The Eternal Farmer: I Trade My Harvest for Immortality

Chapter 260: The Puppetry Rune

Jiang Chen withdrew his envious gaze from Zhao Ying’s window and pushed the Giant Leaf to full speed, streaking toward his own farm.

Soon, the familiar silhouette of his home appeared: the two-story stone house, the earthen shed, and the towering poplar tree.

By day, the tree was merely impressive—lush and tall. But at night, viewed from a distance, it took on an eerie quality. Faint fluorescent light seeped from between its ink-black leaves, and the wind didn’t just rustle the branches; it elicited a low, dragging hum that vibrated in the chest.

It radiated a bone-chilling coldness.

As he drew closer, he saw Fortress standing beneath the canopy, motionless as a statue.

The Golem was unrecognizable. It was covered from head to toe in tender, emerald sprouts, glowing with a bizarre vitality. It looked less like a machine and more like a creature undergoing a metamorphosis.

Sensing an approach, Fortress’s optical sensors flared with ghostly green light. Identifying Jiang Chen, it powered down its defensive protocols. Had it been a stranger, it would have followed its last standing order to interrogate and expel.

Jiang Chen landed, his expression dark. He didn’t like coming home to surprises.

His visit to the core archives had opened his eyes. The description of Spirit Plant Puppetry had been too specific to ignore. He had always suspected Fortress was odd, but he lacked the context to frame his suspicion. Now, the evidence was mounting. There was no precedent for a standard mechanical Golem mutating because it stood under a tree.

He strongly suspected that the “mechanical” Golem Long Ao had gifted him was, in reality, a forbidden Spirit Plant Golem in disguise.

Given their relationship, Long Ao wouldn’t have knowingly given him a cursed object. That meant Long Ao was ignorant, and likely the organizer of the Thousand Sails Event in Mystic Heart City was as well.

If Fortress was truly a Spirit Plant Golem, then its original creator had hidden a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Jiang Chen released his Spirit Sense, scanning the construct with surgical precision.

Inside Fortress’s chassis, a dense cluster of Wood Spirit Qi swirled, identical in signature to the poplar tree. On the surface, it looked harmonious.

Jiang Chen stepped forward. “Fortress.”

The Golem turned its head. “Master.”

“You obey all my commands, correct?”

“Affirmative. Absolute obedience.”

Jiang Chen’s eyes went cold. “Good. Destroy yourself.”

If Fortress were a standard Yan Technique Golem—a machine of gears and logic—it would have executed the order instantly. A machine has no survival instinct; it has only code.

But a Spirit Plant Golem was different. Its core housed a trapped soul—human or beast—and a soul would instinctively hesitate when ordered to die.

Fortress froze.

For a split second, the green light in its eyes flickered, turning a shade darker, colder. Resistance.

Then, its programming overrode the instinct. It raised its massive fists and began to smash its own chest.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

The violent impacts woke Da Huang, the pearl chickens, and the fire crow, sending them into a panic.

Fortress didn’t stop. It hammered its own chassis until the armor plates buckled and the emerald sprouts were sheared off. A deep, jagged crack appeared in its chest plating.

Through the fissure, Jiang Chen saw a flash of green aura hiding something darker.

“Confirmed,” he whispered. “It is a Spirit Plant Golem. But… it didn’t attack me?”

Strange as it was, he didn’t intervene. He watched dispassionately as Fortress tore itself apart. One arm sheared off, clattering to the ground. The Golem continued with the remaining limb, methodically widening the breach in its chest.

Debris littered the ground.

Finally, a hole large enough to expose the core appeared.

“Stop,” Jiang Chen commanded.

Fortress froze mid-swing, its voice distorted and weak. “Yes… Master.”

Jiang Chen extended his Spirit Sense, probing deep into the exposed cavity.

The internal structure was a nightmare of tangled organic fibers and mechanical components. But buried in the center was a Tree Gall—a fist-sized, dark brown knot of wood covered in fine cracks, pulsing with a sinister red light.

This was the core. The brain.

It radiated a faint, undeniable signature of resentment. A soul was trapped in there, screaming in silence.

Jiang Chen felt a sudden spike of danger, a warning from his intuition that tampering further would be catastrophic.

He smiled, a cold, confident expression. “Others might be afraid. But me?”

Whoosh.

He summoned the Companion Green Lotus. The Absorption Blood Gourd hovered at his shoulder. The Wood Spirit Returning to Nest Ring activated on his wrist. The Mystic Wood Golden Body Art flared to maximum power. And his left hand charged a max-level Scorching Sun Finger.

Fully buffed and ready for war, he drove his Spirit Sense into the Tree Gall.

He found it immediately: the Puppetry Rune.

It was etched directly onto the gall, a complex, high-tier script that bound the soul to the chassis. It was elegant, cruel, and incredibly advanced. Even a master like Bai Xiaotian would struggle to replicate this with a 10% success rate.

Jiang Chen didn’t break the seal. Releasing the soul now would destroy the rune, and he wanted that knowledge.

He spent the next hour painstakingly memorizing the structure of the rune, fighting against the headache-inducing complexity of the design. It was obscure, esoteric, and brilliant.

“Got it,” he finally exhaled, withdrawing his mind.

He immediately switched to the Green Lotus Art, channeling a stream of Wood Spirit Qi to envelop the shattered Golem. The broken armor knit back together, the cracks sealing as if they had never existed.

Once Fortress was repaired, Jiang Chen made a grasping motion.

Siphon.

He drained every ounce of the mutating Wood Qi from the Golem’s body. Without the energy to sustain its giant form, Fortress shrank rapidly, collapsing back into the small, toy-sized figurine he had first received.

Jiang Chen picked it up, turning it over in his hand.

“I’ll decide your fate later,” he murmured to the dormant machine. “Once I decode this rune, I’ll know whether to purge the soul or reprogram it.”

For now, Fortress was just a toy again. But the secrets it held could change everything.

Jiang Chen put Fortress away, his mind already racing with possibilities. The Puppetry Rune was a treasure, and he intended to master it.