Chapter 159 - 146: Plot Creator

Yin Zhen was completely speechless!

Over the past two days, she had climbed three mountains, visited four Taoist temples, encountered five fraudsters, and thrown away sixty thousand yuan.

Her emotions were all over the place. She was highly irritated and nursing a massive headache!

She hadn’t met a single master of the occult, but she had certainly met master con artists—each one more skilled than the last!

Having tasted so much of these swindlers’ blood, her mind was now overflowing with deceitful tricks. She wasn’t even used to telling the truth anymore. Even if someone merely asked if she had eaten, she would instinctively lie.

The side effects of Blood Source Resonance were starting to show!

Yin Zhen felt that finding that master in Sea City had been pure luck. Or perhaps the system was hinting that her next world would have a supernatural setting, equipping her—the villain—with cheats in advance.

On the morning of August 7th.

Yin Zhen woke up in a rural hotel at the foot of the mountain. After facing harsh realities for two days straight, her mind was much clearer, and she realized something.

The sixth rule of the Villain Aura: Plot Creator.

Ancient Abyss never had a supernatural setting before. It made perfect sense that everyone she had sought out over the last two days turned out to be a fraud. However, starting from that Yin Yang Master in Sea City, this new setting had subtly begun to emerge under her influence. It was a new plotline related to and created by her—a necessary prerequisite that allowed her, the villain, to stay one step ahead of the protagonist.

"I should start from here and continue pushing this plotline," she murmured to herself. "After acquiring the Yin Yang Master’s knowledge, I bought the villa, and clear elements of Feng Shui appeared there. In that case..."

Yin Zhen’s eyes lit up. She immediately dialed Lucy’s number.

"Lucy, how’s the investigation going regarding the two coffins buried beneath our villa? Did you find the contact information for the master who altered the construction site’s Feng Shui?"

"Please wait a moment."

Yin Zhen got out of bed to wash up. Halfway through her routine, the Pet Machine suddenly let out a sharp BEEP BEEP.

She quickly spat out her mouthwash and took out the Pet Machine to check. On the screen, the pixelated egg was wobbling, and cracks were starting to form on its shell.

Pleasantly surprised, Yin Zhen sat down with the device in hand. She had thought she would have to wait until seven o’clock that evening to reach the full seven-day mark.

The cracks on the eggshell multiplied. Before long, a head pushed through the top. With a punch to the left and a kick to the right, the shell was completely shattered. A tiny, pixelated Zoe—barefoot, sporting a head of red hair, and wearing a white nightgown—appeared on the screen.

She looked down at her child-like body, and heart-shaped bubbles popped up above her head.

"Zoe, can you speak?"

Zoe tried, but aside from using emojis and making the Pet Machine emit BEEP BEEP sounds, she couldn’t communicate with Yin Zhen verbally.

Seeing a dejected emoji bubble up over Zoe’s head, Yin Zhen quickly comforted her. "It’s okay. You’re still in your growth phase. It won’t be long before you can come out of there. Let’s just be a little patient."

BEEP BEEP!

Inside the Pet Machine, Zoe nodded and then began to scan her pixelated room. The room was completely empty. There was a door on the wall, and when Zoe opened it and stepped outside, there was actually an outdoor scene. It featured flowers, trees, a grassy lawn, and even a lake. The season and weather in the outdoor area perfectly matched the real world Yin Zhen was currently in.

[Spend 100 words to add a swing to the Pet Machine?]

The system’s sudden prompt made Yin Zhen pause as she wondered if she was really raising a pet now.

Yin Zhen selected yes. A swing immediately appeared beneath the large tree. A question mark popped up over Zoe’s head as she ran over to inspect it. She then sat on it and began to play, heart bubbles floating up as she enjoyed herself.

Leaning back in her chair, Yin Zhen started decorating for Zoe. She didn’t skimp on spending her words in the slightest. She furnished Zoe’s room with a bed, a desk, a sofa, a wardrobe, clothes, toiletries, and more—buying absolutely everything available in the store.

Amazingly, she could also spend words to provide Zoe with books, video games, and TV shows that existed in the real world, ensuring that Zoe wouldn’t get too bored in her little sanctuary.

Zoe loved reading. Now that she no longer had to bear the weight of a world’s survival on her shoulders, she could peacefully enjoy her reading time here.

Yin Zhen filled Zoe’s bookshelf to the brim. The tiny, pixelated Zoe spun around happily. She suddenly dashed to the desk, scribbled something on a piece of paper with a pen, and held it up to the screen.

"Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I’m very happy!"

The corners of Yin Zhen’s lips curled up involuntarily. "If you need anything, just make the device vibrate and write it down."

Zoe nodded vigorously. Unable to wait, she grabbed a sci-fi novel, leaned back on the sofa, and started reading, musical notes bubbling up above her head.

After hanging the Pet Machine back around her neck, Yin Zhen finally picked up her phone to check the message Lucy had sent.

"The master’s name is Bai Chongli. He took both coffins with him. The address registered on his household registry is fifty-six kilometers from your current location. I have already mapped out the route for you."

Yin Zhen briskly packed her belongings, checked out of the hotel, and chartered a car to her destination.

When Yin Zhen arrived at Bai Family Town, a rain shower had just passed through the mountains. Situated at the foot of a mountain, the small town was shrouded in a misty haze.

There was only one main street. High-quality cowhides were draped over the windowsills of the houses lining the road. Some had already been carved into humanoid outlines, while others were still translucent raw hides, gleaming with an oily luster under the post-rain sun.

During the ride, the driver had told Yin Zhen that this town was famous for producing Shadow Puppetry. Almost every household practiced the craft, and finished puppets hung by their doors.

Yin Zhen approached a random house to ask for directions. An old man sitting on the threshold sharpening bamboo sticks didn’t even look up.

"Bai Chongli died over a year ago. You’re here to ask him to look into a supernatural matter, aren’t you? You can go find Old Mrs. Bai. She’s Bai Chongli’s older sister. She can handle minor cases."

"And where does this Grandma Bai live?"

The old man held up a sharpened bamboo stick to the light, inspecting it before pointing Yin Zhen in a specific direction.

"She runs that paper-crafting shop at the west end of the town."

The shop wasn’t hard to find. A few funeral wreaths were displayed at the entrance, their bamboo frames stretched with white paper, not yet fully assembled. There was no signboard, but the door was wide open. Inside were glass counters and shelves straight out of the 1980s, displaying various candles, joss paper, and funerary items. Piled on the floor were paper horses, paper villas, and Papermen. There were even paper versions of the latest laptops and smartphones.

"Is anyone here?"

No one answered. Yin Zhen scanned her surroundings. The shop was right next to some farmlands, but there was no one in sight.

Yin Zhen stepped into the shop. The moment her foot touched the floor, a frantic ringing erupted above her head.

Looking up, she saw dozens of red strings strung across the ceiling. Each string was threaded with small bells, crisscrossing haphazardly to form an impenetrable net.

The bells vibrated on their own without any apparent cause, letting out a frantic JINGLE JANGLE that grew louder and more urgent.

Her gaze sharpened. These strings hadn’t been strung up randomly. Their intersecting points aligned with specific positions in the four corners of the shop, and the path of every single string deliberately bypassed the altar table positioned dead center.

On the altar sat a framed portrait of a deceased old man. It was the late Bai Chongli.

"Little girl," a raspy, aged voice spoke from behind her. "You have something quite unclean attached to you."

Yin Zhen turned around. Standing at the doorway was a hunched old woman gripping a handful of freshly cut chives. She was dressed like any other elderly woman in town, but her clouded eyes scanned Yin Zhen from head to toe before finally locking onto the shadow at her feet, a frown creasing her brow.

Yin Zhen’s eyes lit up. She had finally found the right place and the right person!