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Shen Yuxi clearly knew what Qi Chao had gone out to do.
When he saw the message from Agu, Shen Yuxi didn’t doubt Qi Chao, though Agu’s attitude still made a trace of dissatisfaction rise in his heart.
"Agu has been quite happy these past few days."
Shen Yuxi's voice was somewhat cold. He set the light-brain device aside and turned to look at Moss. "Go see Agu tonight and make sure he calms down."
"Yes, Father."
Moss, holding a stuffed doll, replied in a hoarse voice. He knew that Agu must have done something to anger Father.
Agu really needed to be disciplined.
Moss's dark eyes were deep as he decided to visit him earlier tonight.
Living with Qi Chao was truly a fortunate thing. Every day he stayed in the trial grounds, watching the puppets relentlessly torment humans day after day — even Moss, Chi Yao, and Ayu would get exhausted.
Agu being assigned to stay by Qi Chao's side was something Moss found very enviable.
Even now, Moss missed the time he had lived with his father and dad. Those were the most relaxed days of his puppet life.
Shen Yuxi didn't look at Moss, but it was as if he knew exactly what was on his mind. The blond man's thin lips parted slightly as he said, "The core of the Mother Tree is recovering. Soon, our plan will come to fruition. Make sure Chi Yao and Ayu are ready."
The purpose of creating the trial grounds was to fully restore the core of the Mother Tree. Now that it had mostly recovered, it meant they could move on to the next phase of their plan.
"Yes, Father," Moss nodded. He paused for a moment before adding, "Dad mentioned earlier that he would be coming soon."
Shen Yuxi responded with a simple "hmm," his fingers gliding over the screen as he calmly said, "Yes, before he arrives, make sure those in the trial grounds behave themselves."
Thinking of Marshal Lu, Qiao Sheng, and the group of peculiar people in the trial grounds who kept talking about the plot, Moss nodded. The grip on his stuffed doll tightened slightly.
Getting those people to settle down was simple—it just required instructing the puppets in the trial grounds to be a bit more ruthless.
Meanwhile, Qi Chao, far away in the junkyard, had no idea what his lover and his supposedly obedient child were really thinking.
As he applied the ointment with his mental power, he looked at the slightly uneasy Nuo Yan and smiled, "You don't need to be nervous. This green ointment might not look great, but my child said that it feels very soothing when applied."
That remark was originally from Lan Luo.
"My child?"
Nuo Yan guessed that the man must also have a puppet like him at home. He glanced up at Qi Chao, then quickly looked away again.
This human seemed to treat the puppets in his household quite well.
Nuo Yan lowered his gaze to his leg, where the large black cracks were now covered with the green ointment. He couldn't help but sneak another look at the man in front of him, who was wearing a superhero mask.
The junkyard was much cleaner than it had been the day before. Apart from some large equipment like aircraft, there was hardly any clutter around. The air carried only a faint scent of rust, which wasn't a pleasant smell for humans.
However, the man wearing the superhero mask seemed completely unaffected by the smell, focusing entirely on cleaning the dirt from the cracks on his knee.
Watching this scene, Nuo Yan felt a strange, bittersweet emotion welling up inside him.
From afternoon to dusk, when the golden hue of sunset finally draped over the junkyard, the man smiled and put his tools back into the box.
"Same time tomorrow. If you want to bring your friends along, you're welcome to," he said.
"Alright, thank you," Nuo Yan replied.
He could feel that his leg was a bit lighter, and although he already knew the man could heal him, experiencing it firsthand still seemed unbelievable.
Qi Chao smiled at the child in front of him and waved the small white cloth bag in his hand, saying, "Fair trade, no need to say thanks."
Nuo Yan looked at the white bag and nodded. Initially, he had planned to wait until the man left before he himself departed, but he quickly realized that the man in the superhero mask was standing still, not moving, with the same intention—to wait for Nuo Yan to leave first.
After a brief hesitation, Nuo Yan gave Qi Chao a nod of farewell, then turned and left the junkyard.
He needed to find more gold coins.
Nuo Yan's pace quickened as he walked. Though his leg injury was not fully healed, he stumbled less and was already doing much better compared to before.
He wanted to repay the man who called himself a superhero.
When he returned to the abandoned pipe that night, Nuo Yan grabbed the puppet he was closest to—a black-haired puppet named Nou Bu, who had only his upper body remaining.
Nou Bu's lower body had been brutally chopped off by his original owner, merely because the owner was bored and looking for amusement. Later, the owner found it disgraceful to keep a puppet that was only a torso and decided to throw him into the junkyard.
When Nuo Yan told Nou Bu that he wanted to take him to the superhero for treatment, Nou Bu's first reaction was one of worry.
He thought that Nuo Yan might have mental problems.
Since returning yesterday, Nuo Yan had been adamantly claiming that a human was treating his injuries, and that this human wasn't even his father. Even though his leg was indeed covered with white ointment, the other puppets in the pipe still didn't believe his words.
The puppets suspected that Nuo Yan had finally fallen ill.
In this dark pipe, there were many puppets who had lost their sanity, abandoned by either their father or their owner. This abandonment had caused their minds to become fragmented, and the fate of these puppets was inevitably the same—they would eventually perish due to a lack of energy.
Though there were still a few puppets with relatively good mental states, they were in the minority. The long-term absence of adequate energy would gradually degrade their condition until they too became like the other broken, fading puppets around them.
Nou Bu believed that the nonsense Nuo Yan was spouting was a sign that he had been affected by the despair around him.
Humans would never choose to heal a puppet discarded in a junkyard. Likewise, a puppet master who wasn’t even your own father wouldn’t have the capability to save a puppet.
"Nuo Yan, you shouldn’t go out anymore," Nou Bu said, struggling to prop himself up on the ground with his hands. "Can you just stay here with me for a while?"
Nou Bu was worried that Nuo Yan might be nearing the end of his life.
Their time together was limited, and Nou Bu wanted to spend as much of it as possible with Nuo Yan.
"Alright," Nuo Yan replied, pressing his lips together. "But if you come with me tomorrow and still don’t believe me, I’ll stay here in the pipe with you."
Nuo Yan understood that Nou Bu wouldn’t believe him until he saw it with his own eyes. In fact, Nuo Yan knew he wouldn't have believed it himself either if he hadn’t experienced it firsthand.
He would have never imagined that such a miracle could exist in the world.
"That superhero is really amazing," Nuo Yan said softly.
He didn’t know the man’s real name but remembered that the man had jokingly called himself superman.
In the darkness of the underground pipe, Nuo Yan's eyes were shining brightly.
Nou Bu noticed that Nuo Yan's expression seemed more vivid, almost as if he had gone through some kind of transformation or evolution.
But in the next moment, Nou Bu dismissed his own thoughts. Nuo Yan, like himself, was a low-level puppet; how could his expression possibly become more animated?
"Is that so? I'm looking forward to it," Nou Bu replied stiffly, forcing out a response to his friend.
He was convinced that this so-called superhero was nothing more than a figment of Nuo Yan's imagination.
Thinking this way only made Nou Bu even sadder. He thought that once his friend passed away, there would be no reason for him to hold on either.
That night, overwhelmed with sorrow, Nou Bu lay awake in the dark pipe for a long time, his eyes wide open. All he could think about was where he and Nuo Yan might be buried together when the time came.
The next afternoon, just as Nou Bu was about to discuss possible burial spots with Nuo Yan, his friend led him to the junkyard instead.
As they were approaching the center of the junkyard, Nou Bu was just about to ask where they were headed when he suddenly saw a man wearing a superhero mask, crouching in front of an abandoned aircraft.
Nou Bu: ???
Could it be that the superhero wasn’t just Nuo Yan's fantasy after all?
In a daze, Nou Bu followed behind Nuo Yan, mechanically greeting the strange man in the superhero mask on the other side.
When the man started transferring his mental energy to examine Nou Bu's condition, Nou Bu suddenly jolted, stiffly looking back and forth between Nuo Yan and the masked man.
No way. This couldn’t be real.
Nou Bu's lips trembled, his mind struggling to process the situation. Was there really a human who could heal them?
"Don’t be afraid. I’m just checking your physical condition," Qi Chao said, misunderstanding Nou Bu's reaction. He looked down at the puppet who only had an upper body, a trace of anger slipping through his otherwise calm expression.
He was infuriated at the thought of people who could do such things to puppets that could cry, laugh, and express their emotions, to the point of cruelly severing their lower halves.
Hearing the man's gentle voice, Nou Bu became even more disoriented. He began to suspect that he, too, was hallucinating, that he had finally been consumed by the despair of living in the pipes..
How else could he explain a human being so gentle towards them?
The shock and disbelief lingered with Nou Bu until he returned to the dark pipe and lay down again.
"Are we going back tomorrow?" Nuo Yan asked, shaking Nou Bu gently.
"Yes!" Nou Bu replied immediately. He wanted to confirm whether everything had been a mere illusion.
This confirmation took an entire month.
During that month, Nuo Yan's injuries had completely healed, while Qi Chao spent a lot of time remaking Nou Bu’s lower body. However, since he was only repairing a single part, a month was enough.
Every morning, Qi Chao taught three puppet masters how to create puppets, and in the afternoons, he went to the junkyard to repair puppets. His days were extremely fulfilling.
"Today, those two puppets will be completely fixed, right?" Agu turned to Xiang Yue.
Throughout this month, they had only silently observed the puppets and hadn’t approached them directly. Xiang Yue understood that waiting until their father repaired those two puppets would be the perfect time to involve the puppets in their plan.
At this point, the puppets wouldn’t join the plan out of momentary gratitude; they would think more rationally about whether joining was truly necessary.
"Yes," Xiang Yue nodded, his gaze returning to his father as he continued to guard him as usual.
After arriving at the junkyard, Qi Chao settled into his spot, leaning against an abandoned aircraft and letting out a gentle sigh.
He raised a hand to adjust the mask on his face, his deep brown eyes unusually vacant.
He had initially thought he would meet with Brother Shen soon.
But he hadn’t expected these matters to be more challenging than he had anticipated.
Up to this point, Qi Chao still hadn’t figured out where things had gone wrong with Guo Li and the others, leading to cracks in the puppets they had created. He could only keep adjusting the details of their work.
On the other hand, Nuo Yan's situation was progressing relatively smoothly, as the two puppets would be completely repaired today.
The only thing that made Qi Chao hesitate was his belief that there must be more than just Nuo Yan and Nou Bu in the junkyard. Based on how Nuo Yan and Nou Bu typically behaved, they likely had several companions.
Since both puppets had been abandoned by humans, they were inherently cautious. Qi Chao was worried that if he actively proposed to treat their companions, it might make the two puppets overthink things.
So, when Nou Bu and Nuo Yan arrived at the junkyard, they heard the man in the superhero mask sighing, "I’ve run out of money lately. The last batch of gold coins Nuo Yan gave me is all spent. Nuo Yan, do you have any other puppet companions that need treatment?"
“If you do, bring them over, and I can help treat them. You don’t need to pay as much as before; two or three coins will be enough, just enough to keep the household running.”
Qi Chao played the part convincingly; even with the superhero mask on, he exuded the helplessness of a young man struggling to make a living.
“My partner loves diamonds, and it’s been a long time since I bought him any. If your companions can afford the treatment fee, don’t hesitate to come over.”
After saying this, he intentionally glanced at the expressions of the puppets. Noticing their hesitation, he added some more woes about how difficult it was to make a living.
“Don’t be sad, Superman.”
Nou Bu and Nuo Yan had never considered how hard the superhero’s life must be. Seeing him looking so downcast left them a bit flustered.
In fact, as the injuries of the two puppets gradually healed, the other puppets in the pipe had noticed their situation. They had even asked Nou Bu and Nuo Yan multiple times to bring them to meet the superhero.
However, Nou Yan and Nou Bu had never agreed.
On one hand, they were worried about bothering Superman, and on the other hand, they were concerned that bringing up the subject might upset him.
Originally, the two puppets planned to wait until they had fully healed before cautiously mentioning it. They didn’t expect Superman to bring up the topic of treatment first.
“We have many companions who have wanted to come see you for treatment for a long time,” Nuo Yan quickly replied. “Don’t worry, they can afford the gold coins. You don’t have to worry about running out of money. If it’s convenient, we can wait for you here tomorrow.”
“That would be wonderful!” Qi Chao exclaimed, his surprise evident in his smile. He excitedly said, “You can tell them to come without hesitation. As long as they pay, I will definitely take the time to repair them thoroughly. It will be a fair trade, and neither of us will lose out.”
As he spoke, he tapped his finger against his mask and jokingly added, “If you have any injuries in the future, just come to me. I as a businessman will never cheat you!”
At that moment, Qi Chao had no idea that his words would spread far and wide in the future. Countless puppets who had suffered cruel injuries would come to know of a puppet master named "Superman," who could heal even the most severe wounds for just two gold coins or more.
Even though the personal information of this so-called Superman would be auctioned off for over a hundred million in the black market, no one would truly know who Superman was or where he was located.
Of course, no one would realize that the widely circulated quotes attributed to Superman were originally just Qi Chao's attempts to figure out how to lower the puppets guard and encourage them to come to him for treatment.
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