Chapter 39: It Succeeded, but Not Completely
Irene’s expression looked rather sorrowful.
Yu Sheng glanced at his so-called “masterpiece,” which had taken him hours to shape, and then put himself in her shoes. He imagined how he would feel if his own soul had to inhabit such a body to be resurrected—he would probably break down in tears.
However, Irene’s reaction still hurt him a bit. Fighting back his embarrassment, Yu Sheng kept his face serious and looked at the doll in the painting. He did his best to appear sincere. “I really put in some effort. Look, at least the eyes are symmetrical…”
That was the last straw—tears welled up in Irene’s eyes. “But the head isn’t symmetrical…”
Yu Sheng turned his face away. “Uh… yeah… I guess I’m not quite skilled at this yet. Next time will be better. Practice makes perfect, practice makes perfect…”
“Let’s just hope there’s no next time,” Irene replied, her voice devoid of hope. Then, realizing that today was supposed to be a day of liberation and happiness, she tried to force a smile—but failed. In the end, all her unspoken words condensed into a single sigh. “Well… it’s a body. I can feel the connection has been established. It’ll have to do.”
Taking a deep breath, she jumped down from the chair inside the painting and took a few steps forward. As if remembering something, she glanced down at the plush teddy bear she was holding.
She stood silently for a few seconds before hugging the teddy bear tightly and placing it back on the chair as if saying goodbye.
Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow curiously. “You’re leaving the bear behind?”
“I can’t take it with me,” Irene replied softly, shaking her head. “It’s… another entity sealed within the painting. Its consciousness has long since faded away. I don’t even know where it came from.” She gently patted the teddy bear’s head. “It has to stay here, but I won’t abandon the painting itself. Keeping it around is like keeping the bear by my side.”
“Oh.”
Nodding his head, Yu Sheng couldn’t help but feel a mix of tension and curiosity as he watched Irene’s next move. He was particularly interested in how the doll would eventually emerge from the painting and inhabit the crude doll body on the table.
Then he saw it—the Irene inside the painting started to… dissolve.
The sight was bizarre and horrifying. It was as if Irene had turned into a wax figure being scorched by an invisible flame. Her entire body gradually took on a molten, liquid-like state, losing color and detail in the blink of an eye. In just a few seconds, she became an oozing, pitch-black substance that collapsed within the frame. The dark matter trickled from the bottom edge of the frame, spilling onto the tabletop.
The table made a faint sizzling noise as though corroded by a potent acid. Initially, the black substance was like viscous mud, but then it became as thin as water. In the next moment, it transformed into a dense, swirling black mist that hovered over the doll’s body, circling it repeatedly before slowly seeping into the lifeless clay figure.
Yu Sheng watched with wide eyes, feeling a bone-chilling coldness emanating from the eerie mist. If he hadn’t seen it originate from Irene herself, he would have assumed it was something sinister and perilous. The entire scene carried a profoundly ominous atmosphere, starkly contrasting with Irene’s usual carefree and harmless demeanor.
Shaking his head to dispel his chaotic thoughts, Yu Sheng kept his focus on the mist, which was seeping faster into the clay. Strange ideas popped into his head—
What would happen if he blew on the mist right now? Or poked it with his finger? Irene would probably curse him to high heaven…
He managed to suppress his reckless impulse. At that moment, the mist finally reached the end of its infiltration.
The doll on the table began to change visibly—what had once been an ugly, crudely shaped clay figure suddenly took on lifelike characteristics. Its rough surface smoothed out in the blink of an eye, and its misshapen limbs aligned and straightened. A skin-like texture and natural color appeared, and its distorted features melded into the head before reforming into a distinct face.
Yu Sheng thought for a moment and felt that, out of respect and politeness, he should turn his back. But before he could act, he saw a finely tailored black dress seemingly grow from within the doll’s body, covering Irene’s form as if it were part of her flesh.
Mimicry?
Yu Sheng’s mind instinctively conjured up the word, and in that fleeting moment, he sensed a peculiar connection between himself and Irene. It was so brief that he couldn’t even discern whether that faint, dreamlike whisper truly belonged to her before the connection faded into silence.
Frowning, Yu Sheng recalled the blood he had mixed into the clay while sculpting the Doll’s body earlier. A sense of unease crept over him—his blood possessed some unique properties, and he worried it might interfere with Irene’s regeneration.
However, his concerns were quickly dispelled.
The Doll, now fully reconstructed, lay quietly on the table. Its skin was as smooth as human flesh, its hair as dark as ink, and its face as delicate as a masterfully crafted piece of art. As Yu Sheng anxiously observed, the Doll’s eyelashes suddenly quivered.
Then, at long last, those crimson eyes slowly opened.
They stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment before a glimmer of consciousness sparked within them. Irene, somewhat clumsily, raised her hands, examining them with a look of incredulity. She flexed her fingers, as if savoring the sensation of air brushing against her skin.
After several seconds of dazed silence, a smile spread across her lips—a smile tinged with the intensity of suppressed tears.
Yu Sheng spoke softly from the side, “Congratulations, Irene.”
“Hmm,” Irene pressed her hands against the tabletop, struggling to rise. After some effort, she stood shakily on the table, her expression brightening as she looked at Yu Sheng. Spreading her arms wide as if to offer a hug, she exclaimed, “I’m alive again! Yu Sheng! Than—”
But she abruptly froze, her arms still outstretched, staring blankly at Yu Sheng with a peculiar expression.
Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow. “…?”
Irene slowly tilted her head upward. “Why do you… look so tall?”
Yu Sheng pondered for a moment. “Could it be because you’re… short?”
Stunned, Irene glanced down at her body, then at a nearby lamp placed on the table. A sudden gasp escaped her, and she hurried over to the lamp, measuring her height against it. Her movements stiffened as she turned her head back to Yu Sheng, face pale with shock.
Something definitely felt off to Yu Sheng.
“Why…” Irene muttered in disbelief. “Why am I… so short…?”
“Uh… Doll size, right? The large kind,” Yu Sheng was visibly flustered but tried to maintain his composure. “I mean, like a one-third Doll… Wait, did I mess up?”
“…One-third your ass! A living Doll should be human-sized! I’m one meter sixty-seven!” The little Doll Irene stomped her tiny feet furiously, barely as tall as the lamp. “What happened to my long legs?! Huh? Huh?! Why am I as tall as this lamp? I… I can’t even reach that chair!”
Yu Sheng was utterly bewildered, but then something dawned on him. “But that doesn’t make sense. You were watching when I shaped the body earlier—you saw the size yourself. Why didn’t you say something then?”
The little Doll halted mid-stomp, as if the realization struck her just now. “Yeah… I was watching…”
She ran to the center of the ritual circle where the Doll body had been crafted, glancing back at the oil painting where her soul had resided. Pondering for a while, some fragmented memories slowly surfaced in her mind.
“That’s right… Your procedure wasn’t wrong. The clay shell is just a medium—a temporary vessel for the soul. Even if the size is a bit off, the soul should have adjusted the body during reconstruction. Even with limited adjustments, I shouldn’t end up only as tall as a lamp…”
Irene continued mumbling to herself, pacing back and forth on the tabletop, sometimes fiddling with her new body as if trying to figure out the problem.
“Is it because the size difference was too great? But even then, it should’ve made some adjustment… It shouldn’t be this small…”
She raised a hand to measure her head height, then jumped in place twice, as if hoping to miraculously grow taller. Predictably, nothing changed.
“So… did the ritual go wrong?” Yu Sheng asked nervously, trying to make sense of it all. “Did the body reconstruction not calibrate properly? This… this isn’t my fault, right?”
Irene glared up at him, her face a tragic blend of anger and impending tears, startling him.
“Ruler.”
The diminutive Doll stretched out her hand toward Yu Sheng, her voice trembling with frustration.
“Huh?”
“To measure my height!”
Startled, Yu Sheng hurried upstairs and grabbed a measuring tape instead of a ruler—he figured giving Irene a straight ruler might just result in him getting bitten.
A few moments later, Irene stood straight on the table, an old book balanced atop her head while Yu Sheng pulled the tape down to her feet. As Irene subtly tilted the book upward, Yu Sheng pressed it down firmly.
“So… how tall am I?” Irene asked cautiously.
“…66.6 centimeters,” Yu Sheng reported, sympathy coloring his tone. “I rounded up, even counted the 0.6.”
Finally, Irene burst into tears.