"You want to take me into the Manor!" The little girl's voice rose noticeably, and her eyes lit up. "That's wonderful! But you'll have to put my whole body together, and I can only go near that place at night."
"Isn't the Cloth Doll already put together?" Gao Ming looked puzzled.
"It's still missing something very important. The Cloth Doll has to be sewn together with Mommy's needle and thread before it's complete. Only then can I leave the Pine Forest." The little girl let go of Gao Ming's shirt. "Mommy used to live in Room 3009. Later, she was locked up on the Fourth Floor."
"Got it. Wait for my news." Gao Ming patted the girl's head, then turned to head back.
"The Manor is on the left! You're going the wrong way!" the little girl helpfully reminded him.
"I want to take a look at East Lake first." Gao Ming hadn't forgotten his original goal.
"Don't get too close to the lake. It's very dangerous. There's something at the bottom that really scares me." The little girl caught up with Gao Ming again. "The ice on the lake could break at any moment. If you keep going down this way, you'll see a dock. There's a little boat there. Daddy used to take it out to fish."
"Thank you." Following the girl's directions, Gao Ming passed through the Dense Woods without trouble. He stood halfway down the slope and looked into the distance, deeply awed by the scenery before him.
Amid the heavy snow of a bitter winter and the howling north wind, a lake stretched between the mountains, its boundaries nowhere in sight.
The lake's surface was frozen, sealed beneath ice for hundreds of miles. Perhaps because the water was so deep, the edges of the vast