Yu Sheng barely managed to make out the string of words the little puppet rattled off. He stood there dazed for two or three seconds before finally understanding, but by then he no longer had time to complain about Eileen.
Another strange sound suddenly came from deep within the underground passage.
It sounded like a string of light, cheerful flute notes, coming and going as though the player were somewhere in the corridor.
The flute music vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by dense footsteps. Yu Sheng saw numerous wet footprints suddenly appear on the ground ahead, as though a group of children had just happily run past. The footsteps then changed into the sound of a carriage rolling over a stone road. The lights ahead dimmed in the blink of an eye, and the scent of gunpowder drifted through the air.
But this lasted only a few seconds. Then layer upon layer of thick fog rose around them. Numerous shadowy figures emerged within it, and the underground corridor seemed to turn into an unfamiliar street in an instant. Tall, crooked houses stood on both sides, while pedestrians hurried through the night. A cold winter night descended, and the temperature plummeted. Yu Sheng noticed that the breath he exhaled instantly turned into crystalline particles of ice in the air, while the pedestrians lining the road almost immediately became countless lifeless ice statues.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a bright flame ignite at the street corner. It grew larger, taller, brighter, and warmer.
Yu Sheng shook his head hard, struggling to distinguish the underground corridor's original outline through the layers of fog before him. He lowered his head and walked through the biting wind, past the pedestrians who had turned into ice statues and the crooked,