The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

#732 - Shadow Puppet

Lu Jing followed Zhihai's instructions and threw the iron box out first.

However, at that moment, a dark figure suddenly leaped out from the opposite rooftop, taking the lead in grabbing the iron chain on the box. Ignoring the burning heat, it turned and ran.

Zhihai was immediately anxious upon seeing this, and shouted, "Quick, stop him!"

Xia Huai hesitated for a moment, but then still chased after him.

As a result, the dark figure stopped abruptly after running a few steps, dodging Xia Huai's stab. Then, he took out a delicately crafted small hand crossbow from his bosom and shot an arrow at Zhihai.

Seeing the crossbow bolt flying towards him, Zhihai didn't have time to think and quickly used the "Iron Bridge" technique, leaning his body backward, narrowly avoiding the arrow.

However, the wooden fish he had been knocking was interrupted, and the separated flames instantly swept towards Lu Jing.

However, judging from the speed and height of his jump, he was clearly not completely out of danger. The area around his landing point was still covered in flames.

But there was no panic on Lu Jing's face. He unhurriedly threw a porcelain jar in his hand.

This was an oil bottle for storing lamp oil that he had found in the Taiping Qianzhuang.

Adding oil to a fire would normally be tantamount to suicide, but Lu Jing had noticed when observing the oil lamps in the vault that they were all extinguished.

Of course, it was late at night, and there was no one in the vault, so it was normal for no one to light the lamps.

But considering the fire in the Taiping Qianzhuang now, it was a little strange that these oil lamps were still not lit, especially when Lu Jing looked inside and found that the lamp oil in the lamp stands was still there.

So he tried splashing some of the lamp oil on the fire and found that it actually extinguished the fire.

Well, since water can fuel a fire, it's not that strange that oil can extinguish it.

So Lu Jing searched around a bit and found two oil bottles, one full and the other half full, and took them with him. As expected, they came in handy now.

He first smashed the full oil bottle down, forcing back the surrounding flames, and jumped into the air urgently. Then, he threw the remaining half bottle out.

Instantly, he cleared a space under his feet. Although the space was not large, Lu Jing didn't intend to stay there for long. He just tapped his toes lightly and leaped up again.

And this time, he jumped directly out of the sea of fire.

Seeing that Lu Jing was safe and sound, Xia Huai also breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to deal with the masked man.

On the contrary, the masked man, seeing that Lu Jing had escaped, seemed to realize that the situation was not good. He abandoned the iron chain in his hand and prepared to flee, but was enveloped by Xia Huai's sword light.

In order not to be recognized by Zhihai, the girl did not use the sword techniques passed down from her sect. She was now using the sword moves from the "Thirteen Swords of Tianmen" that she had obtained in the dilapidated temple.

Although it hadn't been long, Xia Huai had already practiced this set of sword techniques with great skill.

Each move was faster than the last, like a滔滔river, continuous and without any stagnation.

The masked man was quickly overwhelmed, struggling to dodge. However, before long, he was injured, and Xia Huai slashed him in the left rib.

But the next moment, the girl let out a soft exclamation, because her long sword did not feel like it had pierced flesh and blood, but instead made a hollow, muffled sound.

Xia Huai frowned, retracted her sword, and then her swordplay became even more fierce.

She forced the masked man to the corner of the roof!

At this time, Zhihai no longer needed to control his Heavenly Fire Array, so he shouted, "Female hero Xi, this monk will help you!"

After speaking, he was about to leap onto the roof, but his heel had just left the ground when a hand pressed on his shoulder, and then his body fell back down.

Zhihai turned his head and saw Lu Jing grinning at him.

"There's no need for the master to worry about a mere hidden lackey. Xijun alone can handle him."

Before he could finish speaking, Xia Huai had struck again.

The girl's sword was aimed at the masked man's wide-open chest, but halfway there, she suddenly changed her move, picking diagonally upwards, directly lifting the veil covering the man's face.

"Shadow Puppet?" After seeing the face under the veil, Xia Huai's eyes flickered, and she uttered four words.

Zhihai's expression also changed slightly, but he quickly returned to his composure, revealing a look of heartfelt grief, "I've long heard that someone in my Sitianjian has betrayed us. I didn't expect it to be true."

The Shadow Puppet was a magical artifact driven by talismans and formations. It could execute some simple commands, but it was expensive to build. The materials to create a Shadow Puppet were enough to buy a flying sword.

And this was only a small Shadow Puppet. A Shadow Puppet as tall as a person like this cost three to five times as much as a regular puppet.

In addition, since the Shadow Puppet was a magical artifact, it could only be driven by cultivators. In other words, Mr. Ji and his group of strange item subordinates obviously couldn't command such a thing.

This was also the reason for Zhihai's heartache.

Lu Jing raised his head and asked Xia Huai, "Can you find its master through this Shadow Puppet?"

Xia Huai shook her head, "Perhaps only great cultivators above the Fourth Palace can do that."

The girl paused, then continued, "But... I can sever the connection between this Shadow Puppet and its master, and in that case, that person probably won't feel too good either."

"Good, do it."

Lu Jing had also heard of the Shadow Puppet's reputation. Even the academy only had one Shadow Puppet, and it was usually serving tea and water for Su Tixue. Ordinary people couldn't see it at all.

He didn't expect that a Shadow Puppet would be sent to him now. Wouldn't it be too polite to not accept this generous gift worth millions of taels of silver?

Zhihai finally changed color and said, "Don't sever the connection yet. Let's capture this Shadow Puppet first."

"Why?" Lu Jing looked sideways at Zhihai.

"This monk can take this thing back to the Sitianjian and ask an expert to track down its owner. In this way, we can find out who the traitor is."

Zhihai's heart was pounding wildly, but he still managed to find a plausible excuse.