Chapter 66

Chapter 66: Yu Sheng’s Morning at Home

Yu Sheng woke up to find Irene sprawled at one corner at the foot of the bed. Her frame sat on the nightstand, leaning against the wall.

He sighed. Even last night, he still hadn’t managed to kick this doll out. Mostly because every time he tried to carry her to the door, she would throw a massive fit until his head pounded.

He sighed again, deeper. Irene showed no sign of waking, so Yu Sheng stuck out his foot and kicked her twice.

“Get up. If you don’t, I’m taking your frame and sending you back into the painting to sleep.”

Irene twitched. Slowly, she crawled upright, stared at him with sleepy eyes, and mumbled, “Morning… hey…”

“Morning my ass. It’s almost noon!” Yu Sheng swallowed the urge to punt the unlucky doll off the bed. “Do you have any idea how many times you rolled around last night? You’re a doll. Needing sleep is weird enough. How can you sleep like that, too?”

“I don’t know.” Irene yawned, rubbed her eyes, and stretched. “Don’t be so picky. I’m so pretty, and you still don’t like sharing a room with me…”

Yu Sheng broke into a cold sweat. A doll that was only 66.6 centimeters tall, saying that with a straight face—his temples throbbed. “You’re tiny, but your ego is enormous. Do you even hear yourself?”

Irene didn’t care. Hair sticking up in every direction, she crawled right up in front of him, dipped her head forward, and announced with perfect righteousness, “Brush my hair.”

A vein jumped in Yu Sheng’s temple. He rolled out of bed, dashed to the bathroom, grabbed a comb, and tossed it onto the bed. “No. Do it yourself.”

Irene grabbed the comb with both hands—it was as big as her head—and rolled her eyes so hard it looked painful. “You think I can brush my own hair? I can’t even hold this thing with one hand. How about you get me a comb a doll can use…”

And then the whining started. How her hair was always a mess and she could only rake it with her fingers. How on the first day she’d had to sleep on a chair. How nobody cared what a doll felt. It didn’t stop. Listening to her, you’d swear sparks were about to shoot out of your ears.

“…I must have owed you in my last life,” Yu Sheng muttered at last. He snatched the comb, lifted Irene, and set her on the nightstand beside the bed. “Sit here. Don’t move.”

Irene’s face lit up like a victorious general. Sitting on the nightstand, she kept babbling. “You made this body. Handling after-sales is only fair…”

Yu Sheng combed the doll’s hair with a sour expression. “Is that how ‘after-sales’ works?”

“Close enough. Hey—gentler. Don’t rip it out. A doll’s hair is precious.”

Yu Sheng let out a long sigh and did his best to smooth her hair out, even though she’d turned it into a disaster in her sleep. When he was done, he hung the frame that had been leaning against the wall back onto her, then turned to wash up.

“Hey, Yu Sheng!” Irene’s voice drifted in from outside the bathroom after a moment. “What are we eating this morning?”

Yu Sheng’s mouth was full of toothpaste foam. “Later,” he mumbled. “I’ll boil some noodles and make do. Then we go out.”

An “oh” came from outside, and the doll finally fell quiet.

That silence didn’t reassure Yu Sheng in the slightest. With Irene, quiet always meant she was plotting something louder. He could feel his spiritual intuition twitching like a live wire.

Which was… a bizarre thing to think in this context.

He finished washing up, wiped his face, and looked at himself in the mirror.

He looked good. Healthy color. Clear eyes. Even a faint, unconscious smile.

It had been a long time since he’d seen himself look this alive. For a moment, he felt dazed.

Not long ago, he’d lived in this huge, intimidating city with his nerves stretched tight. For more than two months, he’d gone to sleep tense and suffocated, spent nights in uneasy dreams, and woken up exhausted. He’d washed his face once every few days, and the person in the mirror always looked drained.

Now, he saw an energetic young man with a hint of expectation in his eyes. Nothing like someone who’d been kicked all night by a doll with a wild sleeping posture.

“…So it really is a different mindset,” Yu Sheng murmured, and couldn’t help laughing.

Then Irene’s wail rose outside the door. “Yu—Sheng! Did you fall in there? I’m getting Foxy to fish you out—”

Yu Sheng’s smile froze. He yanked the door open.

Irene stood outside in the hallway, frame strapped to her back, grinning with far too much energy.

“You’ve been in there for more than half an hour!” she declared, chin tipped up.

Yu Sheng walked right past her, opened the bedroom door, and went to check on the fox.

He jumped the instant he did.

Foxy was standing right outside the door, leaning forward like a thief, as if she’d been debating whether she should come in.

Yu Sheng’s sudden movement startled her too—she genuinely jumped. The huge mass of tails behind her went bang and puffed out like a screen, filling the hallway, and her two big ears snapped straight up.

Two or three seconds later, the puffed-up demon fox relaxed. She stared at Yu Sheng, a little lost. “Benefactor…”

Yu Sheng blinked. “What are you doing?”

“I woke up, but I didn’t know what I should do, so… I came to wait.” Foxy spoke quickly, clearly nervous. “But I didn’t know if you were awake, so I didn’t dare knock.” Then she hesitated, worry tightening her expression. “Benefactor, are you okay? Where did you fall into?”

“I didn’t fall anywhere. Don’t listen to Irene’s nonsense,” Yu Sheng said at once. Then he frowned, looking Foxy up and down. “You’ve been standing here this whole time?”

“Mm.”

“…From now on, this is your home. You don’t have to be so tense all the time.” Yu Sheng turned toward the stairs. “If you have nothing to do, watch TV or something. When I have time, I’ll teach you how to use the appliances. Come downstairs and eat first. I’ll boil some noodles and make do. Today I’ll take you out to buy things.”

The moment Foxy heard the word “eat,” her eyes visibly lit up. She practically bounced as she followed him.

Yu Sheng took two steps, then stopped. He turned back, hesitating, eyes landing on the top of her head.

“I just remembered something. Your tails can be put away, but what about your ears? If you go outside like this… you might draw attention.”

Foxy looked blank for a moment. Since she’d arrived, she hadn’t stepped out the front door once. She didn’t know what the outside world was like, and she couldn’t imagine what was wrong with her appearance.

But if Benefactor said it, she believed it.

She rubbed her hands together, reached up, pulled the ears off her head, stuffed them into one of her tails, and then hid the tail as well.

The hallway fell dead silent.

Yu Sheng froze mid-step, like someone had turned him to stone.

Irene’s scream shattered the quiet. “Ahhh! Fox fox, what did you just pull off your head?!”

Foxy conjured the tail she usually used to hide things, pulled out the pair of furry ears, and held them up for Irene to see. “Ears.”

Yu Sheng’s eyes almost popped out. “They come off? Are they fake?”

“They’re real,” Foxy said matter-of-factly as she put the ears away again. “Demon fox are good at shapeshifting.”

Yu Sheng stared. “The demon fox I’ve heard about don’t ‘shift’ like this…”

Foxy looked surprised. “Benefactor, you’ve seen other demon fox?”

Yu Sheng blinked, then instantly recovered. “…No.”

“Demon fox have to learn refining method. The first step is refining yourself. Once you practice it, that’s shapeshifting.” Foxy explained it as if it were obvious common sense. “But Dad and Mother didn’t have time to teach me much. I only learned… the basic changes.”

Her eyes brightened as she went on. “I heard an immortal say that a strong demon fox can even turn into the stories in books and the shadows in history. Just by relying on people passing it on by word of mouth, they can cross time in an instant and travel the sea of stars. But I can’t!”

Yu Sheng listened with his mouth hanging open. His ears understood, but his brain refused to cooperate. Part of him kept thinking this young lady was playing him.

But Foxy’s innocent face didn’t look like she could invent something like that.

“Something feels off,” Irene muttered beside him, rubbing her chin. “My memory’s bad right now, so don’t fool me. Where did you even get this ‘common sense’? Are you sure that immortal didn’t trick you? I’m telling you, anyone working as a tour guide will say anything…”

Foxy shook her head hard. “I don’t know. But my way of changing really was taught by Dad and Mother. It truly is like this—”

As she spoke, she studied Yu Sheng for a moment. Then her hair and eye color changed at once, copying him into black hair and black eyes.

In an instant, she looked like a normal, pretty young lady—someone who could easily pass as a local of Boundary City.

“Like this, is it okay?” Foxy asked eagerly.

Yu Sheng froze, then finally nodded, still a little stunned.

Whatever else, at least this time her transformation looked… normal.