Xing Ye: "…"
Xiao Jingzi is really confused. Can a herniated disc cause the bone to bulge out?
Unexpectedly, at this moment, the little mirror looked between his legs and said in surprise, "You don't have what you should have. Have you grown a waist?"
When he got excited, his body made clanging sounds. He didn't know what kind of body he had, but why did it sound like a broken gong?
"This player who defies fate is so unlucky! He could wear women's clothing, but now he doesn't even have... anymore? Or is it still growing on his waist? He doesn't even have a right hand. Is he a deformed child?"
"Calm down, calm down," Xing Ye, who had something growing on his waist, was still able to calmly comfort the small mirror. He said, "Don't worry. Feel the bulge on your waist. Are you sure it's...?"
In fact, Xing Ye was also feeling uneasy. Could it be that he was really that unlucky?
"I'm a little panicked..." said the little mirror.
"Don't panic," Xing Ye continued to comfort him, "I suspect my current body is not human. I have a guess, but I'm not sure. Twist the thing around my waist."
The little mirror slowly reached out to twist the finger, saying, "I'm so clumsy. It's so hard to move my fingers. It's like my bones are rusted."
Although it was very slow, he still twisted the item on Xing Ye's waist with difficulty. "Click" and "click" sounds were heard, as if he was winding up a toy.
Following the rhythm of the sound, Xing Ye felt his strength gradually returning.
It seems that his guess was correct, he is not human now.
There was one thing that puzzled Xing Ye the moment he saw the system introduction: this mission never mentioned the word "people" at all. Instead, it used the term "residents," "truth-telling residents," "ordinary city residents," and "residents with aspirations." Why "residents" and not "people"? It felt rather awkward.
Now he understood, because he was not a "human".
When the small mirror was twisted to a certain degree, the thing on the waist could not turn anymore. Xing Ye raised his left hand, and the sluggish feeling disappeared, and the "clicking" sound became very small.
Xing Ye remembered that when he wanted to move his right hand, he heard a "click" sound, like something falling.
After he was able to move again, he immediately groped for the place where he remembered it falling, and found... a piece of arm.
There was a black and white bracelet on his arm, which only emitted a faint light when Xing Ye picked up his arm.
"This should be a clockwork," Xing Ye said, touching the thing on his waist, "and I am a puppet, or a toy man."
Jingzi was also an old player. After hearing what Xing Ye said, he finally calmed down. He patted his chest and made a "clang clang" sound: "Fortunately, it's okay. I was scared to death."
"Why are you always worrying about unimportant things?" Xing Ye laughed. "I've even worn women's clothes, so why would I be afraid of becoming a puppet?"
Xing Ye now urgently needed to know what the mission was. He asked the mirror to help hold his right arm, and he used his left hand to click on the black and white bracelet to check the content of the mission.
Since this is a world without mobile phones, the mission content is prompted by a narration like in the Magic Mirror World. Xing Ye heard the long-lost narration: "Puppet Master Benedict's dream is to build a kingdom. He bought land and built an unknown fairytale town on his territory. The residents of the town are not human, but all puppets made by Master Benedict himself, 80% of which are puppets.
Master Benedict's dream is beautiful. He wants to build Puppet City into Neverland, where there is no sadness, no death, and no deception. It is an ideal country that only exists in imagination.
But at the last moment of his life, looking at the mechanical puppets in the city, Master Benedict did something that he would regret for the rest of his life. He gave humanity to the puppets.
The puppets with human nature began to deceive each other, and gradually no one in Puppet City told the truth anymore. They lived every day telling lies that each other knew.
Master Benedict wants to prevent Puppet City from being polluted by humanity, but he is too old to continue working. So he creates a puppet and puts his heart into it, letting it inherit his will and help restore Puppet City to its true self.
In this city, there is only one puppet who speaks the truth. Can you find him? Can you guess his true wish? Can you help him?
Friendly reminder: Although all the puppets tell lies, they aren't easily exposed like the 'sun rises in the west' lie. Lies are everywhere, and they're hard to guard against. Lies that are 70% true and 30% false are often truer than the truth. Seek truth among lies, and you'll find that truth is even more of a lie than the lie itself.
After listening to it, Xing Ye repeated the content to Xiao Jingzi.
"So you're a puppet now? I'm... a puppet?" the mirror asked.
"You might be a puppet with a mirror, or a bronze mirror." Xing Ye patted the body of the small mirror, making a loud knocking sound.
"Ah! Why are you touching my chest?" Little Mirror said shyly.
Xing Ye: "…"
"So does that mean we win as long as we find the puppet with Benedict's heart and help him eliminate lies from Puppet City?" asked the little mirror.
"It shouldn't be that simple," Xing Ye pondered. "The narrator never said that Benedict was the only puppet who told the truth. To be more precise, I think a puppet with a human heart couldn't help but lie. The narrator mentioned that it was because Benedict gave Puppet City 'humanity' that Puppet City fell from the Utopia into the human world. So, the puppet with Benedict's heart is probably the puppet's biggest lie."
"Is that so?" the little mirror asked in surprise. "Then why, when it's clearly Master Benedict's wish, do we have to find a puppet that doesn't lie?"
"I don't know. There must be a deeper story to uncover." Xing Ye said, "There are too few clues. We need to go into the city and contact the puppets. We also need to find other players. There are five players who follow the fate and three who don't. Cao Qian counts as one. Guan Ling might be one of the players who follow the fate... We have to find a way to kill one of the players who follow the fate."
He was so ferocious right away that Little Mirror was shocked: "W-why?"
"Of course it's for you," Xing Ye knocked on the hard body of the small mirror. "You were originally a mirror prop. Even if you were discovered, I could tell others that you were a special prop that could help me memorize QR codes. But now you've transferred your body and become a puppet... I can't even tell what material it's made of. So I can only treat you as a player. This way I can conceal your identity."
But if Xiao Jingzi claimed to be a player, then there would be nine players here, which clearly didn't match the number of players in the system. So Xing Ye decided to go all out and kill the lone Shunming.
"You don't have to be so cruel, do you?" Little Mirror said, her voice remarkably innocent. "Didn't you say you'd stick to your bottom line and not hurt anyone? You even said before that it was a good thing you didn't hit me, otherwise I would have gone astray."
"Then how can I protect you?" Xing Ye asked.
He did say that we must abide by the rules and stick to the bottom line, but in front of important people, the bottom line can be compromised again and again.
"You can say I'm a resident of the Puppet City," Little Mirror took Xing Ye's left hand, "just like the boys AC in the previous world, we're good friends."
Xing Ye was stunned.
"Isn't it okay to lie in this world? I just need to tell others that you are my childhood friend... We have been playing together since we were created... We have been friends who have played together until we ran out of motivation. Our relationship is so good that we can even support each other. We all have identities in the game world, and we use ordinary people in the world to cover up our identities, so I can pretend to be an ordinary person. Since the number of players in the game is fixed, they will not doubt my identity." The little mirror moved his fingers happily and twisted his waist. Even if he was a puppet, he had a body!
Xing Ye knocked his wooden head and chuckled, "Am I too tired from not sleeping recently? I didn't even think of such a simple thing."
Instead, he needed a small mirror to remind him.
Oh, now it's time to call the big mirror. Xing Ye just measured the body of the mirror with his left hand and felt that it was taller and stronger than his current puppet body.
The little mirror said: "You need to have a regular sleep schedule and a regular sleep schedule to maintain good skin condition. You can't skip sleep, as it will make those who care about you worry."
Are there still people who care about me? Is it possible that there are still some? Xing Ye thought secretly.
"What to do next?" asked the big mirror.
Xing Ye: "Let's go out again after daybreak."
Big Mirror: "Huh? Is it night time now?"
Xing Ye analyzed, "My body is powered by a clockwork spring, which means this world has no electricity and is probably still in the Middle Ages or steam energy era. Lighting tools in this era are often kerosene lamps, but my body is flammable, so I certainly wouldn't dare place a fire source in my home. It's normal that there are no lights."
With the current level of construction, if it were daytime, there would be light coming in anyway. The reason it is so dark is most likely night, and the kind of night where there is no moonlight and you can't see your hand in front of you.
Of course, our house may be very simple, with items piled up in a mess, and we need to wait for further exploration."
"I see. How about we take a nap? It's night time now and we can't move," suggested the big mirror.
"Can you fall asleep?" Xing Ye asked.
The big mirror closed its eyes and was silent for a while before shaking its head and saying, "I can't sleep. I can't even close my eyes. I don't have eyelids."
"I think I do." Xing Ye tried to blink his eyes, "click," "click," with sounds and the feeling of blinking.
"So what do we do now?"
"Check the springs together. Wind them a few more times. Make sure they don't run out of energy again. Tomorrow morning, I'll find a way to install the arm."
"Okay, I found my spring. It seems to be on the back of my head. Can you help me wind it?" The big mirror lowered his head and obediently let Xing Ye help him wind up the spring. When he lowered his head, there was a loud sound of metal collision.
Two puppets who don't know their true identities, one without a right hand and the other without eyelids, are struggling to help each other in the dark.