Chapter 113 Returning a favor
The moment your eyes meet, you and Tamara tumble together into the awning on the street corner.
Meanwhile, the puppet show cart that you smashed to pieces is unfolding at an absurd speed.
The wheels seemed to have grown bones, extending four pillar-like wooden legs to step on the cobblestone ground, making a clattering sound with each step.
The tattered curtains billowed high, and the damaged stage, smashed open, became a huge gaping hole, with the howling wind whipping up a scattering of snowflakes.
The male puppeteer becomes one with the cart, swinging it at you as if the wheels aren't wheels and the arms and legs aren't arms and legs.
"Did this thing evolve like this before?" You held back for a while, but still couldn't help but twitch your lips and complain to Tamara.
“He slunk away on his own last time.” Tamara clicked her tongue and gave you a thumbs up. “It looks like you pissed him off, which is why he went through this ‘ultimate evolution’.”
You gave yourself a thumbs up: You're amazing!
Let's get back to the point.
Trying to rouse the ghost bride's green hair, the usually brave and intelligent hair merely brushed against your hand before being flung out, symbolically whipping the monster that was one with the vehicle like a spinning top before returning to its starting point.
You know what I mean, this monster can't be confronted head-on.
We still need to start by cracking its mechanism.
Quickly scan the surrounding area with the corner of your eye.
After your previous aimless wandering, you've already strayed far from the city center where the market is located. This area is closer to the city center, with municipal iron sculptures, tourist food carts, commemorative coin exchange machines, record stalls, and so on scattered around.
As dusk fell, the tourists and locals had long since disappeared into restaurants and taverns for dinner, leaving only empty stalls and the two of you, bracing yourselves for the monster.
"Is it still considered a street performer now?" you ask.
Tamara thought for a moment, her fingers unconsciously twirling around the ends of her hair, then her eyes lit up, and her fingertips pointed upwards: "Even if it becomes a monster, it can only be said to be an artist who messed up the performance; its inherent attributes haven't changed."
“Since we all agree that it’s still an artist…” You looked at Tamara, knowing she was thinking the same thing as you.
The general rule states that street performers are common—which is utterly nonsensical, while Tamara's comment is to run away if you notice anything unusual about them.
You've encountered similar situations before, proving that making a quick getaway is a perfectly viable solution.
"Why were you arrested last time?" you ask. That's crucial.
Tamara was speechless for a moment. The smug look she had just had suddenly turned awkward after she winked at you.
"To be honest, I won't laugh at you," you said seriously.
Tamara sighed and admitted the truth: "My partner ran for a while and then left him behind, so I wondered how I could solve this problem if I didn't run."
"Fine, as expected of her." You sighed and smiled wryly, rubbing your forehead.
"This also shows that if we don't deliberately court disaster, it won't be able to catch us." You quickly analyzed seriously, "We ran away today but failed to shake it off. Ultimately, the problem may still lie with you. As you said, you messed up its show last time but didn't completely destroy it, which gave it the opportunity to come back to us."
“Therefore, its underlying mechanisms should not have changed,” Tamara agreed.
If we exclude Tamara, who is a troublemaker, why is it that as long as you run away, you can definitely shake off the puppeteers?
"What's it howling about over there?" The monster's broken bellows howled like a banshee, so you had to ask Tamara to translate its language into Lothian.
"Art! My art! Unforgivable! You despicable outsiders, you have defiled our traditions and destroyed my art!" Tamara vividly expressed this sentiment using the language of flowers.
Art?
"Although some voices in contemporary art theory believe that the essence of art is creation itself, most opinions still hold that art has no meaning without an audience, regardless of whether the audience is for the present or the future, for humans or gods." Your brain, rich in knowledge from short videos, lights up.
So when the target—you—the audience—runs away as fast as you can, the puppeteers can't catch up with you.
Because you refuse to be spectators, they are powerless to do anything.
"Puppet theater itself makes it difficult to separate the puppeteer from the puppeteer and say who is the center of the performance, so the monster is 'form' itself—it is the destroyed artistic essence." You excitedly conclude.
Tamara, through her own experience, realized: "Ah, no wonder his ugly puppets all have his picture inside them, and his self-awareness seems to be everywhere in the theater!"
You realize another detail.
When you first smashed open the puppet theater, he stood there blankly, at a distance, seemingly unresponsive.
Only when you pulled Tamara out and turned to look at him did he seem to wake up from a dream and begin to act on you as well.
He is not "damaged awakening," but rather he is "activated" because you saw him.
“If it’s so committed to tradition, then it should insist that if no one watches it, then art doesn’t exist.” You said, giving Tamara a wink.
“Then let’s leave him unwatched,” she said.
“Someone could come out of here at any time, and then it won’t be up to us two anymore.” You look around and finally find a suitable spot in the distance. “Let’s go, lead it there, create a ‘non-dramatic zone.’ Make a stage out of structureless, meaningless scraps—and let it crash on its own.”
You and Tamara, one on each side, dodged the monsters, running at a leisurely pace.
The monster leaped high into the air and swung its bellows-shaped frame down, smashing street tiles and causing iron sculptures to fall.
You led it step by step to the edge of that block—an old construction site and an empty space where advertisements had not yet been removed.
There was a mess of things: torn canvases, frames removed, broken sound systems, installation art bases that had been cleared away by the city, a temporary sign that read "Soon to be replaced," headless mannequins, and several empty performance chairs. And so on.
And the monster finally limped in.
It paused for a moment, as if it couldn't understand the "structure" of the place.
Is this a stage? Are there any audience members? Who are the actors? Who is the manipulator?
You nod, wave your finger, and stand on the old display stand amidst the pile of broken statues, while Tamara sits in the first row of plastic audience chairs, taking out her phone and pretending to record a video.
You stretch out your hands, as if performing some kind of silent film.
Sure enough, the monster's steps began to falter, as if it was hesitating whether to join the "show".
But there's no opening, no set design, and no clues that the audience is expecting.
Tamara suddenly stood up and yelled at it, "What kind of theater is this? Satire? Experiment? Performance? Percussion?"
"No narrative! No climax! Your performance is a classic failure!"
The monster's entire frame and wooden poles began to tremble violently, the tattered curtains billowed wildly like weathered accordion zippers, its head twisted, and sharp, mournful cries emanated from the various cracked holes in the doll: "You don't understand—my expression! My will—I—this is how I crafted..."
“You’re an old object that nobody wants to look at anymore,” Tamara said mercilessly.
You take out your phone, turn on the flash, and deliberately twist the angle to blur and distort the image. The monster immediately fixates on the camera and tries to get closer—
*Smash!* You slammed your phone to the ground, and the screen shattered completely.
“You have no audience,” you said coldly.
“There are no plays either,” Tamara added.
"Even you yourself no longer know what you're acting out."
Its limbs began to disintegrate, the wooden planks on the stage vehicle slid off one by one, and the remaining part was like a concept struggling in vain—detached from structure, detached from meaning, and detached from control over the audience.
It began to wail: "Don't go! Look at me! I have the most complete form! The most standard set! The most... the best lines!"
“You’re way behind the times,” Tamara said, turning and walking away.
With a muffled boom, the body of the puppeteer, who had transformed into a monster, finally exploded completely. The puppet show vehicle was also shattered into pieces, and amidst the flying tattered cloth, it seemed as if a shadow wearing a wooden mask was slowly blown away by the wind.
All that remained were wood chips, gears, and scraps of old cloth.
nailed it.
You still feel a tingling sensation in your heart.
Tamara and I worked together surprisingly well. She could quickly follow my train of thought, and most importantly, she could speak fluent Rosenborg and express herself clearly and distinctly.
Tamara smoothed her hair, a slight smile playing on her lips, and breathed softly, "Not bad."
You glance at her: "Are your feet cold?"
Tamara was momentarily stunned before looking down and remembering that she had long ago thrown away her shoes, which made it inconvenient to move around, somewhere.
At this moment, the wool socks were soaked through with mud and water, and were so cold that they were almost numb.
She awkwardly played with her hair, seemingly ashamed of revealing her embarrassment.
Sigh, squat down, let her take off her scarf and wrap her feet in it herself, then let her climb onto your back.
Tamara was lost in thought.
"What are you standing there for?" you said irritably. "I'm not as mean as you. I would feel bad if I just left you here to freeze."
"Oh," Tamara mumbled, letting you carry her to the mall.
After choosing the new shoes, the sales assistant very kindly helped Tamara tidy up her disheveled state. The two of you sat silently in the mall for a while, holding hot water.
Night had fallen, and looking out from inside, your shadow was reflected in the glass wall of the shop window.
Today was another long day, and you felt a mix of emotions. You were too tired to argue with Tamara anymore; you couldn't understand her thinking anyway. So you prepared to say goodbye and leave.
But she grabbed your arm.
You look at her.
She stared at the projection of you in the glass, remaining silent for a long time.
"Have you been sleeping poorly lately?" she suddenly asked.
You paused for a moment, then asked, "Why do you ask that?"
“You’ve been speaking much slower all day,” she chuckled. “To put it bluntly, it’s like there’s another person attached to you.”
You frowned and turned to look at her: "You're quite observant. But, is that why you've been staring at me all day?"
“You guessed one thing right,” Tamara showed her her phone, which displayed a family SIM card interface from a telecom company. “Besides the SIM card I gave you, I do have another one, and it’s linked to your card.”
She blinked innocently, "Yes, mine is a parent's account, so any abnormalities in your account will be sent to me."
Your heart suddenly tightened.
After the initial tension subsided, a sense of speechlessness washed over me.
You hit Tamara.
"Hey! You were the one who asked for my props!" Tamara said matter-of-factly.
You clenched your fist. She immediately backed down and changed the subject.
"Don't be nervous." Tamara casually patted the air. "I'm not interested in your private affairs. I just noticed... these past few days, your SIM card has started receiving some very strange backhaul signals."
You really didn't notice that.
"You know, the 'Family Account' has a lot of privileges. I know you don't use it much normally, but these past few days it's been running on its own: analyzing your location, accessing your photo album... syncing your behavior patterns—"
"?! You can't access my photo album too, can you?!" You felt like the sky had fallen.
"What are you thinking! Privacy rights! Privacy rights! I can only see some access data in the background!" Tamara yelled, trying to clear herself of the blame for being a pervert.
"That's alright." You felt relieved.
“…That’s not the point…” Tamara wiped away a bead of sweat, turned around and looked at you. “The most important thing right now is that I suspect you’ve gotten yourself into trouble with something, and you might even be gradually replaced.”
With her palm outstretched, as if she had finally made things clear, Tamara said casually, "I asked you out today to confirm this matter."
“And maybe I can help you.” She twirled her hair.
You look at Tamara and decide not to expose her, as she had no intention of helping you before tonight.
"So what did you observe today?" you asked in a low voice. "I've been observing you all day, and I didn't notice anything unusual at all."
She pointed to the glass display window behind her.
"Did you notice that all the devices with 'display screens' that we visited today had a momentary blurring or flickering?"
You thought about it.
If I had to point out something, the LED signage at the subway station seemed to gibberish for a second, and the pop-up shop windows on the roadside flickered as if the signal was bad.
Through Tamara's pointing it out, you can easily connect these things to the previous live stream.
“But this matter is already over.” You explained the whole story to Tamara. “Whether it was the viewers in the live stream or anyone else, they all got their attention drawn to my ‘live stream assistant’ Anna.”
That doesn't really make sense.
Even if that incident wasn't handled perfectly, how could the fish that escaped the net have been lurking silently around you for so long?
“Maybe it’s just bad luck,” Tamara sighed. “If I don’t explain it by luck, I don’t understand why this puppeteer would come to me again.”
Was it luck? But this is too much of a coincidence.
You believe in luck, and sometimes you use it to relieve your mental stress, but how did you and Tamara end up being unlucky together?
If we're talking about the sequence of events, it seems you were first.
Really?
You carefully examined the general rules: "Even if luck is truly an elusive thing, I'm having such bad luck in this instance. Is there something I'm missing or doing wrong that keeps causing these unpleasant things to happen?"
Tamara thought your concerns were valid and joined in as well.
“There are indeed many vague rules in the general rules of the Los Kingdom instance, but surely you wouldn’t knowingly violate the rules that are clearly written down?” Tamara couldn’t think of anything.
You mentally went through all your actions after entering this instance in chronological order, paying particular attention to the small details of daily life.
I just can't figure it out.
You pull the hood over your head and collapse onto the sofa in the mall.
Hmm.
You suddenly sit up and grab your hood.
General rule: Don't leave your hat on the bed after you come back from outside, as it's considered unlucky.
This is unlucky.
This is unlucky.
It's practically telling you, "Look, this one is related to luck!"
The game developers have always been fond of playing word games.
What is a "hat"?
Who wouldn't subconsciously think that only warm hats or baseball caps are considered hats?
But what about the hood that comes with the clothing?
You feel a bit like you've swallowed a fly.
More than once, you've been so tired when you got home that you just took off your coat and fell asleep on the bed in your hoodie underneath.
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Author's note: Hehe
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