Lies upon lies like tangled puppet strings

Nepherage stood proudly with her arms folded under the gazes of the crowd. She had once again proven herself to her lord by dispatching yet another aggressor. Unbeknownst to her, everyone was staring at her slack jawed not because they were impressed, but because they didn't know what to make of what had just happened.

In the span of an hour, they had witnessed the Fourth Young Master of the Zhen Clan crash his own funeral, have him accuse one of the top aides of the clan to be a conspiratorial traitor who plotted his death, listen to the aforementioned aide's confession to the crime of murder along with planning the deaths of the other young masters, see the aide attempt to rush and murder the Fourth Young Master in front of everyone and then watch as the traitorous aide get absolutely bodied by a demonic jade woman popping out of the ground like an alligator leaping out of the water.

If they hadn't seen all this unfold themselves, they would assume anyone else telling this story would be full of crap and overdramatizing things.

"What the hell just happened?"

"Who...what is that?"

"I don't know, but wasn't the Fourth Young Master supposed to be crippled?"

"Well he was supposed to be dead."

"Am I going crazy or is aether flowing from him to that thing..."

"Maybe it's an aether puppet?"

"No way, that thing used a Corporeal-class arm art, not a puppet art."

"Aether puppet? Oh shit, I guess we are connected like that," Zhen Liu thought to himself.

From what Zhen Liu could remember, aether puppets were type of aether tool that those trained in puppet arts or puppet formulas could create to allow them to fight those stronger than themselves, fight remotely or against multiple people. Granted the drawback was that it had to be supplied aether via the puppeteer or aether crystals, which could be pricy.

"Wait, now is not the time to explore that line of inquiry."

Zhen Liu was at a bit of a loss in the moment. He was originally going to drop a snarky line or something earlier, like "Hey, look the crippled guy just kicked your ass" or "Oh look, someone significantly more loyal and stronger than you!", but he quickly realized that the atmosphere in the room didn't lend credence to the idea.

"Oh balls, I'm gonna have to lie through my teeth again," Zhen Liu thought as he took in the shocked looks of the crowd and of his family members.

As all of this was happening, the elders that had seized Moka, the Second and Fourth elder, proceeded to drag him away to the family prison for future interrogation. Once they left, the atmosphere grew even more awkward since all the focus was now on Nepherage as opposed to being split between her and the traitorous ex-attendant.

Eventually, Daria and Zhen Yan were the ones to break the tension.

"Xiao Liu...what is...that?," Daria asked while gesturing towards Nepherage. Nepherage was initially going to to tell them her name, but Zhen Liu managed to order her not to before he could.

"And more importantly, when did you breakthrough to Aether Acolyte? Can you use arts now?," his father asked with a mixture of shock and pride on his face.

At this moment, he realized there was a very simple way to explain both: Tell a half-true story.

"Okay, so I still can't use arts, sorry father," Zhen Liu began to say, "and I had already told the uncles and guests here how I managed to survive almost dying, but I didn't tell the whole story because Moka was here..."

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So I didn't wake up alone after my near death experience feeling all better, rather...I woke up while in the middle of having an arrowhead getting extracted from my forehead. It is a very weird feeling having another person's aether circulating in a hole in your head, I don't recommend it.

The person who was treating me was this old guy in a weird colored robes and a funky mask. I don't know who he was, still don't, and I didn't where he came from but I could feel that he was crazy powerful.

I tried to speak to ask what had happened or who he was, but he immediately told me to shut up and listen to what he had to say. I couldn't exactly argue because, ya know...almost dead.

He first told me that my quest to find a miracle cure or something to treat my malady was pointless, due to me having some incredibly rare bodily constitution. My internal channels were just jacked and no amount of elixirs in the world could fix that. Needless to say, I was kinda bummed at this revelation.

However, not all hope was lost.

The masked elder then began to explain that while I couldn't use arts or cultivate most formulas with my strange internal channels, I was a perfect match for one he had on hand...and by on hand, I meant he literally carved it into me.

The formula he gave me was some kind of lost puppet focused formula. He explained that while I couldn't use my own body to perform aether arts, it was still possible for me to use a puppet to do it for me.

I had my doubts about whether or not he was right, but when he finished writing in the formula, I finally felt aether starting to condense within me and I felt the power of having a breakthrough.

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"I apparently stockpiled a lot of aether over the years and it allowed me to skip a few rings straight to the Acolyte stage. A little after that, the masked elder help me make Nepherage over there and now here I am," Zhen Liu lied to his parents, the guests and his clansmen.

So far it seemed everyone appeared to have been mollified by his cockamamie story. Except for Jin Fang, who gave him a bit of a side-eye glare.

"Aether puppet? Why didn't we think of that?," Daria asked her husband.

"Oh thank God they bought it," Zhen Liu internally sighed with relief, "am I allowed to just bail now?"