Love from the Male Protagonist's Harem

Chapter 85-Wooden Doll Part 1

Translated by Snowfall77

When her conversation with Xia Wuyin was over, Chu Yi returned to Jianfeng.  Although she did not go back to her rooms, but instead went directly to Chu Yao’s destroyed bamboo house.

The debris of Xia Ge’s destroyed puppet was still scattered around the area, and several disciples of Shoufeng were using their spirit beasts to investigate.

Spirit beasts of Shoufeng were quite good at both distinguishing auras and tracking.  Chu Yi, standing in the bamboo forest not far off, watched for a long while.  Until finally she withdrew her gaze, long, delicate eyelashes cast down, shadowing her eyes.

Until one of Chu Yao’s guards walked by, and glancing up, Chu Yi ordered him: “Stop.”

“Ai……”  Unnerved, the disciple halted.  When he saw that it was Chu Yi who’d spoken to him, he was even more awkward: “Miss, what can I help you with?”

“Ye……” Chu Yi paused, “Where are the other guards in your group?”

The disciple answered: “We’re all over, searching everywhere.  Are you looking for a particular person?  Senior Chu went with Senior Chang, so the guard just……”

“Ah, I see,” Chu Yi said, “Sorry to bother you.”

“No problem, no problem……”  The disciple was gratified by Chu Yi’s words.

All of a sudden, the Shoufeng disciples apparently found something that highly consternated them.  Gathering round the ruined door of the bamboo house, they put their heads together in deep discussion.

Eyebrows slightly raised; Chu Yi made her way through the wreckage to ask them: “What’s going on?”

The disciples of Shoufeng weren’t very familiar with Chu Yi.  After looking at each other for a moment, one finally replied: “There’s some small puppet fragments here that have a different aura from the rest……”

“Oh?”

Meanwhile, a little goat had a piece of debris in its mouth and refused to let it go.  It was the spirit beast of a round-faced Shoufeng disciple, who was currently trying to gently coax it.  Looking at the disciple with limpid eyes, the tsundere goat simply raised its chin.

The round-faced disciple helplessly reached out to it, cajoling: “Let it go, Xiaobai.  Let me have it, and when we go back, I’ll give you some really good food.”

Xiaobai the goat reluctantly spat the fragment out into its master’s hand to be piled together with the other fragments that had the ‘different’ aura.

The fragments had all been burned pitch-black.  And since there was only a few pieces, trying to put them together was rather difficult, the Shoufeng disciples maddeningly fussing about with them……

“This piece is the head!”

“What?  No, that’s not the head, it should be placed here……”

“Isn’t this part of an arm?!”

“Bullshit, that’s obviously a leg!”

“……”

“Baa……”

The little goat punctuated the proceedings with a couple more lazy bleats.

“Baa, what baa?!  This is your goat’s fault!  Look, it got its slobber over this piece!”

“Yeah, well, it’s clear that your dog bit this piece!”

“My Xiaohei’s drool isn’t that smelly!”

“……”

Chu Yi: “……”

Although she could understand their frustration.

Eventually, after swearing was met with more swearing, and arms were mistaken for legs and vice versa, the ‘body’ was finally assembled.  The whole thing was charred black and missing many pieces, including the head, yet it clear it’d been a small puppet.

“Judging by the blast marks, I think it exploded from the inside,” one Shoufeng disciple said, “It was an exquisite puppet, the puppet master who made it must be extremely skilled.”

The round-faced, goat-raising Shoufeng disciple sneered: “Oh, come on.  If you know so much about puppet masters, why don’t you go become a puppet master and take your black dog with you.”

The dog-raising Shoufeng disciple was about to return fire, but was interrupted by Chu Yi: “Sorry to trouble everyone, only……I don’t understand why the big commotion over this little puppet?”

The Shoufeng disciple with the black dog: “The lingqi of this puppet is pure.  It has huomai, but has no demonic qi, which is very unusual.  Not like the demonic puppets of the Demon Sect that only know how to fight.”

Eyes narrowing, Chu Yi stared down at the puppet corpse lying on a stone slab.

……traces of……huomai?

What a coincidence.

Danfeng’s lingqi was all huomai, wasn’t it?

If that was the case……how interesting.

“What are you all doing?”

Chu Yao’s voice rang out, tinged with impatience.  “Why are you huddled up?  Have you finished looking over everything?”

The round-faced Shoufeng disciple: “Ah, Senior Chu……we found a small puppet with huomai lingqi.”

“A little puppet with huomai lingqi?  So not a demonized puppet?”  Slightly puzzled for a second, Chu Yao then quickly thought of the short person who’d thrown persimmons during the melee.

Chu Yao hadn’t been able to see it completely clearly, but……before Chu Yao had swung her sword, that short person had thrown something at the thief in black.

A shallow smile on her lips, Chu Yi asked: “Ah, sister is done talking with Senior Brother?”

Finally noticing her younger sister, Chu Yao frowned: “What are you doing here?”

“I came to help my elder sister hunt for spies,” Chu Yi pursed her lips before smiling again, “Am I not welcome?”

Chu Yao answered bluntly: “Not welcome.”

Chu Yi: “I guess it can’t be helped.  It makes me so happy to see you unhappy.”

Chu Yao chuckled dryly as her fists clenched: “Don’t think I won’t hit you.”

Even as her gaze turned icier, Chu Yi’s smile stayed the same: “Oh?”

Hostility filled the atmosphere.

Making the mood extremely tense.

Xiaobai the goat: “Baa……”

Round-faced Shoufeng disciple: “Ah, ah, Xiaobai, are you scared?  Senior Chu, you’ve scared my little Baibai!”

Bark!  The black dog belonging to the Shoufeng disciple who liked to study puppetry added its complaint.

Its master, pale with fright: “Ah, Xiaohei!  Why are you making noise?!  Are you not feeling well?!  Please, let the seniors be merciful!!”

Chu Yao: “……”  What the hell was a ‘Baibai?’

Chu Yi: “……”

小白  xiao bai

Macbook;  white;  Smallwhite

(slang) novice; greenhorn / (old) (slang) fool; idiot / abbr. for 小白臉｜小白脸, pretty boy

黑hēi

black / dark / sinister / secret / shady / illegal / to hide (sth) away / to vilify / (loanword) to hack (computing)

火脉  huomai

Fire pulse    or    fire vein