Chapter 39: Success, but not quite success

Aileen's expression looked quite sorrowful.

Yu Sheng glanced at his "masterpiece" that he had spent several hours sculpting, then put himself in her shoes. He thought that if one day his soul were to leave his body and he had to resurrect inside a vessel like this, he would most likely actually burst into tears...

However, Aileen's reaction still hurt Yu Sheng's feelings a little. Enduring the awkwardness, he kept a straight face while looking at the figure in the oil painting, trying his best to look serious: "I've already worked quite hard. Look, at least the eyes are symmetrical on both sides..."

This time, Aileen actually burst into tears: "But the head isn't symmetrical..."

Yu Sheng turned his face away: "Uh... it is indeed a bit unpracticed. I'll definitely do better next time. Practice makes perfect, practice makes perfect..."

"Let's not have a next time," Aileen waved her hand with a look of utter despair. Then, perhaps feeling that today was the day she had finally managed to escape her confinement and should be happy, she strained the corners of her mouth to force a smile—but failed. Ultimately, her thousand words condensed into a single sigh: "Sigh, at least it's a body. I can indeed feel that the connection has been established. Fine, I'll take it."

She took a soft breath, hopped down from the chair in the oil painting, walked forward a few steps, and then, as if remembering something, looked down at the plush teddy bear she was clutching in her hands.

After standing silently for a few seconds, she gave the bear a forceful hug, turned around, and placed it on the chair, as if saying goodbye.

Yu Sheng was somewhat curious: "You're not taking the bear?"

"I can't bring it out. It... is another individual sealed within this painting; even its consciousness has long since dissipated. I don't even know where it came from," Aileen shook her head gently and reached out to pat the teddy bear's head. "It can only stay in here. But I won't throw this painting away; it's equivalent to keeping it by my side."

"Oh."

Yu Sheng nodded, then watched Aileen's next move with a mix of tension and curiosity.

He was very concerned about how this doll would eventually "come out" of the oil painting, and how she would "come to life" using that currently hideous "doll vessel" on the table as a container.

Then, he saw the Aileen in the oil painting begin to... "dissolve"!

The scene was eerie and terrifying. It was as if Aileen had suddenly become a wax statue being roasted by flames; her entire body gradually entered a molten state, losing all color and detail almost in the blink of an eye. Within a few short seconds, she transformed into a constantly softening black substance that collapsed within the frame, overflowing from the bottom edge and beginning to flow toward the tabletop!

The tabletop made a faint hissing sound, as if it were being rapidly corroded by some kind of strong acid. The black substance flowing from the frame initially resembled thick sludge, then became as thin as water, and in the next second, it transformed into a kind of... unscatterable black mist. It began to drift and undulate around the doll vessel on the table, slowly seeping into the lifeless clay.

Yu Sheng stared wide-eyed at this scene. He wasn't sure if it was an illusion, but he felt a sense of... chill emanating from that floating, eerie black mist.

If he hadn't seen with his own eyes that this mist was transformed from Aileen, he would have absolutely felt that this thing was sinister and dangerous. The entire atmosphere of the scene was profoundly uncanny. But even knowing the truth, he still felt the black mist was exceptionally strange; that lingering chill felt like malice seeping into this world from a distant, pitch-black abyss, which didn't quite match Aileen's usual carefree and harmless demeanor.

Yu Sheng shook his head, casting those miscellaneous thoughts aside. Watching the black mist accelerating its infiltration into the clay, an absurd thought suddenly popped into his mind—

What would happen if he blew on the mist right now? Or if he reached out and poked it?

Aileen would probably curse him out quite harshly...

Yu Sheng ultimately controlled his impulse to meddle, and just then, the infiltration of the mist reached its rapid conclusion.

The doll on the table began to change visibly—this clay figure, which was so crude it could only be described as ugly, seemed to have suddenly been endowed with the characteristics of a living being. The coarse surface became smooth in an instant, and the originally crooked limbs quickly balanced and reorganized themselves. It began to take on the texture and color of skin; the distorted facial features were melted into the head and then re-formed within the clay mass, gradually emerging upon the face...

Yu Sheng thought for a moment and decided that, out of politeness and respect, he should turn his back.

But before he could turn around, he saw an exquisite black western-style dress "growing" out of the doll's body like a part of its flesh, covering the surface of Aileen's body.

Mimicry?

The word subconsciously surfaced in Yu Sheng's mind, and at that moment, he suddenly felt a certain... connection between himself and Aileen.

The feeling was fleeting; before he could even discern whether that dreamlike whisper was truly Aileen's voice, the connection fell into silence.

Yu Sheng frowned, remembering the blood he had added to the clay while sculpting the doll's body; he felt this momentary connection might be related to that.

He suddenly felt a bit worried: his blood seemed somewhat special; would this affect Aileen's "regeneration"?

However, his worry was quickly dispelled.

The completely reshaped doll lay quietly on the table, her skin like a human's, her hair as black as ink, and her exquisite face like a work of art.

Under Yu Sheng's nervous gaze, the doll's eyelashes suddenly fluttered slightly.

Then, those eyes finally slowly opened.

The crimson pupils gazed vacantly at the ceiling, but in the next second, they regained their luster. Aileen clumsily lifted her hands, looking at them with disbelief; she then slowly clenched and unclenched them, as if feeling the texture of the air.

After being stunned for several seconds, the doll slowly began to smile, though the smile seemed to suppress an intense emotion, as if she were about to burst into tears.

Yu Sheng's voice sounded from the side: "Congratulations, Aileen."

"Mm," Aileen reached out to press against the tabletop, using her strength to prop herself up. She stood up on the table unsteadily, then looked at Yu Sheng with a brilliant smile. She spread her arms wide, as if to offer a hug, "I'm alive! Yu Sheng! Tha—"

The doll lady suddenly stopped, as if realizing something belatedly. She remained in that pose with her arms outstretched, staring blankly at Yu Sheng by the table.

Yu Sheng: "...?"

Aileen slowly tilted her head up: "Why do you look... so tall?"

Yu Sheng thought for a moment: "Could it be because you're relatively short?"

Aileen froze, then abruptly looked down at her body, and then looked up at the desk lamp nearby—she suddenly gasped, ran over with pitter-pattering footsteps, and measured the height between her head and the lamp, then turned her neck stiffly.

Yu Sheng began to sense that something was wrong.

"Why..." Aileen's eyes were vacant as she muttered to herself, "Why am I so short..."

"Uh... it's the doll's scale, a large one," Yu Sheng was actually starting to panic by now, but his face remained tightly composed, "I mean, like a 1/3 scale doll... Wait, I got it wrong?!"

"...1/3 my ass! A person, a standard-sized person! A living doll is just like a human! I'm 167cm!" The tiny doll Aileen, who was only as tall as the desk lamp, began to stomp her feet and shout on the table, "Where are my long legs! Huh? Huh?! Why am I as tall as this lamp right now! I... I can't even reach the chair next to me!"

Yu Sheng was completely stunned, but then he felt something else was off: "That's not right. You saw me sculpting the body just now; you could see the dimensions yourself. Why didn't you say anything then?"

The tiny doll jumping around on the table froze upon hearing this, seemingly realizing it once again: "Eh, right, I was watching..."

She pitter-pattered over to the center of the concentric circles where the doll body had been made, looked back at the oil painting she had previously inhabited, and thought hard. Some blurred memories surfaced from her mind.

"Right... right, your operation was fine. The clay vessel was just a medium used to temporarily house the soul... Even if the size was a bit off, my soul should have adjusted during the body reshaping..."

Aileen stood on the table talking to herself, sometimes looking down in thought, sometimes looking up at the ritual arrangements around her, and occasionally pinching her current body, muttering incessantly.

"Because the size difference was too large? So the adjustment was limited? That's not right either... even if it's limited, there should have been some change... there's no way I'd only be as tall as a lamp..."

Aileen reached up to measure her head, then jumped hard in place, as if trying to use this futile method to make herself grow a little taller.

It was obvious that it wouldn't work.

"So... something went wrong with the ritual?" Yu Sheng watched nervously from the side and finally asked cautiously, "The body reshaping didn't adjust properly? That shouldn't be my fault, right..."

Aileen looked up, and the expression of combined grief and indignation on her face startled Yu Sheng.

"A ruler."

The doll, who was only as tall as the lamp, reached out a hand toward Yu Sheng, her voice gritting through her teeth.

"What for?"

"To measure my height!"

Yu Sheng gave an "oh" and quickly ran to the second floor to find a tape measure.

Actually, he had initially wanted to grab a straight ruler—but he felt that if Aileen saw a straight ruler, she might fly up and bite him, so he didn't dare.

A moment later, Aileen stood straight on the table with an old book balanced on her head, while Yu Sheng pulled out the tape measure to measure the tiny doll's height.

Aileen secretly tilted the book a little, only to be pressed back into place by Yu Sheng.

"How... how tall?" the tiny doll asked cautiously.

"...66.6 centimeters," Yu Sheng glanced at the ruler, his tone filled with sympathy, "I tried to calculate it as high as possible; I even included the 0.6 centimeters after the decimal point for you."

Aileen finally burst into real tears.

(End of Chapter)