Shen Le spun around and stared at the familiar apartment building, at the familiar unit on it, and at the upper half of a body leaning urgently out of a window. His face darkened.
Shen Le whirled around like a gust of wind and sprinted over. At the edge of the residential complex, a huge crowd had already gathered in the greenbelt, whispering among themselves in a noisy buzz. Using his height and strength, Shen Le shoved his way in and shouted:
"Don't move the injured person! Don't pick him up, don't let him turn over, don't move his head! Keep his mouth and nose clear and wait for the ambulance! Wait for the ambulance!"
Police cars and ambulances came roaring over, sirens blaring. The one who arrived even faster than the police car was the young police officer Shen Le knew, Comrade Shi Guangbing. Shouting, "Make way, I'm a police officer!" he plunged into the crowd and immediately began directing everyone:
"Everyone, move back! Make way for the ambulance! You! Yes, you!—Don't just stand around here. Move back! Protect the scene!"
He had barely shouted a few times when the ambulance sped up. The paramedics carried a child out of the greenbelt, his neck, spine, and legs secured with basic supports and strapped to a stretcher. Two people in white coats hurriedly carried him to the vehicle.
Shen Le stood among the crowd, staring at the bloodstains on the child and feeling a weight settle in his heart:
It was that child.
The one who was learning to play the erhu.
The child whose family had passed down a puppet, and who had run out to play with his friends two days ago and never come home that night—the one who might have been lured away by his puppet.
After two days, how had he ended up jumping off a building today?
Little Puppet, was this your doing?
Was it you?
Burdened with worries, he watched the child's parents come running down from the building, though he didn't know when they'd left, wailing as they followed the ambulance;
He watched Shi Guangbing bustle about, putting up a cordon, questioning witnesses, and asking security guards for surveillance footage;
He watched several auxiliary officers take photographs, question witnesses, and head upstairs;
He listened to the onlookers discussing the matter:
"Poor thing. The kid has to saw wood every day, and he doesn't want to learn, so his family beats him. The poor child cries so hard..."
"I told you, you can't force a child. Look what happened!"
"Raising children is so hard these days..."
After quite a while, Comrade Shi Guangbing finally trudged out, looking dejected. When he saw Shen Le, his eyes brightened slightly. He clearly remembered this man who lived alone in a big house and had rushed over to direct the rescue. Even so, he couldn't muster much enthusiasm and gave Shen Le a weary nod.
"You're here too?"
"Yeah, I'm here too." Shen Le smiled wryly.
"Finished up? Want to grab something to eat?"
The two of them found a random restaurant, ordered a bowl of beef noodles each, and ate in silence. Once they'd filled their stomachs, Shen Le asked quietly:
"How's the child?"
"They're still trying to save him."
"Was it suicide?"
"That's the preliminary judgment."
"Then... you're not responsible?"
"I'm not, but my girlfriend's in for it." Shi Guangbing sighed. Stubble sprouted across his chin and cheeks, and his huge dark circles made him look utterly exhausted and pitiful.
"My girlfriend's an elementary school teacher. When something like a child jumping off a building happens, even if it isn't at her school, the education bureau still holds a meeting, then the school holds a meeting, then the teachers have to check in with every student, provide them with counseling, talk with their parents, fill out forms, leave a paper trail... Forget this week—even next week, she won't have time to see me!"
Teachers had a tough job these days, and so did children. Everyone was having a hard time. Shen Le patted him sympathetically, finished his meal, then went home and stared at the puppet on his workbench.
Should he stop repairing it?
Should he burn it?
Even if he didn't burn it, should he lock it away? Put it in a lead box and bury it underground? Or find a wooden box, draw a circle of Ink Line around it, and hammer in seven soul-pacifying nails?
He reached out several times and picked up the puppet several times, but each time he stopped. At last, he remembered the scene from the previous memory: the old man clutching the puppet tightly, his back bent as he endured a beating. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply.
"...Forget it. If I burn you like this, I'll be betraying your former owner's good intentions in saving you. I'll wait a little longer. At least... I'll give you a chance to defend yourself."
"Little Puppet, is there anything else you can show me?"
He picked up the puppet's head and shook it back and forth. Nothing happened. He spent a long time practicing makeup again and finished painting the puppet's face, but nothing happened. He dressed the puppet in Silk Thread and tugged at it, but still nothing happened...
"You still won't talk? If you don't talk, I'm going to burn you! I really will!—Forget it, I'll give you a Copper Fragment. Let's see if you'll talk then!"
The Copper Fragment pressed down. The next moment, Shen Le's vision familiar went black.
This scene was darker and more cramped than the previous ones.
Inside a ramshackle shelter made of crossed Bamboo Poles, with reed mats covering both sides, seven or eight children huddled together. They ranged from three or five years old to a little over ten, knees pressed together as they clustered around an old man with graying hair.
In a stone pit at the center of the shelter, a broken stick about the thickness of a finger burned, casting the only light in this little world.
It's so cramped in here... If I weren't inside a memory, I'd have clipped through the walls, wouldn't I?
Shen Le lowered his head and looked at his legs, planted between the corner of the shelter and the children's backs. He felt helpless.
By the faint firelight, he looked toward the center and saw the old man among the children operating a puppet. Unlike the lavish, resplendent puppet from the previous two memories, this one wore a drab little jacket. If not for the familiar red cinnabar tear at the corner of its eye, it would have been almost impossible to recognize as the same familiar little fellow.
The strings tugged, and Little Puppet took a few "steps" forward. The old man's lilting voice rang out, unhurried:
"The ox is still grazing on the hillside, but nobody knows where the herder has gone. It's not that he's wandered off and lost the ox—the young herder is Wang Erxiao..."
It was a familiar story, with a familiar tune. Shen Le stood frozen. Without thinking, he softly hummed along. The old man's hoarse singing seemed to carry him back to his elementary school classroom, to the days when his teacher taught them songs and told them stories about young heroes, stirring memories of the tender emotions he'd felt back then:
"...Erxiao obediently walked ahead, leading the enemy into our ambush. Gunfire and cannon blasts erupted all around, and only then did the enemy realize they'd been tricked..."
The old man's voice was low, as if filled with longing, or grief. The children gathered around him watched, their eyes shining, as the gray-clad little puppet took one step after another in the old man's hands. Just as the song reached its most crucial moment, several sharp bird calls suddenly rang out from not far beyond the shelter:
"Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!"
The old man calmly took off the puppet's gray jacket and bunched it up, revealing a yellowish little jacket and a half-skirt striped yellow and black underneath. He tugged the puppet a few times, and his voice turned urgent, booming, and full of life:
"Jade Emperor! You dare look down on Old Sun and try to fob me off with the title of Bi Ma Wen!"