A Success, but Not Quite

Irene looked thoroughly heartbroken. Yu Sheng cast a glance at the "masterpiece" he had spent hours shaping, then put himself in her shoes. He felt that if his own soul ever departed his body and had to squeeze into a shell like this to come back to life, he would probably break down in tears too... Still, Irene's reaction bruised Yu Sheng's pride a little. Forcing down his embarrassment, he kept a straight face as he looked at the doll in the oil painting and tried his best to appear earnest. "I really tried my best here. Look, at the very least, the eyes are symmetrical..." At that, Irene genuinely burst into tears. "But the head isn't!" Yu Sheng averted his gaze. "Uh... well, I am a bit out of practice. I'll definitely do better next time. Practice makes perfect, practice makes perfect..." "Let's not have a next time," Irene said, waving her hand in complete despair. Then, perhaps remembering that today was the hard-won day of her escape and that she ought to be happy, she tugged hard at the corners of her mouth in an attempt to smile—only to fail. In the end, a thousand unspoken thoughts condensed into a single sigh. "Ah, well, at least it's a body. I can feel that the connection has already been established. Fine, it'll do." Taking a soft breath, she hopped down from the chair in the oil painting and took two steps forward. Then, as if remembering something, she looked down at the plush teddy bear clutched in her hand. After standing silently for a few seconds, she gave the little bear a tight squeeze, turned around, and placed it back on the chair, as if bidding it farewell. Yu Sheng asked curiously, "You don't want the bear?" "I can't bring it out. It's... another entity sealed inside this painting, and its consciousness faded long ago. I don't even know where it came from," Irene said, gently shaking her head as she patted the teddy bear on the head. "It can only stay in here. But I won't throw this painting away, so it's practically the same as keeping it by my side." "Oh." Yu Sheng nodded, then watched Irene's next moves with a mixture of nervousness and curiosity. He was very curious about how the doll would ultimately "come out" of the oil painting, and how she would "come alive" using that currently hideous clay doll vessel on the table as a container. Then, he saw Irene inside the oil painting begin to... dissolve! The scene was bizarre and eerie. Irene suddenly looked like a wax figure being roasted over an open flame. Her entire body gradually melted, losing all color and detail in the blink of an eye. In just a few short seconds, she turned into a softening pitch-black substance that collapsed within the frame, seeped over the lower edge of the picture frame bit by bit, and began flowing out onto the tabletop! A faint hissing sound rose from the table, as if it were being rapidly corroded by some potent acid. The pitch-black substance flowing out of the frame initially looked like thick mud, but quickly thinned to the consistency of water. A second later, it transformed into a clinging, persistent black mist that began drifting and swirling around the clay doll body on the table, gradually seeping into the lifeless clay. Yu Sheng stared wide-eyed at the scene. Whether it was an illusion or not, he sensed a... chill from that drifting, eerie black mist. If he hadn't watched with his own eyes as Irene turned into this mist, he would have thought this thing was profoundly sinister and dangerous; the whole scene gave off an utterly wicked vibe. Yet even knowing the truth, he still found the black mist exceptionally eerie. That lingering chill felt like malice seeping into this world from some distant, dark abyss, completely clashing with Irene's usual carefree, harmless demeanor. Yu Sheng shook his head, brushing the random thoughts aside. Watching the black mist accelerate its permeation into the clay, a few ridiculous ideas suddenly popped into his head— What would happen if he blew a breath at the mist right now? Or what if he reached out and poked it? Irene would probably curse him out with some truly nasty words... In the end, Yu Sheng suppressed the impulse to mess around. Right at that moment, the mist's absorption swiftly reached its conclusion. The doll on the table began undergoing visible changes. The clay figure, so crude it could only be described as grotesque, seemed suddenly endowed with the traits of a living creature. Its rough surface became smooth in the blink of an eye, and its crooked limbs quickly balanced and reorganized themselves. It took on the texture and color of human skin, and the skewed facial features melted into the head before regenerating from within the clay mass, gradually surfacing on the face... Yu Sheng thought for a moment and felt that out of politeness and respect, he ought to turn around. Before he could turn away, however, an exquisite black dress seemed to "grow" out from within the doll's body like a part of its flesh and blood, covering the surface of Irene's frame. *Mimicry?* The word surfaced instinctively in Yu Sheng's mind. Right then, he suddenly felt a certain... connection between himself and Irene. The sensation was fleeting. Before he could even tell whether that sleep-talking murmur was Irene's voice or not, the connection sank into silence. Yu Sheng frowned, recalling the drops of blood he had mixed into the clay when sculpting the doll's body earlier. He suspected that the brief connection had something to do with that. A sudden worry struck him: his blood seemed rather unusual. Could that affect Irene's "rebirth"? Soon, however, that concern was dispelled. The fully reshaped doll lay quietly on the table, her skin fair as a human's, her hair dark as ink, her exquisite face resembling a work of art. Under Yu Sheng's slightly tense gaze, the doll's eyelashes fluttered softly. Then, those eyes finally drifted open. The crimson irises stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment before lighting up with vitality in the next second. Irene clumsily raised both hands and looked at them with disbelief. She slowly clenched her fingers into fists and opened them again, as if feeling the texture of the air. After a daze of several seconds, the doll slowly broke into a smile, though her expression carried an intense wave of emotion, as if she were holding back tears. Yu Sheng's voice sounded from beside her. "Congratulations, Irene." "Yeah!" Irene pressed her hands against the tabletop, pushed herself up with effort, and stood shakily on the table. Only then did she turn with a radiant smile toward Yu Sheng, opening her arms wide as if to offer a hug. "I'm alive! Yu Sheng! Tha—" Miss Doll stopped abruptly. As if belatedly realizing something, she froze with her arms outstretched, staring blankly at Yu Sheng beside the table. Yu Sheng: "...?" Irene slowly tilted her head back. "Why do you look... so tall?" Yu Sheng gave it some thought. "Could it be because you're short?" Irene froze for a second, then snapped her head down to look at her body before looking over at the desk lamp sitting not far away. She gasped sharply, pattered over on her feet, and held out a hand to measure the height between her head and the lamp. Then, her neck turned stiffly back. Yu Sheng began to sense that something was wrong. "Why..." Irene murmured with glazed eyes, muttering to herself. "Why am I so short..." "Uh... doll size, you know, the large ones," Yu Sheng said, starting to panic internally while keeping a tight poker face. "I mean like those one-third scale dolls... wait, did something go wrong?!" "... Screw your one-third scale! A person, a standard-sized human! Living dolls are the same size as humans! I'm one meter sixty-seven!" Irene, the little doll no taller than the desk lamp, hopped up and down on the table, yelling, "Where are my long legs?! Huh?! Huh?! Why am I the same height as this desk lamp right now?! I... I can't even reach that chair next to the table!" Yu Sheng was entirely dumbfounded, but immediately felt something wasn't quite right. "Wait, that doesn't make sense. You were watching me sculpt the body earlier. You could see the size yourself. Why didn't you say anything back then?" The little doll hopping around on the table froze upon hearing this, once again catching on belatedly. "Hey, that's right... I was watching..." Pattering over to the center of the concentric circles where the doll's vessel had been made, she looked back at the oil painting she had previously inhabited. She racked her brain, and vague memories began surfacing in her mind. "Right... right, your method was fine. The clay vessel was just a medium to temporarily house my soul... Even if the size was a bit off, my soul should have adjusted it when reshaping the body..." Standing on the table, Irene muttered to herself, now looking down in contemplation, now looking up at the ritual setup around them, pinching her current body from time to time as she babbled continuously. "Because the size difference was too big? So the adjustment was limited? No, that's not right either... Even with limits, there should have been some change... No way it would end up only as tall as a desk lamp..." Irene measured against her head with her hand, then jumped up and down on the spot several times, seemingly trying to make herself taller through this futile effort. Naturally, it didn't work. "So... did something go wrong with the ritual after all?" Yu Sheng asked cautiously from the side, watching nervously. "The body wasn't adjusted properly during reshaping? That shouldn't be my fault, right...?" Irene looked up, and the look of grief, indignation, and impending tears on her face gave Yu Sheng quite a fright. "Ruler." The doll, no taller than a desk lamp, reached her hand out toward Yu Sheng, her voice grinding through clenched teeth. "What for?" "To measure my height!" "Oh," Yu Sheng muttered, hurrying down to the second floor to grab a tape measure. In truth, he had initially wanted to grab a straight ruler—but he figured if Irene saw a ruler, she might literally fly over and bite him, so he didn't dare. A moment later, Irene stood straight on the table with an old book balanced on her head. Beside her, Yu Sheng pulled out the tape measure and measured the little doll's height. Irene secretly tilted the book upward a bit, only for Yu Sheng to press it flat with his hand. "H-How tall?" the little doll asked timidly. "... Sixty-six point six centimeters," Yu Sheng said, glancing at the tape measure, his tone tinged with sympathy. "I rounded up as much as I could. I even counted the zero point six centimeters after the decimal point for you." At long last, Irene really burst into tears.