Chapter 286

Chapter 286: A Bit of a Problem

Irene cried so hard you could barely comfort her.

Even Yu Sheng felt a little sympathy when he saw four 66.6-centimeter Irenes lined up in a row—though he also almost couldn’t hold it in. After an unreasonable amount of effort, he managed to keep his face straight.

“Why?!

Why?!!

Why the hell—!”

Little Doll stood on the alchemy dais and interrogated the universe in four-channel surround sound.

With her sheer resentment and those blood-red eyes, she looked like the kind of doll you could drop into a horror movie—the kind that would chase the protagonists through six seasons, add twelve bonus episodes, and still crawl out of the TV in the finale.

Even Foxy instinctively ducked behind Yu Sheng. Peeking out from his arm, she said cautiously, “Uh… my condolences…”

That only made Irene feel worse.

After a long time of Yu Sheng and Foxy soothing her together, the unlucky Little Doll finally calmed down. She wasn’t crying anymore, but she squatted at the edge of the platform with her back turned, forming a perfect little “shut-in circle.”

All four bodies kept their heads down, quietly questioning life.

Yu Sheng watched helplessly. [I have to admit, now that she has an extra body, that shut-in circle is way more evenly arranged than before…]

He kept that thought to himself.

After sulking for who knew how long, the newly made Irene Pro Max—who they’d started calling ProIrene—finally lifted her head and let out a heavy sigh.

“So why, exactly?”

“The steps can’t be wrong this time,” she muttered. “We used the best materials, and the Bureau’s stock can’t be counterfeit. I drew the array myself—no symbol was off. I personally watched the shaping. Everything from the skeleton to the filling was normal… so how did it still shrink back?”

Yu Sheng tried to speak a few times, but there was never an opening. Finally, he forced himself to step forward.

“Ahem. So… is it possible this has something to do with the most critical material?”

Irene lifted her head and stared straight into his eyes.

Yu Sheng felt guilty under that gaze, but now that he’d started, he couldn’t swallow it back down. He spread his hands. “Could it have something to do with my blood?”

“Like maybe I messed up your proportions the first time I shaped you, and that mistake got bound to you—so every body you make afterward keeps a… how should I put it… an inherited bug?”

He braced himself, waiting for four dolls to leap at once and leave tooth marks all over his head.

But after a long moment, not a single doll pounced.

Yu Sheng swallowed. “Irene…?”

“You think I never suspected that?!” ProIrene snapped. She planted her hands on her hips and stared him down. “I suspected it as soon as the third body started acting strange!”

“Uh… then you—”

“That’s why I took control of the spirit-infusion ritual myself and supervised the shaping,” Irene said flatly. Her small face carried a huge, dead-eyed sorrow. “And when my soul entered the new shell this time, I even left one stream of perception and three observer viewpoints to confirm the whole process. I wanted to catch the exact second something went wrong.”

Yu Sheng had a sinking feeling. Still, he asked carefully, “You… found something?”

Irene’s head drooped. “It started going wrong after my soul went in.”

That matched what he’d been suspecting.

ProIrene wandered to the edge of the alchemy dais and sat down, elbows on her knees, staring into nothing like she’d lost the will to exist.

Yu Sheng sat down beside her.

“So the problem is your soul?”

“Probably,” Irene sighed. “But it’s still the same question… why? I can’t feel it. I’ve always felt fine. I—”

Yu Sheng didn’t answer. Instead, he reached out and grabbed the Irene number one unit—the one carrying the frame—lifted her over, unhooked the painting from her back, and set it in front of him.

The chair and teddy bear in the painting were the same as always.

The doll wasn’t in the painting, but the doll had never left.

“Then the problem can only be here,” Yu Sheng said at last. He shook the painting lightly. “I’ve suspected it all along. I just didn’t bring it up because I didn’t want you to feel bad…”

“If I were truly free,” Irene muttered, “why would I still need to carry a prison on my back all the time?”

“Uh… I thought you hadn’t considered that.”

“I’m bad at remembering things. I’m not stupid,” Irene said, rolling her eyes. “And even if I figure it out, what does that change? I can’t remove this thing anyway. Being able to carry it around is already better than before.”

She gestured low, helpless. “And now I even have a few bodies that don’t have to lug the painting everywhere… even if each one is only this tall.”

Yu Sheng reached out and pressed her hand down a little lower.

“Be honest.”

ProIrene’s blood-red eyes narrowed. “Are you even human?! I’m already this heartbroken!”

Seeing her bar her teeth like she was about to bite, Yu Sheng relaxed. She was fine.

Foxy came over too. She didn’t understand much about alchemy, but she was smart, and by now she’d caught the thread.

“So you suspect part of Irene’s soul is still sealed inside the painting,” Foxy said thoughtfully, “and that’s why every new body comes out with flaws, right?”

“Yeah,” Irene said, glancing at her. “Got a solution?”

Foxy answered honestly. “I don’t understand this ‘alchemy,’ and I don’t really know what an ‘Alice doll’ is. But if someone’s spirit gets split and imprisoned… shouldn’t it hurt like hell? In my hometown’s stories, it’s unbearable.”

“But you said you don’t feel a thing.”

“I really don’t,” Little Doll said, frustration seeping through. “From how things look, I probably do have part of my soul sealed away. At the very least, the part that can move around out here is definitely missing something. But from my own perspective… I feel perfectly fine.”

Yu Sheng frowned, thinking. “…Did the half of your soul stuck in the painting rot from being bottled up too long?”

“That’s a soul!” ProIrene shot up and headbutted him in the arm. “Not a nerve!”

“You’re the one who’s rotten!”

“Half your brain is dead!”

Yu Sheng scrambled to pin the little thing down, then hooked the painting back onto the Irene number one unit’s back.

After a slow exhale, he stood up. “Anyway, it looks like we won’t solve your body problem anytime soon.”

He looked down at Little Doll. “What now? Want to pinch out another new body and see what happens? We still have plenty of materials left…”

“No,” Irene said quickly, waving her hands. “Making this one wore me out. Next time, even if I make a new body, I’m not doing a spirit-infusion ritual this complicated. My head’s spinning.”

“All right.” Yu Sheng nodded. “Let’s pack up what’s left. Next time you feel like making a new body, we’ll talk.”

Foxy started gathering the remaining candles, incense, oils, and tools. Yu Sheng’s gaze drifted back to ProIrene, thoughtful.

Little Doll immediately drew her neck back. “W-what now?”

“How does this body feel?”

“Huh? What do you mean, how does it feel?” Irene blinked. “It’s fine. It moves pretty well, since it’s new.”

Yu Sheng put on his most scientific expression. “We used a maxed-out array, the best materials, and even my hard-won smelting technique from online videos. This thing is literally a Pro Max edition. Compared to your usual shells, shouldn’t it be different?”

“Different how…?”

“I don’t know.” He spread his hands. “Even if the size didn’t change, it should at least come with a couple gold traits, a red suffix, some kind of glowing bonus. It can’t be that the only feature is that it’s expensive.”

“I-I guess?” Irene tilted her head, then hopped down and bounced in place. She sprinted around the alchemy dais like a little rocket—probably testing speed and agility—then ran back to Yu Sheng’s feet.

She planted her stance, sank her hips into a pose she’d learned who knew where, and threw a punch. “Hiya—”

Her fist slammed straight into Yu Sheng’s shinbone.

The scene went quiet.

Little Doll looked up, hesitant. “Does it hurt?”

Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched. “…It’s fine.”

“It hurts!!” Irene howled and jumped back, clutching her fist as she bounced in place. “Ow, ow, ow! Yu Sheng, is your leg even human?! I once ran too fast and crashed into a concrete wall, and it still wasn’t this hard!”

Yu Sheng didn’t even know what to say, so he did the only thing he could.

He soothed her.

After far too much effort, he finally got her to stop hopping and biting. Rubbing the spot on his calf where she’d latched on, he said awkwardly, “Look, I don’t think you need to obsess over raw fighting power. Our conditions are right there—66.6 centimeters, okay? If you insist on going melee with C Buckle, whose legs are almost 1.2 meters long, that’s just asking for pain. She kicks you once and you’ll have to run for half a day just to get out of range. Let go—stop biting. Let go, let go!”

Irene glared up at him. “Is that supposed to be comforting?!”

“That’s not what I meant,” Yu Sheng said quickly. “I mean you’re an intelligence hero. Skill-based.”

He cleared his throat. “Let’s check your skills, then. Show me your usual silk threads.”

“What could change about silk threads?” ProIrene grumbled, but she still raised a hand and flicked her fingers toward an empty spot. “That comes straight from the Doll Progenitor’s blessing. It’s a natural gift every doll has. It won’t change just because I swap bodies—”

A blinding blue beam shot from her hand with a sharp vmm, punching a neat, round hole straight through the heavy stone wall Yu Sheng had raised earlier.