So intruders are dangerous inside the cage—anything that gets disturbed will become aggressive.

Just like the fake “George Miller” that William Clark encountered before, it was meant to intimidate the intruder, representing the subconscious rejection of the cage’s owner.

Before figuring things out, William Clark didn’t want to invite trouble.

The bed in this house was old-fashioned, with tall legs and dark velvet drapes hanging down from all four sides, tightly covering the space beneath like a canopy.

William Clark sat underneath, planning to wait until the boy fetched the cotton thread before coming out.

However, the whole room was silent; the sound of slippers shuffling—“pat, pat”—never came.

William Clark waited for a while, then suddenly felt something was wrong.

He braced himself on the floor and turned his head, only to see the boy’s hollow, wide eyes. He didn’t know when the boy had gotten under the bed, but now he was crouched behind him, staring unblinkingly at William Clark, and said, “I see you.”

“……”

After not working for 25 years, William Clark sighed inwardly, turned around, and tried to crawl out from under the bed.

He was quite agile, but damn it, his arms were short and his legs even shorter—he tumbled over and was still stuck under the bed! Seeing the boy reach out his hand, he quickly grabbed the bed leg, used the leverage, and slid himself under the cabinet.

This space was low enough that the boy couldn’t crawl in.

He saw the boy lying on the floor, white fingers reaching through the gap, grabbing and clawing, getting more frantic with each attempt.

The boy’s nails weren’t long, but they scratched the floor with a creaking sound, wood shavings flying everywhere, some even embedding into his flesh. Yet he didn’t seem to feel any pain, still clinging to the floor, trying to catch William Clark, the doll.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash from downstairs—something had happened.

The old man called out, and the boy abruptly stopped.

Everything just now seemed as if it had never happened. The boy stood up from beside the cabinet, went to the door to put on his slippers, then pattered back in, started rummaging through the drawers for cotton thread, and then hurriedly called “Grandpa” as he ran downstairs.

William Clark was left forgotten under the cabinet.

He waited a while, then slid out from under the cabinet.

The boy had left in such a hurry that he forgot to close the door. William Clark took the opportunity to leave the room and peeked downstairs from the stair railing.

The house was traditionally furnished. In the center of the hall downstairs was a square table, with scattered puppet arms and legs on top, a drill for making holes, and loose cotton thread.

The George Miller puppet was lying at the edge of the table; presumably, the grandfather and grandson had just been making puppets here, but now they were gone.

William Clark went down a few more steps and saw them sweeping up glass shards in the corner, as if something had been smashed.

It took the two a while to finish cleaning up before they sat back down at the table.

The old man picked up the puppet’s body and pointed to the spot on its back, saying to the boy, “The first thread must go through here—nowhere else will do.”

“Why?” the boy asked.

The old man twisted the thread and said, “Didn’t I tell you before? There used to be some very skilled people who made puppets so lifelike, they were just like real people.”

At this moment, the boy seemed like a normal child again and asked, “Really just like real people? Do the ones in my room count?”

For a moment, the old man seemed to want to say something, but he stayed silent, just sitting there, not sure if he was lost in thought or choosing his words.

After a while, the old man said, “Just to scare you. You’d have to be really skilled for that.”

These things were actually most familiar to William Clark.

In the art of puppetry, beginners could only make things like kittens, birds, or rabbits—amusing, but they’d collapse in a minute or two at most.

But those who were skilled, like Charles Sullivan and the others, could make much more: men, women, old, young, all kinds of animals—they could all be made and controlled.

The more skilled the person, the longer the puppet would last.

But most could only last ten days or half a month; only a handful could go beyond that.

William Clark was one of those “handful,” but he lacked a spiritual aspect and was limited in many ways.

The boy kept asking, “Why can’t you thread the other parts first? You still haven’t said.”

The old man tried to scare him: “Because this spot is the most important. If you don’t thread it, the puppet will come to life very easily.”

The boy replied, “Oh.”

William Clark didn’t know where the old man had heard such things, but it was actually true. Every puppet had a mark at its heart—usually the puppet master’s own mark, like an artist stamping their signature.

If you wanted to destroy someone else’s puppet, just thread a string through its chest.

It’s actually the same principle as with people.

But when these things spread among common folk, they turned into all sorts of strange taboos, like the ones the old man mentioned.

William Clark listened for a while but didn’t get much out of it, so he quietly wandered around upstairs.

He originally wanted to find Henry Baker, but after searching the whole second floor, he found no trace, and since he couldn’t call out the name directly, he had to give up for now and hide in the corner of the storage room to wait for midnight.

***

Time passed quickly in the cage, and before long, night had completely fallen.

This house stood abruptly in the mountains, isolated from the world, and at night it was as silent as an abandoned home left empty for years.

The boy’s bedroom door was ajar, with no sound coming from inside—not even the sound of breathing.