Irene wept her heart out.
Yu Sheng made no move to comfort her. First, he honestly had no idea what to say, and second... he was afraid that if she grew hysterical from grief, any attempt to soothe her might push her over the edge and make her leap up to bite him.
At her current size, she truly would have to leap just to bite someone.
Of course, the good news was that she could bite at all now; back when she was trapped in the painting, running her mouth had been her only option.
Only after a long while did Irene's despair begin to subside even slightly. Yu Sheng quickly took two steps toward the table and spoke up hesitantly. "Uh... don't be sad. Next time I'll make you a new body, a normal-sized one. For now... you'll just have to make do with this, all right? If that won't do, I can make another tomorrow..."
"F-For now, I'm stuck with this one," Irene sniveled, looking both tragic and indignant. "Leave it be for now. Don't bother—even if you made me a new body tomorrow, I wouldn't be able to switch into it yet. A living doll's soul can't handle constantly swapping vessels. It takes... at least a few months..."
As she spoke, fresh sorrow welled up inside her, and she looked ready to burst into tears again.
Yu Sheng hurriedly produced a small glass vial and held it up to Irene's face to catch them.
"What are you doing?" Irene sniffled, staring at his bizarre behavior.
"Tears of a living doll," Yu Sheng replied with utter seriousness. "Next time I make you a body, we'll try for premium materials. I'll spend the next few months gathering supplies and craft you one that practically glows gold..."
Irene thought about that for a second, then wailed, "Yu Sheng, you bastard... waaah!"
It was quite some time before the doll's heartbreak subsided once more.
Irene climbed onto the nearby stack of old books and sat on top, staring blankly into space as she contemplated life. Yu Sheng sat beside the table to keep her company, contemplating life right along with her.
"At least... at least it's better than before," Irene mumbled softly, whether to Yu Sheng or to herself. "At least I can run around on my own now."
"You can watch television on your own, too," Yu Sheng quickly chimed in. "Much more convenient than before, right?"
Irene let out a long sigh, seemingly trying to sound solemn and heavy-hearted, but because she was so small—all of 66.6 centimeters—the sigh did not sound even remotely heavy.
Yu Sheng stole a glance at Irene, his gaze drifting to her exposed wrists and knees.
The doll-like ball joints stood out conspicuously.
"Even though you used a clay doll as your vessel, you still ended up with ball joints like a puppet," he remarked thoughtfully.
"No kidding. It's an articulated doll. How else am I supposed to move without joints?" Irene gave him a sidelong glare. "This is the form recorded in my soul. No matter what shape the vessel originally had, once the soul finishes reshaping it, the body ends up like this. If you don't like ball joints, there's nothing I can do about it."
"Oh, it's not that," Yu Sheng replied casually. "Though speaking of what's recorded in your soul... didn't your soul also record that you were originally one point six seven meters tall...?"
In a flash, Irene leaped from the stack of books straight onto Yu Sheng's arm, grabbing his thumb with all her might and wrenching it upward. "Can you not poke right where it hurts?!"
Yu Sheng let out a yelp and sprang to his feet, frantically trying to pry the tiny—yet astonishingly strong—doll off his arm while hurriedly explaining himself. "I was just curious! Just curious! Where did the reshaping process go wrong? Your appearance didn't change at all, so why did your size shrink so much...?"
"How should I know?!" Irene had been peeled off his arm and was now dangling in midair by her collar. "Nothing was supposed to go wrong! The regeneration felt completely normal the whole time, but in the end, the size was completely off... Hey! Can you put me down first?!"
"Only if you promise not to bend my fingers backward again," Yu Sheng said with a stern look, holding her by the collar. Only when she nodded did he place her back on the table.
"Ugh, whatever. Overthinking it won't help anyway." Irene sighed again, pacing back and forth across the table before shaking her head. "I still need to find a way to contact my sisters from Alice's Cottage. If I can get home, they'll definitely have a solution..."
Yu Sheng grew curious at her words. "You keep mentioning Alice's Cottage and the other dolls... Where are these sisters of yours usually? Are there other dolls in this city besides you? Come to think of it, what does this 'organization' of yours actually do?"
He had wanted to ask these questions for a while, but one thorny problem after another had kept cropping up, and only now had he finally found the chance.
"Us? We're a race created by the Ancestor of the Dolls. As for our mission... there isn't really much of one. Sometimes we deal with foreign domains, and sometimes we help other organizations handle troublesome entities, but most of the time the dolls just do whatever they enjoy," Irene recalled aloud. "Most of my sisters don't operate in the human world, but there should definitely be a contact point in Jiecheng... Exactly where, I don't remember. And after so many years, the contact methods and liaisons have probably changed anyway..."
She climbed back onto the stack of old books, resting her chin on her hands as she continued reminiscing. "Whenever we operate in the human world, we use disguises. Living dolls look a lot like humans, so it's easy for us to blend into a crowd. This city is so vast that without a specific contact method or finding a designated liaison, stumbling across a hidden living doll won't be easy..."
Listening beside her, Yu Sheng still found it incredible, even though he had already guessed the city might harbor all sorts of strange individuals. "Unbelievable... I always thought the only residents in this city were humans..."
"How could that be?" Irene rolled her eyes at him. "This is the boundary zone."
"The boundary zone..." Yu Sheng murmured the words softly.
"Anything can turn up in a place like the boundary zone. For that matter, doesn't an old quarter like this hide an odd fellow who thinks he's a human, just like you?" Irene waved a hand and hopped down from the books. "Let's head downstairs first. I've spent enough time up here. Now that I finally have the freedom to move, I want to explore this big house properly~"
"Fair enough." Yu Sheng exhaled and patted his cheeks to wake himself up. "Sculpting that body took half the day, and I'm starving. Let's head downstairs and make something to eat."
With that, he turned and walked toward the attic exit, only to hear Irene shout from behind after just a couple of steps. "Hey, wait for me! I haven't gotten down yet!"
Yu Sheng looked back to see Irene take a short running start on the table, leap forcefully onto the creaky old chair, scramble to the edge, and slide down the chair leg with all four limbs. It took her quite a while to finally reach the floor safely...
Yu Sheng: "..."
Pumping her short little legs, Irene scurried over to Yu Sheng's feet. Only then did she notice him watching her. She promptly tilted her head back and planted her hands on her hips, doing her best to look imposing. "What are you staring at?"
"Nothing," Yu Sheng said, shaking his head. "Just... you're kind of c-cute."
He had nearly blurted out "comical."
Irene blinked, failing to catch his suspicious hesitation. "R-Really?"
She then walked alongside Yu Sheng. After a couple of steps, she reached out and tugged at his pant leg. "By the way, thank you."
Yu Sheng looked down, hitching up his waistband with a puzzled expression.
"Thank you for preparing a body for me. Things were so chaotic earlier that I didn't thank you properly," Irene said with complete earnestness.
Yu Sheng could not help looking the 66.6-centimeter doll up and down. After holding it in for a long moment, he could not resist asking, "Even after ending up like this, you're still thanking me?"
"One thing has nothing to do with the other. The size issue is just something going wrong on my end during the reshaping, but you genuinely put your heart into preparing this body for me," Irene said, looking up with solemn dignity—though she did not look particularly dignified. "Even if it is a bit ugly."
"...You could have left that last part out."
"A-Anyway, what I promised you earlier still stands," Irene hurried to say. "I'll help you from now on. Whether you need a hand in a fight or occult assistance, I'll be very useful. Even if I find my sisters later and return to Alice's Cottage, I'll come back to help you. Let's just..."
She paused there to think for a moment.
"Let's set it at a hundred years for now?" she asked, checking cautiously. "You should be dead of old age by then, right?"
Yu Sheng: "...I'll do my best."
"Then a hundred years it is!" Irene broke into a delighted smile, her mood inexplicably turning radiant. She turned around and scurried toward the attic exit on her short little legs. "Then let's hurry downst—"
Her voice cut off abruptly.
She pitched forward violently, like a marionette whose strings had been snapped. The momentum sent her tumbling a long distance across the floor until she crashed into the far wall.
The smile on Yu Sheng's face froze the instant she flew forward.
"What... holy shit?!"
Stunned for a second, he rushed over in a few strides, knelt down, and scooped the little doll up from the floor.
The doll's eyes were shut tight, her entire body limp and lifeless. Her limbs, which had carried warmth only a second ago, were now as cold as ordinary clay. Only the skin retained its soft, supple texture, yet not a shred of life could be felt within.
Yu Sheng was utterly dumbfounded.
Then, Irene's voice drifted over from the large table not far away—
"Yu Sheng! I... I'm back inside!"
Chapter 40