His Eye

Bishui Manor was the kind of place poor artisans like me only entered because rich people had strange needs.

I pressed the doorbell.

Someone soon opened the door.

He looked at me.

“I’ll trouble you with my eye.”

“No trouble. No trouble at all.”

For three hundred thousand, nothing was trouble.

I confirmed immediately that he was my doll.

Because his left eye was still the glass marble I had temporarily stuck in.

When I made dolls, I treated them like my children.

I could not leave him with an empty eye socket, so I placed a large glass bead there.

At least he would not look too scary.

Now this handsome man—no, doll—was looking at me with that marble eye.

Damn it.

Why did he look affectionate even with a fake glass bead?

“I—I—this—”

My language system collapsed.

He seemed to understand my shock.

He sent the housekeeper away and brought me to a room.

“It’s like this,” he said.

He explained.

It was supernatural.

Absurd.

Completely against science.

And yet, somehow, I accepted it.

The client who hired me was his cousin, Julian Ji.

The doll’s original self was named Adrian Ji.

Adrian had become a vegetative patient after an accident.

A spiritual master said that if someone made a doll identical enough to him, the trapped soul in his body would find another residence.

That master was Howard He.

My master.

Thank you, Master, for recommending a client.

Also thank you for nearly scaring me to death with a soul-possessed doll.

Howard had once told me a story.

If a doll resembled a person closely enough that even the soul could not distinguish between the two bodies, the soul might travel between them.

I thought it was a childhood tale.

Apparently, it was a business model.

I was still digesting this when Adrian sat there staring at me.

Ten minutes passed.

I met his gaze and gave him a full face of question marks.

He blinked slowly, as if returning from somewhere far away.

I took a deep breath.

“Let’s install the eye first.”

He nodded and sat obediently in a chair, lifting his face.

I stood in front of him and leaned down to examine his left eye.

“Does a living doll need anesthesia for eye installation?”

“No.”

He answered my muttering.

I startled.

He continued,

“You didn’t install a nervous system for me. So I cannot feel touch or pain.”

I nodded.

So no pain.

Probably no taste.

No heat or cold.

No bleeding.

This was what it meant to be a doll.

I replaced the eye.

Just as expected, there was not a drop of blood.

Adrian did not even frown.

His face showed almost no emotion.

If not for his breath against my hand, fast and uneven, I would have believed he was still only a doll.

When I finished, I stepped back.

“See if it fits.”

He looked into the mirror.

“Same as before.”

For a doll maker, that was the highest compliment.

I became a little smug.

A talking doll was much more likable than a silent one.

“If there are no problems, I’ll leave first.”

I picked up my toolbox.

I desperately wanted to go home and sleep.

Adrian stood to see me out, then nearly tripped over the chair leg.

He caught the table and apologized.

“I’m probably not used to this body yet.”

I nodded.

But I knew part of the reason.

One eye was normal.

The other had eight hundred degrees of myopia.

No glasses.

Of course life was difficult.

At the door, Adrian hesitated.

“Can I add your contact?”

Good heavens.

A doll was asking for my contact.

“If something goes wrong later, I can’t always use my cousin’s account to reach you.”

Reasonable.

So I agreed.

Ding.

A friend request popped up.

Username:

YourCuteIceCreamDuck

I looked up.

“Is this you?”

Adrian looked confused.

“I haven’t sent it yet.”

A second request arrived.

This one was definitely him.

Only a domineering CEO would use his full name as a username.

Among all the strange internet names, Adrian Ji looked unusually serious.

I accepted both.

For Adrian, I changed the note to:

Handsome Doll

I wanted to ask where the cousin who had been messaging me was.

But rich families have rich-family secrets.

I was poor.

I did not ask.