The little paper servant clung to the back of Geng Qiushan's chair, silently waiting for the right moment. His sleek black hair hung just above his collar. It only needed to stretch a tiny bit further to reach it. When everyone in the room turned their attention to the fire basin on the balcony, the little paper servant darted out, grabbed a strand of hair, and gave it a hard yank.
"Hiss!" Geng Qiushan winced at the sudden pain on his scalp. He reached back to touch it, but found nothing, and saw no one behind him either. Something felt off, but he couldn't quite explain it.
Suppressing the unease, he turned to the kidnapper leader and said, "Go to the fire basin. Say a few words to that dead friend of yours. Tell him to use this money and visit you in a dream. He'll let you know if the money works in the afterlife."
The leader looked doubtful, but it wasn't up to him anymore. Geng Qiushan's men had already dragged him over to the fire basin. After burning the paper money, they forced him to drink a cup of water laced with some unknown substance. Drowsiness hit him like a wave, and he passed out.
When he woke again, his entire demeanor had changed. He had dreamed of his old friend, long since dead. In the dream, the friend was thanking him for the offering, saying the money had come in handy down there. So the money really could be used in the afterlife?
"You believe me now, don't you?" Geng Qiushan smiled, coaxing. "Tell me what you know, and I'll prepare more hell coins for you and your brothers. You'll walk the Yellow Springs Road without trouble. The coins I craft aren't like the others—nothing else even comes close."
Song Miaozhu had just finished crafting Geng Qiushan's curse paper doll. When she heard those words, she glanced up and shook her head quietly.
Those coins looked impressive, sure. Carefully made, even elegant. But what gave hell coins their true weight wasn't the craftsmanship—it was the emotion poured into them by the living. That longing, that grief, that debt. Without it, they were just well-made scraps of paper.
Once the kidnapper died, whatever Geng Qiushan burned would be hollow. Powerless.
Then she heard the kidnapper leader murmur, "Burn the coins for my brothers first. Then I'll talk."
He may not have known the details, but this accidental request meant his brothers might actually receive some useful hell coins.
Geng Qiushan agreed without hesitation.
The leader, meanwhile, had already given up on survival. That witch from Lingcheng would never let him go, and Geng Qiushan wouldn't either. He wasn't trying to live anymore. He just wanted something to show for his death.
Song Miaozhu waited. She hadn't activated the curse yet. She was curious, more than anything. Curious what a man might say when he thought death was certain. But when they started another round of coin burning, she no longer delayed.
With a deep breath, she pushed her spiritual power into the paper doll, sharp and unwavering. Her fingers twisted the doll's head with practiced precision. Her curse struck home.
The man jerked violently. A choked cry caught in his throat as his chest seized, and he crumpled toward the fire basin. One of the men beside him caught him by instinct, but the leader's head hung limp.
He didn't move again.
"What? He's dead?" Geng Qiushan stood up, disbelief clear in his voice. He checked for breath, then again. "Dead? Just like that?"
Too sudden. Far too sudden.
He had no idea what had just happened.
On the other side of the courtyard, Song Miaozhu stood still, watching the ashes drift from the burnt doll.
It was done.
Her hands were steady, but inside, something was not. This had been the first time she used the Secret Art of Paper Crafting to truly end a life—not simulate it, not threaten, but kill.
She'd thought there would be more to it. A surge of emotion. Guilt. Hesitation. But it hadn't come. There had only been a strange clarity, a sense of inevitability, like finishing a line of ink already half-drawn. She told herself it was because he deserved it. He'd tried to kidnap her, after all. This was self-defense. She told herself again.
And yet…
What stayed with her wasn't the justice of it, but the ease. Just one twist, one sharp intent through paper, and a life vanished. No blood. No mess. No trace.
She found herself quietly shaken, not because she had killed, but because it had been so simple.
Now she understood why the curse techniques of the Secret Art of Paper Crafting had once been condemned as heresy. In the hands of someone cruel, or careless, it could be a silent massacre. Death without warning, without sound, without mercy.
She looked down at her hands.
Still clean.
And that, somehow, was the most terrifying part of all.
Geng Qiushan scowled at the sudden death, feeling it was a bad omen. "Dispose of him," he ordered.
"What a waste of good paper money."
As his men dragged the body away, he stood still, staring at the fire basin. Doubt crept in, cold and unwelcome. Maybe the girl from Lingcheng didn't have strange powers after all. Maybe his subordinates were just incompetent trash.
Still frowning, he waved them off and waited until the room emptied. Alone, he walked to the bookshelf, reached for a worn, nondescript volume, and tilted it forward. With a low creak, the hidden mechanism clicked open, revealing a narrow passage behind the shelf.
The moment the entrance opened, Song Miaozhu murmured a silent command. Her invisible paper servant slipped through the crack behind him, trailing him into the hidden chamber like a shadow.
She didn't plan to strike immediately. Curses worked best in silence, in solitude, and with no witnesses left to point fingers. Geng Qiushan wouldn't walk out of that chamber.
Inside, the door sealed shut behind him with a dull thunk. Geng Qiushan stepped into the quiet space and grabbed a book, flipping through its pages absentmindedly. He was unaware of the small, silent eyes now fixed on him.
Meanwhile, Song Miaozhu calmly dipped her needle in rooster blood again, spiritual energy gathering at the tip in a sharp, burning point.
She began stabbing the paper doll. Each motion deliberate. Precise.
"Break the spiritual platform, destroy the cultivation. Break the spiritual platform, destroy the cultivation…"
The moment the first needle pierced the space between the paper doll's brows, Geng Qiushan jerked upright. His eyes went wide. A sudden, piercing agony bloomed behind his forehead like a blade stabbing into his skull.
He dropped the book, staggered back, clutching his head. The pain wasn't physical—not entirely. It was inside him, clawing through his consciousness, tunneling deep into his spiritual platform.
"What… what is this?!"
He focused inward, trying to stabilize himself, and saw it—an oily, dark energy corroding his spiritual platform like acid. He immediately channeled spiritual power to push it back.
It worked, briefly. The corruption slowed.
But his heart was pounding now, drenched in panic. He'd spent years accumulating his spiritual power, performing rites across Guangcheng, scraping it together bit by bit. It had never felt like much—but it had been his.
Now, that pool was draining fast. Each second burned through it like dry kindling. He tried to compress it, preserve it, anything—but the black energy just kept advancing.
"No! No—stop! Who's doing this?!" he shouted, staggering to his knees.
His spiritual core pulsed one last time—then cracked with a deafening silence that only he could hear. A jolt ran through his body. His spiritual platform collapsed into darkness.
Blood burst from his lips as he gasped. "No… no, no, no!"
He clawed at the floor, his breathing ragged. But his cries only echoed off the stone walls.
Outside, Song Miaozhu felt the red light between the doll's brows dim. His cultivation had crumbled.
It was time.
With unnerving calm, she began the second phase. This time, she didn't chant. Just drove the blood-tipped needle into the paper doll over and over—head, throat, heart, lungs.
Inside the hidden chamber, Geng Qiushan screamed.
His throat burned, his chest collapsed inward with invisible pressure. His heart thudded violently, each beat more painful than the last. Blood bubbled up again. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't even call for help now.
"Please…" he croaked, tears mixing with blood. "I don't want to die…"
The invisible force choking the life from him gave no reply.
His body convulsed with each unseen blow. It felt like his ribs were splintering from the inside, like his organs were twisting, like he was being buried alive inside his own flesh.
Song Miaozhu continued, her expression unreadable, her movements steady.
The final needle sank into the doll's chest. The paper curled, blackened, and turned to ash.
And inside the hidden room, Geng Qiushan's body finally gave out. He collapsed to the floor, a bloody whisper of his former self, eyes wide in frozen terror.
The paper servant stepped from the shadows, looked at the body. He was definitely dead.
Just before ending the vision, Song Miaozhu caught sight of the book he had dropped. Its pages looked worn and old. Her curiosity piqued. The chamber held nothing else. That book must have been important.
"Check that book."
The little servant carefully avoided the bloodstain and crept toward the fallen volume.
"Secret Art of Paper Crafting?"
When she saw the title on the cover, Song Miaozhu's pupils constricted.
"Geng Qiushan also had a copy of the Secret Art of Paper Crafting?"