Chapter 322

Chapter 323: New Member

In the living room at No. 66 Wutong Road, the Artificial Saintess sat on the sofa across from Yu Sheng in a rather cramped pose.

The main reason was her height. She was three Irenes tall. From the side it looked less like sitting and more like squatting.

“I told you, being too tall is not always good,” Irene muttered beside Yu Sheng, as if brainwashing herself. “Just look at how uncomfortable she is.”

Yu Sheng glanced at the little shorty. Her calves dangled off the edge of the sofa and did not even reach the cushion. He felt bad teasing her.

Their talk with the Artificial Saintess continued to be hard.

The good news was that after a while her reaction time improved. The random “freeze ups” during the conversation happened less often. She seemed to be adapting to being “back.” The bad news was that her language function had real trouble.

Yes, language. The Artificial Saintess could speak. Yu Sheng could tell she had a voice module. It was just that it might be badly damaged, or her mind was hurt and this was the aftereffect. During the talk she could sometimes make sounds, but they were short and blurry, and it was very hard to tell what she meant.

For Yu Sheng, being able to communicate at all was already great.

“Do you remember things about yourself?” he asked carefully. “I mean the things from when you were human.”

The Artificial Saintess nodded slowly and let out a few short, unclear syllables.

“And do you remember what happened to you after that?” Yu Sheng asked.

He got another slow, definite nod.

Irene hopped from the sofa to the coffee table and sat cross legged in front of the Artificial Saintess: “Hey, C Buckle, what do you want to do next?”

The Artificial Saintess stalled. She could not answer that with a nod or shake. She thought hard, then started gesturing. After a long while, sounds came from inside that body, short and fuzzy.

“Ah, can’t hear it,” Irene scratched her hair. “I forgot you cannot say it… let me ask it another way?”

This time, the Artificial Saintess, who had been patient and gentle, suddenly waved her hand firmly. She tried again, forcing out a few short syllables that were still too blurry to understand.

Irene stared, then blurted, “Hey, don’t strain yourself. If you really can’t-”

She stopped because Yu Sheng gently patted her shoulder.

“You want to say it yourself, right?” Yu Sheng picked Irene up and set her back, then looked the metal doll in the eye. “No rush. Take it slow. Your speech is already clearer than before.”

The Artificial Saintess nodded slowly. After a long time she tried again, then tried once more.

Yu Sheng and the others barely made it out, part guessing and part hearing.

“Want… go home,” came a voice like rusty gears grinding, close to noise. She raised her hand and gestured, feeling it was still not clear, then repeated, “Go home.”

“Okay. Go home,” Yu Sheng fell silent for a few seconds, then nodded. “I will find your homeland.”

The Artificial Saintess nodded, but she was not done. She tried several more times. After a string of sounds with no clear meaning, a few syllables finally stood out: “Save… them… save…”

Then more noise.

Seeing how hard she was trying, Irene jumped back onto the coffee table: “Okay okay, I get it. You want us to help your people and save them from that beastly Hermitage Order. But to be honest, that sounds like a huge job.”

The little doll turned her head halfway through and looked at Yu Sheng with some doubt.

“Did you promise her before?” she said softly. “But honestly, the three of us trying to attack a whole planet might be a bit much. Your blood omen omen omen omen omen omen omen probably will not even cover it…”

She was already being kind. Yu Sheng felt she had skipped a few hundred “omens.” Still, one person feared nothing and agreed to anything. Foxy wagged her tails and scooted over: “No problem. I can be the vanguard!”

Irene’s eyes went wide: “Vanguard my foot. With your pile of Fox Carrot Missiles? You want to pluck your tails bald to conquer a planet?”

“No worries. I can call in help,” Yu Sheng waved it off. “Borderland will act. The Hermitage Order built a tower right under the Council’s nose. They will want to save face. Besides, it is too early to plan. We do not even have coordinates.”

He looked back at the Artificial Saintess: “Do not worry. We will help you.”

She nodded and forced out another word from the storm of noise: “Revenge.”

The room went quiet. After a few seconds, Yu Sheng answered with a grave look to the metal doll on the sofa: “Okay. Revenge.”

“Great, so it is three things,” Irene said, clapping her hands. “Go home, save your folks, get revenge. Easy to understand. Nothing else, right?” The Artificial Saintess shook her head.

“But let’s be clear, none of this can be done fast,” Irene added. “You have nowhere to go for now, so stay in our organization and work. Yu Sheng, that is what you meant, right?”

She seemed to remember she was the second in command and turned to confirm.

Yu Sheng did not mind. He smiled and said to the Artificial Saintess, “If you want, you can join the Hotel. We do need people. No pressure, though. If you would rather not join, you can still live here. We have room. What do you think?”

This time she reacted faster than ever.

She nodded very seriously. Since it was hard to say a full sentence, she gave a single syllable: “Okay.”

“Then welcome,” Yu Sheng said with a smile, holding out his hand. “From today, you are our fourth member.”

The Artificial Saintess hesitated, then copied him and reached out. Warm flesh and cold metal met and shared their heat.

“Nice,” Irene cheered. She seemed to forget all past grudges with “C Buckle” and ran over to poke Foxy’s tail. “Fox fox, you are a senior now. The Hotel has four big shots…”

“Weren’t you going to fight ‘C Buckle’?” Yu Sheng could not help teasing. “No opinion on her now?”

“Oh. Right. Right,” Irene froze on the coffee table, then tried to resolve the process conflict in her little head. After a long struggle, she still could not figure it out. She glared at Yu Sheng. “The mood is not right, okay. When the mood is right, we will fight… stop laughing!”

She turned back, pattered over to the Artificial Saintess, and puffed herself up: “Listen. You are a doll, and I am a doll, but you are C Buckle and the junior. So in the doll action team I am the captain, you are the vice captain. The vice captain listens to the captain. Got it?”

The Artificial Saintess only tilted her head, as if the noisy shorty in front of her was speaking nonsense, and chose not to answer.

“Hey, Yu Sheng, look at her attitude,” Irene complained at once. “I am being so generous accepting C Buckle, and she is ignoring me…”

“Alright, alright. There are only two dolls total and you still want a captain and a vice captain. If you are not embarrassed, I am,” Yu Sheng said, picking the little doll up. “Also, stop calling her C Buckle all the time. She should have a name.”

He paused, curious, and looked at the metal doll: “Right, what is your name?”

The Artificial Saintess froze. Nothing for a long time.

Then she suddenly moved and let out a string of sounds no one could make out.

Irene spread her hands: “Great, we hit the biggest communication problem.”

Foxy’s eyes lit up. She ran to get paper and pen, set them on the coffee table, and slid them to the Artificial Saintess: “Write it. Can you write?”

Irene blinked: “Oh, right, we can do that. Why didn’t I think-”

She stopped mid sentence.

Because the metal doll picked up the pen and wrote a line of symbols none of them knew.

The Artificial Saintess looked up, uneasy, clearly aware that no one recognized her writing.

It was the script the Cultivators had taught in the church back in her homeland.

After a brief, awkward silence, she raised her hand and pointed at herself. She tried again to squeeze a voice from that steel body, to say the name she had long ago, before the cold, simple title of “Saintess,” back when she was human.

How did father and mother call her again?

“Lu-%#@…”

She tried again. The sound grew clearer.

“Lu… na…”

“Your name is Luna?” Yu Sheng looked at her and confirmed.

“Mm.” The Artificial Saintess nodded slowly and gave a short sound.

“Good, Luna,” Yu Sheng said with a gentle smile. “Nice to meet you, Luna.”