Shen Le held the Copper Fragment up before his eyes, staring at it so intently that his gaze seemed to glow. He immediately steadied his breathing, closed his eyes slightly, and tried again. This time, no warmth surged from the fragment. Instead, a phantom image seemed to appear before him, guiding his movements through a series of stances:
That move was off! Your hand was too low! The red phantom representing him and the blue phantom serving as the model didn't quite overlap!
That move was off, too! Your step was too wide!
He needed to exhale now! Exhale, exhale!
When his movements and breathing were right, a red line extended from the blue phantom. At the same time, the warmth inside his body surged a little higher.
Not bad, not bad! It corrected his movements and granted him inner strength at the same time. This Copper Fragment was incredible!
"Now there are two tasks. First, repair the house and charge the Copper Fragment. Second, make money, make money, and work hard to make money..."
Of course, there was also a third task. It wasn't very important, but it was urgent:
Filling his stomach...
Fortunately, the Old Mansion wasn't far from the inhabited part of town. The riverside side of Old Street looked deserted, but when Shen Le passed through the narrow alley and left by the back gate, it only took a few steps to reach the residential area.
He ordered rice with braised chicken, wolfed it down to fill his stomach, then strolled slowly along the little street:
If he decided to stay here, he'd have to order pots, pans, and all the rest later. He'd also need tools to renovate the house: woodworking tools, Paint, tools for bricklaying and plastering, and so on.
Sigh. When he'd worked under his teacher, most of the tools he used had belonged to his teacher or the school. When he graduated and came back, he'd brought only a few tools he was comfortable using, along with some leftover pigments.
He'd need so many tools just to fix up the Old Mansion. Sigh. He didn't even know if the shops on the street sold them. If not, he'd have to order everything online...
As Shen Le thought it over, he wandered along, looking around as he went. The town was full of waterways and little bridges, with homes lining the riverbanks. The evening breeze and the scent of water made for a pleasant stroll.
As he walked, a piercing sound suddenly burst from an apartment building on his right, raising goosebumps:
"Eeeee!"
Shen Le shuddered and turned toward the noise. Who was that? Who was sawing wood? No, this sounded ten times worse than sawing wood...
If he couldn't stand it, the neighbors next door and upstairs and downstairs must have been even more fed up. After enduring it for a while, people began opening their windows and stepping onto their balconies to shout:
"Are you ever going to stop?"
"You're driving us crazy! The kids have homework to do!"
"If you're learning the erhu, can't you find an open space to practice?"
Oh, so it was an erhu. And judging by the sound, the player was probably a beginner. No wonder it made his scalp crawl. Shen Le shook his head with a sigh and was about to take another route when the household making the awful noise—no, playing the erhu—erupted in a woman's shrill voice:
"How can you still play like that? What have you been doing all day? The family paid a fortune for you to learn the erhu, and you don't practice at your lessons or during the day. All you know is how to play! All you know is how to play!"
The mother's scolding, the child's heart-wrenching sobs, and the ever more awful, halting notes of the erhu blended together. Shen Le sighed, pivoted on his heel, and headed across the street. All kinds of comments drifted around him:
"With a mother this short-tempered, no wonder the kid's getting worse at it."
"She's short-tempered because she's the one helping the kid with homework. Try having the dad do it. Wouldn't he yell and scold just as much?"
"I can't say I've heard many fathers scold their kids like that..."
"So it's a case of a single mother doing all the parenting, huh? The dad's completely vanished, huh?"
"If you ask me, people living in these old apartment buildings shouldn't be learning music. They can't play well, and the neighbors are driven half mad..."
"So poor people aren't allowed to learn music? You need a big mansion to be qualified to learn music?"
"Be grateful they're not learning the suona..."
Arguments like that never went anywhere. Shen Le shook his head and hurried on, covering his ears. Before he'd even crossed the street, a man's furious roar suddenly came from the apartment building behind him:
"I work overtime every damn day! Six days a week, from eight in the morning until nine at night, and I only make five thousand a month! Your erhu lessons cost three thousand, and you still slack off every day!"
Just hearing that made Shen Le feel awful for him. A middle-aged man drained dry by work, with a kid who refused to shape up—that was a tragedy. Worse still would be having a wife who'd had three kids, and none of them were his.
Shen Le sympathized deeply. Even so, the man's relentless yelling at the child made him a little restless. The man's voice grew louder and louder:
"You even said a Puppet would play with you. How could a Puppet play with you? You just wanted an excuse to slack off! All you ever do is play! What's so fun about that stupid Puppet? Just throw it away!"
Windows opening, people shouting, the child crying out. Amid all the noise, a scream suddenly rang out:
"Help—!"
Shen Le stopped dead. He turned, looked up, and followed the sound. The scream traced an arc across the street and plunged into the river ahead. It was faint, yet piercing, desperate, heart-wrenching—
And it was a child's voice.
A child's voice!
Shen Le sprang forward. When he reached the riverbank, he saw a small figure bobbing in the water. The Copper Fragment against his chest was burning hot and trembling, and one desperate cry for help after another rang in his ears.
Shen Le kicked off one sneaker, then the other. He stuffed his phone and keys into them, then plunged into the river.
"Someone jumped into the river!"
"Where?"
"Where, where?"
"Call the police!"
The riverbank erupted in commotion. Shen Le paid it no mind and swam hard, head down. One stroke, two, three—at last he reached the small figure and grabbed it—
"Huh?"
It was hard. Hard?
It was a Puppet?!
He'd jumped into the river in front of everyone for a Puppet?!
For a moment, Shen Le wanted to dive underwater and swim far away, staying submerged until he reached somewhere no one could see him. But first, he couldn't hold his breath that long. Second, as soon as the Puppet was in his hands, its desperate cries of "Help, help!" stopped. The Copper Fragment against his chest cooled, leaving only a little residual warmth that made him wonder if his body heat had warmed it.
He tried putting the Puppet down. The cries for help started again, and the Copper Fragment heated up. He picked it back up; the cries stopped, and the fragment cooled. He tried two or three times. It happened the same way every time, with no variation.
Fine...
Then...
He was already here.
He'd already picked it up.
Since the Copper Fragment could be charged and could treat his nearsightedness and stiff shoulders and neck, it wasn't so hard to believe that a Puppet could call for help... right?
Shen Le tried to convince himself as he took off his T-shirt in the water, wrapped the Puppet in it, and held it in one hand. Then he slowly swam back. When he reached the bank and lifted his head, the crowd parted around him, and an urgent voice hurried over:
"Make way! Make way! I'm a police officer! Who jumped in?—You?"
Shen Le managed a weak smile, twisting his face into an awkward grin. He struggled to hold his pants up with one hand underwater and raised the Puppet with the other to show the officer.
"Well... I thought a child had fallen into the water..."