Chapter 104: Yu Sheng’s Alchemic Experiment
There was no sleep to be had—not without Irene’s usual chaos beside him.
Perhaps it was the excitement of his first true venture into the Otherworld, or maybe just the overwhelming torrent of recent information—either way, Yu Sheng’s thoughts refused to rest. After tossing and turning for a restless two to three hours, he finally gave up, threw on a jacket over his sleepwear, and quietly slipped out of the bedroom.
The moment he nudged open the Door, the little doll on the bed suddenly sat bolt upright, her eyes still closed.
“Going out? Where to?”
Yu Sheng froze, mouth halfway open with a reply. But before he could speak, Irene flopped back down, mumbling, “Don’t forget your helmet if you’re buying cash… you and that silly Fox Girl stuffed yourselves and still didn’t take me gaming…”
Incoherent dream babble.
[Wait a minute—why does a doll even need sleep, let alone talk in her dreams?!]
Suppressing his strange urge to rant internally, Yu Sheng confirmed that Irene wasn’t actually awake. Then, with deliberate quiet, he stepped into the hallway.
Dawn had yet to break. Outside the house, the world remained cloaked in the deep stillness of pre-morning darkness. The silence was so profound that even the soft slap of slippers against the floor seemed jarringly loud.
Glancing about, Yu Sheng first looked toward the Door at the end of the corridor. He approached cautiously, cracked it open just a sliver to peek inside, and, seeing everything undisturbed, breathed a faint sigh of relief before turning toward the staircase at the other end.
At the stair’s landing, he spotted the coat he had worn the night before, still hanging on the banister—he had come home so late, he hadn’t bothered to tidy up.
The coat was soaked with blood, torn open by the jaws of the Giant Wolf. The gash was wide, the stains vast and dark, making it look like it had been salvaged from a murder scene.
Yu Sheng picked it up for a closer look. He hadn’t examined it in detail the night before, but now… this thing was a lost cause. Stitching it would take forever, and the blood might never wash out. Besides, it wasn’t even a particularly good coat.
Better to just throw it out.
Though… would dumping a coat that looked like this into the neighborhood trash get the police called on him?
Thoughts flitted through Yu Sheng’s head: musings on how much blood he’d lost; regret that he hadn’t used that blood to paint messages across the Exhibition Hall—maybe he could’ve leveraged that to seize greater control over the Museum, or unlocked some new trick.
And then… that Giant Wolf. The one that had slithered out of Little Red Riding Hood’s shadow—what was that thing? Was the girl it hunted still in danger?
His eyes lingered on the bloodstains, and slowly, all those scattered thoughts began to coalesce around a single point of curiosity.
His blood—what was it, really?
This question had haunted him for some time. But he’d never had the opportunity, or the proper framework, to explore it.
Now, with sleep out of the question, and a fresh bout of inspiration, Yu Sheng turned and ascended the stairs to the attic.
The moonless night spilled into the attic through the narrow windows, casting the space in a dim blue-black hue. In the shadows sat a wide worktable—what Irene had once dubbed the Alchemic Platform.
Tools from their last doll-making session were still strewn across it. A few old books rested in one corner, beside a weathered desk lamp.
Yu Sheng didn’t turn on the main light. Instead, he flicked on the lamp, letting its narrow beam create a circle of focus in the gloom. Then he sat down, mind spinning with thoughts.
He’d once reforged Irene’s arms using lotus roots—turning the little doll into a literal “Lotus Doll.” Irene had pitched a fit, of course, but aside from her usual tantrums, something else about the incident stood out.
In Irene’s “professional Doll Lady” understanding of alchemy, such crude improvisation should not have worked. Clay, flour, even dirt from the garden could be used to craft dolls—but not lotus root.
Still, it had worked. And that inconsistency nagged at him.
With a short pause, Yu Sheng pulled a disposable mixing cup from the drawer. Then, grabbing the paper cutter from the desk, he gritted his teeth and sliced a shallow wound across the back of his hand.
Scarlet droplets fell into the cup.
He didn’t possess much real knowledge of Mysticism. Irene had taught him little beyond the mechanical steps of doll-making and a few offhand remarks about spirit communion, guidance, and activation.
But even scraps of such knowledge were enough to feed his curiosity now.
After following Little Red Riding Hood through an entire Otherworld expedition, his hunger for understanding Mysticism had grown insatiable.
And tonight, it was time to begin peeling back the veil.
Following the method Irene had taught him and what remained in his memory, Yu Sheng arranged the ritual candles for the Soul Imbuement Rite upon the table. He then placed his own blood at the focal points—intersecting lines and concentric circles—and began to attempt drawing upon his “Spiritual Intuition,” trying to channel that power into the detached blood.
Irene had told him that “blood” was a superb natural alchemical wonder. Its flow symbolized life, the universe’s greatest miracle. It was one of the most reactive substances in Alchemy Rites, so much so that even a bumbling novice could use it to conduct numerous experiments.
Yet Yu Sheng stumbled at the very first step.
He had no idea how to stir his “Spiritual Intuition.” Despite having grown more aware of its presence lately, he still couldn’t grasp this soul-derived force as a tangible or controllable element. He felt no supernatural energy within him, and thus had no means to infuse it into the blood.
All he could do was stretch his imagination—so much that he nearly fell asleep.
After ten minutes of futile effort, the blood in the cup began to show signs of clotting. Yu Sheng gave up on this round of testing.
[Maybe I need some auxiliary materials?] he thought.
Opening a drawer, he pulled out a bag of clay.
He had restocked it after the last batch ran out. Knowing Irene might once again require urgent limb repairs, he kept these materials at home.
After all, he couldn’t keep using lotus roots each time—tempting as that was. Irene might go mad.
Clay sculpting remained the only Alchemy experiment Yu Sheng had thus far succeeded at.
He mixed the blood in the cup straight into the clay, kneading it evenly. Then, following the proportions Irene had taught him, he added tea powder, rose essential oil, and other such ingredients. Once prepared with utmost care, he began sculpting the clay into the shape of an arm.
[Well, if I’m already doing all this, might as well practice my Doll-crafting skills,] he thought. [So Irene doesn’t always have to grumble about how ugly my models are every time she recalls her “reconstruction” process.]
With extraordinary patience and meticulousness, Yu Sheng completed the arm, sculpting a delicate hand at the end using a scraper and knitting needle. After all his effort, the result was still ugly.
But at least it was better than last time. It did have five fingers, for one.
He had never dared tell Irene that the first body he sculpted for her had two six-fingered hands. Thankfully, once a Doll completes self-reconstruction, it repairs itself to a proper state. She never noticed.
Once all this was done, Yu Sheng placed the arm in the center of the Alchemy Array again. He focused, imagining a link between his blood and the arm, and began moving his right hand, trying to get the clay limb to mirror his movements.
It remained motionless.
Yu Sheng frowned, poked the arm with his scraper, and, upon confirming there was truly no response, sighed and set it aside for now.
The dim morning light had begun to seep through the attic’s slanted window, slowly brightening the surroundings.
But Yu Sheng was so absorbed in his work that he hadn’t noticed the change in time.
He released more blood and prepared more clay.
Crafting by hand was addicting.
[Since I’ve already made an arm, why not a full body?] he thought. [Whether or not the Alchemy works, at least I can refine my sculpting technique. It’ll be a nice surprise for the little doll, too.]
Though Irene had said it would be a few months before she could switch to a new body, this would give him time to practice.
With his spirits rising, Yu Sheng continued, showing no signs of fatigue despite the continuous bloodletting. If anything, he grew more energized. He fashioned a new torso, arms, and legs. Then, opening a new packet of clay, he began crafting the Doll’s head.
He felt he had improved significantly. At least, compared to last time, the body was symmetrical, with properly shaped limbs.
Sculpting a Doll’s head was far more demanding. He needed to delicately render facial features and consider the complex process of applying makeup. Yu Sheng wasn’t sure he could pull it off—during Irene’s first reconstruction, he had skipped the “face makeup” altogether. She’d grown her own face in the end.
But this time, he wanted to challenge himself.
He had even bought a set of miniature tools for applying makeup to Dolls and figurines while purchasing the clay. It would be a waste not to use them.
Yu Sheng immersed himself in the process.
In fact, he was so deeply focused that he didn’t notice:
The fingers of the first arm he made had begun to twitch ever so slightly.
And the chest of the Doll torso resting on the table’s edge had begun to rise and fall, faintly—almost imperceptibly to the naked eye.