Chapter 39: It Worked, But Not Completely
This novel is translated and hosted on Bcatranslation
Irene’s face looked quite sad as she gazed upon the results of Yu Sheng’s efforts. She stood there quietly, and in that moment, anyone could see that she was not pleased with what she saw.
Yu Sheng glanced at the creation he had spent hours working on—a rough clay doll, shaped as best as he could manage. He put himself in Irene’s place and realized that if his own soul had to enter something like that to return to life, he would probably cry too.
Still, her disappointed expression stung him a bit. Trying hard not to look hurt, Yu Sheng forced himself to remain calm and serious as he stared at the clay figure. He tried to cheer himself up, telling himself that he had truly done his best. “I really did my best here, you know,” he said, trying to sound confident. “Look, at least the eyes are symmetrical…”
Upon hearing that, Irene burst into real tears. “But the head isn’t symmetrical at all…” she wailed, her sorrow ringing through the room.
Yu Sheng winced and turned away, scratching his head awkwardly. “Er… yeah, I’m not very good at this yet,” he admitted. “I’ll make it better next time. After all, practice makes perfect, right?”
“Let’s hope there won’t be a next time,” Irene said, her voice weak. She looked exhausted, but then she remembered that today was supposed to be her day of freedom. She made an effort to smile, though it came out as nothing more than a hollow sigh. “Well, it’s a body of some sort, at least. I can already feel the connection forming. Fine, I’ll take it.”
She took a deep breath and hopped down from the chair inside the painting’s world. After a few shaky steps, she paused and looked down at the small teddy bear in her arms. For a few moments, she stood there silently. Then, holding the bear close, she gave it a tight hug, as if bidding a dear friend farewell, before gently placing it back on the chair. It looked like a quiet goodbye to something she cared about.
Seeing this, Yu Sheng grew curious. “You’re not taking the bear with you?” he asked softly.
“I can’t take it out with me,” Irene replied, shaking her head. “It’s another entity sealed inside the painting. It lost its consciousness long ago, and I have no idea where it originally came from. It can only remain here, in this painting. But I won’t get rid of the painting—I’ll keep it, so I can keep it close by.”
“Oh,” Yu Sheng said, nodding in understanding. He watched Irene closely, feeling both nervous and curious. He wanted to know exactly how she would leave the painting and how she would use that less-than-perfect doll body he had prepared for her.
Then he saw something that made his heart skip a beat: Irene, who stood inside the painting, began to melt right before his eyes. It was a sight both strange and frightening, as though her form were made of wax slowly dripping under an invisible flame. Her familiar figure lost its shape and detail, turning into a pitch-black liquid that trickled down toward the painting’s lower edge and then spilled over onto the table!
The moment the black substance touched the tabletop, it gave off a faint sizzling sound, as if it were corroding the surface. At first, it looked like thick, oily mud, but then it thinned out into something watery. In the very next instant, it changed again into a swirling black mist. This mist coiled and writhed, gathering around the clay doll resting on the table. It twisted like a dark ribbon, then seeped steadily into the doll’s hollow form.
Yu Sheng’s eyes went wide. He swore he could feel a coldness coming off the mist. If he hadn’t known it was Irene, he would have thought it some kind of evil, poisonous force. Everything about the way it moved looked sinister—so dark and unsettling that it was hard to imagine it belonging to someone as carefree and harmless as Irene. A shiver ran down Yu Sheng’s spine, and for a moment, he tried to push away the uneasy thoughts building in his mind.
Still, he did his best to stay steady. He watched as the black mist finished entering the clay doll. At that strange moment, a silly idea popped into his head: what would happen if he blew on the mist or tried to poke it with his finger? Irene would almost certainly give him an earful for something so foolish, so he quickly put that notion aside.
Just then, the transformation began. The clay doll, ugly and rough moments before, started to shift and change. Its crude, lumpy surface began to smooth out, as if an invisible hand were sculpting it with expert skill. The limbs straightened, turning more graceful and life-like, and the twisted features on the face sank into the head, then re-formed into gentle, perfectly balanced features. The entire body gained the texture and color of real human skin, and dark, silky hair appeared, cascading down as though it had grown there naturally.
Yu Sheng realized he was staring and thought it might be more polite to look away. But before he could, he saw a lovely black dress emerge from the doll’s body as if it were part of her flesh, clothing Irene without any sign that it had been made of clay just moments before.
“Mimicry…” he thought, the word flashing through his mind. At that exact moment, he felt a peculiar, fleeting connection with Irene, as if a quiet whisper had passed through his thoughts. It vanished almost instantly, leaving him to wonder if he had imagined it.
His forehead creased with worry. He recalled the special blood he had mixed into the clay while making the doll. Perhaps that was why he had felt that strange link. He was suddenly nervous that his unusual blood might have affected Irene’s “rebirth.”
But soon enough, his fears began to ease. The doll now lay still on the table, perfectly formed. Its skin looked soft and human, the hair as black as ink, the face delicate and lovely. Under Yu Sheng’s watchful eyes, the doll’s eyelashes fluttered, and then Irene’s eyes slowly opened.
Her eyes, a clear shade of scarlet, stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment before lighting up with awareness. Irene raised her hands, studying them in amazement. She curled and uncurled her fingers, as if testing how well they worked, and her expression grew bright with a mix of joy and disbelief. After a few seconds, a smile—close to tears—appeared on her face.
Yu Sheng offered a gentle smile and said, “Congratulations, Irene.”
“Mmm,” Irene answered, pressing her hands flat against the tabletop to steady herself. She pushed up, wobbling a bit as she stood on top of the table’s surface. Then she looked at Yu Sheng, a wide, grateful grin on her face. She lifted her arms as if she was about to give him a hug and exclaimed, “I’m alive again, Yu Sheng! Thank y—”
Her words stopped mid-sentence. She froze, arms still held out in an awkward pose. Her eyes blinked at Yu Sheng in confusion.
Yu Sheng blinked back. “…?”
Irene slowly tilted her head back, looking him up and down with a puzzled frown. “Why do you look… so tall?” she asked, sounding truly bewildered.
Yu Sheng thought for a moment and shrugged. “Maybe it’s because you’re short?”
Irene stared at him, stunned, and then hurriedly looked down at herself. Her gaze flickered to the lamp nearby, comparing their heights. She took a sharp breath, and her face turned a bit pale. She moved next to the lamp and stood on tiptoes, but it didn’t help. After a few seconds, she turned her head stiffly, looking utterly horrified.
Yu Sheng suddenly had a bad feeling about this.
“Why…” Irene murmured, her eyes distant and hollow, “why am I so short…?”
“Uh… the doll’s size,” Yu Sheng explained, already feeling panic nibbling at his nerves. “I mean, it’s a large doll, but still… well, it’s roughly one-third scale, I think. Wait, did I miscalculate?!”
“One-third scale my foot!” Irene shouted. She stomped her tiny feet on the table, her voice shaking with anger. “I’m supposed to be human-sized! A living doll should be the same height as a real person! I was one meter sixty-seven before! Where are my long legs now?! Now I’m only as tall as this lamp! I… I can’t even reach that chair!”
Yu Sheng gaped, feeling utterly helpless. Then he recalled something important. “Wait… didn’t you watch me the entire time I was making the body? You were looking on from the painting. Why didn’t you say something then?”
Irene paused, her anger halted by confusion. “I was watching… that’s right, I was.” She stepped away from the lamp, her eyes drifting toward the painting where she had once lived. She tried hard to remember every detail, searching for some explanation in her mind.
“Your work was fine,” she muttered slowly. “The clay body was just a temporary medium for my soul to inhabit. Even if the size was off, my soul should have reshaped it once I entered. The difference shouldn’t have been this huge…”
She paced around the table, lost in thought. Occasionally, she poked at her arms or legs as if to confirm they were real. She kept murmuring to herself, “Maybe the size difference was too big… maybe my soul’s reshaping was limited… That still doesn’t make sense. I shouldn’t be stuck this short.”
She tried comparing her height by placing her hand above her head, then jumping up and down a few times, as if hoping to magically stretch taller. Of course, nothing changed.
Yu Sheng watched her with growing worry. “So… something went wrong with the ritual?” he asked gently. “The body didn’t adjust to the right size? This… this isn’t my fault, is it?”
Irene looked up at him. Her face was a mask of mixed anger and tears, and Yu Sheng stepped back nervously, worried she might take a swing at him. Instead, she held out her hand and, through clenched teeth, growled, “Tape measure.”
“Tape measure?” he repeated. “What for?”
“To measure my height!” Irene snapped, her voice trembling on the edge of fury.
Yu Sheng nodded hastily. He rushed upstairs to find a measuring tape, fully aware that handing her a simple ruler might earn him a painful scolding—or worse. He wanted to keep his limbs intact.
When he returned, Irene stood stiffly on the table, trying to appear as tall as possible. She even balanced an old book on top of her head to keep herself straight. Yu Sheng carefully stretched out the measuring tape beside her. As Irene tried subtly tilting her head to gain a fraction of an inch, Yu Sheng pressed the book down to keep her honest. She shot him a look, but stayed still.
“Well?” Irene asked, her voice quiet and filled with dread. “How tall am I?”
Yu Sheng checked the tape, then looked at her with sympathetic eyes. “…centimeters,” he said softly, giving her the exact measurement. “I even rounded up, and I added the decimals to be kind.”
At these words, Irene finally broke down and began to cry again, tears rolling down her now far-too-small cheeks.