Chapter 404

Chapter 405: Yu Sheng’s Plan

Back on Immortal Conclave Isle, the first thing Yu Sheng did was run to the bathroom to draw hot water for the little doll.

Automaton girls do not catch colds. But automaton girls will race around and scratch everything so that muddy prints end up everywhere.

Hot water roared into the tub, which was big enough to be a pool for Irene. Ripples spread across the surface. The steam chased away the chill of the rainy night, and the sound of water slowly calmed Yu Sheng’s messy thoughts.

Arms crossed, he leaned on the tub and stared at the churning water, a bit absent minded. Irene, filthy from head to toe, lay on the edge of the tub, rose on her tiptoes, and watched the water level rise. The steam fogged the little doll’s face. She smiled with delight and reached to scoop some hot water, but she could not reach.

Impatient, she turned her head up to him and asked: “Is it ready yet? You have been filling it forever.”

“Give it a few more minutes. More hot water makes it easier to wash clean,” Yu Sheng said absent mindedly. He glanced at the line of muddy footprints Irene had stamped across the bathroom and added, “Should I throw you into the shower first to rinse you off?”

Irene thought for a second. Her eyes shifted. A sly smile rose on her face. Taking advantage of Yu Sheng’s distraction, she whirled and pounced. Her little paws grabbed his pants: “Ha!”

Two tiny handprints appeared on his trousers at once.

“Hey, come on,” Yu Sheng yelped, jumped back, and grabbed her by the belt to hoist her into the air. He demanded: “What kind of fit is that?”

“Heh heh…” Irene dangled in the air, giggling with not a hint of guilt. “Serves you right for spacing out. When you zone out like that you go brain-dead all of a sudden…”

Yu Sheng glanced at the tub, now full, and tossed the little doll in.

Irene splashed and sputtered at once and shouted as bubbles rose: “Glub! Glu… glub glub glub!”

Yu Sheng did not understand a single word.

But his mood improved.

He clapped his hands, ignored the little doll dog paddling in circles, and turned to the door. Just then Foxy pushed it open and stepped in.

The fox maiden was carrying an armful of tails.

Yu Sheng blinked and asked: “What are you doing?”

“If you get rained on, you need to wash with hot water, or the fur turns rough and it feels bad the next day,” Foxy said with a serious face. Then she noticed the two handprints on Yu Sheng’s pants. She asked gently, “Irene acted up again?”

Yu Sheng grinned and waved it off: “No big deal. These pants needed a wash anyway.”

“Then leave your pants at the bathroom door later. I will wash them with the rest,” Foxy said with a smile. “I am washing a lot of things anyway.”

“Will do.”

Yu Sheng stepped out. Foxy circled the bathroom with her armful of tails, but she could not find a good place to wash them.

Irene, who was happily splashing, suddenly felt a chill. She looked up and saw a giant fluff ball formed from many tails moving toward her.

“Hey, silly fox, what are you doing… I am warning you! Do not come here! This is my bath! There is a washing machine at home! Go home to wash your tails!”

Foxy acted as if she did not hear the protest from the tub. She lifted her arms and dropped the pile of tails into the hot water, then pulled a small stool over and began scrubbing. At first she scrubbed her own tails. Soon after, she was scrubbing Irene, who had been wrapped up in the tails.

Equal treatment. Anything that leaves this tub today will be squeaky clean.

The bathroom soon got lively, but that had little to do with Yu Sheng.

He left, crossed to No. 66 Wutong Road, changed into clean, fresh clothes at home, and then returned to the living room of the hotel suite on Immortal Conclave Isle.

Zheng Zhi sat behind the coffee table, typing his work report on his phone. Immortal Yuan Hao was speaking through the Spirit Mirror with Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain, updating them on the situation in Sentinel Silence. Luna stood still by the window like a statue, but in truth she was in the Soul Wilderness, leading her Knight Order to keep polishing the details of that grand cathedral.

Besides those three, the most empty space in the room held one little doll. Irene was still crackling with electricity, and no one dared touch her. She had picked a clear corner and sat cross legged. When Yu Sheng came out after changing, she was sulking and started chirping at once: “Yu Sheng, go deal with that silly fox! She washed her tails in my tub! She even scrubbed me with them… it was only a few zaps earlier, and she is still mad at me?”

“So you know you were being handsy first?” Yu Sheng raised a brow. He almost reached out to ruffle the little doll’s hair as a token comfort, but the crackling arcs around her made him stop. Keeping a safe distance, he frowned a little and asked: “You have not bled off all that charge yet? You cannot keep sparking like this.”

“I am discharging. Overcharged power will not stay. It is just slow,” Irene said as she lifted a hand to show the steel cable she held. The cable ran from the living room to the window sill and then drooped down the outer wall of the building. “I even rigged a ground wire… but somehow it is still slow.”

Yu Sheng frowned: “So you are basically just leaking power.”

“Uh, is there a difference?” The little doll blinked and rubbed her fingers together in the air to test how much charge was left. A snap of her fingers blasted out an arc almost two meters long. Everyone in the room felt their hair stand up. Zheng Zhi shot across the floor to hide behind Immortal Yuan Hao and said in a rush: “Sharing your shield, sharing your shield…”

“Stop, stop!” Yu Sheng quickly waved his hands. “You are going to fry the hotel’s stuff. If this keeps up, I will open a Door to outer space for you. Go out in orbit and dump the extra energy in an empty spot. You cannot keep crackling like this.”

Irene actually thought it over and looked excited: “That sounds kind of fun…”

But she soon shook her head and said: “Better not. It seems too loud, and if I lose control and burn out this body, that would be a huge loss. I will keep ‘leaking’ like this. It is slow, but stable.”

She tilted her head down and checked herself, then raised an arm and gestured at Yu Sheng: “Also look. The sparks leaking off me are already less than before.”

Yu Sheng had noticed that too. The sparks around the little doll were much fewer than when they had just come back. Just like she said, overcharged energy will not stay.

All in all, charging to four hundred percent and firing one Light Cannon that could wreck the world did look cool, but the side effect was that she would leak electricity for a while afterward. From the current rate, Yu Sheng guessed she would keep crackling for at least two more days.

He rubbed his chin as ideas began to move in his head and said: “Seeing this, I think your body has room to improve. You can charge by getting struck by lightning. You can even overcharge several times without damage, then turn the stored energy into a giant Light Cannon. But the extra charge will not stay and keeps leaking out. Both the strengths and the weaknesses were never planned at the start.”

Irene rolled her eyes and said: “Be honest. When you pinched this body together, did you really ‘plan’ anything? You just built it as you thought of it.”

“Thinking is also designing,” Yu Sheng said with a straight face. Then he rubbed his chin again and added: “I am serious. This time gave me a new idea. I feel like your body’s ‘traits’ can be used. If we set up the right rules, we might unlock a very strong move.”

Irene looked up at him: “We cannot look for lightning every fight. Normal charging does not reach that effect. At home, the Charging Dock you made for me stops once I am full.”

Yu Sheng did not reply. He stared at the little doll with a thoughtful look until she started to feel uneasy. She said: “Yu Sheng, your eyes look a bit dangerous. What are you planning?”

“I suddenly had a thought,” Yu Sheng said as the idea took shape. “Up to now, every body I made for you has been one of a kind, like different models with abilities that do not match. What if I make some standardized bodies for you? Same materials, same process, same standards for the shell. Then between those bodies… could there be some kind of ‘coordination’?

“Going one step further with that, your current shell has a trait for storing and releasing energy. If several such shells are together and they all charge to full-”

He stopped. The little doll went from confused to thoughtful, and then her eyes slowly went wide. A smile spread across his face too.

He rubbed his chin and asked with growing excitement: “Want to try building something like an Irene Matrix? Foxy can mass produce the core material. We can use Valley soil for the rest. The only real cost is the ritual oils and incense, and we can get those from the Special Affairs Bureau. All told, it might be pretty cheap.”

Irene listened with her mouth hanging open, then clapped and said: “I feel like something is off, but your idea sounds awesome!”