The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 115

The room reeked with a powerful human stench mixed with the acrid smell of lacquer and glue.

The light was dim.

Zhao Li waved a hand before her face. Looking up, she saw shadowy human forms standing throughout the room.

Her hand instinctively closed around her saber hilt.

She bent into a guarded stance and stepped forward. Only then did she realize that every figure was a wooden puppet.

They were exquisitely crafted and approximately the size of real people.

Zhao Li approached one.

It was plainly female.

Its ball-jointed body stood naked, every anatomical detail of the complete body meticulously carved.

The puppet’s eyes were neither fully open nor shut. It had a delicate nose, pretty lips, and a cute, palm-sized oval face.

Zhao Li thought that if the master and apprentice had not committed crimes or been so vicious, their craftsmanship would have made a fortune producing collectible figures.

The next instant, she noticed something strange.

The puppet’s right hand was twisted, as though someone had deliberately and brutally broken it.

Zhao Li looked around. The room contained puppets of every sort, some even dressed in beautiful wedding clothes.

Without exception, every right hand was damaged.

Zhao Li immediately knew this was Shaogang’s room.

Besides the puppets, it held a narrow bed and a large workbench in one corner.

Unlike the dirty clothes and foul socks scattered everywhere, the tools on the bench were arranged with great neatness.

A small booklet lay in the center.

Zhao Li stepped over and flipped through it. Her eyes lit up.

It was Shaogang’s diary.

It contained no embarrassing secrets. Instead, every page overflowed with hatred, every character steeped in venom.

[So cold. So cold. It snowed again today, yet when I remember that those people will suffer a hundredfold, I no longer feel the cold.]

[The wound in my right hand aches again today, reminding me of that afternoon! Die die die die…] The rest of the page was covered with the character for death.

…

Losing the use of his right hand had profoundly affected Shaogang.

He thought about it almost constantly and blamed every frustration in his life on his disability.

Every night, he cursed the fur merchant’s family who had reduced him to this state.

Even after they had long been trapped in the hell scroll and tortured into beasts.

Zhao Li read several pages before a key phrase caught her eye.

[After two years, Master Nanzhai wrote to us again today.]

Zhao Li ran a finger over the line as her thoughts raced.

Nanzhai truly was connected to the pair.

According to Zheng Lian, Nanzhai specialized exclusively in erotic art, and only his erotic illustrations circulated for sale.

Yet an exceedingly rare image of hell had fallen into the master and apprentice’s hands.

Nanzhai had been famous for years, and rumors had once claimed he had put down his brush.

Even if such a painting did not command an astronomical price, it would certainly be extremely rare.

But two years ago, Master Chang and Shaogang had been poor carpenters, vulnerable to others’ abuse.

It made no sense for such an object to reach their hands and be used as a ritual charm.

Then there was the scroll’s roller, made from locust wood.

Painters ordinarily did not mount scrolls on locust wood.

But the wood possessed one conspicuous property: it gathered yin energy, earning it the name ghost wood.

A scroll mounted on locust wood had been made for a very particular purpose—to assist the master and apprentice’s suppression magic.

Zhao Li patted Shaogang’s diary lightly and turned the page.

[Master Nanzhai said he found a blind courtesan in the Zhushi Quarter, with slender, delicate hands.]

[Master Nanzhai said he happened upon a leading courtesan at Hundred Flowers House, whose cherry lips were sweet as honey.]

Zhao Li frowned. From these pages onward, Master Nanzhai appeared with rapidly increasing frequency.

He wandered among Shengjing’s pleasure quarters.

And each time, he shared his impressions with Shaogang.

It was normal for an erotic artist to seek material, but Zhao Li still sensed something wrong.

She continued reading, then her hand stopped.

[I owe Master Nanzhai a tremendous debt. One day, I will fulfill his cherished wish.]

[I will create a flawless, perfect woman for him.]

[If those slender jade hands and honey-sweet cherry lips belonged to one person, she would be extraordinarily beautiful.]

An ominous possibility occurred to Zhao Li. Sure enough, she found these words on the next page:

[Regrettably, my skill was inadequate. Before I could finish the carving, those jade hands rotted and filled with maggots. I have failed the materials Master Nanzhai found.]

[I truly am useless. Master had to intervene.]

Zhao Li clenched her teeth.

Nanzhai and Shaogang seemed to be collecting women’s body parts to manufacture some kind of perfect woman.

Her gaze moved down the page.

[Master Nanzhai sent another batch of materials.]

Shaogang’s handwriting on this page was messy. He had plainly been extremely excited while writing.

[Master truly deserves his reputation for heavenly craftsmanship. He actually completed it. Unfortunately, this masterpiece still lacks a pair of eyes.]

[Master Nanzhai says a penal courtesan of extraordinary beauty at Fule House has eyes like limpid autumn waters.]

[He says that after this year’s courtesan rankings, those beautiful eyes will be ours.]

The diary ended there. Zhao Li abruptly realized that Nanzhai had chosen the eyes of a penal courtesan, but apparently had not yet obtained them.

Of Shengjing’s fourteen entertainment houses under the Court Entertainment Office, Fule House—the oldest—stood across the river from the Jiangnan Examination Hall.

Most of its women were the wives and daughters of convicted officials and criminals.

That distinction made it especially attractive to people with malicious intentions.

As though humiliating a fallen political enemy’s wife and daughters offered unparalleled satisfaction.

Merchants in the city also frequented Fule House to sample the wives and daughters of officials.

For precisely this reason, Fule House did excellent business and was guarded most strictly.

Perhaps that was why Nanzhai had not succeeded yet.

Zhao Li snapped the diary shut and strode out.

Now that she had a clue, she needed to send people to protect the target first.

Capturing the culprit would be best. But even if they failed, they could not let a young woman lose her life merely because she had beautiful eyes.

Zhao Li had just reached the doorway when an alarmed cry sounded next door.

Her heart lurched. Saber in hand, she kicked the half-closed door open.

It slammed into the wall and shook loose several chunks of plaster.

But the room did not contain the emergency she had imagined.

A group of Guard officers stood crowded together, every face flushed red.

In their midst stood a completely naked woman.

No—it could not be called a woman.

Zhao Li approached for a closer look.

Its eyes were tightly shut and its cherry lips pressed together.

Its skin was snow-white, its proportions so perfect that adding or subtracting the slightest amount would diminish them.

There was not a single unattractive part.

Only the wooden ball joints at its elbows and knees exposed its true nature.

It was a puppet—a puppet assembled from countless victimized women.

“Is… is this real?” Hundred-Household Commander Ma still held the cloth he had removed from the puppet’s head. He stammered, “The craftsmanship truly rivals nature. It looks no different from a living woman.”

With that, he extended one finger, intending to poke it.