Little Frost looked up for a while, then turned to look at White Peace.
“The Weirdness here can be hunted.” White Peace said calmly.
“Is there danger?” Little Frost asked immediately.
“Most Weirdness is dangerous, that’s normal.” White Peace said.
“Indeed.”
Little Frost nodded, but subconsciously tightened her grip on the handlebars. She looked down at White Night in the bike basket, confirming she was safely inside.
“Let’s go. I’ll handle everything.”
White Peace directly stepped forward and walked toward that shop.
Little Frost and Mu Yingying exchanged a glance.
Mu Yingying immediately drew her Tang Dao, holding the guard with the blade pointing downward, and quickly followed.
Little Frost also pushed the bike and followed closely.
Only when they got closer did they see that it was a two-story building. The first floor was a shop, and the second floor was probably a residence.
The glass door of the shop was fairly clean. Warm-colored light shone from inside, casting a false warmth on the small patch of ground at the entrance.
Mu Yingying pressed her face against the glass door and looked inside.
The shop was not big, about fifteen square meters. The entire shop was filled with dolls. On the right wall was a shelf that reached the ceiling, divided into more than twenty layers.
Each layer was neatly arranged, all kinds of plush toys, dolls, and puppets.
But on closer inspection, every doll showed signs of mending. The bear’s arm was taken from another doll, the color completely mismatched with its body.
The rabbit’s eyes: one was an original plastic bead, the other a black button.
The doll’s face had a neat stitch from forehead to chin, the skin tones of the two halves slightly different. Every stitch was neat, meticulous to the point of obsession.
Next to each doll was a handwritten label with the owner’s name and the date of repair completion.
Mu Yingying’s breath caught sharply. Her gaze fell on the doll at the very bottom right corner of the shelf. It was a worn, old gray elephant.
Its broken trunk had been reattached, but the reattached part was not plush at all—it was a section of dried, flattened flesh, unmistakably shaped like a human pinky finger. Its label read: Repair cost: one segment of a little finger.
Little Frost also saw it. Her face turned white instantly.
She took half a step back and was about to call out to White Peace, when the glass door suddenly let out a ding—someone had opened it from the inside.
An old man stood in the doorway, in his sixties, wearing a light gray cardigan over a light blue shirt. His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, revealing a pair of withered hands.
His hair was gray and neatly combed. His face was wrinkled but clean and dignified. A pair of reading glasses sat on his nose. When he looked at the group, a gentle smile appeared on his face.
He pulled the door open sideways, said “Welcome,” stepped back to clear the path, and asked with a smile, “Are you here to get a doll repaired?”
Mu Yingying instinctively hid the Tang Dao behind her back—it was a reflex when facing a seemingly harmless, polite old man.
But White Peace didn’t move. She looked straight at the old man and said word by word, “You have the smell of a fresh child on you.”
The smile on the old man’s face paused for a second, then he smiled even more gently, sighed, and said: “Young lady, your words hurt me a bit. I’ve been in this trade for forty years. I repair children’s dolls, so it’s inevitable that I carry the smell of children on me. That’s saliva, sweat stains, snack crumbs they leave when hugging their dolls. I’ve been repairing for forty years, smelling it for forty years. You can’t judge me just because of that.”
He spoke slowly, every sentence reasonable, his demeanor polite, his eyes gentle. Any ordinary person would probably be convinced by his words.
But White Peace still stood there, her tone unwavering: “The smell on you is not from children playing with dolls. It’s children’s blood, children’s flesh. It’s the smell that comes from inside a child when they’re taken apart.”
The smile on the old man’s face froze completely. It only maintained the shape of a smile, motionless.
“Young lady, are you a qigong practitioner or a cultivator? You’ve read too many novels. I honestly haven’t done anything. If you don’t believe me, come in and take a look. See if there’s anything inappropriate in the shop. After you see, you’ll feel relieved.” He tilted his head, gesturing toward the shop, his tone still gentle.
Mu Yingying muttered a curse under her breath: “This old Weirdness sure knows how to talk.”
Little Frost’s hand had already gripped the hammer handle, her body tense.
White Peace nodded to the two of them and stepped into the shop. As she passed the old man, he stepped aside, still wearing a smile.
But White Night in the bike basket noticed the old man’s right index finger twitch slightly—it was the habitual professional movement of a tailor about to pick up a needle.
The group followed into the shop.
The smell hidden beneath the lavender fragrance instantly became clear. It was mixed with the rancid stench of rotting flesh, nauseating to smell.
White Night was a soul body, without a nose, but still felt a strong wave of nausea on a soul level.
The old man closed the glass door and went back behind the counter to sit down.
On the counter were scattered scissors, tweezers, various sizes of needles and colored threads, and a cloth doll with a torn belly exposing cotton.
He picked up a needle and thread, threaded it, lowered his head and continued sewing. The stitches were excessively neat, each stitch the same length and tightness—the skill of many years of practice.
“Feel free to look around. My shop is full of repaired dolls, each one has an owner.” He said with a smile as he sewed, his tone carrying a hint of feigned loneliness: “The world’s been chaotic for a few years. I don’t know if those children are still around. I’m keeping their dolls for them. If they come back someday, I’ll return them.”
White Peace had been silent. She walked around the counter and headed straight for a door at the very back of the shop. It was the door to the backyard.
The brass handle was the same as the front door, but the handle was wet, sticky with bloodstains.
The old man saw her movement. His needle paused for half a second, then he looked up, speaking a bit faster but still with a smile: “Young lady, that door leads to the backyard. I use it to dispose of unwanted doll scraps. It’s a mess. Don’t go there. If you want to see dolls, the shelves here are full of repaired ones. Feel free to look.”
White Peace didn’t turn around. She had already reached the door and reached out to grab the handle.
The old man immediately put down his needle and stood up abruptly. The smile on his face vanished completely, his tone turning cold: “Young lady, I said don’t go over there.”
“What you’re hiding over there isn’t finished repairing yet, is it?” White Peace’s voice was flat, but it directly pierced through all his disguises.
The old man’s smile froze completely. His left hand instinctively reached for the scissors on the counter.
“Stop.” Little Frost instantly raised her iron hammer, blocking the bike basket. Mu Yingying also leveled her Tang Dao and took a step closer to the old man.
The old man’s left hand stopped above the scissors, not taking them, not withdrawing.
He looked up at White Peace. The gentle old craftsman’s demeanor on his face was completely gone, replaced by a cold and weary voice.
“Young lady, you saw through me.”
He sighed, sat back down on the chair, and brought his left hand back to rest on his knee.
“I won’t deny it, but listen to me. When the Doomsday first happened, my shop was full of children coming to get their dolls repaired. After a week, the customers were gone, never came again. I’ve been repairing dolls for decades, and my customers were all children. I waited a month, but the little boy who promised to pick up his bear never came. When I found his house, the building had already collapsed.”
“That’s when I realized the Doomsday was real. My customers were all dead. But their souls didn’t leave. They drifted into the shop, looked at their dolls, said ‘this is mine,’ but they were dead and couldn’t hold the dolls. So they stood in the shop and cried until they turned to ash. I couldn’t bear it. I’ve repaired dolls my whole life. I had to find a way to let them hold their own dolls.”
His tone was flat, as if talking about the most normal thing: “I used some other materials. There’s only so much you can use from dead children. Skin and flesh rot quickly, bones are hard to process. Fingernails can be eyes or buttons, hair can braid tails, ear bones are small and round, can be joints. I used these to replace the old parts of the dolls. After I replaced them, those children’s souls could hold the dolls.”
He revealed a smile, as if talking about a great good deed: “You don’t know how happy those children were when they held their dolls for the first time.”
Mu Yingying’s stomach churned.
“You fucking take parts from dead children and use them for dead children’s dolls?”
“Yes, I did it.” The old man admitted frankly.
“You say I’m evil, I accept that. But I never harmed the living. I only used what was left of dead children. Making the best use of things, giving their souls something to hold onto. Isn’t that a good thing?”
White Peace had been silent until now. She spoke, her voice cold as ice: “What you said is only half true. In the first two years of the Apocalypse, you did only use dead children’s parts. But dead children’s materials were limited, not enough for your repairs. More and more souls came looking for their dolls. Starting a year ago, you began capturing children’s souls, didn’t you?”
The old man fell completely silent. The smile and tears on his face vanished without a trace.
“Young lady, you say I capture souls. Do you have proof?”
“I don’t need proof. I’m here to kill you.”
The moment these words fell, something inside the old man seemed to snap completely. His upright posture instantly collapsed.
A long crack split from his neck, extending from the Adam’s apple down to his chest, abdomen, and knees.
Inside the crack was white doll stuffing cotton. The cotton was mixed with countless fine needles, black buttons, dry hard fingernail shards, and wisps of children’s hair.
Then, his gentle face skin split from the chin outward, falling entirely onto the counter.
What was revealed underneath was not a human face at all—it was more cotton, with two large black buttons embedded in the cotton, exactly where the eyes should be.
A Weirdness pieced together from doll stuffing cotton, needle and thread, buttons, and plastic toy skeleton. Its joints were children’s ear bones, its fingertips glued with children’s fingernails, its mouth sewn shut with red silk thread.
When it opened its mouth, the silk thread stretched, oozing black semi-coagulated liquid, but its voice was exactly the same as the old man’s from before.
“Young lady, you’ve made it so I can’t finish repairing today’s doll.”
As soon as the words fell, it lunged violently from behind the counter, its target being White Night in the bike basket. Its speed was extremely fast. The plastic skeleton on its body made clattering sounds. Its two palms shot out countless fine needles, straight toward White Night.
Little Frost reacted faster than anyone. Instead of swinging her hammer first, she threw herself forward, using her back to shield the bike basket.
At the same time, her iron hammer smashed upward fiercely. The hammer head hit the Weirdness’s chest directly.
The entire chest shattered instantly. Cotton, fine needles, buttons, and children’s hair mixed together, exploding all over the room.
The Weirdness punched Little Frost heavily. Little Frost let out a muffled grunt, but didn’t retreat a single step, still stubbornly blocking the basket.
Mu Yingying immediately circled to the Weirdness’s left side. Her Tang Dao swung horizontally, slicing off its entire left half. Cotton and debris rattled down.
The Weirdness let out a piercing roar.
The red thread on its mouth snapped completely. A child’s tooth fell out of its mouth, hitting the ground with a crisp sound.
White Peace raised her hand. This time, a black light flashed, shattering the entire Weirdness. The shattered Weirdness struggled for only two seconds before going completely still.
On the ground, it condensed into a Ghost Crystal, its surface covered with dense tiny needle holes.
The entire shop instantly fell silent.