Chapter 040

Chapter 40: Things Didn’t Go as Expected

Irene cried her heart out. Yu Sheng didn’t try to comfort her, first because he truly didn’t know how, and second because he was scared: [If I say the wrong thing and this doll gets overstimulated, she might snap and bite me.]

She really would have to jump to bite someone now.

At least there was one good thing: she could bite now. Back in the painting she could only yap.

After a long time, Irene finally calmed down a little. Yu Sheng edged closer to the table and spoke in a careful voice: “Don’t be sad. Next time I’ll make you a new body, a normal sized one. For now, can you make do with this one? If not, I’ll fix it tomorrow.”

Irene sniffed hard and said, face full of grief and anger: “For the next while we can only use this one. Even if you make a new body tomorrow I can’t change into it yet. A Living Doll’s soul can’t handle switching vessels over and over. It needs at least a few months.”

She started tearing up again, and Yu Sheng hurried to hold a small glass bottle under her face to catch the drops.

She blinked at him: “What are you doing?”

He said very seriously: “Living Doll tears. Next time I’ll try to use high grade materials when I build your body. I’ll gather supplies for a few months and make you one that shines with golden light.”

Irene thought for a second, then wailed: “Yu Sheng, you… ugh, you… ah!”

After another while, the doll’s sadness finally settled again.

Irene crawled onto a stack of old books and sat on the top, staring into space and thinking about life. Yu Sheng sat by the table to keep this doll company and think with her.

“At least it’s better than before,” Irene muttered under her breath, maybe to him, maybe to herself. “Now I can walk around by myself.”

Yu Sheng rushed to agree: “And you can watch TV by yourself. That’s a lot more convenient, right?”

Irene let out a long, heavy sigh. She meant to sound solemn, but since she was only 66.6 cm tall, not one bit of that sigh came off as heavy.

Yu Sheng turned his head to sneak a look at the new Irene. His eyes fell on her exposed wrists and knees.

The doll’s ball joints were very obvious.

“I used a clay doll as the vessel, but it still turned into this puppet-like body with ball joints,” he said, thinking aloud.

“Of course. It’s an articulated doll. How do you move without joints?” Irene shot him a side glance and said: “This is the shape recorded in my soul, so no matter what the vessel looks like at first, once the soul finishes reshaping, the body becomes this. If you don’t like ball joints, I can’t help it.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” Yu Sheng said casually. “But if we’re talking about what’s recorded in your soul… it also says you were one meter sixty seven.”

Irene sprang off the book pile, landed on Yu Sheng’s arm, and grabbed his thumb to bend it back: “Can you stop poking where it hurts!”

Yu Sheng yelped and jumped, prying off the tiny but shockingly strong doll while babbling an explanation: “I’m just curious, just curious! Where did the reshaping go wrong? Your face is right, so why did your size shrink so much?”

“How would I know!” Irene dangled in midair by her collar, legs kicking. “There shouldn’t have been any problem. Everything felt normal during regeneration, but the size went wrong at the end… hey! Put me down!”

“You have to promise not to bend my fingers again,” Yu Sheng said, holding her by the collar with a very serious face. Only after she nodded did he set her back on the table.

“Forget it. Thinking too much won’t help,” Irene sighed. She paced a few steps and shook her head. “We still have to find a way to contact the sisters of Alice’s Little House. If I can go home, my sisters will know what to do.”

Yu Sheng’s curiosity finally spilled out: “You keep talking about Alice’s Little House and dolls… Where are these sisters? Are there other dolls in this city besides you? And what does your ‘organization’ even do?”

He had wanted to ask these questions for a long time, but one urgent problem after another kept getting in the way. Now he finally had a chance.

“Us? We’re a people created by the Progenitor of Dolls. Our mission… there isn’t much of a mission,” Irene said, searching her memories. “Sometimes we deal with the Otherworld. Sometimes we help other organizations handle tricky entities. Most of the time dolls just do what they like. Most of my sisters don’t act in the human world, but there should be a contact point in Boundary City. I can’t remember exactly where, and after so many years, the contacts and methods have probably changed anyway.”

She climbed back onto the stack of books, propped her chin in both hands, and went on slowly as she recalled: “When we work in the human world we use disguises. Living Dolls look a lot like humans, so it’s easy to blend in. This city is huge. Without a set way to contact them or the right person, finding a Living Doll who is hiding won’t be easy.”

Yu Sheng listened. Even though he had already guessed that all kinds of strange folks might be hidden in this city, he still felt amazed: “Unbelievable. I always thought the people in this city were only humans.”

“How could that be,” Irene rolled her eyes at him and said: “This is the Borderland.”

“Borderland…” Yu Sheng repeated softly.

“In the Borderland, anything can show up. For example, in this old district there’s a strange guy like you who thinks he’s a human,” Irene waved her hand, hopped off the books, and said: “Let’s go downstairs. I’ve had enough of staying up here. I finally have the ability to move freely. I want to take a good walk around this big manor.”

“True,” Yu Sheng said, slapping his cheeks to wake himself up. “Just shaping your body took most of the day. I’m starving. Let’s go make some food.”

He turned toward the attic door, but after two steps Irene yelled behind him: “Wait for me! I’m not down yet!”

He looked back and saw her take a running start on the table, leap onto a creaky old chair, crawl to the edge, and then shimmy down the chair leg hand over hand. After a long struggle she finally reached the floor.

Yu Sheng fell silent.

Irene pumped her short legs to catch up to his feet, then noticed his gaze. She planted her hands on her hips and tried to look imposing: “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” Yu Sheng shook his head. “It’s just kind of cu… cute.”

He almost said “funny” instead.

Irene froze and didn’t catch the odd pause in his voice: “R-right?”

She walked on with him, then tugged his pants: “Oh, and thank you.”

Yu Sheng looked down, tugging at his waistband with a puzzled face.

“Thanks for preparing the body for me. Things were so chaotic just now that I didn’t thank you properly,” Irene said with a serious look.

Yu Sheng couldn’t help giving the 66.6 cm doll a once-over. He held it in for a while and finally blurted: “You’re like this, and you still want to thank me?”

“Fair is fair. The size problem came from something in my own reshaping that I don’t understand, but the body itself is something you prepared with care,” Irene said, lifting her face, very solemn. “Even if it’s a bit ugly.”

“You could have left that last part out.”

“Anyway, what I promised you still counts,” Irene said quickly. “From now on I’ll help you, whether it’s fighting or occult support. I’ll be useful. Even if I find my other sisters and return to Alice’s Little House, I’ll come back to help you. Let’s… set it at one hundred years first?” She paused to think. “By then you should have died of old age, right?”

“I’ll do my best,” Yu Sheng said.

“Then we’ll set it at one hundred years,” Irene said, lighting up with a happy smile for no clear reason. She turned and ran toward the attic door. “Let’s hurry downstairs…”

Her voice cut off. She pitched forward like a puppet whose strings had been cut and slid a long way before slamming into the far wall.

Yu Sheng’s smile froze the moment Irene fell.

“Wha… what the heck?!”

He stared for a heartbeat, then sprinted to her side and scooped the little doll up.

The doll’s eyes were squeezed shut. There was no strength in any limb. The body that had felt warm one second ago was now cold like plain clay. Her skin still felt soft and lifelike, but there was no sense of life.

Yu Sheng was completely stunned. [What just happened?]

Then he heard Irene’s voice. It came from the big worktable not far away: “Yu Sheng! I… I’m back in here!”