Chapter 324

Chapter 324: Hotel’s Human Count Still Held Steady

Hotel gained another person—an iron doll named Luna.

The funny part was that after the new member joined, the human count at Wu Tong Road 66 still didn’t really go up.

Yu Sheng took it in stride. Considering the first “one of his own” he’d met in this world had been molded from clay and wire, his standards for organization members had never been high. Basically: alive, looks like a person, and can kind of speak like a person.

Luna, in a very particular way, barely scraped a passing grade on all three.

The first thing Yu Sheng asked her to do was learn every member’s name in Hotel.

“Yu-sheng.” She struggled at first, but managed to say his name.

Then she pointed at the demon fox girl and stammered, “Hu… Hu… li.”

Finally, there was Little Doll, standing proudly on the coffee table with her arms crossed.

Luna pointed at her and forced out a stuttering, blurry sound. “Ai… Ai… short… short…”

Foxy burst out laughing before Luna finished.

Irene glared at her, ready to demand an explanation, when Luna finally managed to say the name correctly. “Ai-lin.”

Irene kept glaring, certain something was off. After thinking for a while and failing to figure it out, she decided to stop thinking.

Next came showing the new member around the house and arranging where she would stay.

Yu Sheng took Luna on a tour of Wu Tong Road 66. When they returned to the living room, he said, “That’s basically the situation.

“There’s still an empty room on the first floor. It’s pretty decent. The second floor also has an empty room, but that one’s a bit strange, so I don’t recommend it.

“Then there’s the basement and the attic. They’re clean and spacious, but I still think you should stay on the first floor.”

He stopped mid-sentence, staring at Luna as a new problem finally hit him.

A two-meter-tall iron doll…

What daily necessities did she need?

How did she bathe?

Did she need new clothes?

Bedding? Blankets?

She probably didn’t eat.

So what did she need?

WD-40?

Yu Sheng’s face went blank as his mind spun.

Luna tilted her head, confused, then looked at Foxy. After a struggle, she pushed out a few words. “Yu Sheng not moving… thinking?”

“Benefactor does that a lot,” Foxy said, not surprised in the slightest. She held a half-eaten chicken leg and talked while chewing. “He’s probably thinking about what to set up for you to live here. When I moved in, I made Benefactor worry and take care of things for me too.”

Luna seemed to understand. After a moment, she reached out and tapped Yu Sheng’s shoulder.

“Holy coffin,” she said, the words still rough.

Yu Sheng didn’t catch it. “Huh? What?”

“Holy coffin.” This time, it was clearer.

It took him a second. “You mean you want to sleep in that iron coffin?”

Luna nodded slowly.

As if worried he might misunderstand, she forced out one more word. “Must.”

Yu Sheng blinked. This time, he understood completely.

“You mean you have to rest in the holy coffin. So we don’t need to arrange a room for you here?”

“Mm.”

Yu Sheng scratched his head. It wasn’t what he’d planned.

But then he thought about Foxy, who could launch her tail like a missile, and Irene, who could split into four bodies, and his mind calmed down a little.

The Borderland was the kind of place where weirdness thrived. His Hotel members being a little off was normal. Compared to Snow White Princess’s seven Thunder Titans, this new member only needed to sleep in a coffin. Nothing to panic over.

“All right,” Yu Sheng said, rubbing his chin. “Then you can keep sleeping in the Holy Sarcophagus Chamber. That ship is part of Hotel now anyway, and the cultists on board have all been cleared out.”

He thought for a beat. “But that’s inconvenient for you. Later, I’ll open a door in the basement that leads straight to the Holy Sarcophagus Chamber.”

And that was settled.

Then Yu Sheng’s expression shifted as another thought landed.

He looked Luna up and down. “Luna… do you remember what happened in that wasteland?”

Luna didn’t answer at first. A low hum vibrated from inside her body.

Irene jumped. “Huh? Did she crash again?!”

Before Irene could finish, Luna’s gaze slid toward Little Doll. Then she raised a hand and mimed lifting a sword and striking downward, like she was summoning a fragment of memory through motion.

Only then did she nod. “Remember.”

Irene stared for a second.

Then she exploded. “I’ve put up with you for a long time, C Buckle! I swear you’re doing this on purpose!”

She launched herself at Luna, punches flailing so fast they left afterimages—only to get caught midair with ease. No matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t win. She couldn’t even reach Luna’s elbow with her arms fully extended.

But Irene’s advantage was numbers. One body got grabbed; the other three piled in immediately, with zero shame. Sneak attacks. Gang-up tactics. The whole package.

In seconds, all four were hanging off Luna.

They still did absolutely nothing.

Luna didn’t even fight back. After realizing these short lumps clinging to her didn’t affect her at all, she simply set the Irene in her hand down too. She thought seriously for a moment, then said to Yu Sheng, “Thought… dream.”

Yu Sheng had been ready to intervene, but at this point he couldn’t be bothered. He focused on her words instead. “You mean… from your perspective, you thought it was a dream?”

Luna nodded lightly.

Yu Sheng frowned, thinking.

After a moment, Luna asked, curious, “Then… not dream? Is… what?”

It took her several tries to form those words clearly.

“It’s a shelter,” Foxy answered. She’d finished the chicken leg and was now pulling a bun out of her tail like it was the most normal thing in the world. “A shelter for the soul. I’ve been there too!”

“There are two outcomes for people who come into contact with my blood,” Yu Sheng said. “For enemies, I corrode and control them. For my own people, I open a door for them—grant permissions and shelter.

“In the final battle in the Holy Sarcophagus Chamber, to repair your body, I completed the last step of blood bestowal the way I would for one of my own. While repairing your shell, I also opened your permission to enter the Sanctuary Wasteland.

“But back then, your condition was terrible. I suspect the process may have worsened your mind tear. The result was that part of your mind drifted into the Sanctuary Wasteland, while another part remained in the holy coffin…”

Luna listened closely, trying to understand.

She remembered the battles. The encounters. She remembered what it felt like when his blood first stained her—panic, fury, terror.

Back then, the cognition shroud had still been in effect. Her understanding of the world had been covered in lies. She had felt that unspeakable, horrific corruption infiltrating along her limbs, sinking inch by inch into her soul. She had even severed one arm, and still the corruption kept spreading inside her—once even spreading to the knights linked to her mind…

Only when the shroud shattered—only when Yu Sheng shoved her into the holy coffin and the lid closed—did she finally feel the peace hidden behind that corruption.

And after that, she had a dream.

She dreamed she stood on an endless wasteland. A magnificent river of souls surged across the high sky. A towering mountain stood at the end of that wasteland and that river, and heavy, solemn gates waited on the mountain.

She dreamed of a grand bonfire—suffering as fuel, a flame named hope burning bright enough to light the whole wasteland. She and her knights guarded that bonfire and spoke of a future journey across the open wilds.

She dreamed an immense voice beyond words spoke with her. Gentle. Friendly.

Was it Yu Sheng?

She’d been hazy then, unable to hear clearly.

Oh—and she also dreamed of a shorty bouncing around beside that great voice while it spoke.

Very noisy.

So she had patted the shorty once—just a light pat—and the shorty had smacked straight into the ground.

Luna blinked herself out of the memory and looked down at the shorties clinging to her arms, shoulders, neck, and thigh.

There were four of them.

Three dead and one alive—or maybe all dead, or maybe all alive.

What a strange form of life. It barely felt like something that should exist in this world.

But it was fine. No need to think too hard. The shorty was a friend—a new family member in Hotel.

Luna smiled. She picked one Irene off her arm and held her up in front of her eyes. She stared at her seriously, then forced out the clearest words she could manage.

“No fighting,” she said. “Fighting bad.”

Irene froze.

Held midair by the Artificial Saintess, she stared at that hollow, icy smile—and didn’t know if it was her imagination, but the face seemed to soften. The smile shifted, becoming real. Alive.

“Uh…” Irene scratched her head, and the other three bodies finally climbed off Luna as well. “What a satisfying battle. Since you admit defeat, we won’t fight. Yeah. I’ll spare you, C Buckle!”

Luna nodded slowly and set her down.

“Okay, shorty.”

Two seconds later, Wu Tong Road 66 exploded with Little Doll’s furious roar:

“…C-Buckle! You did that on purpose, didn’t you?!!”