The sage was determined to die.

Chu Xi looked disdainful.

"At this rate, when will you ever find a suitable medium for creating a word puppet?"

Seeing the plan, Bai remained silent and simply continued planting rice seedlings.

Chu Xi frowned and couldn't help but ask, "So, don't you even know how to find a carrier?"

Ji Bai paused in his grip on the needle, then turned to look at him: "You could elaborate on that."

Chu Xi hadn't expected there would actually be room for him to make his own decisions. He paused for a moment, then said very seriously, "It's not that complicated. It's just a matter of choosing people who can still retain consciousness after experiencing extreme pain."

He looked at the charred corpses on the ground, somewhat puzzled, but he did not question Chu Ze.

Although he didn't understand why his brother asked him to bring over a bunch of corpses, since it was his brother's choice, there must be a reason.

Chu Xi shook her head slightly and said to Ji Bai, "Although this is the Mountain of Books, these people have been dead for so long... can they still possibly still have consciousness?"

"You're right."

Ji Bai said this vaguely, "To be able to hide until now without making a sound, your willpower must be amazing. I underestimated you with my current strength."

Chu Xi: "...When did I mean that?"

With a thought, Ji Bai's steel needle instantly thickened, gleaming coldly. He raised an eyebrow slightly, but when he stabbed a corpse, the corpse did not move an inch.

Wang Zhixuan endured the pain when he was pricked for the first time.

He thought he had escaped, but unexpectedly, this vicious person had some kind of weird fetish and did it again.

The pain from the second needle piercing his shoulder was clearly more intense than the first, but he remained motionless. Then he heard a male voice say calmly, "Young man."

"Who's your brother?" Chu Xi's eyes were filled with undisguised disgust.

Ji Bai raised his hand: "Okay, okay, I won't talk about this anymore, let's get down to business."

He raised the corners of his lips, seemingly saying to Chu Xi, "I made a deal with your brother, promising to help him get a word puppet."

Chu Xi glanced at Chu Ze beside her. He nodded slightly but didn't say anything.

"I rarely do such heinous things."

Ji Bai continued, "If I succeed, your brother should give me some extra payment, right?"

"What do you want?" Chu Ze asked directly. "I don't have anything too precious."

"information."

Ji Bai stabbed symmetrically into Wang Zhixuan's right shoulder as well. He raised his eyebrows slightly, concealing his surprise without making a sound.

At the same time, a male voice that only Wang Zhixuan could hear rang in his ears.

"Hey, you really have no experience pretending to be a corpse."

The man seemed to whisper in his ear, "A corpse's muscles shouldn't be this taut; it doesn't feel right to the touch."

Wang Zhixuan instinctively tried to open his eyes, but the other person shushed him in the ear, saying, "Don't worry, no one else can hear you."

If it weren't for the deceptive nature of his appearance at this moment, he would probably be sweating profusely.

"Sure." Chu Ze's voice was as gentle as ever. "If I know, of course I can tell you."

"That was really refreshing."

Ji Bai asked casually, "If a person is turned into a puppet, does that mean they can't retain any self-awareness?"

Chu Ze's gaze swept over the corpse on the ground, and he said, "Of course not. The more pain the consciousness is in, the more useful the puppet is. Once it's made into a puppet, the puppet is just a knife in the user's hand. A knife, after all, can cut vegetables, slice meat, kill relatives and friends, and so on. It's not up to the user to decide; it's wherever the person wielding the knife points."

Chu Ze paused here, then said with a hint of disdain, "Perhaps the Wang family member knows the specifics better."

"That must be really painful." Ji Bai shook his head. "Living like this is worse than being dead."