Hey, first of all, thanks for reading my lousy Machine Translation. To be honest, I’d really like it if you guys corrected the mistakes I made. But please speak nicely and politely. My heart is not strong enough to read your too-harsh comments. Have a nice day. 🙂
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Chp26. part2
Pei Han answered smoothly, “Follow Ning Ge’s lead.”
Owen: “……”
Ning Ge asked Iris, “Are there any tutorials or notes on making puppets here?”
“My Lady’s notes? Of course,” Iris said, hurrying to a nearby low cabinet. “All my lady’s notes are stored here. Did you forget?”
The cabinet door was tightly shut, secured by an intricately designed lock.
On the left was a three-digit combination lock, similar to those used on suitcases, but instead of numbers, it had flowers.
On the right was a small silver handle.
Seeing Ning Ge remain motionless, Iris kindly reminded her, “My Lady, once you’ve set the correct combination, turn the handle to open the door.”
Ning Ge, without any hesitation, asked Iris directly, “What’s the code? I’ve forgotten.”
Iris looked troubled. “My Lady didn’t tell me the code, only that it’s your three favorite flowers.”
After a moment’s thought, he added, “My Lady did mention there’s a mechanism inside. The handle can only be turned incorrectly five times. If you fail on the sixth attempt, the important notes inside will be burned.”
Fine.
As long as I don’t turn the handle, just adjusting the code should be safe.
Ning Ge crouched down and tried turning the cipher panels. She discovered that each panel, from top to bottom, could cycle through nine flowers: lily, cornflower, tulip, iris, jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, daffodil, and lavender.
Some of the Viscountess’s favorite flowers were obvious.
“It must include the iris,” Ning Ge said.
The iris was the flower Viscountess Nona had painted on the chest of her most beloved wooden puppet. That one was accounted for.
Pei Han added, “The rose is probably in there too.”
The rose was likely another of the Viscountess’s most cherished flowers.
As soon as Pei Han entered the Dungeon, the wristband transformed into a rose bracelet. Even the buttons on the formal wear the Viscountess had custom-made for him as her male dance partner were cast with roses.
The problem was, besides Iris and roses, what was the third flower?
Neither of them had any ideas.
Social Bro whispered, “That cabinet door doesn’t look very sturdy. What if we just punched it?”
Teacher Su paused. “If we break it violently without following the rules, wouldn’t the contents be destroyed? We’d lose the clue.”
Iris suddenly spoke up, “Has My lady forgotten the password? My lady once told me that one of the flowers isn’t the first or third, and it’s far from jasmine and daffodils.”
The Cipher Panel’s order was: Lily, Cornflower, Tulip, Iris, Jasmine, Rose, Lily of the Valley, Daffodil, Lavender.
Not first or third: Eliminate Lily and Tulip.
Far from jasmine: Eliminate Jasmine, Iris, and Rose.
Far from daffodils: Eliminate Daffodil, Lily of the Valley, and Lavender.
Everyone immediately gave the answer in unison: “Cornflower!”
The hint was too straightforward—so straightforward that Ning Ge almost didn’t dare to believe it.
Ning Ge looked up at Pei Han.
Pei Han smiled slightly. “It’s not making things difficult for you. You’re just not used to it yet.”
A system that didn’t make things difficult was terrifying. Having grown accustomed to the System’s torment, Ning Ge hesitated for a long time before finally reaching out to turn the Cipher Panel.
Arranging the Iris, Rose, and Cornflower in different orders allowed for six attempts.
Ning Ge had only tried the second combination—Cornflower, Iris, Rose—when the cabinet’s mechanism clicked softly and the door swung open.
The hint was true, with no hidden traps.
Inside the cabinet sat a large, black-lacquered wooden chest. Everyone worked together to pull it out and lift the lid.
The chest was filled with notebooks of various sizes and styles.
Not tutorials, but personal notes.
The entire chest was crammed with detailed records, complete with exquisite diagrams, all detailing Viscountess Ning Ge’s puppet-making process.
Iris stood obediently to the side. Ning Ge said, “It’s safe here now. You can go.”
“I’ll be just outside the door, My Lady. Call me if you need anything,” Iris replied, visibly relieved. He bowed and left the room that had terrified him.
Everyone gathered to examine the chest of notebooks.
The ones at the bottom of the chest, likely from her early days of study, resembled classroom notes, filled with the most basic principles and methods of puppet-making.
The notes were remarkably detailed. The group huddled together, deciphering the dense, tiny script.
It turned out that within this Dungeon, a special and mysterious force called spiritual power existed.
This power was subtle, elusive, and difficult to detect.
Many had always known of its existence but had no idea how to harness it, even dismissing it as utterly useless.
Later, a great puppet artisan finally discovered a method to utilize this power.
Using spiritual power, she connected an invisible and intangible substance called Thought Silk to Wooden Puppets, channeling the power into them. This created the first self-moving Wooden Puppets.
Seemingly weak and useless, spiritual power achieved astonishing results when applied to the Wooden Puppets.
Through generations of refinement, the Wooden Puppets gradually transformed from their initial clumsy and comical forms into increasingly sophisticated and intelligent beings.
No one could ignore the existence of Wooden Puppets any longer.
They not only moved but were also resilient, strong, and obedient.
Wooden Puppets liberated humanity from tedious and arduous labor.
As more people learned to craft and control them, the art of puppetry spread throughout the Empire. Wooden Puppets took over nearly all tasks, from farming and construction to manufacturing and transportation.
The Wooden Puppets became the Empire’s primary labor force and formed its most obedient and powerful army, conquering all in their path.
As the Empire grew stronger day by day, people’s main occupation shifted to controlling these puppets.
To control the puppets, one needed to master spiritual power. It was discovered that women seemed to possess an innate advantage in grasping and perceiving this subtle energy.
Over the years, nearly all women in the Empire had mastered spiritual power.
“So, does that mean men are gradually becoming less useful in this world?” Teacher Su asked.
“Yes,” the cross-dressing guy replied. “Men naturally have a higher muscle mass and 30-40% greater upper body strength than women. In societies where resources are obtained through physical labor, like primitive hunting or agricultural societies, men are crucial. But…”
He boldly straddled the table, his skirt revealing a pair of hairy legs.
“But the Empire now has Wooden Puppets with physical strength far superior to men, yet easier to control. When natural physical advantage becomes irrelevant, the social structure will inevitably change.”
He shrugged.
He added, “I’m a sociology major.”
Social Bro patted his thigh with a tattooed hand. “Man, what a coincidence! I’m a sociology major too.”
He said, “Let’s set aside the abstract stuff for now—it has nothing to do with us. To make a puppet, it has to move, right? What exactly is this ‘spiritual power’? We need to learn that first, don’t we?”
With only eight hours left, trying to master this seemingly mystical “spiritual power” felt like a joke.
Owen looked at the girls in the room, his eyes full of hope. “Have any of you sensed ‘spiritual power’?”
Ning Ge and Teacher Su shook their heads innocently.
Engineer Zheng smoothed his skirt and suggested, “Since we don’t know where to start, why don’t we try making a Wooden Puppet according to the notes first?”
Social Bro agreed, “Let’s give it a try. Once we’re done, we’ll name it Little Husky and write the name on it. Maybe that’ll make it stick.”
It sounded as if they were going to tattoo the wooden puppet.
His reasoning wasn’t unreasonable. The notebook contained detailed instructions for making the puppet, so everyone immediately began gathering materials.
Ning Ge and Pei Han didn’t join in the work.
Instead, the two huddled together beside the large chest, silently flipping through the notebooks.
Ning Ge took the left side, Pei Han the right, and they went through book after book, quickly piling up a large stack of notes outside the chest.
Owen glanced at them. “If one of you retired, I’d understand. But are you two planning to retire together and quit altogether?”
Pei Han, the laid-back, retired-old-cadre type, lifted an eyelid to glance at him.
“I think I know what your ‘Little Husky’ is. Look at this.”
He turned a notebook in his hand to show everyone.
The page was filled with detailed instructions and hand-drawn diagrams of the wooden puppet’s components, with three characters written in the margin—
Little Husky.
