Chapter 107: Financial Pressure
Foxy was very obedient. Upon hearing Yu Sheng’s instructions, she didn’t ask a single question. She grabbed Irene’s Painting and tucked it into her tail before turning and dashing out the Door, heading toward the attic.
Irene, still lying on the bed, held onto hope. “Hey, Yu Sheng, do you think maybe a mirac—”
Before she could finish, the two little dolls’ eyes dimmed simultaneously as if power had been cut off, and they both collapsed stiffly onto the bed.
Yu Sheng watched the scene with a blank expression, then tilted his head up at a forty-five-degree angle to the ceiling. “Guess not.”
A few seconds later, he called out toward the outside: “Foxy! You can come back now!”
Footsteps came thundering back. Foxy quickly dashed down from the attic and, after entering the Door, pulled the Oil Painting Frame out of her tail and handed it to Yu Sheng. “Benefactor! Here you go!”
Both little dolls on the bed suddenly bolted upright, looking a little dazed in their expressions.
Yu Sheng casually hung the Painting on the back of one of them, turning her into P1 Irene.
Strangely, once Irene “woke up,” she didn’t lament the lack of a miracle but instead gave Foxy a blank stare. “Can you seriously not clean up your tail?”
Yu Sheng perked up with curiosity. “Huh? You saw inside her tail? What’s it like in there?”
The moment the question left his lips, he felt an odd sense of something being very wrong. It was the sort of sentence that, in any other context, would sound like complete nonsense. But then again, given the rocket-boosted Doraemon-style Storage Tail’s wild aesthetic, it wasn’t entirely out of place to describe its functions like a lunatic…
“It’s dark in there, I couldn’t tell how big it was. You can’t see the end. There’s a giant pile of junk like a mountain in the middle, and all the top layers are food, including leftover meals,” Irene gestured as she described what she saw. “When I opened my eyes inside the Painting, the first thing I saw was half a box of instant noodles and a half-eaten roast chicken…”
“I-I didn’t steal any of it!” Foxy quickly explained, visibly flustered. “I told Benefactor already! Those leftovers, too—I just didn’t want them to go to waste, so I took them. Stuff doesn’t spoil inside my tail anyway.”
“Well, at least organize it! Who just piles things up like a garbage dump? Next time we go out shopping, you should buy a couple of shelving units and stuff them in your tail. Like those supermarket display racks—super cheap.”
Yu Sheng found the topic growing increasingly bizarre and finally had to cut in: “…Let’s get back to Irene.”
The little doll and the Fox Girl finally dropped the discussion about “mixing passengers and cargo, raw and cooked food together in a tail” and whether shelves should be installed inside a Demon Fox Maiden’s Storage Tail. They turned their attention to Irene’s two bodies.
“Ahem, we can now confirm: at least one Doll body must stay within five meters of the Painting, or both will go offline and Irene’s soul returns to the Painting,” Yu Sheng cleared his throat, moving on to the next experiment. “Now, let’s test how far the ‘secondary body’ can go when the ‘main body’ is carrying the Painting.”
“How do we test that? There might not be enough space at home,” Irene considered. “Go outside? Into the city? But we’d have to avoid normal people… sounds like a hassle…”
“There’s a better place than the city,” Yu Sheng said with a faint smile.
Before he could finish, Irene had already caught on. The two dolls spoke in unison: “The Valley!”
“It’s massive. From one end of the Valley to the other is more than far enough, and we don’t have to worry about being disturbed,” Yu Sheng nodded. “But before we head over, we need to step out. I want to buy a few things.”
At the mention of shopping, Irene became unusually excited for some reason. Both dolls shuffled to the edge of the bed eagerly. “Oh? Going shopping? What are we buying? Clothes? Food? Are you finally getting me something? I really do want a new outfit. The one I manifested is fine, but sometimes I want a change… Oh, did you know? I can change clothes! I just don’t have any other ones… You should get a new coat, too—yours is all bloody and ripped from yesterday. Totally unwearable…”
The two dolls chattered nonstop. At first, Yu Sheng didn’t think much of it. But as Irene transitioned from speaking in unison to speaking independently, each body saying different things at the same time, he began to realize something was wrong. The little doll was rapidly adapting to her dual-body setup, first alternating between mouths, then using both to say different things simultaneously…
Yu Sheng belatedly realized that his scientific curiosity might have, possibly, probably… gone too far.
Now there were two of the chattering Irene dolls!
“Just use one body to talk! Don’t both babble at once!” Yu Sheng quickly cut off the little doll’s noise. “You’re giving me a headache—from now on too! No more of that!”
“Aww, but I just realized how efficient it is to talk this way,” the Irene carrying the Painting pouted, blinking up at him. “So, you still haven’t said what we’re buying.”
“First, we need to stock up on food,” muttered Yu Sheng, mentally listing his shopping needs. “Two crates of instant noodles, some vacuum-sealed chicken legs for Foxy—our ‘reserves.’ Then, vegetable seeds… right, can’t forget farm tools.” He counted on his fingers, calculations running at high speed in his mind. “Ah, and a trip to the construction materials market too… Maybe that can wait. Could get expensive.”
His expression turned grim. Another bulk purchase like this, and his savings would truly hit rock bottom. His new manuscript hadn’t found a buyer yet, and the “Hotel” hadn’t seen a hint of proper business. Just yesterday, he’d gone on a commission with Little Red Riding Hood, but who knew when the reward would come in. Sure, the client said the funds might arrive today, but had stressed that was only a possibility.
Lately, it had been all outflow, no inflow. Or to put it bluntly, there was no “in” at all—only “out.”
And the lion’s share of expenses went straight to Foxy. Things like clothes and daily necessities were one-time costs, but feeding her was a daily, hefty expenditure.
Yet Yu Sheng had to admit—every coin spent on her meals was worth it. Twenty chicken legs for one tail sounded outrageous until you reframed it as twenty chicken legs for one cruise missile. Where else could you find a deal like that?
Give him a chicken farm, and he felt he could enable this Young Lady to perform a full-scale bombardment of the entire Old City District.
On the flip side, Irene’s costs were practically nil.
Other than materials for reconstructing her body—and he’d gone with the cheapest options—he hadn’t bought her clothes or food. So far, all he’d purchased for her was a tiny red hairclip. That, too, was picked out by Little Red Riding Hood during a street outing. A toy-like trinket that made the Doll beam with joy for an entire day.
Thinking back, Yu Sheng felt a little guilty toward the Doll Lady.
She was noisy, bad-tempered, naggy, clingy, weak—and always jumping into trouble. But when push came to shove, she delivered.
“If worst comes to worst, I’ll have to tap into the disaster reserve fund. And if that doesn’t cut it, maybe I can just sell that ‘metal chunk’ we found last time to the Special Affairs Bureau.”
Yu Sheng muttered under his breath, attracting Irene’s curiosity. “What are you mumbling about?”
“Nothing. Let’s pack up and head out,” he waved her off, getting to his feet. “We’re not going far today. The farmer’s market next to the Old City District should have everything we need. Also, better let Foxy carry you out for a bit of ‘camouflage.’ Bring the Painting too—don’t lose connection halfway.”
“Got it,” Irene nodded. She steadied her alternate body against the headboard, then awkwardly maneuvered her Painting-carrying form off the bed. After a few wobbly steps on the floor, she exhaled in relief. “Not bad. If the other body just stays still, it’s easier to control this one. Are we taking a cab?”
“…No coordinates left over there, or I would’ve just opened a Door and saved cab fare,” Yu Sheng sighed. “Guess we’re hailing a ride.”
Fifteen minutes later, Yu Sheng arrived at the nearest intersection with Foxy, now shaped as a straight-haired black-haired girl. They waited for the car.
“Once we have money, we really need to get a car,” Irene’s voice echoed in Yu Sheng’s mind, tinged with hope. “Can’t keep relying on ride shares forever…”
Yu Sheng glanced at Irene, nestled in Foxy’s arms, raising an eyebrow. “What if it’s another Special Affairs Bureau car?”
“…Then I’d rather it be a rideshare.”
Yu Sheng chuckled, mind drifting. “Honestly, I think we could get by with an electric scooter. A big one, enough to carry a passenger. Foxy can ride pillion. In town, we just ride normally. Outside, she can pop her tail open and engage Nine Tail Acceleration. A hundred kilometers for twenty cents of power and three Steamed Breads. If the scooter has energy recovery, we might even make money…”
“You have a wild imagination,” Irene muttered, before suddenly realizing something. “Hey wait—where would I sit?!”
“Front basket.”
“…Yu Sheng, you bastard!”
As they bickered, a sleek silver-gray car glided into view. Irene, who had been on the verge of biting someone, immediately went limp again, slumping in Foxy’s arms, resuming her ‘camouflaged’ state.
With a squeal of brakes, the car stopped in front of them.
Foxy leaned in, whispering with curiosity, “Benefactor, did you call this one? That was fast.”
Yu Sheng blinked, checked the ride-hailing app, and compared license plates. “…Nope. The one I called is still two intersections away.”
Just then, the car window rolled down.
Good news: it wasn’t Xu Jiali’s creaky, sputtering old vehicle.
Bad news: the person behind the wheel was someone Yu Sheng found slightly troublesome.
Ren Wen Wen beamed. “Hey, it’s you guys! Heading out somewhere?”