There was a crisp click.

The partition of the basement of the small western-style building opened, and a puppet with stiff movements crawled out. He patted the sticky bloody smell on the soles of his feet and stepped on the tiled floor of the first floor.

The puppet's pale eyeballs were carved into a bulging shape, with only a little wood stump connecting it to the face. It looked like it would fall to the ground in the next second, but it was still turning stubbornly, its gaze falling from the blackboard to the eerie corner of the small western-style building behind the curtains.

The white chalk was broken into two halves, one half was thrown back into the chalk drawer and slammed shut, while the other half was held in the puppet's hand, who solemnly added another correct character on the blackboard.

This is the 1,243rd year that the Biluo Sect has been stationed in the human world.

This was also the 537th year that it had been sent out by the puppeteer to "collect intelligence".

Life is hard when living alone, and he is a puppet that cannot appear in front of people. He can only wander around, living in straw huts and caves, visiting plateaus and the deep sea, and occasionally living in ownerless houses. When he passed by here ten years ago, he saw this small Western-style building, and after waiting for a few days but seeing no one, he simply moved in.

No one has cleaned up this western-style building. It is covered with cobwebs and moss. The beams creak when it rains, and it is hot and stuffy in the summer, reminding the puppeteer of the days when he was living in hell when he was first created by the puppeteer.

That period of time gradually became blurred as the years passed, but the puppeteer could never forget the leisurely and happy life in the Hellfire Castle with the puppeteer and many friends.

This is why it should have left the building to collect intelligence long ago, but it still stayed here for a full ten years. The topics of the reports it recently handed over to the puppeteer have changed from "Human Farming Customs" and "Tree Types in Gangzi Mountain, Yaojia Town, Sufang City" to "Summary of This Year's Weather Conditions".

...

...

Although they are all perfunctory and useless, the degree of perfunctoriness is different after all - then again, how much useful information can you expect from a puppet who is incompatible with modern society?

Therefore, when the small western-style house was broken into and a man in a formal windbreaker tied it up, the puppet even felt a little aggrieved.

It opened its mouth, but no words came out, only a harsh sound of wood rubbing against each other.

...It had been left alone outside for too long, and although it still remembered how to write, the wooden joints it used to speak had aged and could no longer be used.

Kong Xiuwen lowered his eyes to look at it, his gaze falling on the sticky blood on the soles of the puppet's feet with a bit of scrutiny. His expression condensed slightly, and his movements suddenly became more rude. He directly folded the puppet into a defenseless appearance and put it into an iron cage isolated from the surroundings, preparing to take it back to the Twenty-Eight Mansions later.

After dealing with the puppet, Kong Xiuwen walked around the small western-style building with a super-powered weapon in hand, a look of genuine surprise flashed across his face.

He originally thought that this must have been the work of a small supernatural sect that was so stupid that it didn't even do a good job of investigating before occupying the house. He never expected that there was only a puppet living in this western-style building.

That's not too shabby, it's not uncommon for all kinds of things to gain self-awareness after coming into contact with super powers, but the inverted cross symbol of "Blue Sky and Yellow Spring" engraved on the blackboard is probably not as simple as just coming into contact with super powers.

After going through great pains to attack the main stronghold of the evil god sect, they only got a little information about Biluo Huangquan, and they had to wait for Donggong to decipher it to know the specific content. When moving with Daju, they ran into a puppet man who was suspected to be sent by the Biluo organization. Even Kong Xiuwen was a little dazed.

After thinking about it, he decided to send Daju back to the headquarters first, and stay behind to screen the house for clues.

——Then the door of the small western-style building was kicked open by the little orange cat, howling.

The door, which had gone through so much damage, finally couldn't withstand the tossing and turning, and fell to the ground with a loud bang, raising a cloud of dust.

The little orange cat, carrying a superpowered weapon bigger than himself and ready to fight to the death, stared with round eyes at Kong Xiuwen, who was standing in the middle of the living room, intact and even very majestic, and was stunned: "You, are you okay?"

Kong Xiuwen held his forehead with his hand.

He quickly figured out why Daju was here. He was touched but also a little tired. He didn't bother to check the interior of the small building. He grabbed the little orange cat by the scruff of the neck and drove him out: "You go back to the headquarters first. I'll be back soon."

Daju blinked, nimbly got out from under Kong Xiuwen's hand, turned into a cat, and jumped onto him: "Can I come with you? Promise not to move."

Since he knew that this was the base of the Biluo Organization, he dared not let Kong Xiuwen go in alone. Although the little orange cat was not very strong, he could at least help with treatment. When encountering a major crisis, the power of the self-destructing cat god fragments was enough to protect Kong Xiuwen.

Kong Xiuwen had no idea what Daju was planning. He thought for a moment and thought it was indeed a bit dangerous to let Daju go to the headquarters alone, so he acquiesced to his move to stick to him and carefully tucked him under his windbreaker.

The little orange cat nestled safely in his chest, its head sticking out from between the double-breasted buttons of its windbreaker, observing the furnishings in the small western-style building with Kong Xiuwen.

There were broken furniture, rotten woodwork, and several basins of salt water mixed with mud spilled on the floor, as if the house was deliberately made even more unbearable.

There were piles of kraft paper on the balcony, wrinkled by the sun. Kong Xiuwen picked them up and looked at the unknown fonts on them that looked like ghostly scribbles. He was silent for a moment, not understanding a single word, so he prepared to put them all into the folding space of his sleeves and give them to the East Palace research team to decipher.

[This is hell text! This puppet is from hell!]

CatToy exclaimed.

[These should be the reports written by the puppets to the underworld!]

Daju subconsciously stretched out a paw to stop Kong Xiuwen's hand from collecting the brown paper: "I can understand this, meow."

Kong Xiuwen handed the brown paper to Daju.

Daju listened to the translation of the cat toy and paraphrased word for word: "In the 703rd year since leaving hell, respected puppet master, I report to you my research on the distribution of ant populations in the human world. Note: only the 78 ant holes on the sunny slope of the left side of Rutai Mountain in Xianglu County, Liuzhou..."

He paused, doubting his ears.

Kong Xiuwen also showed surprise on his face. He laid out several pieces of kraft paper in front and behind and asked Daju to confirm that these dozens of pieces of paper actually counted all the ants from the top of the mountain to the end of the mountain and calculated the total number. Then he silently put the kraft paper into his sleeve and replaced it with another one.

Daju: "This is a study on the relationship between fish species and corals in Chining Harbor."

Change it again.

Daju: "This is a study on the correlation between cat mate selection criteria and cat color - does this puppet have some serious illness? - By the way, the conclusion it draws is that cat mate selection criteria have nothing to do with color."

The man and the cat looked at each other in silence.

"Well, I'll put the brown paper away first and study it slowly when I get back," Kong Xiuwen spoke first, stroking Daju's hairy head, "What is the name of this kind of writing it uses to record?"

Daju said truthfully: "Hellish language. This is a language used exclusively by creatures in hell. It has never appeared in the human world in all these years."

His fingers paused slightly, and his mood, which had just become lighter because of the content of the brown paper, fell to the bottom again. Kong Xiuwen lowered his eyes slightly, and did not ask Daju why he knew the hell language. He just nodded, put away all the brown paper, and walked to the basement with the cat in his arms: "Since it is a language that has never appeared in the world, it is safer to let the East Palace team decipher it."

The little orange cat made an "oh" sound in confusion, not understanding what Kong Xiuwen meant. He thought that he felt his translation was too far-fetched and wanted to find a professional to help.

A bystander can see cat toys more clearly and can't help but sigh in admiration.

[Kong Xiuwen is too good to you, isn't he? He knew you were related to the creatures of Hell, but his first reaction was to help you hide it from the Twenty-Eight Mansions? I thought someone like him would definitely arrest you first!]

Da Ju suddenly realized, and quickly jumped out from Kong Xiuwen's chest, grabbing his arm with his two claws and swinging: "Dad Kong! Don't get me wrong, I just learned the hell language by chance, I have nothing to do with hell - Director Luo knows about this, I can help translate the hell language!"

Kong Xiuwen was stunned for a moment.

"You...what did you call me?"

Even though Daju had been adopted by him in the legal sense and the two got along very well, Daju was, after all, a mature kitten with independent thinking ability. They had not tried or even mentioned using a more intimate name for him, so the thoughtless call of "Dad Kong" made both Daju and Kong Xiuwen feel a little uncomfortable.

Daju blinked, and the whole cat's fur stood up instantly, and it ran to the basement that had just been opened in a panic.

Fortunately, he is not in human form now! Otherwise, he would be blushing all the way to his ankles!

Kong Xiuwen: "Wait!"

Even if you are panicking, don't run around. The basement is very dangerous!

The author has something to say:

Daju actually recognized Kong as his father a long time ago, but he had always been talking nonsense to the cat toys. He accidentally said it to his face and got furious (cat is terrified.JPG)