Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu soon received an audience with the King.
After dismissing the guards, the King asked with some urgency, "Where is the gem?"
Xu Huo took out the gem. Seeing it with his own eyes, the King breathed a sigh of relief, then asked, "Where did you find it? Where is the thief who stole it?"
"The thief got away, but he said he only stole this one gem," Xu Huo replied. "Gemstone City is full of gems. What's so special about this one that you'd kill so many people over it?"
The King looked surprised at first, then sighed and lowered his voice. "I had no choice. Someone left these gems at the Castle for safekeeping. They must not be lost."
It was as if the emotions he had kept bottled up for so long had finally found a way out. The King told Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu a story.
He and the Queen were a loving couple, but they had never had children. The Queen, who adored children, began making dolls out of scraps to amuse herself. As her skills improved, she learned to make dolls from all kinds of materials. Then, one day, the dolls she had made gradually came to life and became their children.
Up to that point, the dolls the Queen made had still looked like dolls. They had no expressions and couldn't speak, and could only move stiffly, occasionally helping with simple chores.
Of course, the King lived in a fairy-tale world, where it was nothing strange for Wooden Puppets to move about and treat humans as their parents. Things changed when Xiao Si appeared.
Unlike the other wooden children, Xiao Si was made of metal. When she was first finished, she couldn't run and jump like the others.