Just like before, Shad placed the puppet pistol on the painting, and it melted in the picture and appeared at the door of the model house.
The puppet associated with Shade walked up to the gun but did not bend down to pick it up. Mr. Freeman's puppet also looked at the gun but did not pick it up either.
"Identification."
The priest thought for a moment and suddenly said, Shade suddenly realized, and put his MI6 ID and gun license into the painting as a puppet. The puppet corresponding to Shade first picked up the ID, then finally bent down to pick up the toy gun, and even made a very obvious movement to confirm the bullet.
The puppets in the paintings are not replicas of real people, nor do they have any spiritual connection with them. They can only transfer damage. The puppets cannot use the ring warlock ability like Shade, but they can at least shoot.
However, by delivering weapons in this way, the puppet made by Shad can only be used by himself, and Freeman cannot use it.
But it was enough to leave Mrs. Freeman and the boy in the hall while Shad went upstairs with the priest, carrying the painting.
The gun-wielding puppet in the painting also moves toward the second floor of the model and meets the bandaged puppet in the living room on the second floor.
The oil painting could not make any sound, and the two people outside could only see the movement of the puppet in the picture raising the gun.
But unfortunately, even with a revolver, the gun-wielding puppet still couldn't beat the bandaged puppet. Not only was the opponent tall, but he also had excellent evasive abilities, and when he was in the same room with the victim puppet, he was able to move a short distance inside the model. Even if he was shot, it didn't affect his movement at all, and he even stabbed Shade's puppet.
So after the pistol ran out of bullets, Xia De, who was wounded again, could only temporarily return to the first floor hallway to hide.
And because of the fight just now, the bandaged puppet has reached the stairs and will be able to enter the hallway in about half an hour.
The puppet with the gun throws the documents and the revolver out of the model house, and they immediately appear on the surface of the painting. Schade reloads the pistol but does not put it back into the painting.
"The intelligence level of ordinary puppets is too low to compare with the bandage puppet. I think your puppet needs other helpers."
The priest suddenly said.
"You mean Mr. Freeman and the little boy? Let them fight against my puppet together?"
Xia De pointed to the two puppets cuddling together in the painting and shook his head to remind them:
"The boy is too weak, and Freeman's puppet, though of normal intelligence, has too little strength."
"I mean myself."
The priest said calmly:
"I know you can't turn me into a puppet, but I can take the initiative to touch the painting and make a puppet corresponding to me appear in the picture."
Xia De immediately shook his head:
"Father Augustus, adding more people may not necessarily help, but it will definitely put you in danger. Let me think..."
He looked at the pistol in his hand and then at the painting.
The revolver was covered with a handkerchief again, but the size of the wooden toy that appeared afterwards was almost exactly the same as the original one, and was not the size of a thumb.
Xia De threw the 1:1 scale wooden toy at the painting again, but this time the pistol did not appear in the house model, but appeared on the table next to the model, and the pistol in the picture turned out to be a real pistol. It was too big to fit into the house model.
The bold attempt made Xia De understand another rule: puppets that are big enough to enter the house will keep their puppet form and enter the house model. However, puppets that are too big to enter the house model will appear on the table and turn into real objects.
"Can this gun still be taken out?"
Seeing this happen, Priest Augustus on the side asked curiously.
Xia De shook his head to indicate that he didn't know, and scanned the picture more carefully. Then he saw very faint words on the curtains that served as the background of the painting.
The curtains were in the sun, and the color of the text was very similar to that of the curtains, so it was not immediately noticed:
The inside and outside of an oil painting, the inside and outside of the painter.
When he read this line of text, he hesitated for a moment and then read it softly. Then, Xia De touched the painting and his hand actually reached into the picture.
"oh?"
Father Augustus looked at the scene curiously, and Shade also frowned.
He reaches for his pistol first, then successfully pulls it out of the picture.
"Does this mean that..."
The priest said in a low voice. Shade nodded and reached his hand into the picture again, but was stopped by the priest:
"I'll do it this time."
He didn't ask Xia De how he understood those strange words. After all, Xia De had demonstrated his ability to know words because of time and space in a study session before.
Shad told Priest Augustus the specific readings of those ancient letters, and after two attempts the priest successfully put his hand into the picture.
He reached out for the model of the house, and as expected, was unable to touch it, as if there was a glass cover outside the model blocking the priest's hand.
The priest then reached out to other objects on the table in the picture. He still could not touch the house model with these things in his hands, but these objects could be taken out.
But whether it was a vase, a rotten apple, a statue with a crack in the distance that looked like an ancient god, or a small pendant, these were all ordinary objects. So the two speculated that these were the test objects thrown into the painting by the previous owner when trying to fight against the house model.
It is still unknown what kind of production conditions are required for other puppets that can be thrown into the painting, except for the toy manufacturing of Shade. In a sense, this painting actually has the function of turning the puppets into real existence.
"I can't touch the model with my hands. Should we think of other ways?"
The priest fell into deep thought again, but Shade had found a solution and a look of relief appeared on his face:
"Priest, please go out again, come to my house and bring Mia here."
Thinking of the cat at home, Xia De added:
"Oh, it may not want to be held by you. You can tell it that I'm in trouble, just like last time, and then use clothes to lure it to the carriage."
Shade handed over his house key and blood-stained coat, and seeing that the priest was still puzzled, he reminded him:
"Priest, although we can put our hands into the painting, strictly speaking, we are still outside the picture, so we cannot touch the house model in the painting. And when we hold something in the picture, it is very likely that the object will be judged as the same object as our body."
"Inside the painting? Outside the painting? Could your cat...?"
The old priest smiled, nodded in understanding, told Shad to be careful, then took the key and Shad's coat and went out.
While Father Augustus was away, Shad also told Mrs. Freeman who was waiting on the side not to tell anyone about this matter after it was over.
Mrs. Freeman certainly understood that it was not a good thing for her family to encounter a supernatural event, and telling others about it might affect their children's future marriages. She immediately took her son and swore to God that they would not tell anyone about the whole thing.
But Shad still thought that he would ask Dr. Schneider to come over when he had time, and let the psychiatrist use his abilities to make the Freeman family forget all this.
The doctor couldn't completely erase the memory, which would cause permanent damage to the brain, but he could make the Freeman family's memory of the incident vague, until many years later they suspected that it was just a dream.
It would be good for ordinary people to forget their contact with the mysterious and the extraordinary.
Including the carriage ride and the temptation to lure the timid and wary cat in St. Teresa's Square, the priest's round trip took more than an hour.
Meanwhile, the bandaged puppet in the model house had come up the stairs to the hallway. In order to avoid it, Shade used magic to open the door of the landlord's house on the first floor and took shelter inside temporarily.
Although this is not a good thing to do, the group will not touch other people's things, so this is something they have to do.
I don't know if it was because Shade just reached out and tried to touch the house model that the relic felt a greater crisis, and the bandaged puppet moved faster again. Before the priest came back, he had already blocked the three puppets in the large bedroom on the first floor in the model.
Shade put the pistol into the painting again, and the three puppets were forced to deal with the bandaged puppet. The smaller puppet ran first, and the two larger puppets worked together to entangle the bandaged puppet, and then left the room one by one as in reality.
But even though three puppets were fighting against one puppet, the bandaged puppet still had the upper hand. Although Shad was not injured this time, the puppet that inhabited Mr. Freeman's soul was seriously injured because it had been protecting the puppet at all costs.
Fortunately, Mr. Freeman is dead, and the puppet in the picture is only injured.
"Is father back?"
For safety reasons, Shade never let the little boy touch or look at the oil painting again. But the child, held by his mother's hand, felt that Mr. Freeman was protecting him.
When the three of them moved back to the second floor, the little boy was still looking around, as if expecting his father to suddenly come out of the room with a smile. But the painter would never come back. If he did come back, Shade would be even more troubled.
In short, the oil painting seems to sense that the people outside the picture have a way to deal with it, so it gives the bandaged puppet in the picture more power.
As the bandage puppet moves faster, Shade and the boy become more and more dangerous. The whispering element of the relic is already affecting the boy. Even with Shade watching over him, if this matter is not resolved quickly, the best outcome is that the boy will become a madman.
Fortunately, Father Augustus successfully brought Mia back.
The vigilant orange cat really refused to let priest Augustus hold him, but jumped up the stairs behind him. When it saw Shade sitting in the living room, the cat immediately jumped up excitedly.
Shade, who had been nervous, finally smiled when he saw the familiar cat. Holding Mia, he kept stroking the cat's head. The orange cat meowed, and as Shade stroked it, the furry little head also shook, allowing him to touch it better.