Chapter 288

Chapter 288: Building a Wonder

The moment Little Doll heard Foxy’s conclusion, her expression made it look like the sky had fallen.

She’d finally gotten a strong body, and it turned out to be a limited-time trial. Now that her energy was drained, even moving one finger took effort.

“What do we do…” the Irene number one unit muttered beside Yu Sheng, still carrying the frame. She looked up at the new body, stuck in Yu Sheng’s arms like a statue, then glanced at Foxy with desperate hope. “Do you have a way?”

Foxy stepped forward and checked ProIrene carefully, bending her arms and legs, then making several strange incantation gestures no one recognized. After a long moment, she nodded.

“In theory… just wait.”

Irene and Yu Sheng spoke at the same time. “Wait?”

“Wait for her to recharge,” Foxy said, tapping the doll’s fingertip lightly. “Didn’t her hand already start moving again? Mystic iron naturally gathers spiritual energy from heaven and earth. Once it’s refined into a complex puppet body like this, it keeps that ability. If we wait, she’ll slowly recover.”

“R-really?” the Irene number one unit asked, eyes wide. “You’re not lying to me?”

Foxy flicked her tail and tapped Irene’s forehead. “Why would I lie to you?”

“Okay… then we’ll wait…”

It turned out Foxy was right. After a few more minutes, ProIrene’s body gradually regained the most basic ability to move—though she moved like an old tin man that hadn’t been oiled in years. Still, she could finally creak her limbs, stand up, and take a couple steps.

Regaining movement made Little Doll feel better.

Just not much better.

She shuffled a half-circle around Yu Sheng with the gait of someone who’d been half-paralyzed for a decade, then stopped beside her other bodies, looking utterly dead inside.

“I feel like I’m carrying a human-shaped coffin,” she said hollowly. “This recharging is way too slow. If regaining basic movement is this hard, when am I supposed to save up enough energy to keep firing light cannon?!”

She lifted her head toward Foxy. “Isn’t there some way to recharge faster?”

Foxy thought for a moment. “…I usually eat. I eat a lot.”

Irene stared.

Yu Sheng coughed quietly. “She doesn’t have a digestive system.”

“Even if she did, it wouldn’t help,” Foxy said. “A normal stomach can’t refine material.”

“Then hurry up and think of something else,” Yu Sheng urged, glancing at Irene’s face and quickly adding, “She’s about to cry again.”

Foxy muttered to herself, thinking. “Absorb spiritual energy from heaven and earth…? I’ve only seen that in those ancient-cultivation short videos online. I don’t actually know how to do it.”

She hesitated. “Or maybe use something else to recharge… I can’t think of what. We can’t have her grab a power line, can we?”

Yu Sheng sighed. The nine-tailed fox who barely made it through elementary school wasn’t going to save them here.

He scooped ProIrene up again and tried to comfort her. “At least you recover on your own. It’s slow, but you don’t only have this one body.”

He patted her head. “Worst case, treat this body like an emergency trump card. Let it slow-charge at home. When you need to fight, I’ll open a door and carry you out to fire a few shots…”

Little Doll lifted her head in his arms. “Yu Sheng…”

“Hm?”

She ground her teeth. “You really fucking know how to comfort people, huh!”

Yu Sheng had the distinct feeling that wasn’t a compliment.

After a while, Princess Rapunzel and the others—who’d been watching the commotion for ages—finally understood what was going on. They gathered around: some to comfort Irene, some to ask how she kept “multiplying,” some to marvel at how lively daily life at Hotel was.

Princess Rapunzel even praised Irene’s military boxing. Before she could finish, three Irenes climbed onto her and headbutted her until she was hopping all over the place.

Yu Sheng glanced around and realized someone was missing. “Where’s Little Red Riding Hood? Out on a mission again?”

“She’s in class,” Princess Snow White answered casually, watching Rapunzel flail under a pile of dolls. “She won’t be back until tonight.”

“Isn’t it Saturday?” Yu Sheng asked.

Princess Snow White gave him a look. “Isn’t she in senior year?”

Yu Sheng paused, then sighed. “…Right. I forgot.”

“Oh, by the way.” Princess Snow White leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Her birthday is next week. You know that?”

“I do,” Yu Sheng said. “She told me a long time ago.”

“Have you picked a gift yet?” Snow White asked. “I’m planning to give her a few books.”

Yu Sheng hesitated, thinking for a long moment. “I was actually thinking about giving her a few books too…”

“That’s good. She likes reading,” Princess Snow White said, then walked off.

Yu Sheng watched Irene and Princess Rapunzel roughhouse in the distance, falling into thought.

A gift…

He didn’t have much experience choosing gifts for other people. He didn’t have much experience celebrating anyone’s birthday, either.

His past days had been as bland as clear water. Before he came to this borderland, his life had mostly passed in stillness—quiet, calm, peaceful, always alone. Even writing had only ever been a job that kept him fed.

Compared to that, the uneventful years he’d lived before almost felt less lively than three days here.

…Even if sometimes it was a little too lively.

Yu Sheng smiled and shook his head. Then he called out helplessly, “Take your wrestling somewhere else! Get away from the platform—I’m going to build!”

The moment he said that, Irene and Rapunzel stopped.

Several pairs of eyes turned toward him at once.

Princess Rapunzel was the first to run over. “Bro, what are you building?”

“A wall around the platform, and a roof,” Yu Sheng said, spreading his hands. “This is the core building of Hotel. It can’t stay a bare foundation forever. I’m planning to add more floors too, make it look grand.”

“More floors?” Irene perked up. “What are they for?”

“Haven’t decided,” Yu Sheng said frankly. “I’ll build first and improve it later. But the second floor definitely needs a proper alchemy lab—no more temporary setups. A real one with a bench, prep room, storage, all the supporting stuff.”

Irene’s eyes went wide. “For making new bodies for me?”

Yu Sheng grimaced. “Can’t I research something else?”

“Can you?” Irene asked.

Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched. “…For making new bodies for you.”

“Yes!” Irene cheered.

Anyway, after all the chaotic side-tracks, Yu Sheng was finally going to put a roof over the Hub platform he’d prepared long ago.

Out of deep trust in Yu Sheng’s house-building “craftsmanship,” Princess Rapunzel and the others immediately retreated a hundred meters away.

Even Foxy and Irene ran—and the mobility-impaired ProIrene was carried off by her other bodies.

“Is that really necessary…” Yu Sheng muttered, glancing at the crowd. But he didn’t dwell on it. He settled his mind and focused on the work.

He stood outside the platform, and as his thoughts sank, a blueprint rose in his mind.

First, he needed a better vantage point.

The soil beneath his feet began to wriggle, gather, harden, and rise. A gray-white square pillar pushed up from the earth, lifting him until he could look down over the entire portal platform.

Not far away, Irene muttered, “It kind of looks legit…”

Foxy nodded firmly. “I told you. Benefactor can be an engineering immortal.”

Yu Sheng heard them from that distance—and more than that, he could hear everything across the platform, and across a wide area around it.

Wind brushing grit.

Grass pushing up through soil and unfurling new leaves.

The faint scrape of “rock” forming inside the platform and rising.

In his vision, this land had become something that could be shaped, could grow quickly—something alive.

High walls rose along the platform’s edge with a low rumble. Solemn stone columns followed, circling outside the walls to support a corridor that would wrap around the whole hub. Inside, support pillars grew like ribs, preparing to hold up a future dome.

Yu Sheng watched the “bones” and “flesh” take shape at high speed. He built the first tier, then began forming a slightly smaller second tier above it.

In his blueprint, it was a massive pyramid.

Seven tiers, shrinking layer by layer, each with a different purpose.

The first tier was the base structure of the portal platform, used to connect all the places Hotel could reach. Considering how vast the universe was, even a huge hall wouldn’t be enough someday—so the doors here would only connect the most important nodes. That was why it would be called the Hub Hall.

The second tier was for research. Its core would be an alchemy lab used to make more shells for Irene, surrounded by empty rooms held in reserve.

The third tier was for storage. Yu Sheng needed a warehouse like that—somewhere to store the strange things he collected, along with handy weapons and tools. No matter how big the basement at Wu Tong Road 66 was, it couldn’t compare to a wonder building in the valley. And given how many rare objects existed in this world, that basement would eventually run out of space.

The entire third tier would be his personal treasure pavilion.

As for tiers four through seven…

They weren’t really useful. Mostly, they were there to look good and complete the pyramid shape.