Chapter 285

Chapter 286: A Bit of a Problem

Irene was crying her heart out, the kind that no one could soothe.

Even Yu Sheng, looking at four 66.6 cm Irenes standing in a row, felt a little sorry for her; sympathy mixed with the urge to laugh, which he barely held back. [Hold it together, do not laugh.]

On the Alchemic Platform, the little doll raised a soul-deep howl in four voices at once: “Why! Why! Whyyy?” With her red eyes and furious face, she looked like a horror movie villain who could chase the main cast for six seasons, star in a dozen specials, and still crawl out of the TV in the finale, so even Foxy instinctively hid behind Yu Sheng, then peeked out from his arm to whisper: “Um, sorry for your loss…”

Hearing that made Irene even sadder.

After quite a while, with Yu Sheng and Foxy taking turns to comfort her, the unlucky little doll finally calmed down. She stopped crying, turned her back to the edge of the platform, and squatted in a tiny circle of gloom, four bodies together with heads down, doubting life. Yu Sheng watched helplessly and felt a strange sigh rise in his chest: [Not gonna lie, with this extra body, her gloomy little circle is way neater than before.] He wisely kept that to himself.

After who knows how long, the freshly made Irene Pro Max finally lifted her head and sighed: “So why? The steps could not have been wrong this time. The materials were top grade, the Special Affairs Bureau’s stock could not be fake. The Alchemy array was drawn by me, every symbol correct. I watched the body shaping from skeleton to filling, everything normal. How did it still shrink back?”

Yu Sheng watched the little doll mutter to herself. He tried to speak several times and could not find the opening. At last he set his jaw and stepped forward: “Ahem, there might be another possibility. Maybe what we see has to do with one key material.”

Irene stared straight into his eyes.

Under that crimson gaze he felt a bit guilty, but it was too late to swallow the words. He spread his hands: “Could it be my blood? Maybe I got the scale wrong the very first time I shaped you, and that mistake got bound to you, so every later body carries an inherited bug.”

He braced himself and waited for four dolls to leap at him and leave a mouthful of tooth marks on his head.

Nothing happened.

Yu Sheng said softly: “Irene?”

Hands on her hips, Irene glared: “You think I did not suspect that? I started doubting it after the third body was off.”

Yu Sheng blinked: “Uh, then why…”

“That’s why I took control of the Spirit Infusion Ritual myself and supervised the shell-building,” Irene said with a face full of despair, tiny features weighed down by big sadness. “When my soul drilled into the new shell, I even left one sense anchored at The Door, plus three spectator viewpoints to confirm the whole process, just to see the exact moment something went wrong.”

Yu Sheng had a hunch, but did not jump to a conclusion. He asked carefully: “And what did you find?”

Irene’s head drooped: “The trouble starts after my soul goes in.”

Yu Sheng kept quiet. That matched his guess.

Pro Irene walked to the edge of the Alchemy Bench and sat, elbows on her knees, lost in thought.

Yu Sheng went over and sat beside her: “So the problem is in your soul?”

“Probably,” Irene sighed, “but why? I really cannot feel it. I feel… I feel great, I…”

Yu Sheng said nothing. He reached over, lifted Irene No. 1 who was carrying a frame on her back, took the Painting down, and studied it closely.

The chair and the teddy bear were there as always.

The doll was not inside the Painting, yet the doll had never left.

“Then the problem must be here,” Yu Sheng said after a brief silence, shaking the Painting a little. “I have suspected this all along but kept quiet because I did not want to hurt you.”

Before he could go on, the little doll muttered under her breath: “If I really gained freedom, why would I still need to carry a prison on my back?”

“I thought you had not considered that.”

“My memory is bad, not my brain,” Irene shot him a look. “Even if I get it, what can I do? I cannot break this thing. Being able to run around while carrying it is already better than before. And now I have several bodies that do not always need to lug the Painting around, even if each one is only this tall.”

She lifted an arm and marked the height by the platform’s edge with a helpless face.

Yu Sheng pressed her hand a bit lower: “Be honest.”

“You call yourself human? I am this upset already!”

Seeing Irene bare her teeth like she was about to bite, Yu Sheng knew the little thing was okay again.

Foxy came over too. She did not understand Alchemy, but she was sharp, and she had pieced together what Yu Sheng and Irene meant. She sat on Yu Sheng’s other side and said thoughtfully: “So you think part of Irene’s soul is still sealed in the Painting, and that is why every new body has a flaw, right?”

“Right,” Irene lifted her eyelids to glance at Foxy. “Got any solution?”

“I do not get this ‘Alchemy,’ and I do not really know how an Alice’s Doll works,” Foxy answered honestly, “but if half your soul is sealed in a painting, would you not feel it? Where I come from, if the Primordial Spirit is split and shackled, it hurts. But you say you do not feel anything.”

“I do not,” the little doll said, very helpless. “From all signs, part of my soul must be sealed. At least the part of me running around outside is incomplete. But from my own angle, I feel perfectly fine.”

Yu Sheng thought for a moment: “The half in the Painting got stuck too long and died off?”

“That is a soul, not a numb fingertip!” Pro Irene hopped up and gave his arm a headbutt. “You died off! Half your brain is dead!”

Yu Sheng hurried to pin down the little menace, hung the Painting back on Irene No. 1, exhaled, and stood up from the Alchemy Bench: “Either way, we cannot fix your shell problem anytime soon. So what now? Do you want to make another body to observe? We still have plenty of materials.”

“No, no,” the little doll waved both hands. “Just making this one wore me out. Next time, even if I build a new body, I am not using such a complicated Spirit Infusion Ritual. My head is buzzing.”

“All right, then let us pack up the leftover materials and save them for next time.” Yu Sheng nodded, then called Foxy to help tidy the candles, spices, and essential oils still on the Alchemy Bench. His gaze drifted back to Pro Irene, thoughtful.

The little doll felt prickly under that look and shrank her neck: “W-what now?”

“How does this body feel in use?”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Irene was stunned. “Pretty good. I move well. It is new.”

“I mean we used so many high-end materials, a top-tier Alchemy array, and my hard-earned smelting method I learned from online videos. This body is a literal Pro Max version. Compared to a usual shell, it should be different,” Yu Sheng said with scientific zeal. “Even if the size did not change, it should at least come with two golden traits and a shiny red suffix or something. It cannot be the kind whose only feature is being expensive.”

“R-right?”

Irene tilted her head. What he said sounded reasonable. She hopped on the spot, then zipped like a little rocket around the Alchemy Bench to test agility and speed. At last she planted her feet by Yu Sheng’s leg, sank her hips, struck a pose she must have learned somewhere, gathered her breath, and punched: “Heeya.”

Her tiny fist thumped straight into Yu Sheng’s shinbone.

Silence lasted two seconds. The little doll looked up nervously: “Does it hurt?”

Yu Sheng said lightly: “I am fine.”

“I am not!” Irene yelped and started leaping in place, clutching her knuckles. “Ow ow ow ow! Yu Sheng, is your leg even human? I ran into a concrete wall last time and it was not this hard!”

Yu Sheng had nothing to say. He kept soothing her.

Once he finally calmed the little doll down, he tried to guide her: “You do not need to chase raw strength or physical stats. You are 66.6 cm tall. If you go toe to toe with C Buckle, whose legs are nearly 1.2 meters long, there is no point. One kick from her and you would have to run for ages… hey, let go, do not bite, let go.”

Irene glared, red eyes blazing: “Is this how you comfort people?”

“That is not what I meant. I mean you are an intellect hero. Yes, intellect. We play with skills,” Yu Sheng said, rubbing the bite mark on his calf and awkwardly explaining to the little doll. “Let us check skills. Show your threads.”

“The threads will not change. They are a Blessing directly from the Progenitor of Dolls,” Irene Pro grumbled, but she still lifted a hand and flicked her fingers at empty air. “It is a natural ability of every doll and should not change with a new shell…”

With a buzz, a blinding blue beam shot from her hand and sliced a neat hole through the heavy stone wall Yu Sheng had raised earlier to set up the alchemy site.