Chapter 134: Zhao Que's Secret and a Corner of the Truth About the Forest Farm

Even the usually gentle and good-tempered Zhao Que was angered by this point.

"Junior Fu Yang, there's a limit to how much you can show off. I know you're well-endowed, but please try to be a bit more low-key. After all, neither I nor Her Excellency the Cat Demon was its target..."

Master Bear twitched his little paws, looking as though he desperately wanted to scratch Fu Yang's private parts.

Fu Yang wore a blank look of bewilderment.

Turning his head and spotting a broken wooden board nearby, he hurriedly picked it up to cover his crotch, offering an awkward smile to the two of them.

"What on earth is going on here? And Doctor Zhao, why are you here? Could it..."

He was not a fool; if he could not guess by now that Zhao Que might not be an ordinary person, he would be completely brainless.

It was glaringly obvious that his senior schoolmate had a connection to the events in the morgue. When he recalled how he had once been chased by walking corpses, fell into the water, and encountered a water ghost, only to be easily rescued by him...

Fu Yang's expression grew solemn.

"Doctor Zhao, don't tell me you're the one behind all this?"

The guy wore a righteous expression yet stood completely naked, holding a broken piece of wood to shield his manhood. The visual was deeply comical.

Zhao Que let out a bitter laugh. "Junior Fu Yang, you'd better put on some clothes first. Nakedness between men is hardly appropriate. I can tell you that this has a certain connection to me, but I didn't cause it, nor do I harbor any malicious intentions."

Yet where were there any clothes to be found?

Fu Yang steeled his heart and gritted his teeth. "Forget it! It's the middle of the night and there's no one outside; the worst I can do is run naked once. Let's hurry to your office."

Thus, a bizarre trio consisting of a doctor, a fat cat, and a naked man appeared in the middle of the night at Jiang University's campus hospital...

Inside Zhao Que's office.

Fu Yang was holding Master Bear while gazing at Zhao Que across the desk.

"Doctor Zhao, now, shouldn't you give me an explanation?"

Zhao Que remained silent, fixing Fu Yang with an amused gaze. "Junior, shouldn't you give me an explanation first? Three months ago, you were completely an ordinary person, yet in such a short span of time, your magical power has become so formidable! Word of this would likely leave the supernatural community in sheer disbelief."

"The matter concerning young Fu is a private affair. Even if he were to be ordained as a Taoist master in just three days, it would be none of anyone else's business. As a doctor, using your official position to handle walking corpses and nurture puppet-corpses in the morgue is fundamentally a dark and evil practice. If you accidentally lose control and those walking corpses or puppet-corpses escape to harm people, the Zero Division and the Religious Affairs Administration will probably throw a fit..."

Master Bear sat on the desk, swinging his short legs and counting on his tiny paws, speaking in a leisurely and unhurried manner.

Ginger is always spicier when aged, and demons are always more formidable when fat!

With just a few words, this fellow had driven Zhao Que to a dead end. As long as he was not truly an evil Taoist or genuinely determined to burn bridges with Fu Yang, he had no choice but to tell the truth.

Sure enough, Zhao Que started, stunned.

He had no choice but to reveal the secret regarding himself and the morgue...

As it turned out, Zhao Que hailed from a minor sect specializing in "puppet-nurturing."

Although this small sect possessed only average influence, it followed the philosophy of an "elite force." The core disciples of this generation who held hopes of succeeding the sect leader were only him and his senior martial brother, Zhao Quan.

From childhood, both of them possessed similar talents in Taoist arts and managerial capabilities regarding sect affairs, which had left the previous sect leader agonizing over the choice of a successor.

Roughly ten years ago, Zhao Que entered Jiangcheng University as a student.

Back then, he was still in the late stage of the Mage realm, even lower than Fu Yang's current cultivation level.

While on a date with a young woman in the campus woods, he discovered something amiss...

The entire woodland area was a massive puppet-nurturing ground!

Zhao Que was so startled he was dumbstruck on the spot.

A puppet-nurturing ground of such monumental scale was something he had never even dared to imagine in his wildest dreams.

A puppet-nurturing ground differed fundamentally from a corpse-nurturing ground.

Corpse-nurturing grounds occurred either naturally or through artificial creation. Their functions were largely similar: gathering necrotic Qi, enabling corpses to transform into ghostly entities endowed with various abilities.

Puppet-nurturing grounds, however, could only be artificially manufactured, and the process was immensely complex.

Nurturing corpses essentially meant producing powerful corpse-type ghosts and specters. The results were predominantly walking corpses, or if one's luck defied the heavens, perhaps a jiangshi! Moreover, they would not necessarily obey the creator's commands, requiring additional effort to control and subdue them.

Puppet-nurturing, on the other hand, utilized extremely complex esoteric arts from the very beginning, ensuring that once the puppet was successfully formed, it would naturally obey the commands of its nurturer.

What was even more significant was... heaven knew what kind of monsters would be bred out of it!

Demon-puppets, ghost-puppets, corpse-puppets, hybrid-puppets...

A dazzling and bizarre array of creations.

Theoretically speaking, corpse-drivers were actually a breakaway faction derived from the "corpse-puppet" lineage of puppet-nurturers!

However, because puppet-nurturing arts were exceedingly difficult to practice and infinitely complex, their cost-effectiveness was simply too low. By the present day, puppet-nurturing arts had fallen behind corpse-driving arts.

Their fame and status within the supernatural community also paled in comparison to the thriving corpse-driving community.

Therefore, when Zhao Que discovered that the entire Jiang University woodland was a colossal puppet-nurturing ground, alongside extreme shock and terror, there existed a trace of excitement deep within his heart!

"Doesn't the supernatural community think we puppet-nurturers are incompetent and mere weaklings? Look at this—such a magnificent undertaking, using an entire forest as a puppet-nurturing ground! Surely the Taoist cultivation level here must be at least that of a Sixth-Rank True Master, right?"

Such were Zhao Que's thoughts at the time.

Thus, he excitedly reported this to his master—the then-leader of his minor sect—who personally came to Jiangcheng University to investigate the site.

Yet, contrary to Zhao Que's expectations, after inspecting the woodland, his master did not display the joy he had imagined; instead, his mood was somewhat heavy.

Curious, he asked what was wrong, but his master merely waved a hand, telling him he did not need to know too much.

Over the next half-year, Zhao Que's master searched the entirety of Jiangcheng University, uncovering numerous clues related to the woodland. Afterward, he issued several instructions to Zhao Que.

First, he informed him that the Jiang University woodland was not an orthodox puppet-nurturing ground and harbored major problems! Although the true grand array deep underground was now broken and in ruins, matters here were beyond what their minor sect could afford to meddle with. Therefore, he should no longer concern himself with the woods, and it was best to avoid going there altogether under normal circumstances.

Second, since the woodland territory was already ruined and had remained masterless for many years, there was no harm in them quietly stealing a bit of leftover meat from a tiger's den that no longer housed a tiger.

Put simply, they intended to borrow the massive amounts of Yin energy, baleful Qi, necrotic Qi, and other negative energies harbored beneath the woodland to forge "puppets"!

To a puppet-nurturing practitioner, this was practically paradise.

Zhao Que's master decided that the battle for succession between him and Zhao Quan would be waged by finding a way to "steal" the power of the woodland within Jiangcheng University, in order to nurture two supreme puppet types recorded in their sect's scriptures!

The Armored Dark-Puppet Corpse-Puppet and the Banshee Ghost-Puppet!!!

Once these two types of puppets were successfully "nurtured," they would naturally possess combat prowess comparable to the early stage of the Third-Rank True Master realm. For a minor sect, this already constituted an immensely formidable existence.