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墨書 Inktalez
Zhong Kui's Diary
The three of them exchanged glances, finally focusing on the swaying support beam. Fatty, being the closest, stepped forward and shook the beam back and forth. The clattering sound echoed again, continuing for a while before stopping.
"Twist it!" Zhao Ting suddenly said.
Fatty was taken aback and looked up at Zhao Ting in surprise. "Should I lick it again?"
Then it seemed he understood, smiling as he turned the support beam a couple of times. Sure enough, amidst the clattering, a wall slowly rose, revealing a room before us.
This room was the luxurious living room where Fatty and I had first encountered Gu Quan after escaping from that secret chamber. The European-style sofa with gold and silver inlays was still there, but the coffee table in the middle no longer had any fruit on it.
I couldn't help but marvel at how well the designer of the secret chamber understood human nature. Once anyone found the underground chamber, their primary concern would be to discover what treasures were hidden inside, completely overlooking the fact that there might be mechanisms within this room, that there was another secret chamber inside the secret chamber.
The ten or so gold bars and the hidden compartment under the desk were meant to divert attention. Those who love wealth would be satisfied with just obtaining the gold bars and would stop searching for secrets. Even if they discovered three skeletons in the hidden compartment, they would likely retreat. If it weren't for Fatty accidentally triggering the switch, we wouldn't have discovered this true secret chamber.
The lights were on in the hall, and several doors connecting to other rooms were wide open. Gu Quan and his companions might be inside one of those rooms. The three of us held our guns cautiously as we advanced slowly.
Suddenly, footsteps could be heard, and they immediately pointed their guns toward the source of the sound. A child walked out from one of the rooms, standing at the doorway with big eyes filled with confusion as he looked at us.
Tong Tong?
This child was Tong Tong—the homeless boy I had met at Moon Bay, who also brought us food after completing our tests. The scar above his brow was too prominent to miss.
Seeing us, Tong Tong furrowed his brows slightly. "Who are you? How did you get into my house?"
"Tong Tong, where are Gu Quan and the others?" I smiled at him, trying to appear familiar. As the saying goes, familiarity breeds comfort; this was our third meeting after all.
"How do you know my name?" Tongtong's eyes flashed with confusion. "Who is Gu Quan?"
Huh? What's going on? Tongtong doesn't seem to be lying, so could this child have a memory issue? Last time he didn't remember meeting at the Moon Bay District entrance, and now he clearly doesn't recall what happened last time either. I couldn't explain anything to him right now, so I called Zhao Ting and Fatty, quickly searching the underground chamber, but found nothing; Gu Quan and the others were not in this room.
Back in the hall, Zhao Ting put away her gun and walked over to the bewildered Tongtong, bending down. "Your name is Tongtong, right?"
Tongtong nodded in confusion. "Who are you?"
Zhao Ting smiled warmly and reached out to pat Tongtong's hair. "You can call me Sister Ting, okay?"
Come on, you're clearly an auntie; isn't that misleading the child?
Tongtong blinked his big eyes at Zhao Ting, not speaking but also not resisting her touch.
"Are there other people living with you?" Zhao Ting squatted down and asked with a smile.
"Yeah, they used to be here, but they haven't been around these past few days!" A thoughtful expression appeared on Tongtong's face. "I think there were seven or eight of them."
Is this child really confused or just pretending? I'm starting to find it harder to understand him.
"What do you eat then?" Zhao Ting patted his stomach. "Aren't you hungry?"
"What do I eat? I never eat anything!" Tongtong looked at Zhao Ting with wide eyes.
The three of us were taken aback; a seven or eight-year-old child couldn't possibly not eat anything, no matter how clueless they were. Zhao Ting laughed and patted Tongtong's stomach, about to say something when we heard a rumbling sound coming from his belly.
The sound was strange, as if there were metal objects inside him. Zhao Ting's hand froze in mid-air for a moment, then he quickly rolled sideways and away from Tong Tong.
"Damn, it's the Golden Puppet!" I shouted, raising my gun at Tong Tong and sternly commanding, "Don't move!"
Fatty, feeling bolder, stepped forward with his gun and pressed the barrel against Tong Tong's chest, poking it hard while loudly ordering, "Raise your hands."
Tong Tong looked at us in confusion, seemingly unaware of our intentions. Perhaps feeling uncomfortable with Fatty's gun pressed against him, he reached out towards the barrel.
Fatty was not one to show mercy; without hesitation, he pulled the trigger. With a loud bang, the immense force sent Tong Tong flying two or three meters away. A large wound appeared on his chest, revealing a brilliant golden light within, with blood seeping from the edges of the wound.
Indeed, it was the Golden Puppet; no doubt about it, this was one of the five Dolls missing from the Underground of Yangshan.
Tong Tong got up from the ground, showing no signs of pain but rather a hint of anger. "Why did you hit me?"
Fatty pumped the action on his shotgun, ready to fire again when Zhao Ting suddenly shouted, "Stop! Stop right now!"
Seeing Fatty's puzzled expression, Zhao Ting pointed at Tong Tong's chest. "Look! You all look!"
We followed Zhao Ting's finger to see the golden light flashing in the center of the wound. What was so interesting about that?
"The clothes! Inside his clothes!" Zhao Ting shouted sharply.
Huh? The clothes? At his words, I looked closer and felt a jolt. Near Tong Tong's wound, where the clothing had been blown apart, a corner of a book was faintly visible. From what I could see of the paper, it looked very much like Li Yunfan's notebook.
Could it be that the other half of the notebook is with Tong Tong?
I exchanged a glance with Fatty, feeling a bit awkward. Should Fatty face Tongtong and say that it was just a misunderstanding?
Zhao Ting signaled for us to go to another room. Fatty and I nodded, grabbed our guns, and left the hall. After wandering around for a while, we entered the operating room and discovered several golden hand and leg bones. Without hesitation, we stuffed them all into the Spatial Bag.
Before long, Zhao Ting called out to us from the living room. When we walked over, we saw Tongtong sitting on the sofa, silently watching us, while Zhao Ting had already obtained the notebook.
Is this girl really a police academy graduate? I couldn't help but feel she seemed more like a Kindergarten Teacher graduate.
Fatty and I leaned in closer as the three of us read through the diary. After finishing, we couldn't help but sigh; so this was what happened.
Li Yunfan, Zhang Hanlong, and Yoshinaga Tadao were all old-generation scientists serving the Republic, just like Shen Lao. Among them, Li Yunfan was a bioengineering expert, Zhang Hanlong was a materials mechanics expert, and Yoshinaga Tadao was an automation expert. Back then, experts were truly knowledgeable; unlike now, where anyone can print "expert" on their business cards.
During an experiment, Zhang Hanlong discovered that gold could react with certain plant-extracted elements. The gold that resulted from this reaction surprisingly gained self-repairing abilities. He shared this discovery with his friends Li Yunfan and Yoshinaga Tadao, and together they felt inspired to develop a highly intelligent robot.
Their project was promising but required a large amount of gold. At that time, when New China had just been established, ninety percent of the country's gold had been taken to Taiwan by the Kuomintang. The state was unable to support Li Yunfan's team in their research due to limited resources. Additionally, Shen Lao's atomic bomb project was at a critical stage, causing Li Yunfan's project to be temporarily shelved.
Naturally, Li Yunfan and his colleagues felt disheartened. One night after getting drunk, Li Yunfan inadvertently leaked details about their project to a strange person. This person became very interested in their work and offered to provide a large amount of gold to support their research under one condition: he wanted to become the Golden Puppet once they succeeded.
With this verbal agreement in place, the strange person began preparing a laboratory. We don't know who he was; we only knew he had immense capabilities. Within a month, he built a lab and factory underground at Yangshan Gold Mine. After the lab was completed, he somehow acquired a large supply of gold. With an endless supply of gold available, Li Yunfan's team made significant progress on their project. About six months later, Number One Puppet was developed.
Unfortunately, Number One Puppet encountered issues; it couldn't advance and its intelligence remained at the level of an infant. At this point, Zhang Hanlong suggested finding someone with exceptional physical qualities to implant the Doll's components into their body and use the synthetic gold's self-repairing function to take control of the human body.
The second Doll was developed using the body of a homeless child who had excellent physical attributes; there was no rejection when Golden Puppet entered his body. However, there was simply no rejection; the human brain could not integrate with Golden Puppet's intelligent brain, leading to frequent memory loss in the second Doll. To solve this problem, they needed to find individuals with good physical qualities who had recently died for integration with Golden Puppet.
With this idea in mind, everything else became easier. The subsequent Dolls only needed to create a skeleton; once these skeletons were implanted into humans, they would automatically merge with them and become new Golden Puppets.
With this successful case, the strange person forced Li Yunfan and others to fulfill their promise and implant the Golden Puppet into his body.
The strange person brought in four physically fit living individuals from outside, splitting himself into four. The one with the best physical condition fused with the original body, while the others fused with the clones.
At this moment, Li Yunfan and the others began to calm down from their frenzy. Seeing that the strange person could split himself, they realized that he was definitely not human, and his intentions made them feel a sense of danger. If the Golden Puppet were controlled by this strange person, it would bring great peril to their homeland. Therefore, they buried a biological bomb inside the original body, preparing to blow the strange person up.
...
The diary ends here. It is clear that Li Yunfan's plan failed, resulting in the three of them being killed in the hidden compartment beneath Mao Family Alley. However, since the original Easily Water Cold has not shown up, it is certain that Li Yunfan and his companions inflicted significant damage on the strange person's original body.
If the Golden Puppet we eliminated underground was numbered 0001, then obviously, Tong Tong is a successful 000, while Gu Quan and others are 000, 0004, 0005, and 0006. The original Easily Water Cold has not been seen; according to Gu Quan's tone, it seems he has found a suitable body and is currently recovering gradually. Thus far, among the Dolls we know of, only numbers one through six possess consciousness; the rest are waiting to be revived as Golden Skeletons.
From Gu Quan's intention to perform surgery on me, it appears that he and his companions have mastered Li Yunfan's technology. As for why they abandoned their plans midway, it should be due to some issues arising with the original Easily Water Cold.
The notebook also mentions something that sent chills down our spines: Li Yunfan noted in his diary that if they wanted to fuse with the Golden Puppet, they needed to find some deceased individuals with good physical conditions from their lifetime. And right now, isn't there a batch of such deceased individuals? The gang wars in Sun City have resulted in several hundred deaths recently, a number quite close to that of the Golden Puppets underground.
Those bastards! Gu Quan and his group intend to use those dead bodies to revive the Golden Puppets.
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