Chapter 164

Chapter 164: Irene MK-II (didn’t get taller)

To be honest, Foxy’s argon fox-welding was pretty great. With fox fire blessed by magic, the sizzling melt looked better than any welding machine could make. It had a beauty of strength and numbers, and the best part was she could cut and weld in one go.

After a quick briefing and setup, sparks burst across the Alchemic Platform.

Several pieces of rebar were cut to different lengths, then, following the marks Yu Sheng had laid out on the Alchemy Bench, they were placed and joined into the outline of a doll’s skeleton. Foxy floated several tails in the air like a swarm of anti-gravity robot arms, moving with sharp precision to adjust angles and weld cleanly. The air filled with the smell of molten metal. The sizzle never stopped, and bright sparks lit up Yu Sheng’s face.

Irene sat nearby with her picture frame on her back, her small face blank as the welding flash washed over it. Every few seconds she muttered: “This isn’t alchemy… this isn’t alchemy…”

Yu Sheng answered at once, excited as he was: “How is it not alchemy? Isn’t smelting a kind of ‘alchemizing’? Aren’t metals part of ‘alchemy’? Why can’t refining metal count as alchemy?”

He sat down beside Irene and pointed toward the alchemy formation where firelight danced, saying softly: “Look how pretty it is: the sorcery of a Cyber Fox Immortal, a hidden alchemy legacy, and modern industrial rebar. When these three meet, don’t you feel a kind of…”

Irene said: “A kind of abstract beauty.”

Yu Sheng thought, then nodded: “…true.”

Just then the blazing light finally stopped. Foxy wiped nonexistent sweat from her forehead, turned, and waved happily: “Benefactor, welding’s done!”

“Great job, Foxy!” Yu Sheng clapped at once, stood up, and lifted Irene as he rose. He grinned: “No more debating what’s abstract. Let’s handle the next step. Check your skeleton. Do you like it?”

Irene kept muttering, but when she saw the finished work, she suddenly went quiet.

Lying quietly in the center of the alchemy formation was a doll skeleton welded to adult human height.

Irene stared at it for a long time in surprise, then looked up at Yu Sheng: “You… this size…”

“I promised you a one point six seven meter body,” said Yu Sheng, setting the small doll down with a faint smile. “Now we move on.”

“Nice!” Irene finally cheered. Her earlier complaints vanished in an instant. She jumped up to shake Yu Sheng’s arm hard, then ran to the Spirit Infusion node urging him: “Start, start! I want to see how you do the rest.”

Yu Sheng only smiled, then focused on the next stage of shaping the doll.

This time he did not knead clay, nor did he prepare dough or lotus root. For this special “Irene body,” he would try some bold ideas.

He sprinkled the “alchemy materials” directly over the rebar skeleton and on the ground around it.

Then he took a small knife and cut his own hand, letting blood mix with those materials before flinging the mix onto the ground as well.

Under the curious eyes of Irene and Foxy, Yu Sheng stepped back to the outermost ring of the concentric circles. He drew a slow breath, gathered his mind, then crouched and pressed his still-bleeding palm to the floor.

The platform began to tremble. Faint scraping and squirming rose from the depths of the rock, as if the whole ground were slowly waking up.

Yu Sheng would use the soil and stone of Otherworld Valley to shape Irene’s new body.

After a few seconds of delay, the center of the alchemy formation slowly bulged. Dirt and rock started to crawl like living things. Gray-white matter turned into a kind of “melt,” pouring onto the iron skeleton in layers. As it gathered and flowed, it gave off a soft rustle.

Watching from the side, Irene’s eyes grew wider.

“Living Soil…” she whispered. “He actually did it?”

The Living Clay formed fast. Soon after her words fell, the doll body lying in the center had taken shape.

Yu Sheng was carefully working on the finishing touches: separating the fingers on the hands and shaping the features of the face.

He simply stepped into the formation, sat beside the doll body, and used his hands to touch and adjust it bit by bit.

He suddenly felt this was much easier to control than clay.

“He’s… pretty serious,” Irene tugged one of Foxy’s tails and muttered, “He messed up my previous body so badly that I thought he was just winging it.”

“Benefactor is always serious,” Foxy said solemnly as she watched the doll. “He just focuses on different things than most people.”

While they talked, Yu Sheng finished his last adjustments.

It went faster and smoother than he expected.

The doll made of iron, soil, and stone lay quietly on the floor. Even though it wasn’t awake, it already showed a girl’s shape and some kind of presence, a sense it could come alive any second.

“Let me think how I did this last time…” Yu Sheng muttered as he recalled the experience of making Irene’s ‘second body’. “Guide the spirit infusion. Right, first guide the spirit infusion so it can live…”

He placed his hand gently on the doll’s forehead and said: “Wake up.”

The stone began to thump.

“It’s time to live.”

The earth slowly heaved.

“Ready to open your eyes?”

The steel skeleton moved with a faint creak. The soulless body gave a soft breath. Life appeared.

“Irene,” Yu Sheng called quietly.

“Eh?” the small doll standing nearby answered by reflex. The next second, she felt her consciousness pulled from her body… at least a part of it. A new link opened in her senses. A short, unavoidable mismatch in perception left her confused. She didn’t see the room clearly. She only heard Yu Sheng’s surprised “Huh?” and Foxy’s gasp, then nothing.

But the blackout lasted only two seconds. Irene slipped into and took over her new “body.” She tried opening her eyes and confirmed she now had a third point of view.

“It worked!” the small doll blinked, then cheered at the center of the formation. She pushed herself up, planted her hands on her hips, looked up at Yu Sheng and Foxy, and said: “You’re so messy and it still worked. Yu Sheng, you might be good at alchemy after all. Look at my one point six seven meter long-”

The small doll froze. Something was off.

Yu Sheng looked very tall. Foxy also still looked very tall.

She lowered her head and saw the ground right there at her feet. Then, through the other body’s eyes outside the formation, she saw her new body’s size. A moment later she finally understood what was wrong.

“Why am I still this tall? Huh?!”

“I don’t know,” Yu Sheng said, just as confused. “One second before you opened your eyes this body was one point six seven meters. Then I could see it shrinking with my own eyes. Before I could react it was just over half a meter… Foxy can testify I didn’t do anything.”

The Fox Maiden nodded fast: “I can testify. Benefactor did nothing. You shrank by yourself!”

Irene stood there in a daze for a long time. Yu Sheng even began to worry she was too shocked and something might be wrong. Then she exploded: “No, why… why! We already made a one point six seven meter body. It already started coming alive. Why did I jump in and end up just over half a meter tall?! How is that fair!”

Yu Sheng quietly backed up a few steps and whispered to Foxy: “I think we should not poke at this right now…”

He didn’t finish before the other Irene at the rim of the formation turned her head, took a deep breath, and shouted: “Why!”

Yu Sheng sighed to Foxy: “I forgot there was another one.”

Then the two Irenes ran circles around the formation and then around Yu Sheng, chattering nonstop. One moment it was fate being cruel, the next how hard it is to be a doll, then jumping up and down and squeaking. They blamed Yu Sheng’s clumsy hands, then even wondered if their own soul was flawed. After six or seven laps Yu Sheng’s head was buzzing. He figured even investigators listening to elder gods nag probably felt like this.

When the small doll hit her tenth lap, Foxy finally lost patience. The Fox Maiden wrapped both small dolls up at once with her tails: “Irene, you’re so loud…”

The two little dolls, each 66.6 centimeters tall, were bundled tight and couldn’t move. They mumbled a bit more, then stared at Yu Sheng like life had no meaning.

“Am I going to be stuck this height for my whole life?” Irene with the picture frame said with a long face.

“So why did this happen…” Rebar Irene’s eyes grew teary.

“A setback is just a setback…” Yu Sheng had no idea how to comfort the unlucky doll, so he blurted, “Look, I’ve already figured out all sorts of weird alchemy methods. Maybe I’ll make you a normal-proportion body sometime. Maybe the shrinking was the materials. Or that rose oil wasn’t reliable. Next time I won’t buy from the five-yuan shop.”

Rebar Irene blinked, then realized what he’d said. She burst out of Foxy’s tails and pounced onto Yu Sheng’s arm: “Five-yuan shop?! Last time you said the ten-yuan shop!”

The next second, Yu Sheng learned what made this angry little doll different from before.

Rebar really packs a punch.

Her little claws pinched like a bench vise.