There were dozens of people inside, mostly young. Each of them held a puppet-like doll, which was usually bound with strings. The puppeteers skillfully manipulated their fingers to control the puppets, making them perform various actions.

Shang Yanting walked through the crowd with the raccoon in his arms. As the only person without a puppet (←mistaking the raccoon for a magical beast), he stood out conspicuously in the crowd.

He quickly attracted attention.

A man with strange plant tattoos on his face and dozens of threads wrapped around his hands approached him. "Fellow Daoist, where is your puppet?"

Upon hearing this, Jia Xitong looked at him.

Are you blind?

Then she remembered that she was now a puppet of a human pretending to be a system pretending to be a monster, so she obediently sat back down.

"Don't you have any?"

The man's eyes revealed scrutiny and malice.

Foolish and ignorant martial arts practitioners!

Outsiders who mistakenly wander into our territory will be turned into lifelike puppets.

Shang Yanting raised his eyes, "You can make lifelike puppets?"

"Of course... just kidding."

The man then burst into laughter, "Refining real-life puppets is an ancient evil art. If we had that ability, the academy would have banned our existence long ago."

Don't let our wild and unrestrained behavior fool you; we're all good students.

After he finished speaking, he pointed to the tattoo on his face, "It was painted on."

My name is Deng Wen, and I'm the organizer of this puppetry enthusiast club. We rarely have any newcomers here. What's your name? How did you find out about us?