Chapter 38: Shaping

The kitchen doorknob turned, and then the door pushed open silently. Yu Sheng walked out from the doorway carrying several large shopping bags, greeting the stunned Irene nearby: "I'm back."

Irene's eyes were wide, clearly unable to process what was happening at once: "Didn't you go out to buy things? How did you come from..."

She suddenly stopped, as if she had realized something.

"No way! You went to a mall and you still have to 'open a door' to get home!?"

"I thought about it," Yu Sheng said to Irene with a look of pride. "Since this door doesn't just lead to the Otherworld, but can also lead to a certain 'distance' in reality, there's no reason it shouldn't be able to go to closer places. By the way, I also tested carrying objects and living things through this door. It seems as long as the door remains stable, they can all pass through smoothly..."

Irene was left dazed, her curiosity piqued by the words "living things": "Living things?! Where did you get living things? From where?"

Yu Sheng held out his hand: "Before I came back, I caught a mosquito..."

Irene: "...?"

The doll lady gained a brand-new understanding of Yu Sheng's creativity, and her attention inevitably shifted to the several large shopping bags he had brought back.

At first glance, she saw a box of Eight Treasure Porridge among them.

Yu Sheng began emptying the shopping bags, setting aside the box of porridge first, and then showed the rest of the items to Irene: "I bought lightweight clay. Because I bought a huge amount, the shop gave me some tools for free, but I probably won't need them; those are for making small dolls. To make a body for you, I'll need this—I bought a rolling pin...

"Over here is hair and paint. I bought good quality ones; they might not be the most expensive, but they're close enough.

"Oh, right, I couldn't find suitable clothes for you. Do you think..."

"No need," Irene waved her hand. She watched Yu Sheng unload the items, her face now filled with anticipation and excitement. "I can 'shape' the clothes myself. As I said, this body is mainly a medium and a temporary vessel... Wow, that's a lot of stuff. Yu Sheng, you really put a lot of heart into this, didn't you?"

"Nonsense. If I'm going to do it once, I might as well do it right," Yu Sheng said, but then he frowned and shook his head. "But to be honest, it's still not complete. I heard there are clay drying ovens and various types of putty, softening oils, primers, makeup tools, and so on. But from what I saw, they were either only for small dolls or things I couldn't learn in a short amount of time. And I have another problem: clay needs time to dry. Without a drying oven, half a day won't be enough for large components to dry and harden..."

"It's fine, none of that matters. As long as we can make a frame," Irene seemed to be in an excellent mood, her tone incredibly soft when speaking to Yu Sheng. "The important part is the ritual. Yes, the ritual part—otherwise, I could have just told you to buy a ready-made doll, no need for all this trouble."

"That works then," Yu Sheng breathed a sigh of relief and began sorting the large pile of items into categories. "Let's go to the attic. It's spacious up there and has a large table."

Irene nodded vigorously, but suddenly, she noticed another bag of items nearby that looked somewhat familiar.

"...What is this bag of lotus roots for?" the doll lady asked, her face full of question marks.

Yu Sheng's movements paused. He looked up at Irene, then looked down at the bag of lotus roots, and after two seconds, he gave a dry, awkward laugh: "Well, you see, this is a backup plan in case my craftsmanship is too 'outdated.' This is how I understand it..."

Irene tilted her head and thought for a long time before finally catching up to Yu Sheng's logic. She practically leaped from her red velvet chair: "No way!"

"No?" Yu Sheng said, sounding a bit disappointed. "I thought these lotus roots were shaped perfectly; I spent ages picking them."

"Of course not!" Irene's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "Let me tell you, pre-packaged meals are bad enough, but if you try to serve me 'pre-fabricated parts,' I'm going to have a serious problem..."

"Alright, alright," Yu Sheng sighed, carrying the bag of lotus roots to the kitchen. "I'll use them to make lotus root pork rib rolls later, then."

Irene suddenly had a bad feeling. She felt that her journey of escape today might not go as smoothly as she had imagined...

But Yu Sheng, on the contrary, was full of confidence. Having organized the tools and materials needed to shape the doll's body, he picked up the items with one hand, tucked Irene's picture frame under his arm, and reached for the kitchen doorknob.

Irene reacted quickly this time: "...Are you really going to 'open a door' just to go to the attic!?"

Yu Sheng thought about it and felt that he was being perhaps a bit too lazy, so he gave an embarrassed smile and, carrying the materials and Irene, turned toward the stairs leading upstairs.

The house had a large attic located above the second floor. Calling it an attic was a bit of a misnomer; it was more like a separate floor that had to be partitioned off because the ceiling height during construction was too high. Its area was about half the size of the second floor, and it had two street-facing windows and one skylight—which was why, from the outside, the house appeared to have three stories.

Aside from cleaning, Yu Sheng rarely went to the attic.

Because there was almost nothing there. Aside from a large table that seemed to have been placed there because there was nowhere else to put it, there were only two creaky old chairs. Whenever it was night or a cloudy day with poor lighting, the overly empty attic always felt eerily, almost frighteningly, desolate.

But now, it was perfectly suited to serve as the "workshop" for shaping Irene's body.

After two trips, Yu Sheng had brought everything to the large table in the attic: some tools he found in the second-floor storage room that might be useful, an old desk lamp, and all the various strange things Irene requested for the "ritual."

Irene's picture frame was placed in a corner of the table, leaning against a stack of old books used as a temporary stand. She watched Yu Sheng busily running back and forth in silence, appearing more quiet than ever before, though it was impossible to tell what she was thinking.

Yu Sheng sat at the large table. The old chair let out a creak as he clumsily handled the clay and spatulas, beginning to try and familiarize himself with their "properties."

Irene suddenly broke the silence: "Yu Sheng."

"Hmm?"

"I'm really going to come out of this painting, aren't I?"

"Yeah, if everything goes smoothly."

"...I didn't think such a day would actually come," Irene muttered softly. "Actually, I hadn't expected it for many years..."

"Suddenly feeling sentimental about this now?" Yu Sheng looked up at the doll in the painting, who seemed to have suddenly become quite melancholy.

Sitting in her chair, Irene slowly rocked her body while hugging a teddy bear: "It's nothing. I just wanted to thank you."

"Save the thanks for after we succeed," Yu Sheng breathed out softly, seemingly trying to ease a bit of the tension in his heart. "Now tell me, what's the first step?"

"Candles. Place them at the four corners of the table, then light one and place it next to my frame—the basic torso must be completed before the candles burn out."

Irene's expression became serious as she began to guide Yu Sheng on how to use a collection of everyday materials to complete the shaping of the "living doll" vessel.

This was the first time she was imparting this knowledge from "Alice's Cottage" to a... "human."

"Draw three concentric circles on the table. Their area will be your workspace. Then, extend a line from each of the four corner candles so that they intersect at the center of the concentric circles... Try to draw them as round as possible... Forget it, just don't draw them as squares...

"Write my name in the center of the circle: I-R-E-N-E, in the common language of the Old World... Ah, you don't know it. Find a piece of paper first, and I'll tell you how to write it. You absolutely cannot misspell this.

"Additionally, I need your blood. Just a little bit, mixed into the clay, and then mix in the pre-prepared tea powder and rose oil. Don't add too much, or it will affect the molding—place the prepared clay ball in front of me first, and I will guide the first 'infusion of spirit'."

Irene gave instructions one by one, and Yu Sheng executed them meticulously. A serene and focused atmosphere gradually enveloped the attic. The usual bickering between them was gone, replaced by a growing, unspoken coordination.

...Actually, it wasn't that coordinated; Irene mostly relied on her broad-mindedness, and Yu Sheng mostly relied on his confidence.

The process was more exhausting than Yu Sheng had initially imagined, not just physically, but mentally as well.

He could feel that the "ritual" Irene mentioned was gradually taking effect. The arrangements he didn't understand were beginning to operate according to some "laws" and "powers" beyond his comprehension. As an ordinary person performing such a "ritual" for the first time—even though most of the infusion process was completed by Irene—Yu Sheng felt a sense of "spiritual drain."

But this was a situation Irene had warned him about before the ritual began, so Yu Sheng did not panic. Instead, he maintained his state as much as possible, completing every step Irene required with as much precision as he could manage.

A doll's body was gradually taking shape in his hands.

It was rough, crude, crooked, and even the two legs were of different lengths—the arm had even snapped once and had to be reattached with wire and water.

Yu Sheng felt that he might not have any talent for this.

But regardless, everything was finally nearing its end.

"You can extinguish the last candle now," Irene said, gazing calmly at the body on the table, her expression more solemn and serious than ever before. "Then, place me directly in front of the body, at the position of the head."

"Okay," Yu Sheng said casually as he stood up to complete the process. "And then?"

"Then I need one minute to comfort myself and steady my resolve..."

Yu Sheng: "...Why?"

Irene looked like she was about to cry: "Because it's so fucking ugly... Even if I can be reshaped, looking at it right now is just too fucking ugly."

(End of Chapter)