Chapter 211: Terrifying Puppets

On his way, Chen Ge called the workshop owner. The man thought Chen Ge had finally changed his mind and was willing to join him in saving all those lonely souls in the world. Before Chen Ge could even explain, the owner rushed out of his house in a hurry.

Sitting at the basement entrance eating breakfast, it took only twenty minutes for the workshop owner to arrive.

"Boss Qian, I need to borrow your workshop again. Money is no object." Chen Ge didn't finish the second half of his sentence — money, well, even if he didn't have any now, he would eventually.

"You're going to talk to me about money? We hit it off like old friends — talking about money would only hurt our friendship." The slightly plump workshop owner sat down next to Chen Ge. "Just leave me one puppet when you're done."

"Are you sure? My puppets aren't modeled after living people." Seeing how enthusiastic the workshop owner was, Chen Ge felt bad deceiving him. "I designed a few new types of puppets today. Take a look before you decide."

Entering the basement, the workshop owner opened the glass door, stood outside and bowed three times, and only then did he dare step inside.

"What are you doing? Do you believe in ghosts?" Chen Ge didn't remember the workshop owner having this habit before.

"I don't know why, but ever since you made that first batch of puppets here, every time I stand at the door and look inside, I feel like there's something in there." Boss Qian scratched his head. "As the saying goes, you don't strike someone who greets you with a smile. I'll bow first — even if there really are some spirits in there, they'll probably feel too embarrassed to bully me."

"That actually sounds like it makes sense." Chen Ge shook his head and walked inside. He seemed even more familiar with the workshop layout than Boss Qian, deftly pulling out various tools and heading straight into the storage room. "These materials of yours are going to expire if you don't use them. When I left last time, the storage room looked exactly the same — completely untouched. You really haven't had a single order this whole time?"

"It's been alright." Boss Qian ran into the storage room to help, squeezing in a comment here and there. "I've been looking into the adult market recently. There's huge demand — if we go the premium route, we can make custom pieces for high-end clients."

"We can talk about that later." Chen Ge prepared the materials for the mold. His mind recalled the mad woman's face — one that had been surgically altered multiple times. His hands danced, and in just a few minutes, he had roughed out an approximation.

"You're really wasting your talents running a haunted house," Boss Qian sighed with genuine admiration.

Chen Ge focused entirely on the clay sculpture in his hands, and quickly produced the mad woman's face.

The woman was a psychopath, but there was no denying she was beautiful.

"Something still feels off." Chen Ge held up the clay head and crushed it in his grip.

"Hey, don't do that!" Boss Qian cried out from the side. "If you don't want it, you could at least leave it for me as a keepsake!"

"That face isn't the feeling I'm going for." Chen Ge said it casually, then quickly sculpted another face. Compared to the previous one, this one was filled with morbidity and madness. "No — that woman's madness was interwoven with pain."

He destroyed it and started again. This time Chen Ge felt the face lacked a certain allure, was purely terrifying, and too far removed from the original person.

After destroying several in a row, the workshop owner gradually got used to it. He watched Chen Ge with a resentful look, humming a little tune: "'What you can't have is always restlessly stirring, while the one who is favored remains fearless without worry…'"

"Where exactly am I going wrong?" Chen Ge recalled the black phone's description of living puppets, and a bold idea formed in his mind.

"The mad woman's residual obsession was absorbed by Xu Yin into the tape. I could use Xu Yin's ability to release the obsession and control the puppet. But the mad woman herself is still alive — and one of the requirements for the complete living puppet process is to use a living person as the mold. What would happen if I followed every requirement for a living puppet to the letter, and then placed the mad woman's obsession inside it?"

Looking at the clay mold in his hands, Chen Ge could only speculate for now. The mad woman was a murder suspect — even if she suffered from mental illness, she would probably never regain her freedom in this lifetime.

"I'll have to figure this out on my own." To replicate the mad woman's face, Chen Ge had put in no small amount of effort.