Li Dan turned around and faced the enormous mirror in the elevator.
The mirror had originally reflected everyone's images, but now those reflections began to warp and blur, replaced by a gray haze like the curtain of an old stage play.
"Since you're a demon infant seeking reincarnation, let a lady who loves taking care of children come play with you."
A card bearing the image of a grotesque puppet appeared out of thin air in Li Dan's hand.
"Mary Shaw, come meet a new friend."
At Li Dan's whisper, the irritating sounds of an infant crying and newspapers fluttering inside the elevator abruptly stopped, as if someone had wrung their necks.
A deathly silence descended.
This was not quietness, but muteness.
Every sound had been forcibly stripped away by some rule. Even everyone's breathing and heartbeats became almost inaudible.
"Ding-a-ling..."
A faint, nonexistent sound of wooden puppet joints turning rang in everyone's minds.
The haze in the mirror suddenly dispersed, and an old woman in a black Victorian dress slowly emerged. Her face was as withered as a skull, and she held a puppet in a suit with evil eyes in her arms—Billy.
Mary Shaw.
Her deeply sunken eye sockets stared fixedly at something in the void, while a chilling smile spread across the corners of her cracked lips.
She raised a gaunt finger to her lips and made a shushing gesture.
The Demon Fetus's consciousness, which had been running rampant through the elevator, seemed enraged by that gesture. It tried to unleash an even sharper shriek to break through the silence.
However, the next moment—
Crack, crack.
Countless puppet strings, as fine as gossamer and nearly invisible to the naked eye, had somehow already filled the entire elevator car.
The newspapers that had been baring their fangs and