Chapter 294

Chapter 294: The Path of Cultivation Opened… Then Cut Off

In the living room on the first floor of Wu Tong Road 66, four Irenes sat in a neat row on the coffee table. Irene Pro Max 66.6 cm sat closest to the edge, staring wide-eyed at Yu Sheng and Xuan Che on the couch across from her.

Beside them, Foxy calmly groomed her tail, watching like she’d bought front-row tickets.

“Let me confirm something first,” Xuan Che said after a long silence, pointing at the Little Dolls. “You said these young ladies… are the dolls of ‘Alice Little House’?”

“Yeah,” Yu Sheng said, nodding. “There are complicated reasons she ended up like this. The bodies you see now are temporary containers I made for her. I have no idea where her original body went.”

“Oh. Oh,” Xuan Che said with sudden understanding. “For a moment, I thought she shattered all at once, and then something went wrong when you tried to remold the body, so she had to split into four pieces…”

Yu Sheng and Irene froze. Even Foxy stopped grooming and perked up her ears.

The next second, ProIrene shot into the air, cursing up a storm. “You jerk are the one who got smashed into four pieces—!”

Yu Sheng grabbed her out of midair, pinned her down on the table, and turned to Xuan Che with a strained smile. “Don’t mind her, don’t mind her. She’s kind of vio—let go! Let go! Don’t bite!”

“Forgive me, forgive me,” Xuan Che said quickly, clasping his hands. “I was just curious why these young ladies are so… small. I’ve seen an Alice doll before, and it wasn’t like this. I thought it through, and that was the only explanation I could come up with. I was rude. Truly rude.”

“Don’t be so polite with her. She’ll take advantage of it,” Yu Sheng said helplessly, pressing down the still-flailing ProIrene. “Let’s talk business. For some reason, one of Irene’s bodies needs spiritual power to move. But normally her charging speed is a problem. I was hoping your Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain might have a solution.”

Xuan Che listened seriously, but he couldn’t help frowning. “But living dolls are a race blessed by ancient holy spirits. The arts they use and the cultivation path of the Grand Void Spiritual Axis are vastly different. If you mix them rashly, wouldn’t that cause trouble? More importantly… how did Irene’s body end up needing spiritual power at all?”

“That has to do with the nine-tailed fox right in front of you,” Yu Sheng said awkwardly, pointing at Foxy, who was now grooming her second tail with exaggerated calm. “And, of course, it also involved a bit of my personal… research spirit.”

Then he briefly explained ProIrene’s situation and mentioned the spirit-fox mystic iron.

Xuan Che wore the same expression the entire time—one that said, in order: What are you saying? What are you saying now? What did you just say?!

By the end, the look had a name.

Pure clarity.

This top young talent of Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain—someone who could be called a prodigy across the Grand Void Spiritual Axis—had cultivated for a hundred years and had never heard of anyone messing around like this.

A metal from another world, with unknown principles and untested parameters. Ancient alchemy from who-knew-where. Rocks and soil brought back from an otherworld. Mixed with the blood of this expert who might not even count as a living creature. Kneaded into a human shape, daring to cast a golden body, then inserting a soul.

And these… big-brained, big-wise experts had actually made it work?

Judging by the row of dolls on the coffee table, they’d pulled off this kind of successful nonsense at least four times, each time in a different way.

Xuan Che went a little blank. If you could refine a body like that, then what were all the scoldings he’d gotten for misremembering recipes, the kneeling punishments for messing up timing, and the beatings for ruining pill fire over the last hundred years supposed to mean?!

Still, feelings aside, he forced himself back to the task. After Yu Sheng finished, Xuan Che thought carefully and spoke cautiously.

“May I first take a look at the spirit-fox mystic iron you mentioned? That way I can judge whether this material conflicts with the cultivation methods of the Grand Void Spiritual Axis.”

“No problem,” Yu Sheng said, patting one of Foxy’s tails where it lay by his leg. “Pull out a small piece for him to see.”

“Got it!” Foxy nodded happily. She rummaged in her tail, pulled out a small leftover iron lump from when she’d cast Irene’s skeleton earlier, and set it on the coffee table. “This is it.”

Xuan Che clearly froze when he saw Foxy pull something out of her own tail, but only for a heartbeat. His eyes immediately locked onto the plain-looking lump of iron.

“This…” He stared, hesitated, then picked it up and examined it carefully for a long time. At last, he gently tapped its surface with one finger.

A faint, pleasant hum rang out. Translucent ripples spread through the air in overlapping waves and lingered for several seconds.

Yu Sheng didn’t understand what any of it meant, but it looked pretty cool.

“Incredible. Incredible!” Xuan Che breathed. “No refining, no enlightenment, and it’s only a rough blank—yet it’s already this clear and responsive. This junior has never seen anything like it. It looks mundane, but what kind of structure is hidden in its fine details?”

He looked up, eyes shining, staring at Foxy and Yu Sheng.

“It’s mostly iron,” Yu Sheng said, shaking his head. “As for why it has weird properties, the Special Operations Bureau couldn’t figure it out either. Foxy doesn’t know.”

He paused, then added, “If you want it, you can have this scrap—if Foxy doesn’t mind. But if you want a bigger piece, you’ll have to get in line. The Bureau already placed an order.”

Xuan Che looked embarrassed and quickly set the iron lump back down. “You’re joking. That makes this junior seem ill-mannered… Let’s look at Irene’s situation first.”

As he spoke, he pulled out a small jade token and handed it to the Little Doll sitting at the edge of the table.

“Based on what I tested just now, this mystic iron doesn’t conflict with the cultivation methods of the Grand Void Spiritual Axis,” Xuan Che said. “If anything, it seems quite compatible. But whether you can use our techniques… depends on you. This jade token is the most basic kind of spiritual treasure. It can draw in spiritual energy and nourish the mind. Hold it in your hand for now.”

Irene took the token with a puzzled look. A piece of jade that would fill an ordinary person’s palm took her whole fist to grip. “Okay, then what?”

“Then you should be able to feel a faint warmth spreading from your palm toward your heart…”

“I don’t have a heart.”

Xuan Che’s smile stiffened. “…Then toward your torso. The warmth follows your mind. Try to guide it…”

Irene blinked. “I don’t feel any warmth either.”

Xuan Che froze.

He looked even more stunned than he had when he heard Yu Sheng’s recipe for building a body out of nonsense.

“The feeling might be very faint,” he said after a long stare, his eyes turning strange. “Feel carefully. It has to be there.”

“Nope,” Irene said confidently. “My senses are super sharp. I’m telling you—I don’t feel it!”

“Not even a tiny bit?!”

“No. Hey, why are you so wishy-washy?”

Yu Sheng noticed the look on Xuan Che’s face.

“Does this mean Irene’s talent in this area is… kind of bad?” he asked, trying to be polite. “She can’t use your cultivation techniques?”

Xuan Che hesitated, almost afraid to answer. “No. It’s not that it’s kind of bad.”

“Then she has no talent at all?”

“No.” Xuan Che drew a slow breath. “It’s not even about talent anymore. Even people with no talent can feel it. Talent only affects how strong the feeling is and how hard it is to guide. Even at the very worst… it wouldn’t be like this.”

Yu Sheng parted his lips, unsure what to say. “Could it be because she’s a doll, so her constitution is special?”

“In theory… it shouldn’t be,” Xuan Che said, shaking his head. “Dolls are living beings too. Living beings have spiritual nature. This doesn’t only work on flesh-and-blood bodies.”

Yu Sheng frowned.

“Give it to me. I’ll try.”

He took the jade token from Xuan Che and, as instructed, focused on it carefully.

A moment later, he tossed it to Foxy. “You try too.”

A few minutes later, Xuan Che had collected six faces full of confusion.

Irene was the first to break the silence. “Your token is broken, isn’t it?”

“It shouldn’t be,” even Xuan Che said, starting to doubt himself. He held the jade in his hand, examined it closely, and tapped it a few times. “It’s not broken.”

“It is broken,” Foxy said firmly. “I know immortal arts too. I can tell the moment I touch it whether it works…”

Yu Sheng glanced at Foxy, not sure where a nine-tailed fox from another world—with a completely different cultivation system—got that confidence.

But he also couldn’t deny the obvious: none of them had felt anything.

With no other choice, Xuan Che awkwardly put the jade token away and pulled out a talisman. “Then use this. Once it’s lit, the smoke won’t scatter. Inhale it and it will stir your qi and blood. Use blood to guide qi, then connect with heaven-and-earth spirit—”

Before he could finish, Irene cut in. “I don’t have blood.”

“Then use this Spirit-Nurturing Peak pill, directly—”

“I don’t have a stomach either.”

“Then I have this golden hairpin. It’s a bit of a shortcut, but it can directly stimulate the brain and open—”

“I don’t have a brain either.”

Xuan Che slowly lowered the hairpin. “…You don’t have any internal organs?”

“None. Alice dolls don’t have those in the first place. Don’t you know that?”

“I…” Xuan Che swallowed. “I am ashamed.”