Little Puppet, You'll Soon Be Alive!

The two guests exchanged a glance. The youth holding the pole beckoned to the child's mother, pointing at a wooden box that the detector's probe was aimed at.

"Is that puppet usually kept here?"

"Yes, right here! What's wrong with the puppet?"

"It might be..."

"Zhang Bingxin!" the young man in the Tang suit loudly interrupted his companion. "We still need to go look for more clues. Thank you for your cooperation; we will resolve this matter as soon as possible... By the way, where was the puppet thrown?"

"Thrown out the window, it must have fallen into the river..."

If it fell into the river, that was trouble. Carried away by the current for days and nights, there was no telling where it might end up. Furthermore, water belonged to the Yin, and the river water at night was particularly heavy with Yin energy, which could easily mask the faint aura of Yin lingering on the puppet.

The two special guests took their leave, one holding a detector and the other a compass, scanning back and forth along the riverbank. As they scanned, the baby-faced youth asked in a low voice:

"Senior Brother, can we really be of help? Even though we're from the Maoshan Sect, I've only been studying for two years, and I can't perform many of the techniques..."

"We have to help even if we can't," the young man in the Tang suit sighed. "In recent years, the world's primordial energy has been recovering, and all sorts of special incidents are on the rise. It used to just be demons and ghosts, but in the last decade, all kinds of old objects have started to stir as well. There's no help for it; we're short-handed, so they had to send us out. We might not be good at fighting, but at least we can help find things or track them down."

"Then... what if that puppet is really dangerous? Can't we ask our Martial Uncle and the others to come?"

"Most of our Martial Uncles are at the museums! Think about it, those are antiques that have been around for ages!"

"Wait, I've got a signal! The puppet was picked up by someone, and the person who picked it up lives at... 18 Nanhua Street? Shall we go take a look?"

Shen Le did not know that someone was following the trail and was about to find him. He went off to find food, filled his stomach, and returned to his workshop, picking up the puppet's head.

"Is it really you? Were you the one who lured those children over? Why... why would you do such a thing?"

"What is your relationship with that Great Camphor Tree? Why was it willing to help you? Why was it willing to protect the children so well, letting them sleep soundly on its branches for an entire night, safe from all fright and cold, without even a single mosquito bite?"

"Why, in such an obvious spot, did I not see the three children at first, and neither did the police?"

The puppet lay quietly in his palm. It didn't sway, it made no sound, and no expression could be seen on its faded face. Shen Le stared at it for a long while before giving up, putting the puppet down, rolling up his sleeves, and starting to work.

"Why am I talking to a puppet about this... Forget it, forget it, I'll just fix it first. Maybe once it's fixed, you'll be able to talk to me? Put some effort in; once the head is fixed, I'll fix the torso. I'll aim to finish in three days!"

The repair method for the torso was similar to the head: cleaning, grooving, cutting a dovetail tenon, applying woodworking glue, filling with woodworking powder, letting the fast-drying glue cure, and leveling the surface. Next, the defects on the right forearm and thigh were not quite as easy to fix.

The thigh had a hole rotted through it that needed patching. Shen Le first cleaned it and cut a groove, then selected a piece of wood of similar shape and carved it into form, one stroke at a time. After a light sanding, he applied woodworking glue and tapped it in piece by piece.

As for the defect on the right forearm...

"Huh? Why does this look like it was burned?"

Shen Le held the puppet's arm in his hands, looking it over from every angle. The surface of the puppet was covered in a layer of char; when he rubbed it with his fingers, a thin layer of black ash came off. Looking at the puppet's right fingers, however, each one was completely undamaged.

"Logically, if the arm was burned, the fingers shouldn't be fine... Could it have been replaced? Forget it, never mind, I'll just fix it!"

He held the puppet's arm in his left hand and picked up a thin carving knife with his right, pressing his left thumb against the back of the blade and pushing outward, stroke by stroke. Soon, the pitted and uneven area became smooth and fluid. Then, he picked up the smallest chisel and carefully dug out the mortise groove, one tap at a time.

"In theory, for something this small, I could just mix woodworking glue with woodworking powder, smear it on, and shape it. But since this is a puppet that can call for help, if I can inlay a solid piece of wood, I should use a solid piece..."

Shen Le held the puppet's arm up to measure, then placed it against a block of miscellaneous wood to compare, finally picking up a pen to draw a smooth arc on the wood. He raised his carving knife, cut along the arc, and dug out a wooden block with a shape similar to the defect, complete with a dovetail groove. After carefully refining the shape, he tapped it into the puppet's arm—bang, bang, bang, bang—it fit perfectly!

"Nicely done!—As expected of me, my woodworking and carving skills are the best in the class!"

He praised himself vigorously, then picked up the sandpaper to polish the charred areas on the puppet's arm. Once everything was polished clean, he laid the limbs out one by one in order, arranged like the lotus-root segments of a lotus incarnation before it leaps to life.

"Next is waiting for the sander to arrive, then full-body sanding, color touch-ups, lacquering, and polishing. Little puppet, you'll be alive soon!"

Before the words had even faded, the world went black, and the scene shifted once again.

A second time?

Was this the second time the puppet had brought him through time, or rather, was he seeing the puppet's memories?

Once bitten, twice shy; Shen Le wasn't nervous this time. He stood there calmly, looking left and right.

Before him appeared to be a dilapidated old theater, empty and hollow, with no audience and no performers. There was only the sound of slow footsteps—tap, tap, tap—approaching from beyond his line of sight.

Shen Le took a few quick steps, following the sound. An old man with almost entirely white hair walked in from outside the door. His clothes were covered in dust, and his shoulders, lapels, elbows, and knees were covered in patches.

He walked to the edge of the stage, looked left and right, set down the bundle in his hands, and took out something with great care...

A puppet?

Shen Le's eyes twitched. The puppet wore a bright red dress, its appearance beautiful and delicate, with a crimson cinnabar mole at the corner of its eye that looked like a drop of blood—it was unmistakably the very one he was currently repairing.

However, the dress was intact and brilliant, the silver-thread embroidery of phoenixes among peonies looking vivid and alive, completely different from the grimy little puppet in his memory.

The old man held the puppet in one hand and a wooden board strung with silk threads in the other, lifting them into the air. As the threads hung down, the puppet was suspended in mid-air. With a gentle tug of the threads, its limbs and head began to sway, dancing and gesturing:

"Suddenly hearing the golden drums ring and the painted horns shake, it awakens my soaring ambition to break through the Heavenly Gate; thinking back to those years, majestic on the peach-blossom horse, enemy blood splattered upon my pomegranate skirt..."

A high-pitched, winding, and intense operatic voice, similar to a woman's, emanated from the old man. At the same time, the puppet raised its hands, waved its sleeves, touched its heart, and pinched its fingers, its movements fluid and perfectly in sync with the rhythm.

If one ignored the silk threads on the puppet and the pair of hands manipulating them from above, the scene before him was clearly that of a famous performer giving their heart and soul to an audience.