Chapter 105

Chapter 105: Unit Two

The sun was up now. Morning light swept the attic clean of gloom. Outside, he could faintly hear more people and cars on the street, and some unknown bird chattered on a nearby roof.

None of that broke Yu Sheng’s focus.

He held a doll head whose shaping was almost done. It was still a lump of clay that had started to firm up. Carefully, he used a needle tool to press out the ridges for the eyes and nose. He took a long time on this part and even redid it several times before the clay got too hard to work. At last he reached a result he felt okay about.

It still was not anywhere near perfect. It could not compare to what a real pro would make. But Yu Sheng felt this small head would at least keep Irene from calling it horribly ugly, and at least… she would not cry when she went inside it, right?

With a small proud smile, he looked up at the candles on the table and saw they had burned down by more than half.

It looked like he would not finish the “face makeup” step before the candles went out. For now, getting the body parts done was already good.

He was not disappointed. Besides the experiment, he was practicing. It was good to run through the full flow a few more times before he made Irene’s next official body. Makeup or not, the doll did not really care.

After all, Irene could grow her face to look very nice by herself.

Yu Sheng blew out a small breath, picked up the doll torso he had just finished, and set it at the focal point at the center of the Alchemical Array. Since this was a practice run, he would do the whole ritual look. Even if Irene was not here, he wanted the sense of ceremony.

But after placing the torso, he could not help frowning.

He felt the clay had a faint odd springiness, and there was a slight warmth.

When he looked closer and touched it, that strange feeling vanished. It became an ordinary clay figure again, and its surface was slightly dry.

[Am I seeing things because I slept too little?]

The thought crossed his mind, but he did not drop the doubt so easily. As he joined the other parts to the torso using a little clay mixed with softener and water, he watched the “body” closely.

He soon finished the assembly. A rough doll body lay quietly at the center of the Alchemical Array made of circles and lines. Candles burned around it. Except for the missing Irene Painting that served as the soul source, the ritual for shaping a doll was complete.

Yu Sheng stared at the figure. For a moment he thought his eyes blurred.

Then he saw the body’s chest begin to rise and fall.

It was very faint, but it was real, like a tiny life was sleeping inside that clay, not yet awake but already there.

Yu Sheng’s eyes flew wide. After a second or two of stillness, he finally grasped what was happening. He leaned in fast and lightly touched the doll body that was “breathing,” saying: “Wake up, wake up… are you really alive?”

The body did not answer as he hoped. Its chest now rose and fell in a steady, clear rhythm, but the whole “activation” seemed to stop right there. There were no further signs of waking.

It was like an empty shell waiting for something to fill it.

Yu Sheng drew in a breath, then shook his head hard. He turned toward the stairs and shouted: “Irene! Irene, are you awake? Come up and see what I made…”

He stopped halfway, because he saw movement on the table from the corner of his eye.

At the instant he said the name “Irene,” the doll body changed all at once, like the key step of the ritual had just been completed. The body went stiff for a beat, then color rushed into its skin, hair sprang out, the five features sharpened and grew vivid, bright color appeared, and then came the familiar black dress. In only a few seconds, an Irene lay before Yu Sheng and slowly opened her eyes.

He stared, dumbfounded. The “Irene” that had been a clay figure flinched out of her first daze, shot upright, and turned her head toward him, saying: “Why are you yelling! I was sleeping and you…”

She stopped, as if she felt something was off. This “new body” turned its neck stiffly and looked around in a strange way.

“Hey wait, where did you put me? I was in the bedroom… no, that is not right. This body feels… not much. I feel woozy…”

The little doll spoke in a confused, slightly panicked way. She tried to stand and walk to Yu Sheng, but as soon as she got up, the world seemed to spin. She wobbled twice and slowly tipped off the table’s edge, saying: “Hey, I can’t keep my balance! I see double! I have two views right now… pull me up, pull me…” She did not finish because Yu Sheng had already moved. Quick as lightning, he caught the falling Miss Doll. Before he could breathe out, a thump sounded from downstairs.

Two cries rang out at once in Yu Sheng’s ears: “Oh my gosh…”

One was loud and clear from the doll in his arms. The other was far and faint from downstairs.

“Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng, what happened? Why do I have two views now? I’m in two places? No, wait, why…” the doll in his arms babbled in a panic, “why do I have two bodies right now?”

Everything was beyond Yu Sheng’s expectations, but he realized what had happened. Forcing aside his shock, he held the “new Irene” tight and ran for the stairs, clattering down to the second floor and into the bedroom.

The little doll in his arms clutched his arm as if she would fall if she let go.

As the doorway opened, Yu Sheng saw Irene holding the nightstand to keep her balance. She lifted her head at almost the same time.

The doll he held and the doll standing on the floor stared at each other.

“…Wow!” they said together.

“I have two bodies!” they said together again.

Yu Sheng’s head throbbed. He looked between the two identical dolls and asked, unsure: “Irene? You are both really you?”

“Yes,” both dolls nodded.

“No, I mean, is there only one mind?” he hurried to add, “one mind in two bodies? Or did we get two Irenes?”

“One,” they answered at the same time. This time, the Irene in his arms quickly shut her mouth, and the one on the floor pointed at herself and said: “Just me. Only… I suddenly got another body.”

As she spoke, she slowly let go of the nightstand. Swaying, she stood in place for a few seconds and held her head: “Phew, finally steady… I almost threw up just now, you know. At first I did not get it. I thought I woke up in the attic, then the one on the bed opened her eyes too. Two views and two sets of senses slammed into me at once. I stood up and fell from both the table and the bed at the same time. Good thing you caught one…”

Once she could stand, Irene chattered away. Halfway through, she seemed to remember something and looked at Yu Sheng, asking: “Wait, Yu Sheng, why did a second body pop out? And… why am I inside both at the same time?”

Yu Sheng’s face tightened. Embarrassment rushed from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He had not had time to think up an explanation when he ran down. After struggling for a moment, he blurted: “If I say the attic got damp and sprouted a doll, would you believe it?”

Irene stared at him and said: “…Is that so?”

[Wait, she actually believes that?]

Since she reacted like that, Yu Sheng could not keep fooling her. He went to the bed, set the “Irene Number Two” in his arms down, straightened his face, and said: “Here is the thing. I could not sleep, then I suddenly felt like doing science. I went upstairs and did a little test…”

He told Irene the whole process of how he made her a spare body, even adding what he had been thinking along the way.

Her face went from confused, to shocked, back to confused, and finally to furious.

“Yu Sheng, you jerk!!”