Shen Le stood there, savoring the feeling. The joy had been so real, so warm, so comforting to the heart.
It was as if the old man, wounded and enduring his pain, had still gathered the frightened children who were running around in panic and comforted them;
And as if the little puppet, carrying out its master's wish, had done everything it could to convey that joy and comfort to all the children:
Don't be afraid, don't be sad! Forget your worries, forget your pain, and cheer up!
He sang and tugged on the silk threads, making the puppet perform. It went on until the parents and relatives caught up in the fighting had finished dealing with the chaos and hurried over in a panic. Seeing their children gathered around the old man, they let out a huge sigh of relief...
Shen Le had been watching from the sidelines the whole time, a smile on his face. As he smiled, his vision suddenly went dark.
In the darkness, vast stretches of memory flooded into his mind:
A little child squeezed into a street crowd, seeing a puppet show for the first time and staring in wonder...
A stubborn boy arguing with his family, insisting that he wanted to learn puppetry...
A lonely young man carving out a puppet's head, one stroke at a time beneath a lamp. He accidentally sliced his finger, and a drop of blood fell onto the puppet's face. Dipping his finger in his own blood, he marked a vermilion mole at the corner of the puppet's eye...
A middle-aged man battered by war and displacement, then an old man who never wavered from his original purpose and passed on his craft...
Until the very end, still manipulating puppets from his sickbed.
He sang operatic tunes for his young grandson and, hand over hand, taught him how to make the puppet walk, dance, and turn somersaults. He watched the boy tug clumsily at the threads with his tender little hands...
And the final memory was of the old man lying in bed, gently pulling on the puppet's strings.
His little grandson sat beside the old man's knees. He held his left fist level with his eyes and clenched his right hand as if holding something, moving it up and down along the outside of his thigh as he pretended to play the erhu and accompany his grandfather:
"While we live, it is our duty to defend our land. How could we let an inch of it belong to someone else..."
When his vision cleared, Shen Le found himself back at the workbench. The restored puppet lay across the table, gazing into his eyes with a sparkling look.
That vermilion mole, like the old man's heart's blood, had marked the corner of the puppet's eye—and its heart.
Shen Le let out a breath. This time, the memories hadn't been like before, when he'd watched from the sidelines as if he were seeing a movie. He'd been immersed in them, experiencing everything firsthand.
Every stroke of the knife as he pressed his fingers against its spine to carve the puppet, every sensation of the threads cutting into his fingers as he manipulated it—it all felt as if he'd done it himself, not just once, but for years and decades.
All those memories made Shen Le feel at once that he could do it too.
He lifted the control board with his left hand and pulled on the strings with his right. Just as he was about to put on a little puppet show, the puppet suspended from the strings suddenly leaped high into the air.
"Ah!!!"
Shen Le's left hand jerked, and the control board slipped from his palm and fell. Halfway down, it began to sway gently upward, then hung suspended in midair.
The puppet dangled beneath the control board, moving on its own without a breeze. Its dress fluttered as if a young girl were swaying and freely enjoying the spring sunshine.
Shen Le rubbed his eyes, then rubbed them again. He took two steps back, then one forward. Reaching into his collar, he pulled out the copper fragment and turned its front toward the puppet.
"You're alive?"
Great. The copper fragment had finally revealed a brand-new ability.
Whether the copper fragment had brought the puppet to life, turning it into a living being, or it had awakened something in me, letting me see it in a different state, one thing was certain: the door to a new world had opened...
A faint voice came from the puppet.
Its mouth hadn't opened, and its carved lips hadn't moved. Yet the copper fragment in Shen Le's hand trembled faintly, and he could feel a voice reaching the depths of his heart. Sweet, clear, and utterly indignant:
"I was alive to begin with!"
The puppet leaped up, spread its dress, and spun lightly. It tilted its head, looking this way and that, then lowered its gaze to the embroidery on its skirt.
"Where am I? And who are you?"
Uh...
Putting himself in the puppet's shoes, Shen Le figured that if he opened his eyes and someone said, "You're alive?" to him, he'd jump up and yell in their face too.
Feeling a little ashamed at the thought, he tucked the copper fragment back into his chest and scratched his head.
"Uh, sorry about that. My name's Shen Le. I'm the one who repaired you earlier, and you're at my place now. What's your name?"
"I..."
The puppet turned around once, then again. She looked up at the sky, then down at the ground.
"I... I don't know what my name is... The old man called me 'little one,' and his grandson called me Xiao Lin, but... I don't think either of those is my name..."
Well, this was an awkward topic.
Whether it was an animal becoming a spirit or an object becoming one, forming a sense of self was complicated—and a "name" was crucial to that self-awareness.
Knowing "I am me" was one hurdle. Giving herself a name and setting herself apart from all living things was another.
Humans began as crying infants and grew little by little. Their parents and relatives called them by name, and they naturally came to know who they were and what they were called.
It wasn't so easy for spirits and monsters. If they had a name, and it wasn't given to them by a human but chosen for themselves, that probably meant they'd already made some progress in their cultivation.
"By the way, could you give me a name?"
Shen Le hesitated.
He'd once read a novel called Spirit Wander. It said that those who gave someone a name were either the ones who gave them life, such as their parents;
Or those who raised them, such as stepparents or a master naming a servant;
Or those who helped them achieve their potential, such as teachers.
He'd brought the little puppet home, repaired her, polished and lacquered her, and taken care of her clothes and makeup. But he still fell short of giving her life, raising her, or helping her achieve her potential. Perhaps he wasn't qualified to name her?
"Give me one, go on!" The little puppet rose onto her tiptoes and spun several times in a row.
"I don't want people calling me 'little puppet' all the time! Give me a name for now. If I don't like it, we can change it!"
Uh...
Shen Le's mind raced. What name should he pick? She was dressed in red—should he call her Little Red?
Or, because of the vermilion mole at the corner of her eye, Zhu Zhu? Or Vermilion?
Or, since she danced so lightly and kept spinning, should he call her Little Dancer?
Would she introduce herself to people as, "My name's Little Dancer—the dancer who dances"?
No way!
Shen Le shuddered. Just as he was struggling to decide, inspiration struck and the words slipped out.
"How about Xiao Ling? 'Ling' has the person radical and means an actor in traditional opera... Do you like it?"
"Xiao Ling, Xiao Ling..."
The little puppet repeated the name a few times without objecting. It was hard to tell whether she liked it or was just filing it away for consideration. Then she casually asked:
"By the way, his grandson's child came to play with me a few days ago. Do you know what happened? The one who jumped off the building a couple of days ago!"
"What? Jumped off a building?!"
Xiao Ling leaped up. Her brows drew together, and the vermilion mole at the corner of her eye gleamed. She looked ready to explode.
"That child jumped off a building?"
"Yeah... He jumped a few days ago... The police officer who rescued him told me the child kept crying in the hospital, saying he wanted to play with an older sister. Was he talking about you?"
"Of course he was!" Xiao Ling puffed out her nonexistent chest, her face shining with pride.
"I've played with him for years!
"Ever since he was little, whenever his family went to work or out grocery shopping, he'd crawl around the house by himself. Wasn't I the one who watched over him?
"We played from kindergarten through elementary school, from first grade all the way to fifth—"
"So was it you who called him over to my house to play a few days ago?"