Chapter 40: The Situation is Different from What Was Expected

Irene was crying inconsolably.

Yu Sheng didn't try to comfort her, mainly because he truly didn't know how, and secondly... he was afraid that if he tried to console this doll while she was in such deep sorrow, she might lose her mind from the stimulation and jump up to bite him.

She really did need to jump up to bite people now.

Of course, the good news was that she *could* bite people now; before, inside the painting, she could only chatter away.

After a long while, Irene's sorrow finally subsided a little. Yu Sheng quickly shuffled a few steps toward the table and spoke hesitantly, "So... don't be sad. Next time, I'll make you a new body, a normal-sized one. For now... just make do with this one, okay? If it doesn't work, I'll get you another one tomorrow..."

"I... I can only use this for the time being," Irene said with a sniffle, her face full of indignation, "Let's just leave it at that. Don't bother—even if you make me a new body tomorrow, I won't be able to switch into it immediately. A living doll's soul can't withstand constant changes of containers. It'll take... at least a few months..."

As she spoke, her sorrow surged back, and she looked as if she were about to burst into tears again.

Yu Sheng quickly grabbed a small glass bottle and held it up to Irene's face to catch them.

"What are you doing?" Irene asked, watching Yu Sheng's inexplicable behavior while sniffing.

"Living doll tears," Yu Sheng said seriously. "When I make your next body, I'll strive to use high-grade materials. I'll collect some materials over the next few months, and then I'll make you one that practically glows with golden light..."

Irene thought about it for a moment, then let out a "Wah!": "Yu Sheng, you big jerk... ah—!"

After another long while, the doll's sorrow finally calmed down once more.

Irene crawled onto a stack of old books nearby, sitting on the very top to stare blankly into space and contemplate life. Yu Sheng sat by the table to accompany the doll, contemplating life alongside her.

"At least, at least it's better than before," Irene muttered softly, it was unclear whether she was talking to Yu Sheng or to herself. "At least now I can run around by myself."

"And you can watch TV on your own too," Yu Sheng chimed in quickly. "That's much more convenient than before, right?"

Irene let out a long sigh, seemingly trying to appear solemn and heavy, but because she was so small (66.6cm), the sigh lacked even a hint of gravity.

Yu Sheng turned his head to steal a glance at the current Irene, his gaze falling on her exposed wrists and knees.

The spherical joints characteristic of dolls were particularly striking.

"Even though you used a clay doll as a container, it ended up with these puppet-like ball joints after all," he said thoughtfully.

"Duh, it's an articulated doll. How else am I supposed to move?" Irene shot him a glance. "This is the form recorded in my soul. So, no matter what the original form of the container was, the body will always become like this after the soul completes its reconstruction—if you don't like ball joints, there's nothing I can do about it."

"Oh, it's not that," Yu Sheng said casually. "But speaking of the form recorded in your soul... your soul still records you being 1.67 meters tall..."

Irene instantly leaped from the stack of books onto Yu Sheng's arm, grabbing his thumb and pulling it upward with all her might: "Can you please stop bringing up things that are clearly broken!!"

Yu Sheng let out a yelp and jumped up, trying to pull the tiny (66.6cm) but incredibly strong doll off his arm while hurriedly explaining, "I'm just curious! Just curious! Where exactly did the reconstruction process go wrong? Your appearance didn't deviate at all, so why did your size shrink so much..."

"How should I know!" Irene was pulled off his arm and was now being held mid-air by her collar. "There shouldn't have been any problems. Everything felt normal during the regeneration process, yet the final size went wrong... Hey! Can you put me down first!"

"Then you have to promise me not to bend my fingers anymore," Yu Sheng said to the doll with a serious face, only putting her back on the table after she nodded.

"Sigh, forget it, there's no use thinking about it so much," Irene sighed again. After pacing a few steps on the table, she shook her head. "I still need to find a way to contact my sisters from the Alice Cottage. If I can go home, they'll surely have a way..."

Hearing this, Yu Sheng grew curious. "You keep mentioning the Alice Cottage and the dolls... where do those sisters of yours usually hang out? Are there any other dolls in this city besides you? By the way, this 'organization' of yours... what do you guys actually do?"

He had wanted to ask these questions for a long time, but with one thorny issue following another recently, he was only now getting the chance to speak.

"Us? We are a race created by the Progenitor of Dolls. Our mission... well, we don't really have a mission. Sometimes we deal with the Otherworld, sometimes we help other organizations handle tricky physical entities, but most of the time, dolls just do what they like," Irene said, reminiscing. "Most of my sisters don't operate in the human world, but there should indeed be contact points in the Boundary City... but I don't remember exactly where they are. And after so many years, the contact methods and people have probably changed..."

She crawled back onto the stack of old books, propping her chin on her hands, and continued slowly through her memories: "When we operate in the human world, we all use disguises. Living dolls look very much like humans, so it's easy to blend into the crowd. This city is so massive; without specific contact methods or finding specific contact persons, it wouldn't be easy to find hidden living dolls just like that..."

Yu Sheng listened from the side. Although he had already suspected that all sorts of strange creatures might be hiding in this city, he still felt a sense of wonder. "Incredible... I always thought the residents of this city were only humans..."

"How is that possible?" Irene rolled her eyes at him. "This is the Boundary."

"The Boundary..." Yu Sheng repeated the word softly.

"Anything can appear in a place like the Boundary. To name one thing, even in this old district, there's a strange fellow like you who thinks he's a human," Irene waved her hand and jumped down from the stack of books. "Let's go downstairs first. I've stayed here long enough. Now that I finally have the ability to move freely, I want to take a good walk around this big house~"

"True," Yu Sheng breathed out, patting his face to perk himself up. "It took me half the day just to mold your body. I'm hungry; I'll go downstairs and make something to eat."

As he spoke, he turned toward the attic exit, only to hear Irene shouting from behind after two steps: "Hey, wait for me! I haven't come down yet!"

Yu Sheng turned around to see Irene taking a few running steps from the table, jumping with all her might onto the creaky old chair, and then climbing to the edge of the chair, using her hands and feet to scramble down the chair leg. It took quite a while before she finally made it successfully to the floor...

Yu Sheng: "..."

Irene scurried her short little legs to reach Yu Sheng's feet. Only then did she notice the gaze falling on her. She immediately looked up, trying to put her hands on her hips to look dignified: "What are you looking at me for?"

"Nothing," Yu Sheng shook his head. "I just thought you were quite cu... cute."

He almost let the word "cola" slip out.

Irene froze for a moment, not noticing the suspicious pause in his words. "Is... is that so?"

Then she followed Yu Sheng forward. After walking two steps, she reached out to tug at his pants: "By the way, thank you."

Yu Sheng looked down, tugging at his waistband with a puzzled look.

"Thank you for preparing my body. Things were so chaotic just now that I didn't get to thank you properly," Irene said earnestly.

Yu Sheng couldn't help but look the doll (66.6cm) up and down. After a long silence, he finally couldn't hold it back: "Even in this state, you still want to thank me?"

"That's one thing, and this is another. The size issue was due to something going wrong during my own reconstruction, but the body was indeed meticulously prepared for me by you," Irene said, tilting her head up with great solemnity (though it didn't show much). "Even if it's a bit ugly."

"...You didn't have to add that last part."

"A-anyway, what I promised you before is still valid," Irene said hurriedly. "I will help you in the future. Whether it's helping you fight or providing occult assistance, I will be very useful. Even if I find my other sisters in the future and return to the Alice Cottage, I will come back to help you, so..."

She paused there, thinking for a moment.

"So, let's set it at a hundred years first?" She looked at Yu Sheng, confirming cautiously. "You'll probably die of old age by then, right?"

Yu Sheng: "...I'll do my best."

"Then let's set it at a hundred years for now," Irene smiled happily, her mood suddenly lifting for some reason. She then turned around, scurrying her short legs toward the attic exit. "Then let's hurry downstairs—"

Her voice cut off abruptly. She suddenly pitched forward like a puppet whose strings had been cut, tumbling a long distance from her running momentum until she slammed into the opposite wall.

The smile on Yu Sheng's face froze the moment Irene flew out.

"Wh... What the hell?!"

He was stunned for a second, then rushed to Irene's side in a few strides, bending down to pick the little doll up from the floor.

The doll's eyes were tightly shut, and her entire body was limp. The limbs that had possessed warmth just a second ago were now as cold as ordinary clay; only her skin maintained a soft, living texture, yet there was no sense of life within.

Yu Sheng was completely dazed.

Then, he heard Irene's voice coming from the large table not far away—

"Yu Sheng! I... I'm back inside!"