We'd gone to the wrong person, and the person we'd mistaken for someone else had brought us bad news.
"Your king turned you into toys?" the Fatty asked in surprise.
The little girl nodded. She seemed sad about it, but that was all—she showed no extra fear or anger. She'd been much more emotional when she mentioned her mother.
"Your king turned you into toys. What happened after that?" Chen Xiao Qiu asked.
The little girl didn't quite understand the question. She answered innocently, "Once you're made into a toy, he can play with you. He doesn't like dolls. If you're made into one, you break really quickly. You get beaten to death..." As she spoke, the memory seemed to come back to her, and at last she showed some fear.
"Were the missiles toys he made, too?" Chen Xiao Qiu continued.
The little girl didn't understand her question. It took some effort to explain it, but then she seemed to get it. She gestured as she spoke. "There are cars, planes, and really, really big people. The king likes using those to kill the dolls."
It sounded like the ghost king had a very masculine personality. He used toys like cars and planes, the sorts of things boys liked, to kill dolls, the sorts of things girls liked.
This couldn't be considered good news.
A ghost doll was a troublesome paranormal object. A nearly lifelike toy bomber could only be called a disaster.
Listening to the artillery outside, I could already imagine the catastrophic scene.
For some reason—or perhaps through sheer luck—the house we were in hadn't been attacked. All the sounds of fighting came from nearby. The constant crashing told us the flimsy houses were being wrecked. Through the windows, we could see stone and wooden houses destroyed