The Puppet Dao

Chapter 2 – The Man in Black Talismans

Lin Cang did not move.

The man—or whatever it was—stood just beyond the fallen elder, the talisman-laced robes fluttering slightly, though there was no wind. His voice, quiet as it had been, echoed strangely in the wooden hall, like it carried more weight than volume. It wasn’t threatening. It was worse than that—it was calm. Certain. The kind of tone people used when reading out names from a list.

The figure stepped forward, shoes silent against the floor. Lin Cang stepped back in equal measure, one pace, careful and balanced. His eyes flicked briefly to the talisman the elder had dropped. Its edges were stained red now, the center mark fading in the pooling blood.

“You killed him,” Lin Cang said, not shouting, not whispering.

“Yes,” the figure replied without emotion. “He saw the mark. He was not meant to.”

“What are you?”

The figure tilted its head slightly, not as a gesture of confusion—but more like it was surprised Lin Cang had asked so plainly.

“You speak with no fear,” it said, still stepping slowly forward. “That is unusual. You were not taught to be afraid?”

“No,” Lin Cang said.

The figure stopped then, standing just two steps from the elder’s body, which lay face-down in the spreading pool of blood. It looked down at the corpse once, then turned its masked face back to Lin Cang. The mask was smooth, like polished bone. No eyes, no mouth. Just blank white with calligraphy strokes painted from the top down in black ink—none of it readable. It gave the sense of something ceremonial, not crafted for disguise.

“I am called many things,” the man said after a moment. “But you may call me what your body remembers me as.”

“I don’t remember anything.”

“Not yet. You will.”

Lin Cang’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Why did you kill him?”

“He was going to burn a sealing scroll,” the masked man said. “That would have locked you in a spirit loop. If you were captured by this sect, they would not understand what you are. You would become a prisoner. Or worse—an experiment.”

“You don’t seem concerned about killing someone in the middle of their own sect.”

“I am not,” the figure said.

Lin Cang was quiet for a moment. Then he pointed slowly toward the elder’s hand, still lying open, palm up.

“You just killed an official of the Green Pine Sect. Someone will find his body. They’ll come looking for me.”

“They won’t find it.”

Before Lin Cang could ask what that meant, the figure stepped forward again. Its wooden right hand extended, palm down, fingers held together. With a slow motion, it passed the hand through the air over the elder’s body.

A ripple spread.

The corpse shimmered—then folded inward, like a scroll collapsing along unseen creases. The sound was quiet but strange, like silk tearing under water. And then, nothing. The body was gone. The talisman. The blood. All vanished without a trace.

Lin Cang blinked once.

“…That wasn’t a normal storage technique.”

“No,” the masked man said. “That was Form Reversal.”

Lin Cang didn’t understand the term, but the words made something shift inside his chest. He felt—not emotion—but a response. As if his body had heard the term and remembered it, even when his mind did not.

The masked man stepped back, now standing in the same place the elder had been moments before.

“I came here for you,” he said. “You are not ready yet. But you are active. That means the shaping process has begun.”

Lin Cang took a half-step back. “You know what I am.”

“I know what you will become.”

“What is that?”

The figure said nothing.

“Answer me,” Lin Cang said again, his voice low but firmer now. “What am I?”

The talisman robes rustled as the masked man tilted his head once more, then slowly lifted his wooden hand and pointed directly at Lin Cang’s chest.

“You are a question,” he said. “And a mistake.”

Lin Cang didn’t move. He didn’t understand—but he knew the words were important.

“You will seek your own shaping,” the man continued. “Because the Form is hungry. Because that is your only path. Because you are not bound to spirit. You are not flesh. You are not soul.”

He lowered his hand again, slowly.

“You are what remains when none of those things are present.”

Lin Cang’s hands clenched slightly. “If that’s true… then why do I feel?”

The masked man was silent again.

Then, softly: “Because someone carved that into you.”

Lin Cang stared at him. “You mean memory?”

“I mean meaning.”

The silence between them deepened, stretching into something that felt like weight. The air in the record hall was still. Even the lantern flames had grown dimmer, flickering as if disturbed by the presence of something greater.

Finally, the masked man turned to leave.

“I will return for you,” he said.

“Why not now?”

“You’re not ready. If I touched you now, you would fracture.”

“Then teach me.”

The man stopped walking. His head turned slightly.

“…You learn through shaping. Through seeking. Not by listening.”

Then he reached into his robe and pulled out a small folded paper square—black with white edges, a talisman unlike any Lin Cang had seen. He placed it on the table, right where the jade registry book had sat.

“When you feel the itch behind your ribs, press this to your chest,” the man said. “Until then… act human.”

Before Lin Cang could speak again, the man raised his right hand and made a circular motion in the air. A faint ring of talismans lit up around him—and in a blink, he was gone. No sound. No smoke. Just absence.

The hall was quiet again.

Lin Cang stood alone.

He stared at the paper square. It pulsed once with a faint light, then went still.

He reached out, picked it up carefully, and slid it into his robe, just above his hidden book.

Then he turned.

From outside the pavilion walls, heavy footsteps echoed.

Voices.

Torches.

A patrol.

They were headed toward the archive. Too close. Too soon.

Lin Cang stepped quickly to the side of the record table and pressed his back against the carved pillar. His movements were silent. Controlled. Practiced—though he had never practiced them before.

The door creaked open. Light spilled in.

“…This way!” one voice called. “The elder was last seen here!”

Lin Cang’s eyes sharpened.

He didn’t have much time.

And there were still bloodstains on his hands.

Lin Cang turned instantly, stepping back into the deeper shadows beside the carved pillar. The walls of the Hall of Records were wide, filled with tall shelves of jade slips and scroll containers, and the heavy scent of dried paper filled the air. His hands moved automatically. He wiped the blood on the edge of a shelf curtain—rough cloth meant to keep dust off sacred scrolls. The blood didn’t vanish, but it faded. He pressed his palm against the smudge to smear it further, trying to make it look like dirt.

The voices grew louder.

A group entered the hall—five men. Four wore the gray-trimmed robes of inner sect patrol disciples, but the fifth wore something different: a long black outer robe with golden edges, and an embroidered pine tree over the heart. His eyes were sharp, narrow, and cold.

Lin Cang’s body stilled.

The fifth man had presence. The kind that made others speak carefully around him.

“I don’t see the elder,” one of the patrol disciples said, holding a torch and glancing around the wide space. “There’s no one here.”

The golden-trimmed man stepped forward slowly, his eyes sweeping across the room like blades cutting through smoke.

“Wrong,” he said softly.

The others turned to him.

“There’s no corpse,” he continued, “but there’s absence. The kind of silence that comes after life ends. This place reeks of disturbed Qi.”

He took two slow steps toward the center table, where the jade registry book lay open. His fingers hovered over the page, then moved past it. Then he looked down.

There was a faint scuff on the floor. Not a footprint—but a spot where something had dragged lightly across the wood. Like a heel. Or a hand.

“Search the room,” he ordered. “Top to bottom. Shelves. Ceilings. Crawl space.”

Lin Cang didn’t breathe.

One disciple moved toward the side he was hiding on. Lin Cang stepped back into the space between two thick scroll racks, pressing his back against the cool wall. He closed his eyes, listening.

The disciple stopped just three steps away. He reached for the nearest scroll shelf. His fingers brushed the edge of a wooden cylinder.

A loud voice cut across the room.

“Stop.”

The disciple froze.

The man in gold trim was staring at the shelf.

“That scroll was moved.”

The disciple blinked. “Elder He? You mean the left one?”

“Yes.”

He stepped forward again and reached for the shelf himself. He pulled the scroll loose and unrolled it with care.

“…Dao of Silver Root,” he read. “Not valuable. But this was not the one that belonged here. Who placed this?”

The disciples looked at each other.

“No one from our team, sir.”

“Then someone else came through here tonight. Possibly a spy.”

He lowered the scroll and looked around slowly again. His eyes passed within a finger’s width of Lin Cang’s hiding place.

Then he spoke louder.

“I know you’re in here.”

Silence.

“You’ve moved something you shouldn’t have. You’ve stepped where you weren’t allowed. You’re still breathing.”

He took another step forward.

Lin Cang could hear the creak of the floor beneath the man’s boot.

“Come out,” he said softly. “You have three seconds.”

Still silence.

“One.”

Lin Cang’s muscles tensed.

“Two.”

He reached slowly into his sleeve for the paper square—the black-edged talisman left behind by the masked man.

“Thr—”

A shout came from outside the pavilion.

“Elder He! A corpse! We found a corpse near the western courtyard!”

The man’s head snapped toward the door.

“What?”

“A disciple,” the voice shouted again. “Face down, blood everywhere! Identity unknown!”

Elder He’s face darkened. “Seal this hall. Search it again later.”

He turned sharply and strode toward the exit, robes snapping behind him. The disciples followed, still glancing over their shoulders.

When the last one left, the door shut behind them.

And Lin Cang exhaled.

He stepped out from behind the shelf, slow and silent. His chest didn’t heave. His heart didn’t pound. But some deep pressure inside him eased, just slightly.

He looked down at the black talisman in his hand.

“…That wasn’t luck,” he whispered.

He turned and moved toward the side window, the one nearest the cliff wall. The outer sect pavilion was built against stone—some walls touching the mountain itself. But the window opened to a slope, and if someone were careful, they could climb down.

Lin Cang didn’t know why he knew that.

He just did.

He slid the window open.

Cool wind touched his face. Pine needles rustled. The night was deep, but not dead. Far in the distance, torches flickered as patrols moved across the sect compound.

He looked at his hands.

Even the dried blood had left a faint trace.

He reached into his robe and pulled out the ancient book again—the one with the diagrams.

He flipped through slowly until he found the first page with words that weren’t technical notes.

They read:

“Do not wait for permission.

Shaping begins with choice.

Each form is stolen, earned, or built.”

Lin Cang stared at the page for a long time.

Then he looked out the window.

He didn’t climb through.

Not yet.

Because behind him, in the empty silence of the record hall, a sound stirred that should not have existed.

Clack.

Wood against stone.

Then again.

Clack.

Lin Cang turned slowly.

From behind the central scroll altar, a shadow rose.

It had no eyes.

It had no voice.

It had a face exactly like his.

And it was walking toward him.