Chapter 41: The Free Doll

Yu Sheng was completely stunned.

The moment he saw Eileen suddenly “lose connection” and fall, he even thought for a second that this doll had suddenly died from using a shoddy body—thankfully, the voice that came from behind him in time cut off that terrifying thought.

With Eileen’s empty shell still in his hand, Yu Sheng stiffly raised his head to look at the large table where he had been working with the clay.

The classical oil painting with its ornate frame was resting quietly against the edge of the table, and Eileen was inside it, eyes wide open, looking over with a flustered expression.

“I, I don’t know what happened either!” Noticing Yu Sheng’s gaze, Eileen immediately waved her hands frantically. “One second I was running forward, then the next thing I knew, I was back here. What’s going on… what…”

A slightly harsh, low-pitched snicker came from the frame, as if mocking, yet also carrying a hint of sympathy.

It was from the plush teddy bear. This time, Yu Sheng finally saw it laughing with his own eyes.

Eileen’s temper couldn’t handle that. She immediately jumped up, rushed over to the chair covered in red velvet, grabbed the teddy bear lying on it, and shook it by the neck, shouting, “You’re still laughing! You’re still laughing! Did you do this! I’m back again now!”

But the mindless teddy bear couldn’t respond. It just kept giggling in Eileen’s hands, making the doll even angrier.

Seeing this, Yu Sheng quickly stepped forward, preparing to calm the doll girl in the painting. “Hey, don’t get so agitated. Let’s think of a way…”

He was only halfway through when the doll girl, who had been putting the teddy bear in a headlock, attempting a shoulder throw, and trying an armbar (all three failed), suddenly vanished from the painting. Then Yu Sheng felt the doll body in his hand jerk violently. Before he could react, the 66.6-centimeter-tall little thing latched onto his arm, instinctively executing the three-move combo of headlock (failed), shoulder throw (failed), and armbar (failed).

But she was quite strong. The grip hurt Yu Sheng’s arm.

Yu Sheng had to forcefully peel Eileen off his arm and hold her up in front of him, shaking her gently. “Wake up, wake up. It’s me, Yu Sheng. You’re out again.”

Eileen gradually came to her senses. Hanging in the air, she looked around blankly, her gaze finally focusing on Yu Sheng’s face. “...Huh?”

Then they both looked up at the painting not far away, falling into a daze and deep thought at the same time.

A moment later, Yu Sheng silently carried Eileen backward until he reached the spot where she had fallen earlier. As he took his last step back, the doll body in his hand went limp as if the power had been cut, all life fading.

Eileen’s form suddenly appeared in the painting. She glanced around, then looked up blankly at Yu Sheng. “I’m back. So it really is…”

Yu Sheng casually raised the lifeless doll body in his hand toward the painting, bringing it closer.

Then the body instantly came back to life, as if the “power cut” had never happened. Eileen’s voice came from it, continuing the half-finished sentence from the painting: “…a matter of distance?”

“It seems so.” Yu Sheng frowned slightly, watching this. He moved the doll farther away, and saw the body go limp again. Eileen’s voice came from the painting: “Then this is…”

Yu Sheng brought the doll closer again.

Eileen: “…a bit troublesome… Can you stop playing around! You’ve split me into pieces in the middle of one sentence!”

Yu Sheng sheepishly brought Eileen to a spot close to the painting, explaining as he did, “I just wanted to confirm how far this ‘signal’ range of yours is exactly.”

“What difference does five or six meters make? It’s just a couple of steps at most!” Eileen, being held by the collar, flailed about. Then she suddenly felt something was wrong, looked up at Yu Sheng with wide eyes, “Put me down! Why are you holding me all the time!”

Hearing that, Yu Sheng quickly placed the increasingly irritated doll lady on the ground. Then they stared at each other, eyes wide.

Eileen realized she had to tilt her head back almost ninety degrees just to talk to Yu Sheng.

But her dignity wouldn’t allow her to ask Yu Sheng to squat down to talk to her—even if he did squat, she’d still have to look up.

“Stay right there,” the doll suddenly said.

Yu Sheng was startled. “What are you going to do?”

The next second, he understood what Eileen intended—she directly grabbed his leg and started climbing up like a tree, scrambling up in two or three moves as agile as a monkey, then sat directly on his shoulder.

Yu Sheng was a little stunned but didn’t dare move, afraid of dropping Eileen. “I didn’t agree to this…”

Eileen said with righteous indignation, “You didn’t ask for my agreement when you held me up to test the signal just now.”

Yu Sheng had nothing to say to that.

The two returned to the large table and started studying the oil painting.

“I definitely came out. I can feel my ‘soul’ is in this new body now,” Eileen said, frowning, looking at her former “prison” with a conflicted expression. “But…”

“But based on what we’ve seen, this painting still seems to be your ‘foundation.’ Your current body is like a remote-controlled puppet that loses signal beyond a certain distance.” Yu Sheng spoke plainly, sharing his observation.

Eileen lowered her head, looking especially dejected.

But this time, she didn’t cry—probably because the series of blows had been so heavy that she’d built up a brain-dead level of emotional resistance in a short time.

Seeing how calm the doll was, Yu Sheng panicked instead and quickly tried to comfort her. “Don’t be too pessimistic either. Maybe it’s just this body that isn’t good enough. I’ll practice my skills, and next time I rebuild your body…”

“Tell me,” Eileen suddenly interrupted Yu Sheng’s rambling, a complex expression on her little doll face that made it impossible to tell what she was feeling at that moment. “If someone runs around carrying their own prison, is that an escape or not?”

Yu Sheng was taken aback. After thinking for a moment, he said, “I once read about someone who ran around carrying his own prison. In the end, it didn’t end well for him. But he was *inside* his prison. At least you’re on the outside…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eileen muttered. Then she jumped off Yu Sheng’s shoulder, landed on the table, and walked over to the oil painting that had sealed her. She reached out, grabbed the frame with both hands, lifted it slightly, then set it down. She turned around and tried to carry it on her back.

But the painting was large—though easy for Yu Sheng to lift with one hand, for Eileen it was almost as tall as she was.

“…Do you have any rope at home?” the doll asked, looking up.

“Yes!” Yu Sheng nodded immediately. “Wait a moment. I’ll go get it right away!”

Ten minutes later, Eileen watched as Yu Sheng carefully tied knots on the oil painting’s frame and adjusted the strap positions. When the preparations were about done, she stepped forward. “I think it’s ready.”

“Go ahead, give it a try.” Yu Sheng nodded and stood the frame upright, watching as Eileen somewhat clumsily slipped her arms through the shoulder straps. “How is it? Are the straps in the right position? Do you need them tighter?”

Eileen tugged at the straps on her shoulders, then walked around the table twice with the painting on her back. She nodded in satisfaction. “No need. It fits perfectly!”

“Is it heavy?”

“Not heavy at all! I’m very strong!” Eileen said, hopping up and down on the spot on the table while carrying the painting, then started jogging around the table’s edge.

A tiny doll (66.6 cm) running around on a table carrying an oil painting frame almost as tall as herself—the sight was, to say the least… a bit strange.

But watching this, Yu Sheng slowly began to smile.

Because he saw that Eileen was also smiling. The doll seemed to have shaken off her earlier bad mood and was gradually becoming happy.

She was more optimistic than he had imagined.

“It’s still pretty light!” Eileen stopped at the edge of the table and said to Yu Sheng with a smile. “This way, I don’t have to worry about the ‘distance’ limit anymore. How clever am I!”

“You sure are optimistic,” Yu Sheng said with genuine admiration. “I thought you’d be depressed for a while.”

“People have to look forward—and dolls too,” Eileen said happily, jumping off the table. She climbed back up Yu Sheng’s arm to his shoulder—this time not as agile as before because she had to be careful about the painting frame on her back to avoid bumping into the chair or hitting Yu Sheng’s head. “Compared to before, at least I can move freely now. So what if I have to carry it around? It just so happens that the guy left in the painting probably doesn’t want me to go too far anyway… Let’s go, let’s go. Let’s go downstairs. You haven’t had dinner yet. I want to watch TV!”

Yu Sheng was momentarily stunned. He turned his head slightly, looking at the doll out of the corner of his eye. She was wearing a beaming smile, seemingly full of anticipation for the future.

“Okay. Time to cook,” he said, supporting Eileen with one hand as he got up from the chair. “And tonight, we’ll start researching that passage back to the valley.”

“Mm.” Eileen was also full of fighting spirit, her face bright with a brilliant smile. She raised her hand and pointed forward with great vigor. “Giddyup!”

Yu Sheng immediately lifted the little doll off his shoulder again. “I’m going to throw you down.”

Eileen immediately curled up. “No, no! The mood was just right there…”

Yu Sheng shook his head with a wry smile, put the doll back on his shoulder, adjusted her, and walked forward.

Outside the window, night was already falling. The streetlights in the old town lit up one by one in the dusk, casting a hazy, warm glow over the old streets and alleys, seeping through the windows and spreading a peaceful stillness.

“Hey, Yu Sheng, it’s completely dark outside.”

“Yeah.”

“Hehe… I’m kind of looking forward to it…”

“Looking forward to what? Nightfall?”

“No, just looking forward to it. Nothing to do with nightfall~”

“…I don’t understand.”

“Tch.”