The road was overgrown with tall grass, as if no one had passed through for a long time. The grass was just high enough to conceal both of them.
They crouched down and slowly made their way through the grass.
At the end of the road stood an abandoned factory. It appeared abandoned because the iron gate was wide open, allowing them to see the overgrown courtyard. None of the buildings were lit, and the smokestacks were silent.
Scattered at the entrance were parts of puppet figures, strewn haphazardly like a field of corpses.
However, there were guards posted at the gate and outside the courtyard walls. Like the ones in the town, these guards were made of wood.
It seemed that now that Gu Zhan and Xuyu had uncovered the truth, the puppets no longer concealed their true forms and openly appeared as they were.
The two didn’t rush in but instead observed from the gate for a while.
They noticed that aside from the gate guards, there were regular patrols inside the factory yard.
There were two patrol teams that alternated, leaving almost no gap in the watch.
The courtyard was wide open with no cover, making entry difficult.
"What should we do now?" Xuyu asked.
"Wait a bit longer. Let’s watch," Gu Zhan replied.
He seemed to notice that during the patrol shift, there was a gap of about thirty seconds when the courtyard was out of view. That time window would be just enough for them to climb over the wall and enter one of the buildings.
"Let’s circle around and take a look from another angle," Gu Zhan suggested.
From a different vantage point, Gu Zhan could see more clearly. One of the building’s windows was broken.
"We can wait for the patrol to pass by and then climb through that broken window into the building… but we won’t know what’s inside until we get there," Gu Zhan said.
Xuyu glanced at the building and nodded. "Let’s give it a try."
They waited for a cycle, and as soon as the patrol moved past, Gu Zhan said, "Go."
Both of them quickly climbed over the outer wall and landed softly, moving like cats. They crouched and swiftly reached the broken window.
While Xuyu was still climbing in through the window, Gu Zhan slipped over to the nearby door and pushed it. It wasn’t locked.
He went in through the door just as Xuyu finished climbing through the window. The moment the patrol turned around, both of them were already inside the building. Their timing was perfect.
The interior of the factory had been remodeled, with several small rooms along a long corridor. They didn’t have time to take in their surroundings when a female puppet appeared at the other end of the hallway.
She spotted them immediately, and the head on her long neck twitched and flung itself toward them!
"Damn it."
"This way," Xuyu said, pulling Gu Zhan into a nearby room.
It turned out to be a bathroom, with several small stalls. They went into the farthest one and shut the door.
Outside, it was eerily quiet. Soon, they heard slow, deliberate footsteps entering the room. Through the gap at the bottom of the stall door, they could see the female puppet’s feet… and her head.
Her neck stretched long as her head peeked through the gaps in the stalls, quickly arriving at the entrance of the stall where Gu Zhan and the others were.
To avoid being discovered, the two stood together on the toilet. The female puppet person looked in several times, and after not seeing anyone, withdrew.
But she didn’t leave; instead, she walked outside the restroom, and her footsteps disappeared.
“What should we do?” Xu Yu mouthed to Gu Zhan.
Gu Zhan was also unsure; he didn’t understand the situation here and had been confronted with such a scenario as soon as he entered…
Just as the two were at a loss, someone suddenly knocked on the stall door.
Immediately after, a familiar voice came from outside: “Come out quickly.”
It was Yu Ye Zhou!
Xu Yu quickly opened the door, only to see Yu Ye Zhou standing outside perfectly fine. Looking at the two, he seemed relieved: “You really came. Follow me.”
“Where to?” Xu Yu asked.
Yu Ye Zhou opened the door to the adjacent stall, revealing an empty room with no toilet.
He walked over, knocked on the wall, and a hidden door quietly opened.
But Xu Yu said, “Wait, hold on.”
Yu Ye Zhou replied, “I recognized you two years ago when we were together in a game copy. You got caught by a spider demon and were stripped naked and hung up online…”
“Wait a second.” A hint of discomfort flashed across Xu Yu's face. “Alright, no need to say more.”
Yu Ye Zhou stood by the stall with his arms crossed, his eyes filled with schadenfreude.
Xu Yu was certain that this person, who enjoyed watching the chaos, was definitely Yu Ye Zhou.
Memories could be altered or copied, but this nasty personality had no second match.
[Laughing to death, can you show me when you were stripped naked and hung online?]
[What spider demon? Is that from Journey to the West?]
The female puppet person outside seemed to sense something, causing a little commotion.
Yu Ye Zhou immediately stopped teasing and urged, “Hurry, let’s go.”
Behind the door was a narrow, dark passage. Once the three entered, the door behind them closed automatically.
The path ahead was long. Yu Ye Zhou asked, “Did you see the mark? How did you find your way here?”
Xu Yu recounted what had happened earlier, including an analysis with Gu Zhan about how they might also be puppets.
Yu Ye Zhou sighed, “As expected, Yang Lin must have discovered this.”
Xu Yu asked, “How can you be so sure? A hunch?”
“No,” Yu Ye Zhou said. “After I finished the call with Gu Zhan, I realized something was off. The two puppets at home suddenly mutated and tried to capture me.”
“I fought with them, jumped out the window, and found the outside filled with monsters... You all know my fighting ability is pathetic. After running for a while, I got captured and taken here.”
“How did you escape?” Gu Zhan asked.
Xu Yu also inquired, “What about Yang Lin?”
Yu Ye Zhou replied, “You’ll know when you come with me... This is an abandoned puppet-making factory, used as a transit station for puppets. Yang Lin isn’t here; she was captured earlier and should already be at the real puppet factory.”
As he spoke, they reached the end of the passage.
Yu Ye Zhou was at the front. He pushed open the door, and a ray of light shone in from outside.
It was a spacious room; the entrance passage was behind a row of shelves. The room was quiet, but there were quite a few people crowded in the corners, over a dozen of them.
They were all children, some as young as seven or eight, and others in their teens.
Their gazes were vacant, staring motionlessly at the center of the room.
Yu Ye Zhou pulled the two towards the corner, and in a low voice, he said, “These are all sent back from the town, supposedly to be repaired at the factory.”
“Why are there so many?” Xu Yu frowned.
Yu Ye Zhou explained, “In this place, as soon as you realize you’re a puppet or do something against the rules, you’re deemed unqualified. My missing desk mate disappeared like this too.”
“They come in batches, and all of these arrived today. The previous batch has already been taken away.”
“Took them away?” Xu Yu asked. “What about Yang Lin…”
Yu Ye Zhou nodded, “She’s already gone to the factory... But she should be fine... Um…”
After he finished, he added sheepishly, “I’m just guessing.”
Gu Zhan understood that his unique ability had likely activated; Yang Lin was probably fine for now.
But what would happen next was uncertain.
“What do we do now?” Xu Yu asked. “Just wait to be taken away?”
Yu Ye Zhou helplessly replied, “Yes, there’s no other choice… It’s a bit passive, but I have no leads about that factory still in operation. Running around randomly might lead us to some monsters; it’s better to just wait here honestly.”
“Alright.” Xu Yu nodded.
The three of them quietly stayed in the corner of the room.
The female puppet person outside seemed to have no idea they were missing.
Probably because no one had been found, there hadn’t been any commotion outside.
---
They had been in this building for quite a while. Gu Zhan estimated it had been about a day and a night based on their hunger levels.
Finally, someone came to deal with them.
The one who came to “handle” them was also a puppet.
Yu Ye Zhou couldn’t help but ask, “What on earth is this place, and why are there only puppets?”
“I don’t know; maybe that’s just how the copy is set up,” Xu Yu replied.
The puppets entered one by one from the door, putting black eye masks on the children and leading them outside.
Taking advantage of it not being their turn yet, Gu Zhan and the others huddled closer to the corner. From the open door, they could see a truck parked outside.
Yu Ye Zhou said, “The one that brought me here was an identical truck.”
Xu Yu said, “Let’s get on the truck.”
They waited quietly, and soon it was their turn.
The puppets approached to put eye masks on them. Probably thinking that the puppet-made children wouldn’t resist, they didn’t use any other restraints besides the eye masks.
This is a good thing for Gu Zhan and the others.
After getting in the car, it became much easier to escape.
They were at the very end of the line, loaded onto that truck... As they boarded, it was clear that there were people everywhere on the vehicle... The children were being pushed and squeezed together.
Gu Zhan slightly moved the muscles in his face, allowing the cloth covering his eyes to shift upward so he could see a bit below.
To his surprise, the living children, once lively, had turned into disheveled wooden puppets after getting on the truck. They were piled together, dressed in human clothing, yet had become lifeless wood.
With a loud bang, the door behind them closed, plunging the cargo hold into darkness.
Moments later, someone took out a flashlight and illuminated the small space.
As several people removed their blindfolds, they gasped at the sight in the truck: “They’ve all turned into puppets…”
Gu Zhan squatted down and touched the puppets piled in the cargo hold. “They were always like this, weren’t they?”
“Humans grow from flesh and blood, so it's strange to think of wooden beings as adults, but the puppets have always been puppets; perhaps they find humans just as strange,” Gu Zhan said, standing up and wiping his hands on the corner of a nearby puppet's clothing.
“Now we can act without hindrance; let’s wait until the truck arrives at its destination,” he asked.
Yu Yezhou replied, “Mm.”
Gu Zhan then said, “Let’s take a break... Uh, do you want to eat something?”
“Uh??”
The two of them were startled together.
Gu Zhan replied, “I have a space that stores some food.”
Yu Yezhou hesitated for a moment and said, “Let’s eat; the factory will definitely have a tough battle waiting for us, so we should have something to eat before we work.”
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