Chapter 413
Chapter 413: New Residents in the Valley
The valley welcomed new “residents”—and it was easy to predict they would be long-term residents.
Mass-produced Irene dolls.
Groups of gothic dolls appeared around the Portal Nexus and throughout Fairy Tale Town, familiarizing themselves with their new home under the host’s commands, while their numbers continued to rise.
Those blank-eyed little figures quickly attracted the attention of the kids in Little Town and caused a small commotion. Fortunately, Little Red Riding Hood promptly displayed her guardian authority, shooing the wild children back before the valley could witness the spectacle of dozens of human kids chasing dozens of Irene dolls through town.
The first batch of dolls was sent to the power station. Two more batches went to the Black Forest lumber camp and the starport. Of course, the deployment was sudden, and the mass-produced dolls had only just stepped out of the “factory.” They weren’t ready for complex work. Yu Sheng didn’t throw them straight into labor—he had them learn the environment first and make contact with the maintenance staff already stationed at each facility.
Replacing personnel across multiple sites was complicated. It had to be done gradually. And with the Irenes’ height limitation, they wouldn’t be able to fully replace human work in the short term anyway. At the beginning, Yu Sheng only planned for them to handle basic tasks: cleaning, warehouse organization, simple assistance. Once they became more skilled, he would consider giving them more responsibility.
“You really do things on a whim,” Little Red Riding Hood said helplessly from the castle rooftop, watching the mass-produced dolls move through town. “Shouldn’t something like this be planned far in advance—coordinated, communicated, and only then implemented…”
Yu Sheng looked a little embarrassed. Before he could answer, Irene on his shoulder had already started yapping.
“Oh, just get used to it,” she said cheerfully. “When Yu Sheng gets an idea, he can’t hold it in. Back then, he dragged a whole spaceship and plopped it down next to the Black Forest without notifying anyone. That was huge. Honestly, for the mass-produced doll thing, I bet he only knew about it one day earlier than you all did…”
Princess Rapunzel, sitting on Little Red Riding Hood’s other side, lit up immediately. “Oh! Oh! I’ve heard that. Most authors only know the plot one day earlier than the readers. Bro really is a writer.”
Yu Sheng listened to the two of them at his ear, and even with his thick skin he couldn’t keep a straight face. “T-that’s not true. I do careful planning…”
No one listened.
After watching the dolls for a while, Little Red Riding Hood asked, genuinely curious, “So… where do these mass-produced Irenes live normally?”
“My order is that when they don’t have tasks, they return to the hub pyramid and wait,” Irene said, matter-of-fact. “The top four levels of that big pyramid are empty. There’s tons of space. Yu Sheng built it that huge just because it looked cool. Now it’s actually useful.”
“If the pyramid can’t hold them in the future, we’ll build them a doll Little Town near the hub, or beside Little Town,” Yu Sheng added immediately. “Those little ones don’t take up much space. Building a bunch of small houses is easier than kneading another pyramid.”
“I really can’t picture what that would look like,” Little Red Riding Hood admitted, hugging her knees as she tried to imagine a whole town filled with 66.6-centimeter dolls. After a long moment, she scratched her head. “But… I think it’s good. The valley will get livelier. This place is huge. With only us here, sometimes it feels empty.”
Yu Sheng only smiled. He stretched, then lay down on the castle roof, eyes half-closed.
The moment he did, Irene climbed onto his chest with impressive agility. After wriggling into a comfortable spot, she lay down too.
Foxy, nearby with half a roast chicken in her paws, looked over. She tilted her head, considered it, then scooted up and draped a pile of tails over Yu Sheng and Irene like a warm blanket.
Far outside town, Luna finished her work in the fields. She lifted her head—and saw six Irenes standing neatly on the path, staring blankly at her.
The knight-saintess miss froze, confused.
At the starport beside the Black Forest, Engineer Sun held a cigarette between his fingers, staring blankly at a cluster of Irenes crawling around beneath the antenna tower and running in every direction. The cigarette nearly burned his fingertips before he noticed.
In the activity room at the southwest corner of Fairy Tale Town, Teacher Su watched several Little Dolls who had volunteered to help clean. She looked amused and helpless, searching everywhere and still failing to find brooms or mops that fit them. Before the mass-produced dolls could truly be useful, it seemed the more urgent task was making tools that matched their size.
At the edge of the Black Forest, the lumberjacks summoned by “King” stood awkwardly in the open. Hunter stood among them with Squirrel perched on his shoulder. Everyone’s eyes were on the gothic dolls running around with huge axes balanced on their shoulders.
They didn’t understand what “logging” meant yet. That would take guidance.
“…They’re pretty strong,” Squirrel muttered.
“It’s just that they’re not even as tall as an axe,” Hunter muttered back. “I don’t think they’re suited for logging. Later we’ll teach them to pick mushrooms and berries instead.”
Squirrel’s eyes lit up. “And gather hazelnuts and acorns!”
“Right,” Hunter said. “Hazelnuts and acorns too.”
Squirrel bounced happily across Hunter and the lumberjacks, hopping from shoulder to shoulder and head to head.
And far away, inside the hub pyramid, more mass-produced dolls opened their eyes on the alchemy platform. Knowledge and skills from early individuals flowed through their shared spirit. In newborn haze and clumsy confusion, the Irene matrix reached out to touch and understand the world. One small figure after another walked out of the pyramid into bright daylight, and the Irene widened their eyes in quiet curiosity.
The initial message from the Irene host echoed in each doll’s simple mind, even if they couldn’t fully understand it yet. It was the first sentence Irene said to every mass-produced individual—something only Irene and the Irene knew in full.
“Welcome to your home. This is a good place!”
The newborn mass-produced dolls still had a long road ahead before they could smoothly adapt to their work.
But no matter what, it was easy to foresee that the valley truly would become lively.
Unfortunately, Yu Sheng didn’t have much time to keep enjoying his countryside leisure in the valley. Luna handled the “countryside.” He handled the “leisure.” That was one kind of countryside leisure too.
In Featherwing 13B, there were more important matters.
Beyond high orbit above Shu Ji, a silver-white glimmer silently streaked through deep space.
Foxy leapt lightly past orbital stations and satellites, avoided monitored routes, and accelerated away from Shu Ji.
Yu Sheng carried Irene (Rebar) on his shoulder. Luna sat beside him. The three of them rode on the back of a massive nine-tailed demon fox, setting off on a trip to a nearby planet.
Considering that black-robed cultivator eyes—or hermitage order eyes—might still be lurking on Shu Ji, they left Ink City in secret. The method was simple and brutal: Yu Sheng opened a door to outer space, setting its landing point at a near-star coordinate he’d recorded when Hotel approached Shu Ji.
No matter how powerful Yun Qing Zi and those hermitage order cultists were at divination, they couldn’t possibly detect something like that.
Meanwhile, Xuan Che and Immortal Yuan Hao stayed in Ink City—partly to continue investigating, partly to report any movements on Shu Ji to Yu Sheng as quickly as possible.
Zheng Zhi was left with Xuan Che for safety as well. Even though the big nephew’s observation ability was terrifyingly strong, his body was fragile. Until they understood the destination’s situation, it was better for him to remain in the rear.
“The place you’re going is officially called garrison-3,” Xuan Che’s voice came through the mobile phone as he explained the destination. “It’s the third planet orbiting the sun here. Compared to Shu Ji, garrison-3 is even more desolate. It has no valuable mineral deposits, and it’s a barren star with no earth-vein response, so it isn’t suitable for development or habitation. Aside from a few heavenseeker pavilion built at the poles to strengthen faster-than-light communication signals, the entire planet has no human presence and remains wild everywhere.”
“The place where Yun Qing Zi once fought an unknown enemy is in garrison-3’s southern hemisphere. There’s an impact crater visible even from space. It’s easy to find.”
“No one has gone there for many years,” he added. “No one knows the exact situation. Be extremely careful when you arrive.”
Hearing those warnings, Yu Sheng couldn’t help growing curious. “A place where a great expert fought an unknown powerful enemy and fell—shouldn’t that be important? They just leave it there with no one managing it?”
Xuan Che seemed genuinely confused. “Manage… what?”
“Wouldn’t you mark off a protected zone? Or quarantine it?” Yu Sheng said. “Or turn it into some famous forbidden land. Novels always do it that way. When a great expert dies, there’s always some opportunity—either a blessed land or a deadly land. Either way, it has to become something.”
His writer instincts kept spiraling. “And there has to be a hidden sect guarding it for generations. Anyone who comes gets blocked and tested, and during the test they refuse to speak like normal people…”
On the other end of the line, Xuan Che fell silent for a beat before he finally answered, sounding amused and helpless. “What you described… does show up in ancient records. But that was because, long ago, our pollution-handling techniques were underdeveloped. After a great expert fell, the aftermath and remnants could pollute heaven and earth. If it wasn’t isolated, passersby might die.”
“Now, there’s no such concern. Every sect has mature funeral techniques. Even a thousand years ago, after Yun Qing Zi died, specialists went to garrison-3 to handle the aftermath.”
“If we didn’t—if every time a great expert fell it created a forbidden land—then countless powerful figures throughout history have died.” His tone turned dry. “Even if the Featherwing star region is huge, how many habitable planets would still be left?”
Yu Sheng went quiet.
“…Fair,” he said at last.