Chapter 104

Chapter 104: Yu Sheng’s Alchemy Experiment

He couldn’t sleep. And even without Irene causing trouble beside him, he still couldn’t sleep.

Maybe his first real otherworld exploration had left him genuinely wired. Maybe he’d been exposed to too much new information too fast. Either way, it all bubbled up at once, and Yu Sheng couldn’t stop thinking.

After tossing and turning and only managing two or three hours, he got up. He threw an outer coat over his pajamas and quietly prepared to leave the bedroom.

The moment he opened the door, Little Doll on the bed suddenly sat upright again, eyes still shut. “Going out? Where?”

Yu Sheng froze. He was about to answer when Irene flopped down again with a thud. As she fell, she muttered, “When you buy money, don’t forget a helmet. You and Silly Fox ate until you were stuffed and didn’t even take me to play games…”

Nonsense sleep-talk. Also—why did a doll not only need to sleep, but talk in her sleep?

Yu Sheng swallowed the urge to complain and, after confirming she wasn’t actually awake, quietly opened door opening and stepped into the hallway outside.

The sun still hadn’t risen. Outside was the quietest stretch of night before dawn. Everything inside and outside the house was silent, so much so that the soft slap of his slippers sounded loud.

Yu Sheng looked left and right. He went to the door at the end of the hallway first, opened it a crack, checked inside, then relaxed and headed toward the stairs.

At the stairs, he saw the clothes hanging on the railing post—the coat he’d worn last night. He’d come home so late he hadn’t cleaned up. He’d just hung it there without thinking.

The coat was still stained with large patches of blood. The spot where the giant wolf had torn at it was ripped open with a long gash, making it look terrifying.

Yu Sheng picked it up and inspected it. He hadn’t checked closely when he got back. Now, it was obvious the coat was basically done for. Repairing it would be a pain, and the bloodstains might never wash out. It wasn’t even expensive. He might as well throw it away later.

He just didn’t know if tossing a blood-soaked coat that looked like it came straight from a crime scene into the trash would scare someone enough to call the police.

Random thoughts spiraled. He marveled at how much blood he’d lost. Then he regretted he hadn’t smeared more of it around the exhibition hall before it dried—maybe he could’ve gained more control over the museum, or unlocked something new. Then he thought again about what that giant wolf emerging from Little Red Riding Hood’s shadowspawn actually was, and worried about the girl being hunted by a Big Bad Wolf.

His gaze kept returning to the bloodstains.

Gradually, all the chaos converged into a single curiosity.

Blood. His blood.

What exactly was it?

That question had been circling his mind for a long time, but he’d never had time—or a good way—to test it. Now, since he couldn’t sleep anyway, an idea took shape.

After a brief hesitation, Yu Sheng went up the stairs to the attic.

Nightlight spilled through the slanted window. The attic was filled with a deep, ink-blue dimness. The big table Irene treated as an “alchemy bench” sat quietly in the darkness. Tools from the last time he’d made her a body still lay scattered across it. A few old books were stacked in the corner, and an old desk lamp stood nearby.

Yu Sheng didn’t turn on the main light. He switched on the desk lamp instead and sat within its limited pool of brightness, forcing himself to focus.

He’d rebuilt Irene’s arms with two sections of lotus root, turning Little Doll into a tiny lotus-root person. Irene had protested loudly. But setting her complaints aside, one thing stood out.

In Irene’s professional doll knowledge system, that kind of reckless operation should never have worked. Clay, flour, even dirt dug from the garden could be materials for making a doll—but lotus root shouldn’t have been.

Yu Sheng took out a disposable mixing cup, grabbed a paper-cutting knife, and gritted his teeth as he nicked the back of his hand. Blood dripped into the cup.

He didn’t have much occult knowledge. Other than the mechanical steps of doll-making, Irene had only taught him a little about spirit-infusion, guidance, and activation—and even that had been casual.

But right now, it was enough to feed his curiosity.

After completing a real otherworld exploration with Little Red Riding Hood, Yu Sheng was full of interest in occult matters. He urgently wanted more understanding.

Following what he remembered from Irene’s instructions, he arranged candles for a spirit-infusion ritual, placed his blood at the focal points of several concentric circles and connecting lines, and tried to stir his own spirituality and pour it into the blood outside his body.

Irene had said blood was an excellent natural alchemical wonder. Fresh blood symbolized life, the greatest miracle in the universe, and it was one of the substances most likely to react in ritual work. Even a clumsy rookie could use it to complete many tests.

But Yu Sheng ran into a problem at the very first step.

He didn’t know how to stir his spirituality.

Even though he could increasingly sense something like spiritual intuition lately, he still couldn’t feel and control spirituality—said to come from the essence of the human soul—as a concrete, controllable element. He couldn’t sense any supernatural energy gathering in his body, so naturally he couldn’t pour it into the blood.

All he could do was rely on imagination.

And he almost fell asleep doing it.

After struggling for ten minutes, he saw the blood in the cup starting to clot. He gave up on that direction.

Maybe he needed an auxiliary material.

He opened the drawer and took out a bag of clay.

After running out last time, he’d bought more. Considering Irene might need emergency limb repairs again, he kept “materials” stocked now. He couldn’t use lotus root every time—no matter how badly he wanted to test it—because Irene might actually lose her mind.

Clay shaping was also the only alchemical experiment he’d successfully operated so far.

Yu Sheng mixed the blood directly into the clay and kneaded it until the color and texture were even. Then, carefully following the proportions Irene had taught him, he added supplements like tea powder and rose oil.

Once it was ready, he began shaping the clay into an arm.

He told himself it was practice—practice for doll-making craftsmanship. That way, Irene wouldn’t mock how ugly his work was every time she remembered the rebuilding process.

With that in mind, Yu Sheng used all his patience to sculpt. He used a scraper and knitting needles to form a small hand at the end. When he finished, he realized…

It was still ugly.

But at least it was better than last time. At least it had five fingers.

He’d never dared tell Irene that the first body he’d made her had a hand with six fingers. Anyway, after the doll completed self-rebuilding, it had fixed itself. She never noticed.

Yu Sheng placed the arm in the center of the array. While imagining a connection formed through the blood, he slowly moved his own right hand, trying to make the arm on the table move with him.

Nothing happened.

He frowned, poked the arm with the scraper, and after confirming there was truly no response, he set it aside.

Faint dawn light began to seep through the attic window. The surroundings were slowly brightening.

Yu Sheng didn’t notice. He was already absorbed.

He let out more blood and prepared more clay.

Handcrafting was the kind of thing that could become addictive.

Since he’d already made an arm, he might as well make a whole body. Whether the alchemy worked could wait. If his sculpting improved, that was still a win. He could even treat it as preparing a spare body for Irene—she’d said it would take a few months before she could switch to a new one, which gave him time to practice properly.

When the time came, he could give Little Doll a surprise.

With that thought, Yu Sheng’s enthusiasm climbed. Losing blood didn’t make him feel unwell at all. If anything, he felt more and more energized.

He made a new torso, arms, and two legs, then opened a fresh pack of clay and started shaping the doll’s head.

Compared to last time, this body was at least symmetrical, with complete limbs. An arm looked like an arm. A leg looked like a leg.

The head was harder than everything else. Not only did he need delicate facial features, he also had to consider makeup work. The first time he’d made Irene’s body, he’d skipped the face step entirely. In the end, the face had grown in on its own.

But this time, he wanted to challenge something harder.

Besides, when he’d bought clay, he’d also bought a set of small tools for painting doll and figure faces. It would be a waste not to use them.

Yu Sheng worked with deep focus.

Too deep.

So deep he didn’t notice that the first arm he’d made—sitting off to the side—had fingers lightly trembling.

And the doll torso he’d set near the edge of the table had a chest that was rising and falling, so faintly it was almost impossible to see.