William Clark passed by silently, going down the stairs to the first floor. The old man's bedroom was on this floor.

All day long, he had either been looking for Henry Baker or observing this pair of grandfather and grandson. This was the old man's cage, and he more or less knew that the old man's knot was related to his grandson, but as for the specifics, he still hadn't figured it out.

He wanted to take advantage of the night to check out the old man's room.

As he passed through the living room, William Clark heard a trembling voice, so soft it sounded ghostly: "Brother... brother..."

"Brother, it's me, turn around and look at me..."

William Clark: "..."

He followed the voice around to the Eight Immortals table and saw George Miller still paralyzed in the chair.

"Brother, where are you going?" George Miller asked softly.

"Going to check out the old man's room," William Clark replied, then asked, "Have you seen Henry Baker?"

"No, isn't he in that pile of dolls?"

William Clark said, "He's not."

George Miller: "Then where is he?"

William Clark: "Who knows."

Could it be that the two of them got sent in, but he himself didn't make it?

William Clark pondered. With Henry Baker's noob level, maybe he really could mess something like that up.

Actually, you could tell a judge's skill level by how they entered the cage heart. The simplest was like them, attaching to dolls or photos. A bit trickier was attaching to mirrors, then to paintings. As for the rest... the less human-like the object, the harder it was. The more things you could control, the more powerful you were.

Back in the day, when William Clark was in top form, he could even control the entire cage heart.

But that was in the past.

With William Clark there, George Miller finally dared to move.

He struggled to fall off the chair, wobbled to his feet, muttering, "Careful, careful... can't make a sound."

William Clark was a bit speechless at this. "No need to be so dramatic."

"Yes, I do," George Miller said earnestly, clutching his skirt. "Everything in this house is super sensitive. What if something explodes when you touch it? That glass teapot this afternoon just exploded out of nowhere."

"Teapot?" William Clark was stunned for a moment, then remembered: when the little boy tried to grab him that afternoon, the grandpa downstairs accidentally broke something.

"You're saying the teapot exploded out of nowhere?"

"Yeah!"

William Clark was a bit puzzled and was about to ask more when, out of the corner of his eye, a ghastly pale figure flashed by.

He instantly stopped talking and turned to look. It was a full-length mirror, propped up at an angle right by the old man's bedroom door. The silent figure just now was standing in that mirror.

George Miller didn't dare move at all.

But William Clark walked right over. He went up to the mirror, leaned in to touch the surface, wanting to see if there was anything strange inside.

Suddenly, he heard Henry Baker's voice right in front of him, with a hint of laughter: "Don't get so close. Those big, bright eyes of yours are kind of scary."

William Clark: "..."

What the hell—

He took a step back, about to curse, when he saw himself in the mirror.

The eyes of a Western-style doll were no joke—long, curled lashes, really big and watery, plus those overalls...

Even he was scared of himself.

But after two seconds of fear, he snapped out of it—

Henry Baker, that bastard, went into the mirror himself and stuffed them into the dolls. Is this something a human would do???

Chapter 8: The Drawer

Besides the doll with big watery eyes, Henry Baker's shadow was also in the mirror.

That figure was extremely blurry—not to mention facial features, you couldn't even tell if the hair was long or short. It was like a tall, pale person standing somewhere both close at hand and impossibly far away.

For a moment, William Clark felt this scene was familiar.

He seemed to have seen someone like this before, standing barefoot under faint daylight, looking down at the river of blood winding at his feet, lifting the loose, snowy white hem of his robe...

But then he remembered, that was a scene he'd seen long ago in some handwritten book, or maybe an old painting. It had been too long, the memories were mixed up.

"Knock, knock, knock."

The mirror made three light tapping sounds.

William Clark blinked and snapped back to reality.

In the mirror, Henry Baker's blurry image bent down, looking at the doll that was way too short from his perspective, and asked, "Not talking? Are you really that mad?"

William Clark: "Stand up straight when you talk."

Henry Baker: "If I stand up straight, the height difference is too much. Your necks will get sore, and my eyes will get tired."

William Clark: "..."

If you didn't play favorites, there wouldn't be this height difference, and no one would have to suffer.

He stared coldly at Henry Baker's legs, feeling like his temper was especially bad today—thousands of years of cultivation, all ruined by this guy.

Henry Baker still spoke in that reasonable tone: "I'm not messing with you on purpose. There isn't a single photo on display in this house, and there are very few mirrors. There's one in the bathroom, one here, and a small one by the old man's bed. If I went into all the mirrors, my range of movement would be pitifully small."

He paused, then smiled: "Then I wouldn't be able to see anything, and you'd still blame me, wouldn't you?"

George Miller snapped out of his fright and agreed, "Yeah, that makes sense."

William Clark: "..."