to work. The deceased citizens can do what they love here, find the people they love, and study the things they love. Therefore, countless living people of the Kingdom of Qihong look forward to entering the Puppet Heaven after death to enjoy a life of happiness."

Lin Zhao looked at the pedestrians on the street. They were indistinguishable from ordinary people, yet their expressions were sorrowful, lifeless, and akin to walking corpses.

Thus, he could not help but say, "Look at their expressions! They don't look very happy at all!"

The little puppet pursed its lips and pointed casually at a passerby. "You, come here!"

That pedestrian was a young girl. Upon hearing this, her expression changed drastically. Trembling with fear, she approached cautiously and stammered, "P-Please, Great Supervisor, did this humble one commit some offense?"

The puppet glanced at her. "Why the long face?"

The girl trembled as she replied, "T-This humble one... this humble one merely misses her little child. When I died, my child was only seven years old and still unable to look after himself, which is why I am grieved."

The little puppet then turned to Lin Zhao and said, "You see? She misses her family, which is why she is downcast."

Lin Zhao nodded.

The little puppet then told the girl, "Alright, you may withdraw."

The girl immediately kowtowed in gratitude and then fled as if running for her life. As for the surrounding puppet residents, the very moment the little puppet called out to the girl, they had already scattered like birds and beasts.

Only then did Lin Zhao look at the puppet, frowning as he said, "From now on, you are not allowed to haul people over randomly. Besides, everyone here knows you—change your appearance."

The little puppet was somewhat displeased, but it still transformed its conspicuous crown and eyepatch into an ordinary headscarf and blindfold. At a glance, it now looked like a small, swaggering pirate who had stolen someone else's battle armor.

Looking at the now-empty and quiet plaza around him, Lin Zhao walked over to the steps of a fountain and picked up a book that had been dropped on the ground.

Opening it, he found it was a book filled with various mathematical theories. The content was quite elementary, discussing the definitions of points, lines, and planes, and recording various postulates and theorems. It was an introductory math book.

Seeing this, the puppet casually remarked, "This is an introductory numerology book for sorcerers. It's something every young sorcerer has to learn when they first start out."

Lin Zhao quickly flipped through it for a moment and found a sentence written in unfamiliar symbols on the back of the book. He asked, "Yaoguang, what is this?"

"I don't recognize it." Ji Yaoguang saw the slight look of disappointment in Lin Zhao's eyes and smiled faintly. "However, I can read the spiritual memories left upon it, and then I'll know what these symbols mean."

That was truly wonderful—he was carrying a portable translator with him everywhere.

Lin Zhao immediately handed the book to Ji Yaoguang. Ji Yaoguang gently touched it with her hand, then withdrew it. "This is a sentence written by the owner of the book: 'Everything is false, only mathematics is true!'"

"What a philosopher!" Lin Zhao smiled and placed the book back in its original spot. "Now then, let's go find the Lord of Di first. Where is he?"

The puppet said with some displeasure, "He doesn't work. He's in the Grand Library."

Following the main road, the group soon arrived at a massive castle-like structure. Every room inside was so vast that it reminded Lin Zhao of an airport terminal. The bookshelves along the way were easily twenty or thirty meters tall, requiring people to climb up on ladders to read from them. The entire library resembled a gigantic maze.

However, the Lord of Di was far too easy to find.

Because Lin Zhao had already spotted a white snake tail coiled like a rope around one of the bookshelves.

Following the tail upwards, the Lord of Di still retained his human upper body. Thousands of books were placed before him, flipping past at lightning speed as if stirred by a great gale. The moment one book finished turning its pages, another would drop down in its place. His massive snake tail occasionally tapped the ground with a hint of irritability, causing the entire library to tremble slightly.

Seeing Ji Yaoguang bring Ah Zhao over, his snake tail swiftly retracted, transforming into armor that clung tightly to his slender figure. His bloodthirsty, slit-like pupils also returned to a rounded shape as he descended beside them.

"The collection here is quite interesting," Si Li raised a hand, and all the books flew swiftly back onto the bookshelves. He smiled faintly, "Unlike the outside world, I occasionally record things here so that I can copy them back home later."

"You are a Heavenly Sorcerer, yet you still need to study this knowledge?" Lin Zhao asked with curiosity, "What kind of interesting books are they?"

"There is no end to learning. Looking at them occasionally can help quell the baleful Qi of the Ba serpent." Si Li casually summoned a few books. "Take this one, for instance. It discusses the reasons why the Kingdom of Qihong has ended up in its current predicament, and even analyzes the development directions of the twenty allied states. I find it quite fascinating. And this one—it discusses the most profound numerology theories. I am planning to take a few of its conjectures to ask the Great Shantu..."

The little puppet explained from the side with a gloomy tone, "These citizens of the Puppet Heaven have no hardships in their lives, so they always like to ponder useless things. Those who discuss numerology are fine, but they also like to ponder the relationships within the Kingdom of Qihong, to ponder laws, to ponder the relationships between people, and the relationship between sorcerers and mortals..."

Lin Zhao asked, "Is there something wrong with that? Pondering is inherently the most fundamental difference between humans and grass, trees, or ferocious beasts."

The puppet fell silent for a moment and was about to speak when the surroundings suddenly plunged into darkness. The world outside the windows lost its sun, transforming unexpectedly into a starry sky. It looked toward the Lord of Di.

The Lord of Di soared up on the wind, his massive snake tail reappearing. He flew out from the huge floor-to-ceiling window, and with a sweeping motion of his coiled tail, he tore a massive breach through the surrounding night, allowing sunlight to pour back in.

"What are these black things?" Lin Zhao was somewhat annoyed. He felt like he had become an elementary school student who knew nothing, so he angrily turned around and bit the ancient tree on the shoulder.

"Those are the other consciousnesses of the Puppet Heaven." It tickled a little, so Ji Yaoguang reached out to stroke the spot, somewhat looking forward to Ah Zhao biting down again, preferably a bit harder. "The souls of these puppets have actually caused the Puppet Heaven to give birth to another consciousness! They are fighting for control of the Puppet Heaven. How... how did they manage this? This is a natal puppet whose body and soul are connected to the Lord of Qihong!"

A thought stirred in Lin Zhao's heart. The warm current of the totem in his chest rushed to his eyes, and his innate ability activated. He walked quickly to the window and saw countless grayish-white soul light-spots lingering throughout the world, illuminating the entire Puppet Heaven as bright as day, while the surroundings remained pitch black.

Amidst these grayish-white soul lights, there were many pure white light-spots. Like someone painting with a brush, they were dyeing the grayish-white light-spots into a pristine white.

The Lord of Di was like a skilled surgeon, tearing open the black regions among these grayish-white soul light-spots, allowing them to enter the realm of the white light-spots and be dyed white once more.

However...

Lin Zhao saw a crack in the void where a dozen or so light-spots were being swallowed by that fissure.

"What is that?" Lin Zhao pointed curiously in a certain direction. "How come there's a crack?"

In the sky, this tiny sound did not escape the ears of the Heavenly Sorcerer. The Lord of Di's slit-like pupils contracted. His massive snake tail slashed out like a sharp sword in an instant, leaving Lin Zhao no time to cry out for a halt.

With a resounding crash, a massive breach was torn across the entire Puppet Heaven. Beyond the breach was an ordinary street, where a passerby was looking at the tear in confusion.

Then, he was trampled over by countless light-spots rushing out from the breach, letting out a series of miserable screams.

Almost simultaneously, six puppets of varying sizes wearing crowns appeared within the massive white light-spots, exerting their power together to patch up the breach with endless streams of light.

Only then did normalcy return to the Puppet Heaven.

However...

"The Puppet Heaven is broken!" The little puppet shrieked, then said in a painful and heavy tone, "Just now, more than ten thousand puppets from the Puppet Heaven escaped into the Kingdom of Qihong."

Lin Zhao gave a light cough and couldn't help but look at the Lord of Di.

The smile on the Lord of Di's face vanished, and he said in a deep voice, "This damage has existed for at least three hundred years. I merely discovered this matter—how could you still attempt to frame me?"

The little puppet immediately shook its head. "No, no, no, we absolutely didn't mean that. I just didn't expect that the flaws of the Puppet Heaven had already been found by them long ago, discovering an exit. Those puppets actually hid it so well."

Only then did the Lord of Di put his smile back on and explain to Lin Zhao, "The Puppet Heaven of the Lord of Qihong is a grotto-heaven world, formed by relying on the Lord of Qihong's natal totem. Having evolved for thousands of years, the Lord of Qihong used the Puppet Heaven to collect all the souls of the dead of the Kingdom of Qihong over millennia, establishing a pure land within it."

With that, he glanced at the little puppet.

The little puppet immediately stood at attention, stretched out its hand, and projected a suspended, three-dimensional light screen in the void. It was—a world almost indistinguishable from the Kingdom of Qihong, complete with windmill architecture on both banks of the river valley, a planetary clock in the sky, and countless wonders in the city. The only difference was that the sun within it was golden, birds and butterflies rested and fluttered among the trees and flowers of the city, and even the chimneys emitted no exhaust fumes whatsoever.