Chapter 106

Chapter 106: Research and Testing

Yu Sheng had been through too much.

Especially after Irene threw herself onto the floor again—not that Yu Sheng actually had an uncle, but if this Little Doll kept screaming about one, he was half afraid she’d summon a whole extended family out of thin air just to curse them to death.

Fortunately, Irene’s temper flared fast and burned out just as quickly. After a short stretch of chaos and fumbling, she and Yu Sheng both latched onto a detail they’d missed in the first wave of panic.

“This new body…” Irene lifted her head slowly, staring at the other shell on the bed as if she’d only just realized what it meant. “Back in the attic—was the distance between it and the painting more than five meters?”

Both bodies spoke at once, the echoing effect making it even creepier than it had any right to be.

Yu Sheng understood the next second, his eyes widening. “Oh, damn. Yeah! It woke up in the attic… It broke the painting’s limit!”

For a moment, the room went quiet as three pairs of eyes stared at each other.

After a long pause, Yu Sheng said carefully, “So… maybe this isn’t a bad thing?”

“Having an extra body isn’t bad,” Irene said, cheeks puffing out in a sulk. “The biggest problem is that I’m dizzy!”

Then she pivoted on a dime, excitement breaking through. “But dizzy is something I can probably overcome. If I get used to it, it might be fine. The real miracle is that this body can get away from the painting’s distance limit. That’s incredible.” Her eyes narrowed at Yu Sheng. “How did you even do it?”

“I don’t know,” Yu Sheng admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “Ask me how I made it and I can tell you every step. Ask me why it worked, and I know less about alchemy than you do. I just wanted to practice before you transfer into a new body in a few months—so you won’t complain my dolls are ugly again. I followed the steps you taught me. Who knew it would actually come alive? Without you doing anything, it still became a usable shell. I was going to call you up to look at it, and the moment I shouted your name, it started growing hair…”

“Wait.” Irene cut him off sharply.

Both dolls lifted their heads together, four eyes fixed on him with sudden suspicion. “You said things changed right after you called my name?”

“Yeah.” Yu Sheng nodded, then realized what she was getting at. “You think that’s why you went into the second shell?”

“It’s only a possibility,” Irene said slowly. “Names have power. When you make a blank doll shell, it’s just an object. But when you—the creator—call my name during the ritual, it’s like you give that object meaning.”

She paused, frowning as she worked through it.

“But that’s extremely advanced alchemy. It needs specific rituals, sometimes specific times and places. And the item involved can’t be some clay figure a rookie made for practice.” She gestured at him, exasperated. “How could your tea powder and rose oil as a medium have that effect? Forget everything else—at the price you paid, I doubt that rose oil contains any rose at all.”

“…Could it be my blood?” Yu Sheng asked cautiously. “I bled a lot this time.”

Irene froze.

Then, very slowly, she said, “That works too?!”

“I have no idea.” Yu Sheng spread his hands helplessly. “I wanted to study what was going on with my blood. Now I’ve studied it, and I have even more questions. But I really did find a new trait.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds, then—without even agreeing on it—started investigating Irene’s second body again.

After all, it had broken the five-meter limit tied to the painting, and that mattered more than anything.

“What’s different between the new body and your current main shell?” Yu Sheng asked, watching the two Irenes perched on the bed. The sight was still unsettling, especially now that he knew it was one mind in two bodies. “I mean… how does it feel?”

“Mm.” Irene closed her eyes briefly, sensing through both shells. “This one feels stiffer. Slower. Especially the sensory input. It’s dull and numb. Touch is maybe half. Hearing and sight are okay, but temperature…” She wrinkled her nose. “I can barely feel hot or cold at all. Pain is very faint, too.”

Her second body pinched its own cheek experimentally, like a scientist poking a specimen.

“There’s also this… unreal feeling,” Irene continued, voice turning thoughtful. “Like I’m using some ultra-real device to control a virtual character. No matter how realistic it is, I can always tell I’m controlling it. I’m not actually in it.”

Yu Sheng frowned.

The two dolls looked almost identical, but it was still easy to tell them apart. One Irene always carried the painting on her back. The other—if you looked closely—had a blankness to her gaze and less liveliness in her expression, as if the world reached her through a layer of glass.

Staring at them, Yu Sheng’s mind clicked.

He stepped forward and lifted the painting off Irene’s back.

“Hey, what are you doing—”

“I have an idea,” Yu Sheng said, voice steady. “Let me test it.”

Irene looked nervous, but she quieted. Yu Sheng hung the painting on the new shell instead.

“Now?” he asked. “How does it feel?”

Both Irenes froze at once.

Then they shouted in unison, “Oh, damn! That feeling switched!”

The Irene now carrying the painting pointed at the other body. “This one’s the stiff, slow one now.”

“Just like I thought.” Yu Sheng let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Then, with a face far too serious for how ridiculous this sounded, he concluded, “Whichever body carries the painting is the real body. So in plain terms… the painting is the real body.”

Irene’s expression twisted into something complicated—like she’d broken out of prison, only to realize her cell had sprouted legs and decided to follow.

Yu Sheng, meanwhile, was already thinking ahead.

“Next we need a series of tests,” he said, rubbing his chin. “What happens if both bodies leave the painting? With the main body carrying it, how far can the secondary body move freely? Most importantly, how do we help you adapt to having two shells as quickly as possible? If you can’t adapt, we’ll need a way to temporarily disconnect one shell.” His eyes sharpened. “It’d be best to get Foxy to help.”

“Ah! Then I’ll go wake her up!” Irene said.

Both bodies jumped up at once.

Then both of them took two steps and immediately lost balance.

“Oh man—!” Irene yelped, and the two shells toppled headfirst off the bed in perfect sync.

Yu Sheng reacted fast. He grabbed each Irene by the ankle and lifted them up before they could hit the floor.

Hanging upside down, the two dolls pressed their skirts down with mortified hands and stared at him with identical humiliation.

“Then you go wake her up,” Irene said in a small, defeated voice. “I need to be dizzy for a bit longer…”

Yu Sheng sighed, set both Irenes back on the bed, and left the room. He knocked on the door across the hall.

“Foxy! Are you awake? Come help!”

Only after the third knock did he hear a flustered response. A moment later, Foxy appeared in the doorway. She was still in a nightgown, hair mussed and unbrushed, blinking like she hadn’t fully returned to the world.

“I overslept…” she said quietly, lowering her head as if she’d committed a crime. “I went to sleep too late last night.”

“It’s fine,” Yu Sheng said quickly. He remembered how much work Foxy had done at the museum yesterday. “Something happened. Come take a look first.”

Foxy followed him into the master bedroom.

And then she saw two Irenes sitting side by side on the bed, staring straight at her like player one and player two on a character select screen.

Foxy froze.

After a long, blank moment, she raised a hand and rubbed her eyes hard. When she looked again, it was still two.

“Oh no!” she gasped, panic rising. “Benefactor, I’m sleepwalking! Irene became two!”

“Stop rubbing,” Yu Sheng said, catching her wrist. “Rub two more times and you’ll see four.”

Foxy stared at the bed, dumbfounded.

Yu Sheng coughed into his fist, embarrassed. “Something went a little wrong. Irene really does have two bodies right now. You’re not seeing things.”

Foxy’s expression shifted as understanding dawned—followed by sudden admiration.

“So you’re cultivating the technique of an external avatar,” she said breathlessly. “I didn’t expect you to be an immortal too, Irene…”

“Immortal my ass!” Irene exploded, both mouths yelling at once. “Yu Sheng kneaded me an extra body! I was sleeping, and when I woke up, I almost got dizzy to death!”

“Not that, not that,” Yu Sheng hurried to cut in before Irene could work herself back into a fit. He stepped forward, unhooked the painting from Irene’s back, and turned to Foxy. “You—take this painting to the attic.”