No. 66 Wutong Road, Erin was happily sorting through her newly purchased treasures: cheap stickers, shiny plastic beads, bows and metal clasps for puppet sizes, and a bunch of sparkly little knick-knacks that Yu Sheng couldn’t figure out the use for.

Hu Li squatted by the coffee table, busy with the little puppet, and couldn’t help but complain while tidying up: "Don’t you already have a ton of these? So many hairpins, can you wear them all?"

"I have a lot of people!" Erin said confidently, "Besides, they’re different, look closely at the colors, and the gradient here..."

"Can’t see it." The Great Demon Fox said honestly.

"...I can’t explain it to you. Aren’t you supposed to have grooming and dressing as a natural talent as a fox spirit?"

"I don’t get it, I’m into body cultivation." The fox girl continued to speak seriously.

Erin: "...So you’re an athlete among fox spirits?"

"If you put it that way, my sports grades were quite good..."

Yu Sheng sat on the sofa opposite the two, watching the scene with amusement.

As the travel agency developed to this point (although the route of development didn’t quite go as he initially imagined), they weren’t short of money, so Erin had quite a bit of pocket money to use each month.

The little puppet usually didn’t have any other expenses, except for spending money in games, she didn’t need to buy snacks and couldn’t go out shopping, so all the money was spent on online shopping for these odd and quirky trinkets.

To be honest, the clothes specifically for puppets were genuinely expensive, but those glass beads and little metal clasps she bought were dirt cheap, as if they were free. She seemed to have no concept of price and financial planning; the price range of the things she bought was all over the place, based on her personal happiness.

But in the end, she never spent more than her allowance.

Erin hopped over with a luxurious red and black dress from the coffee table, holding it up in front of Yu Sheng.

"Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng, could you help me alter this later? Change the lining at the back; otherwise, it’s itchy to wear."

Yu Sheng casually accepted it: "Sure, leave it with me."

A little later, Erin hopped over with a bunch of plastic beads: "Yu Sheng, do we have any thin wire at home? I want to string these beads together to decorate my box."

"Ask Hu Li to spin some up for you."

"Oh."

The little puppet hopped back.

Then she suddenly stood still on the coffee table.

At first, Yu Sheng and Hu Li didn’t notice, but after a while, they realized the sudden silence of the little puppet and responded in unison, "Erin?"

Erin snapped "awake" with a start: "Huh?!"

"Why did you suddenly stop there?" Yu Sheng sighed in relief, "I thought it was some problem with the part of you belonging to the Omen Goddess again."

He was genuinely worried for a moment because he still remembered that deep in Erin’s mind, there was a large data structure left behind by the Omen Goddess, but the part of Erin belonging to the Omen Goddess had no recollection of it, and Marin’s previous technical attempts couldn’t figure out what it was.

For a moment there, he couldn’t help but think of this.

The little puppet shook her head.

"It wasn’t a problem. The Garden Network suddenly got lively; Marin messaged me, saying the Assembly Hall’s data center seemed to receive a signal from the border, so I went over to check the commotion... got a bit too absorbed."

Yu Sheng and Hu Li exchanged glances.

Moments later, they both spoke in unison: "And then?"

"I don’t know," the little puppet said confidently, hands on her hips, "didn’t you two call me back halfway?"

"...Go back and keep watching!"

...

Deep within the Garden Network, at the doorstep of that special Antique Shop in the old district of the Assembly Hall, Alice Puppets had already crowded the space in front of the shop completely.

The holographic barrier in front of the shop had stopped flickering, and the message left by the Puppet Progenitor that continuously scrolled and floated on the barrier vanished with the last flicker.

The puppets craned their necks to look, gathering together to discuss possible situations.

Marin stood among her sisters, listening to the chatter around her.

"What’s going on? What happened? I just arrived, can someone explain it to me..."

"There’s an explanation on the public broadcast, didn’t you see it?"

"I didn’t know, I was in the Ancient Star Cluster fighting with people. The Galem Insect Swarm over there gnawed apart the earth veins, and over 8000 bugs simultaneously exploded into a Spiritual Ascension Body..."

"By the way, was there a flash inside the door just now? I thought I saw a figure."

"I didn’t see it, but the light inside was indeed flowing."

"Where’s the network admin? Which sister is on duty, please give us an update."

"It was just checked, they said the signal was too weak, and the time was too short to figure it out..."

"Shouldn’t we strengthen the signal on our side as well? Didn’t we get news a couple of days ago that the Captain and the others have reached some kind of void border? Maybe the interference over there is too strong..."

"Strengthen the signal? How do we do that?"

"Hey, where’s that sister who was just fighting the bugs? Is that spiritual ascension body still around? Why don’t we figure out a way to drag it into the garden network and blow it up at the assembly hall here?"

"What if we blow this place up?"

"You need to believe in the power of belief..."

Marin slightly tilted her head back, looking up at the chaotic sky above the assembly hall at a 45-degree angle.

The puppets from Alice’s Cottage each have their own personalities, and since they’re spread out across various parts of the universe and experience all sorts of things, naturally, they have a wide range of solutions to problems.

But she still thought that dragging a spiritual ascension body into the garden network to blow it up was a bit extreme.

Though theoretically, it could indeed generate a very strong signal pulse, this approach clearly wasn’t sustainable—where would they find so many spiritual ascension bodies to blow up?

Just at that moment, a familiar signal appeared in Marin’s perception.

A blonde, blue-eyed figure in a blue dress appeared out of nowhere on the street and squeezed her way over towards Marin.

"Make way, make way, I’m back again, let me through, let me through, I was just standing here... Hey, this sister’s hairstyle is very creative... Hey, Marin! Look over here, look over here!"

Despite the diverse personalities of the Alice Puppets, most of them were still mild and polite in their daily behavior—an Erin barging heedlessly forward with her arms swinging was clearly an outlier among the sisters.

She quickly carved a path through the crowd and squeezed in front of Marin amid a series of exclamations.

"What’s the situation now?" the blonde, blue-eyed Erin asked curiously, "Hey, I just left for a moment, how come there are more people again?"

"The puppet sisters on this line have probably all gathered here," Marin said, "However, the signal transmission from this data hub has now stopped. The administrator tried to trace it just now but didn’t seem to succeed."

Erin blinked, craning her neck to look towards the antique shop.

Warm and bright light shone through the window, but deep within the light was only a blur of illusions, obscuring the true situation inside the shop.

But she kept staring at it, with some kind of indescribable feelings welling up inside her.

She seemed to see a figure in a deep purple dress sitting behind the counter at the bottom of the stairs, a gentle smile on the face.

There was also a somewhat diminutive girl, leading a massive skeleton hound, casting a glance at her from amidst the shelves of the antique shop.

And a tall, imposing figure standing by the stairs, whispering with another equally tall lady.

Erin felt a momentary blur before her eyes, and the illusion in the antique shop transformed into the image of a large ship, with all those figures, and even more figures, standing on the deck, all casting their gazes towards her.

So she went over and began to ramble on to everyone about her experiences.

Each one listened very seriously, not at all annoyed by her...

Erin blinked again, and those fragments, whether illusions or memories, vanished from her view.

She looked towards the street corner, and the antique shop was still as it was before.

...

In Fairy Tale Valley, in the open ground by the river beside the Black Forest, the newly built Puppet City basked in bright daylight.

The little mass-produced puppets busily left the city early in the morning, driven by pre-set basic instructions and simple branching thought threads. They would take buses (provided by Dorothy’s Green Field Army) to the town, teleportation hub, Star Port, and other locations to start their work for the day.

In one corner of the Puppet City, a few small figures ran quickly across the street—they accidentally got stuck on the railings when leaving the house because they weren’t familiar with the environment yet, only just breaking free. If they didn’t run faster, they might miss the bus waiting by the riverbank.

The street quieted down.

After a little while, a few light sounds came from the street corner.

Inside the antique shop which Erin carefully designed and crafted as a scaled-down replica, there was a slight flow of light.

Warm and bright light spilled out from the window, seemingly with something moving within the shadows, and after a few more seconds, the small store’s door gently wobbled.

It seemed like someone was trying to push the door open from the inside, but couldn’t.

...

Erin sat cross-legged on the coffee table, her small puppet arms crossed with a grave look.

Facing Yu Sheng’s equally serious and questioning gaze, she raised her head, "I think there’s a problem."

Yu Sheng and Hu Li spoke in unison, "What problem?"

Erin: "I don’t know either, but when the atmosphere reaches this point, the protagonist in TV shows always says something like this."

Yu Sheng: "Do you believe that I’ll throw you in the washing machine and spin you for two hours?"

"Hey, don’t, don’t," the small puppet quickly waved her hands, "My thoughts are a bit messy, let me sort them out... I’ll just cut to the chase, I think the Lost Home seems to be trying to contact us, but for some reason, the signal isn’t getting through..."