Chapter 201

Chapter 201: Yu-style Fixed Gate Experiment

Sharing updates with the Special Affairs Bureau and waiting for the lab to finish sampling the “Umbilical Cord” took longer than planned. By the time Yu Sheng got home, night had fully fallen. He pushed the door open and saw a scene that almost stopped his heart: Foxy and Irene were huddled at the kitchen door, planning dinner.

Irene’s idea was fried eggplant pockets, plus stewing the half chicken in the fridge.

Foxy’s idea was to stew everything left in the fridge, including the two new jars of chili paste.

When Yu Sheng walked in, they were voting. Irene, playing dirty, raised six hands.

Foxy raised two hands and nine tails.

Thankfully, Yu Sheng arrived in time. He stopped another fox-caused kitchen disaster and saved the quiet winter night from blowing up the Borderland. [Leave them alone and they will blow up the kitchen.]

“I told you not to go in the kitchen when I’m not home,” said Yu Sheng as he tied on an apron. “Did you forget the iron pot stew incident with Irene, or the frying spatula that melted and warped last time?”

The fox and the doll sat pitifully side by side on chairs by the kitchen door, heads down. Then Irene lifted her face and said: “I wasn’t going to go in this time. I was going to remote control Foxy.”

“I can cook,” said Foxy at once, raising her hand carefully. “Benefactor, you forgot the stew I made last time was pretty good.”

Yu Sheng paused, remembering that pot of mysterious matter the fox demon girl had stewed. He gave a tiny nod, then shook his head again: “Only when I’m home. You let Irene ‘remote control’ you, and that’s too risky.”

Foxy nodded at once: “Oh.”

“Hey, why is it risky when I’m the one giving orders?” Irene protested.

Yu Sheng ignored the little doll’s complaint.

He had to hurry and make dinner, and feed Foxy, who had been waiting hungry for him all evening.

While he worked, the doll at the kitchen door finally stopped grumbling. A few seconds later, Irene wandered in like nothing had happened. She climbed onto his shoulder and asked in a casual tone: “From the look of you, did the Special Affairs Bureau find anything?”

“Found Squirrel’s real name, and pinned down the exact time of Anka Aila’s first Descent,” said Yu Sheng without looking up. “There’s a note in my pants pocket. Take a look.”

Irene slid down fast, grabbed onto Yu Sheng’s leg, and fished in his pocket.

Yu Sheng glanced down at the nimble little doll and thought: [She really does look like a squirrel.]

“Eighty-six years ago. Zhao Le Le. Eight and a half when she went missing,” Irene read quickly from the A4 sheet, then muttered in a strange tone: “Tch. You can’t tell from the photo that she’d turn into a jumpy chain-smoker who curses at people.”

“It’s been eighty-six years,” said Yu Sheng with a soft sigh. “She isn’t that eight-and-a-half-year-old anymore.”

“I wonder what she’ll end up as,” Irene murmured. She folded the paper fast and tucked it back into his pocket. Seeing his stir-fry was done, she climbed back to his shoulder and reached to switch off the range hood. “What’s the plan after dinner? Go straight to the orphanage and tell Little Red Riding Hood and the other ‘parents’ what’s going on? Think carefully about how you say it. Dark Angels are scary.”

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, plated the food, and shook his head: “No. Lights out at the orphanage is ten thirty. I’ll wait until they’re asleep, then talk to them after we enter the Wasteland. If the shelter mechanism works, they’ll have some confidence. Telling them about Dark Angels then will keep them from getting too nervous. Before that, you and Foxy are coming with me to the Valley.”

“The Valley? What for?”

“To finish an ‘experiment’ we put off earlier. We should have time,” he said, carrying the plate toward the door. “Foxy! Dinner!”

After dinner, Yu Sheng did a quick clean-up, then took Irene and Foxy down to the basement.

No. 66 Wutong Road had a spacious basement. Like the oversized attic at the top of the building, this underground level was nearly half the size of the first floor. A staircase from the living room led straight down. Aside from one wall stacked with junk, half the basement was empty.

Yu Sheng came here even less often than the attic.

He flipped on the lights and began searching through the piles by the wall. Irene stared with wide eyes and asked: “Hey, weren’t we going to the Valley?”

“Doing some prep,” said Yu Sheng, still busy. “I remember I saw it here. Oh, found it.”

He bent and hauled out the thing he wanted from the dusty heap.

It was an old wooden door, still in its frame.

Irene gaped: “What do you want that for?”

“Testing a Fixed Gate,” said Yu Sheng, lugging the door out. “We talked about this. Right now, the only way in and out of the Valley is my Door Opening. That’s not convenient. I have time now, so I’m going to see if my idea works.”

He leaned the door against the blank back wall of the basement, grabbed a rag to wipe the dust from it, then took out a pen and began sketching on the floor.

At a glance, Irene saw he was drawing a simple Spirit-Infusion alchemical array. It was the only alchemy style he knew.

She understood at once.

“You want to use a physical door as the medium, then treat your opened Portal like an alchemy effect and ‘solidify’ it?” she said.

“That’s the plan,” he said, nodding.

The little doll opened her mouth, at a loss for words. On reflex, she glanced at Foxy to see the “silly fox’s” reaction. Foxy did not disappoint. The moment she heard Yu Sheng’s idea, her eyes lit up. She clapped and said: “Benefactor’s way of forging follows the heart. He cuts away the extra and goes back to the source.”

“Do you even mean that?” Irene stared at the fox. “You don’t understand alchemy.”

Foxy shot back: “Do you understand our benefactor’s path through the underworld?”

Irene fell silent.

Stuffed by one line from the fox demon girl, the doll could only wave it off. Seeing Yu Sheng still drawing, she finally stepped forward and said: “Fine, I’ll help. You can’t just scale this up by drawing. At this size, it’s a mid-sized array. You can’t just enlarge the little array I taught you. Every node needs a booster. I’ll show you.”

Yu Sheng hesitated, then handed her the pen. She began to add and adjust the rough array, muttering as she drew: “Drawing alone still isn’t enough. For larger arrays, proper alchemy uses special ink. But since we’ll use your blood as a material, that step’s effect won’t matter much. Look at these runes. They’re the amplification nodes. When the array doubles in complexity, you add this pattern at every line crossing.”

Yu Sheng listened in a daze, watching Irene struggle to hold a pen a bit too big for her. Then he heard quick footsteps on the stairs. Two more Irenes came down, each with a pen, and joined in.

Three little dolls ran around the floor, and a huge, intricate alchemical array took shape fast. [She looked pretty happy.]

Then Irene extended a set of runes onto the old door’s frame. At last, it was done.

“Alright,” said Irene, turning back, still gripping the pen and grinning. “That’s the base array. Remember it. Any array with a radius over a meter needs these boosters. Why are you staring at me?”

“It just hit me that you’re pretty reliable,” said Yu Sheng honestly. “You look like a real alchemy expert.”

“I am an alchemy expert. And when am I not reliable?” Irene’s crimson eyes widened, annoyed. “I drew the array, but I can’t promise it’ll work. No one’s tried this. I don’t even know what your Portals are at the core. Just don’t blow the place up.”

“Relax. I’ll be careful. I can feel the whole Door Opening process exactly. If the feel is wrong, I’ll stop,” said Yu Sheng, raising a soothing hand.

As he spoke, he pulled out his phone.

First on his favorites: Bai Li Qing.

Looking at her name, Yu Sheng curled his lip, hesitated two seconds, and dialed.

She picked up fast.

“Ahem,” said Yu Sheng. “Director Bai Li…”

Before he could finish, her cool voice came through: “Experiment?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“How long?”

“About two or three hours.”

“Good. It’s arranged. Tell me when you’re done.”

Yu Sheng blinked and blurted: “Oh, tha- Wait, how did you know I-”

“Ahem. The honorific. You aren’t this polite when it’s just Door Opening.”

Yu Sheng fell silent. [She got me there.]