Chapter 148: A Chaotic Morning
Yu Sheng was jolted awake at the break of dawn by a phone call from Little Red Riding Hood.
Groggy-eyed, he opened his gaze to find two identical Irene Dolls in bizarre sleeping positions—one dangling off the foot of the bed, the other slumped over the nightstand. It was truly beyond mortal comprehension how these two Dolls managed to sleep like that. Meanwhile, his phone buzzed incessantly by the pillow. As soon as he answered, before he could utter a word, Little Red Riding Hood’s frantic voice blared through:
“Yu Sheng! You’re dead!”
That sobered him up instantly.
His first thought was that high school girls nowadays seriously needed better etiquette. His second thought: [What in the Nether did I do to offend this Young Lady?] Her tone carried more shade than the sandbox back at the Orphanage.
But the very next second, Little Red Riding Hood stumbled over her own panic and quickly tried to explain, flustered:
“Ah, sorry! That’s not what I meant—my brain’s all scrambled. I meant, I saw you die—no wait, I remembered you died—ugh, still wrong. Okay, now it’s right! I just remembered—”
It was clear the Young Lady was in a confused mess, but her confusion made things clearer for Yu Sheng. He’d seen similar symptoms in Irene before. So he coughed deliberately to cut her off:
“Ahem, hold up, hold up. You don’t need to explain, I get it now. Good grief, no wonder the reaction delay was this ridiculous. There was an ‘Evil Wolf’ buffer during the transmission, huh?”
Little Red Riding Hood went dead silent. Apparently, Yu Sheng’s unruffled response left her at a loss. After a few long seconds, she spoke again:
“You… how can you be so calm about this?”
“Because I knew you’d eventually remember. Anyone who comes into contact with my blood becomes aware of my ‘resurrection’. Irene and Foxy already went through this process,” Yu Sheng said, sitting up in bed and explaining casually. “Long story short, now you don’t need me to open the Door at No. 66 Wutong Road anymore. You’ll be able to see my place yourself. The bad news? The next time you witness me drop dead in front of you, it might be quite the shock. The ‘forgetting’ mechanism won’t work on you anymore.
“But it’s no big deal. Irene and Foxy got used to it, I got used to it, and after seeing it a couple more times, you’ll get used to it too.”
The phone line went quiet again. Little Red Riding Hood was probably still dazed, stuck between having her worldview scrambled and her brain lagging behind her ears.
Meanwhile, the two Irene Dolls stirred from the noise. They drowsily lifted their heads to greet Yu Sheng with yawns:
“Morning… yawn.”
And promptly toppled off their precarious perches—one from the bedframe, the other from the nightstand.
Yu Sheng reached down and hoisted the nightstand Irene back up. She rubbed her head, still half-asleep, and grumbled:
“You and Foxy were too much yesterday. You two were having a barbeque, and not only did I not get to eat, you even stuck me next to the fire like a side of meat…”
“That was to dry your clothes,” Yu Sheng replied with a sidelong glance. “You fell into the pot, remember?”
“Still, you didn’t have to skewer me on a stick!”
Yu Sheng thought for a second. “Yesterday is in the past. We should look forward now.”
Irene let out a howl and tried to leap up, only for Yu Sheng to gently press her back down by the head. He then waved his phone at her.
“Little Red Riding Hood called. She’s ‘like’ you and Foxy now.”
Irene blinked a few times, clearly not getting it at first. But a few seconds later, she pieced it together.
“…It just kicked in?” the Doll asked cautiously.
“Just did. And she seems pretty shaken,” Yu Sheng muttered. “High School Students these days really lack resilience.”
Just as he finished, Little Red Riding Hood’s voice piped up from the phone:
“I don’t think it’s a matter of resilience—anyone would be like this after dealing with you.”
Yu Sheng burst out laughing. “Finally got your thoughts in order?”
“More or less,” she sighed, then curiously asked, “So how many people know about your ‘secret’ now?”
“I don’t really consider it a secret. But yeah, there’s a weird ‘retrospective’ mechanism, can’t do much about that,” Yu Sheng replied nonchalantly. “So far it’s just you, Irene, and Foxy. Theoretically, Xiao Xiao could know too, since she also shared my blood, but she hasn’t seen me die yet, so she doesn’t know…”
Before he could finish, Little Red Riding Hood shouted from the other end:
“Don’t scare the kid!”
Yu Sheng chuckled helplessly. “Obviously not! You think I have nothing better to do than die dramatically in front of a kid just to give her a fright?”
Little Red Riding Hood sounded slightly accusatory: “What if you wanted to try it?”
Yu Sheng: “…”
Yu Sheng now found himself questioning the image he held in the eyes of others—surely, he hadn’t fallen so far that he was no longer seen as a mature, reliable, and steady adult?
It was in the midst of this existential pondering that his phone buzzed again, a new call lighting up the screen.
“Alright, talk later, the Special Affairs Bureau is calling,” Yu Sheng glanced at the caller ID and quickly spoke to Little Red Riding Hood. “Anything else going on your end?”
“Nope. The biggest news is suddenly finding out you died. Go do your thing.”
Yu Sheng felt something about her phrasing was just inherently off. Without context, that sentence sounded completely broken.
With a silent mental grumble, he hung up and accepted the new call. “Hello, Yu Sheng speaking.”
On the other end was Bai Li Qing. “Calling this early, I hope I didn’t wake you?”
Whether it was his imagination or not, Yu Sheng felt a subtle note of vengeance buried within her calm tone.
“Nah, I was already up. Has the lab been set up?”
“Yes, the analysis lab is ready. An expert team is on standby, and the materials you requested are prepared,” she replied with her usual reliable composure. “If you’re good to go, a vehicle will pick you up in thirty minutes.”
“Thirty minutes? Got it. No problem.”
He ended the call, checked the time, and sprang into action, dressing and washing up in a blur. He tossed two tiny combs onto the bed, addressing the little dolls sitting there. “Get yourselves tidied up. We’re heading out today to meet the Special Affairs Bureau Commander. And wake Foxy—or she won’t have time to eat.”
The two Irenes, seated and brushing each other’s hair, barely glanced up. “No need. I think she’s already eating. I heard noises in the kitchen earlier…”
Mid-toothpaste spit, Yu Sheng froze. A second later, his face twisted in horror. “No! My stew in the fridge!”
“Let it go. You’re already too late,” one Irene consoled him. “And seriously, you stashed most of that Wolf corpse in her storage tail. This outcome was fated from the start.”
Yu Sheng sighed deeply. He couldn’t argue with that logic.
By the time he and the Irenes got downstairs, Miss Foxy was slumped over the table, dazed and hugging the stew pot—a clear case of post-gluttony daze.
On the table beside her, a plate of hot food steamed gently. Last night’s “picnic” leftovers, heated perfectly with her Fox Fire.
“Benefactor, I warmed your breakfast. Heehee~” she beamed, proud and delighted.
Yu Sheng didn’t know whether to feel touched or exasperated. Touched because despite gorging herself, this eternally hungry Fox Girl had saved him a portion—and the tastiest bits at that. Exasperated because… well, she ate almost all of it!
Twenty minutes later, properly packed, Yu Sheng set out from the Door with Irene and the now-fully-awake Foxy. The three of them crouched in a line at the curb outside Wutong Road No. 66.
Irene looked around and up at her companions. “So… does this count as a full deployment of our whole group?”
“Hardly. You only brought half of yourself,” Yu Sheng quipped. “Didn’t you leave one body back home watching TV?”
Then, eyeing the Demon Fox Maiden, he added, “Foxy, don’t put your hands on the ground. It looks undignified.”
“We’re crouched on the curb. What dignity is there to preserve?” Irene muttered. “Also, why are we squatting again…?”
“I dunno. I bent down to tie my shoes and you two just followed suit.”
Irene: “…What?”
Their conversation was cut short by the coughing, clanking sputter of an engine echoing from the street’s end.
Yu Sheng stood up quickly, peering toward the sound—a beat-up, rickety old jalopy wobbled its way toward them. It looked like it had passed through seven different owners and survived a small war.
His face turned complicated.
As the car finally wheezed to a halt before them, the window rolled down to reveal Xu Jiali.
Yu Sheng muttered, “Still you, huh?”
Irene was more direct. “Doesn’t your Special Affairs Bureau have anything roomier?”
Xu Jiali gave a sheepish look, clearly embarrassed about the state of his ride. “Yeah, uh, I wasn’t originally the one picking you up. The actual car broke down midway, and I happened to be nearby, so I got rerouted.”
Yu Sheng twitched an eyebrow but could only sigh and cram into the backseat with Foxy and Irene. The front passenger seat was already occupied by a mysterious large box.
“You guys really this strapped for resources? Even your field vehicles break down mid-mission…”
Xu Jiali sighed too. “What can I say, the Machine Spirit’s in a bad mood.”
Yu Sheng grumbled, “Can’t you at least give it a fancier name than just ‘Machine Spirit’?”
“It adds charm,” Xu Jiali chuckled awkwardly. “Each Machine Spirit has its own quirks. Over at the Academy, they call it ‘Machine Spirit Unpleased’ or ‘Machine Spirit Praised’… something more up your alley maybe.”
Yu Sheng paused. “Uh… What about the ones here in the Borderland?”
“The Machine Spirits here are a bit more… brotherly.”
Yu Sheng: “…Brotherly?”
Xu Jiali nodded solemnly, as if that somehow made perfect sense.