The Puppet Dao

Chapter 3 – The Mirror That Walks

Lin Cang did not speak.

He stepped back from the window, slow and steady, never taking his eyes off the figure that now stood fully upright in the center of the record hall. The room that had been quiet and still just moments ago now felt smaller, tighter—like the very walls were pulling inward, watching.

The thing in front of him was the same height. The same shape. The same calm expression. Its skin was flawless, its robes nearly identical. But its face was empty in a way no human face ever could be.

There were no lines of thought. No weight of memory. Just a blank, smooth imitation.

It opened its mouth.

No sound came out.

Then it clicked.

Not with its tongue. Not with its throat. But something deeper inside. A sound like wood joints adjusting. Lin Cang knew that sound. It was the sound of his own limbs when they shifted under pressure.

He spoke first.

“What are you?”

The thing tilted its head slightly to the left. Not a gesture of confusion—but one of examination. Like it was listening with its eyes.

Lin Cang took another step back, hands loose at his sides.

“I asked you a question,” he said again, his tone even, voice low. “If you can walk, you can hear. And if you can hear, you can answer.”

Still silence.

Then it moved.

One foot forward. Slow, controlled. Silent. Its arms hung at its sides, relaxed. Too relaxed.

“Stop,” Lin Cang said.

The figure did not stop.

Lin Cang clenched his right hand. The fingers curled smoothly. In his mind, he reached for something—anything. A thread of Qi. A spark of power. But as always, there was nothing.

Still, his body moved.

He stepped forward quickly, closing the space between them before the thing could lift its next foot. His left hand shot out and grabbed its wrist.

The skin felt wrong.

Too smooth. Too dry. It wasn’t warm.

Lin Cang squeezed tightly and twisted.

The arm rotated—but too far, too easily, like a tool turning on a hinge. The imitation didn’t flinch. Its other hand snapped up and struck toward his neck.

He ducked.

The blow missed by a finger’s width and struck the scroll shelf behind him. A loud crack echoed as wood splintered.

Lin Cang released its wrist and stepped back.

“You’re not alive,” he said, breathing steady. “But you move like something with memory.”

The puppet straightened. Its head tilted again. Then it opened its mouth a second time.

And this time, it spoke.

“Lin Cang,” it said.

Its voice was perfect. Not just close—but exact. His own voice.

It spoke again, clearly, as if reading lines written into its mouth.

“Shaping begins with choice.”

Lin Cang narrowed his eyes.

The puppet continued, still staring directly at him. “Form is hunger. Form is path. You are the failed one. I am the mirror.”

Then it lunged.

Faster this time.

Lin Cang ducked under the first swing and slid to the side. The puppet’s palm grazed his shoulder—it wasn’t strong, but it was precise. The kind of strike meant to shut off movement, not break bones. Lin Cang pivoted, brought up his elbow, and drove it into the side of the puppet’s ribs.

Crack.

The puppet stumbled slightly, then straightened. A hairline fracture now ran across its side, where wood had splintered beneath the robe.

“You feel pain,” Lin Cang said. “That means you can break.”

The puppet turned its head. “We are not different. You are shaped wood. I am refined wood. You are cracked. I am clean.”

Lin Cang shook his head once. “No. I chose to move. You were sent to mimic.”

The puppet rushed forward again. Lin Cang didn’t back away. He stepped in and grabbed both of the puppet’s arms, crossing them at the wrist. He used its own momentum to twist them tight against its chest.

“I’ve seen this hold before,” he muttered. “I don’t know where, but I have seen it.”

The puppet struggled, but silently. No grunts. No signs of effort. Just motion.

Lin Cang looked into its face—his own face—and tightened the hold.

“You’re a message,” he said. “Not a killer. You’re here to test me.”

The puppet stopped struggling.

Then its mouth opened again.

“Touch the talisman,” it said. “If you are real.”

“What talisman?”

“The black edge. The folded square. Touch it to your chest.”

Lin Cang hesitated.

The puppet’s body began to vibrate faintly, as if something was pulling at it from the inside. Its joints clicked again—harder this time, like something was locking into place.

It looked at him, dead eyes steady.

“Touch the talisman,” it said again. “Or I will become you.”

Lin Cang stared.

Then he reached into his robe, pulled out the folded talisman left by the masked man, and pressed it to the mark on his chest.

The moment it touched him, something snapped.

Not in his body. Not in the air.

But in the puppet.

Its limbs jerked once—then stiffened completely.

Its eyes went blank.

And then, like a broken statue, it collapsed to the floor with a heavy wooden thud.

Lin Cang stood still for a long moment.

The talisman dissolved in his hand, its paper vanishing into ash without heat.

He looked down at the puppet. His own face stared back at him, eyes frozen open.

Then a voice—his voice—echoed from its mouth one last time:

> “Second form recognized. Core imprint stable. Path can begin.”

And the puppet burned—not in fire, but in shape. The limbs twisted inward. The face folded like paper. The body collapsed into a pile of carved wood joints, each one etched with symbols.

Each piece… waiting to be used.

Lin Cang stood over the remains, still holding his breath even though he didn’t feel short of it.

The pieces lay in a rough pile across the floor—arms, legs, fragments of chest, everything separated but untouched by blood or rot. No spirit mist rose from them. No curse. Just shapes. Carved shapes. Clean lines. Almost too perfect. As if they had never been alive to begin with.

And yet they had moved. Spoken. Fought.

He knelt down, slowly, and picked up the right arm.

It was heavier than it looked. Polished wood, darker than his own skin, with elegant runes carved into the inside of the wrist. The fingers were fine, slender, but not human. Their movements had been fast and fluid.

Now, they were still.

Lin Cang turned the piece over carefully.

The runes were not just decorative. They glowed faintly as he looked at them, like ink responding to heat. His chest stirred. Not his heart—he had never felt that beating. But something deeper. That same hum from the Dust-Crypt.

His right arm tingled.

Then, without meaning to, he heard himself speak.

“…First graft.”

He didn’t know what the words meant. He hadn’t decided to say them. But they came out of his mouth, clearly, calmly.

The arm in his hand shimmered—only for a second—and then a strange pulse moved through it, like breath passing through a flute.

He hesitated.

Then, slowly, he pulled back the right sleeve of his robe and exposed his forearm.

It was smooth and strong-looking. But he could see the lines now—faint grain beneath the surface, hidden joints in the elbow, a slight seam near the wrist that no human would ever have.

He looked at the puppet’s arm again.

And placed it against his own.

The moment the two touched, the wooden piece shifted.

It clicked softly, then pulled inward, magnetized by something invisible. His arm went numb from the elbow down. The puppet’s arm aligned itself along the length of his forearm, almost perfectly—like it belonged.

Then came a sharp pulse.

Lin Cang gritted his teeth but didn’t cry out.

The graft sank into place.

The lines where the puppet’s wrist had ended were now aligned with the joints beneath his skin. His own arm had accepted it.

He flexed his fingers.

The new hand moved.

Faster. Cleaner.

No hesitation.

His shoulder relaxed, and the old numbness in his elbow—the slight stiffness he hadn’t even noticed before—was gone.

He lowered the arm and looked at it carefully.

It was… better.

Not just stronger. But refined.

Then the book in his robe buzzed.

Not with sound. Not with movement. But with pressure.

He pulled it out and opened to the first blank page.

Words were now forming on the paper—line by line, drawn by an unseen hand.

“Form Graft: Right Arm – Success.

Engraving Level: Grade Two.

Shaping Stability: 91%.

Begin imprint sequence?”

He read the last line out loud.

“Begin imprint sequence.”

The page turned itself.

A diagram appeared. A drawing of a hand—his hand—with small symbols forming across the fingers and palm.

Each one was marked with a name.

“Grip,” “Twist,” “Flow,” “Tremor,” “Sense.”

As he read them, he felt the arm respond. The fingers began to shift slightly, as if stretching on their own.

And then he heard the voice again.

Not from the book.

Not from the room.

But from inside.

> “This is the first step.”

He stood quickly, eyes darting around. The room was still empty.

“Who’s there?” he asked, voice sharp now.

> “You are the form. You are the forge. You are not meant to ask. You are meant to shape.”

“Answer me directly,” he snapped. “Are you the one who made me?”

The voice paused.

> “No.”

“Then who did?”

> “He who made you does not know you survived. He does not know the shaping has begun. But soon, he will look. He will remember. He will send something to reclaim you.”

Lin Cang’s jaw clenched. “Then tell me why I was made.”

> “Because a man wanted to escape death. And you were his answer. His experiment. His final question to the heavens.”

The voice faded.

Lin Cang stared down at the page again. The diagram glowed, then vanished. The book closed itself.

He placed it back into his robe, slowly, carefully.

Outside the record hall, footsteps passed in the courtyard. Patrols moving again. Voices shouting in the distance. No one had come back in—yet.

He knew he couldn’t stay here long.

Then, something flickered at the edge of his vision.

He turned quickly.

In the far corner of the room—on the top shelf of the scroll altar—something had changed.

There was a gap now. A space where a scroll had once been. Or maybe… had just arrived.

He walked to it, still flexing his right hand.

He reached up and pulled it down.

The scroll was sealed in red thread. The outer surface was blank. No name. No sect mark.

He unrolled it.

Inside was a map.

Hand-drawn.

A trail through forest. Up mountain steps. Past a waterfall. Into a sealed ruin.

At the bottom, in delicate script, only one line:

“Where the First Form was found, the next will be waiting.”

He rolled the map tightly and placed it inside his robe, beside the book.

He was about to turn for the window—

When the door behind him opened.

He spun.

Zhao Chen stood in the doorway, face pale.

He looked at Lin Cang.

Then his eyes dropped to the floor behind him—where the puppet parts had been.

Nothing was there.

But Zhao took a step back anyway.

“I don’t know what you are,” he said slowly, “but that man in black talismans… he’s not the only one who’s looking.”

Lin Cang stepped toward him.

“Who else?”

Zhao’s face was tight with something between fear and urgency.

“I don’t know his name,” he said. “Only what they call him…”

He glanced over his shoulder.

“…The one with no face.”

Lin Cang frowned.

“No face?”

Zhao nodded quickly. “He appeared an hour ago at the Inner Sect Hall. Asked about you. He wasn’t human.”

Lin Cang’s fingers clenched without meaning to.

Zhao continued, voice lower now.

“And he’s headed here.”

Just then, the floorboards creaked behind them.

A tall, pale shadow stepped through the back wall without opening it.

And it had no face at all.