Chapter 202

Chapter 202: One of the Ten Thousand Doors

The call ended, and Yu Sheng stared at his phone, dazed for a moment before lowering his head to the Irene by his feet, the main body: “How can I still not tell if she was mad or not…?”

Irene studied him with a straight face and said, “She didn’t really curse you out this time, but I think that is only because she is used to it. On the bright side, at least you didn’t get a sudden midnight urge at twelve to make trouble again.”

Yu Sheng coughed twice and forced down the little knot of guilt in his chest, [I feel a little guilty], then turned his focus to the The Door in front of him.

The Door was a mottled, old wooden slab leaning at an angle against a white basement wall. Strange lines and symbols were drawn all over the frame and the floor around it. A few candles burned quietly nearby, and the air carried a faint scent of incense, probably that five yuan store batch.

Whether the Spirit Infusion Ritual would work was still up in the air, but the vibe looked on point.

He took a slow breath to steady his nerves, then followed the modified method he had cooked up. He cut his palm and guided his blood onto The Door.

Spirit-Infusion meant pouring one’s own spirit into lifeless matter. If clay could become a Doll’s flesh and rebar could become a Doll’s bones, then The Door could naturally be a target for Spirit-Infusion too.

The candles crackled. The flames stretched higher. Blood seeped into the weathered wood without a sound. The lines and patterns on the ground, drawn with normal ink, began to tint dark red. It was like blood was replacing every part of the Alchemy Array’s structure. Yu Sheng even heard a faint, scorching hiss.

His eyes widened in surprise.

Irene noticed at once and asked, “What is it? Does something feel wrong?”

Yu Sheng shook his head and said, “No, it feels too smooth. When I shaped your body, I never had such a clear sense that something was forming, but now I can feel spirit clearly reshaping this The Door. Is that because of your amplification Nodes?”

Irene thought hard for a second, then analyzed, “Maybe you are Establish Link with The Door, which is your own power. Of course the main reason is that my Nodes are perfectly set.”

Yu Sheng ignored the little Doll’s bragging and tightened his careful control of the whole Spirit Infusion Ritual. He set his hand on the handle and kept “remodeling” The Door.

Just like when he reshaped clay and lotus root into a Doll’s torso and limbs, The Door began to change form.

Faint squeaks came from the wood. The edges of the frame softened like they had come alive and started to fuse into the wall behind, forming a living adhesion. Then tight, vein-like lines surfaced across the door panel. Those lines sank flat again and turned into thorny strips with a slight metallic sheen.

Yu Sheng turned the handle gently, and the link with the Valley snapped into place.

He did not push it open right away. Instead, he held it at the edge of opening and carefully sensed what lay on the other side.

He wanted to finish shaping the matching connection point on the Valley’s side too.

That step was not easy. He had to split off a good chunk of attention to generate a lasting, physical Entity of a Door on the platform in the Valley. He could shape the soil and rock of that place into anything, but this was remote control, and he still had to keep precision, position, and connection stability all at once.

Yu Sheng failed three times in a row.

By the fourth try, the candles around the Alchemy Array flickered hard.

This time, he succeeded.

He felt a fixed link settle. A matching Door had formed at the corresponding spot in the Valley, and it would stay stable even without him maintaining it.

A few minutes later, after triple checking the passage, Yu Sheng finally let out a breath and released the handle.

Foxy, who had been watching with tense eyes, blinked twice and asked, “Benefactor, did you do it?”

“Should be done,” Yu Sheng said with a smile. He glanced at the Door, which had fused into the wall, then stepped aside half a step. “Irene, give it a try. In theory, this The Door is now the same as the entry at Wutong Road 66. Anyone like you and Foxy who has accepted my blood can open it, and it will lead straight to the Valley.”

Irene still did not quite trust this thing, but she trusted Yu Sheng. After a short pause, she nodded and walked forward.

Miss Doll stood silent in the doorway.

Silence was a 66.6 cm roar.

Yu Sheng coughed and mumbled, “Should I leave a small… for your lower half to-”

“Shut up. No need. I can reach,” Irene snapped.

She whipped around, pointed at him, shouted three times in a row, and even flipped him off. Then the other two Irenes trotted over. Right in front of Yu Sheng, the three little Dolls stacked up in a neat triangular formation, finally grabbed the handle, and twisted hard.

The Door opened.

The open, soothing scenery of the Valley filled everyone’s eyes.

Still clinging to the handle in a stack, Irene instantly forgot her annoyance. All three bodies gasped in unison: “Wow. Yu Sheng, you actually pulled it off!”

The top Irene sprang down and cheered as she dashed through: “I will go check it out first!”

Yu Sheng suddenly felt something off about the view on the far side and blurted, “Wait, hold up, I think I messed up that side…”

He was a step too late. The little Doll had already jumped through the doorway.

A second later, her figure dropped out of sight: “Waaah.”

Then came a wet splat.

Yu Sheng and Foxy rushed to the threshold and peered through. Miss Doll lay sprawled starfish-style on the gravel beyond the edge of the Valley’s platform.

The two Irenes left in the basement hopped mad and cursed, “Yu Sheng, you jerk. You set The Door at the edge of a high platform, huh. Why not put it up in the sky while you are at it?”

Flustered, Yu Sheng lifted the ground on the far side, raising the fallen Irene to the same level as the frame. He and Foxy picked up the dazed little Doll, straightened her clothes, and hurried to explain the original plan: “I wanted The Door to face inward, so we can ring the platform with Doors later. The whole area becomes a great hall called the Hall of Ten Thousand Gates, leading to everywhere in the universe. The platform edge would be the outer wall of the hall.”

Irene jumped up and yanked his hair: “Then why did I fall?”

“…I opened it backward,” Yu Sheng admitted, [I messed up].

“You jerk. I… ugh…”

For the next two minutes, Irene’s cursing was truly awful.

Time ticked by. In the third minute, the Doll cooled off.

She sat on the platform and watched Yu Sheng busy fixing The Door, muttering, “Honestly, your Hall of Ten Thousand Gates idea is pretty cool. It feels like a secret Organization that never shows up for forty episodes, only a shadow at the end whenever the hero finally makes progress, and then when the season runs dry the director wipes out a hall full of Doors. Sometimes they get wiped out at the very start too.”

“Watch fewer dumb shows,” Yu Sheng grumbled as he wiped sweat. “And can you pick a lucky example? Does it have to be getting wiped out?”

“That is the trend. Without a sea of grudges, the lead has no drive,” Irene said, propping her chin in both hands as she watched him. “Can you fix it? You have been at it a long time. If not, just leave this Door opening backward. It can be a trap to stop outsiders. Someone who tries a Door Opening without knowing will take a tumble first.”

“Only people with permission can do a Door Opening. That stops nothing,” Yu Sheng said without looking up. “All right, fixed. Come look.”

Under his control, the flawed Portal was finally repaired.

A simple, old fashioned Door with a gray white frame and a matching panel like solid stone now stood quietly on the platform. It looked plain, yet that very plain shape and texture gave it a hint of solemn mystery.

The handle was a triangular stone set in the center of the panel. The stone had no decoration and rough edges. It was just embedded in the middle, a little abrupt, but somehow it fit the Door’s style.

Now anyone who had accepted his blood could turn the triangle in the center and open a passage to the basement at Wutong Road 66.

Irene and Foxy came closer, curious. They studied the Door at the platform’s edge. The little Doll rubbed her chin and nodded: “Not bad. Honestly, way more design sense than that bathroom you built.”

“How many times do I have to say it was not a bathroom,” Yu Sheng said helplessly.

“I know, I know, your Phase One,” Irene waved him off, then looked at the triangle handle again. “Why put the handle in the middle?”

“For the look, gives a mysterious feel, and it confuses first time users so they cannot tell which side the hinge is on right away,” Yu Sheng said.

“You are impossible. Then why a triangle?” Irene asked.

Yu Sheng rubbed his nose and said, “It symbolizes the Hotel’s three founders, the three of us.”

Irene squinted at him. “Really?”

Yu Sheng sighed. “I wanted to sculpt a tiger head, but that went badly. Then I tried a dog head, and that failed too.”

Irene stared for a beat, then stepped back half a pace and looked at the Door and its triangle handle with a solemn face: “A shape symbolizing the Hotel’s three founders. How wonderful,” she said without expression.

Yu Sheng nodded: “Wonderful.”

Foxy looked at Irene, then at Yu Sheng. Unsure what had just happened, she clapped along: “Mm, wonderful.”