Chapter 107: Economic Pressure

Hu Li obediently followed Yu Sheng's instructions. Without asking any questions, she took Ai Lin's oil painting, stuffed it into her tail, turned around, and left the room, running toward the attic.

Ai Lin remained on the bed, still holding on to her fantasy. "Hey, Yu Sheng, do you think something miraculous might..."

Before she could finish, the two small puppets simultaneously dimmed their eyes as if their power had been cut off, then fell stiffly onto the bed.

Yu Sheng watched the scene expressionlessly, then looked up at the ceiling at a forty-five-degree angle. "Looks like no."

A few seconds later, he called out, "Hu Li! You can come back now!"

Hurried footsteps sounded from outside, and Hu Li quickly ran back down from the attic. She entered the room, pulled the oil painting frame out of her tail, and handed it to Yu Sheng. "Benefactor! Here you go!"

The two small puppets on the bed abruptly sat up, both looking a bit dazed.

Yu Sheng casually hung the painting on the back of one of them, turning it into P1 Ai Lin.

The result was that as soon as Ai Lin "woke up," instead of immediately lamenting that no miracle had happened, she stared blankly at Hu Li. "Can't you tidy up the inside of your tail?"

Yu Sheng was curious when he heard that. "Huh? You saw inside her tail? What's it look like?"

As soon as he said it, he felt it was a bit strange—like if those words were spoken in any other context, they'd be a grammatical error. But upon careful thought, he couldn't find anything actually wrong with the sentence. The only thing to blame was this rocket-boosted Dora-Li's tail, which was so uniquely bizarre that even describing its function sounded insane.

"It's pitch-black inside, no telling how big it is, and you can't see the edges. In the middle, there's a huge pile of stuff like a garbage mountain, and on top of that pile is nothing but food, including leftovers," Ai Lin gestured as she described what she had seen to Yu Sheng. "When I opened my eyes inside the painting, the first thing I saw was half a box of instant noodles, and inside it was a half-eaten roast chicken..."

"I-I didn't steal it," Hu Li quickly explained, looking very nervous. "I told the Benefactor about it. Same with the leftovers—it seemed a shame to throw them away, so I took them. They won't go bad in my tail anyway."

"Then at least organize it a bit! You can't just pile it up like a garbage dump! Next time you go out to buy something, get a couple of shelves to stuff in your tail. Those supermarket display shelves—they're cheap."

Yu Sheng found the topic getting weirder and weirder, and finally he couldn't help interrupting. "...Why don't we talk about Ai Lin's situation instead?"

Only then did the puppet and the fox girl stop their discussion about whether "mixed cargo and raw-cooked items in the tail met food safety standards" and "whether they should stuff two shelves into a fox demon's tail." They shifted their attention to Ai Lin's two bodies.

"Ahem. It's now confirmed that at least one puppet body needs to stay within five meters of the painting; otherwise, they both disconnect, and Ai Lin's soul returns to the painting," Yu Sheng cleared his throat and began arranging the next test. "Now let's see how far the 'secondary body' can go while the 'main body' carries the painting."

"How are we going to test that? The space at home probably isn't enough," Ai Lin thought for a moment. "Go out? Into the city? But we'd have to avoid ordinary people during the test, which sounds like a pain..."

"So there's a better place than the city." A hint of a smile appeared on Yu Sheng's face.

Before he could continue, Ai Lin immediately caught on. Both puppets said in unison, "The valley!"

"A huge area, far enough from one end to another, and we definitely won't be disturbed by anyone," Yu Sheng nodded. "But before heading over there, we still need to make a trip into town. I need to buy some things."

As soon as he mentioned buying things, Ai Lin seemed unusually excited. Both puppets shuffled to the edge of the bed. "Oh? Going shopping? What are you buying? Clothes? Food? Or are you finally going to buy something for me? Actually, I kind of want to get some new clothes. The set I conjured on myself is fine, but sometimes I want a change... Hey, did you know? This outfit of mine can be changed! It's just that I don't have anything else to wear... And you need to get a new jacket too. That one of yours got covered in blood yesterday, and it has a huge tear. You definitely can't keep it..."

The two puppets chattered on and on. Yu Sheng didn't think much of it at first, but when Ai Lin gradually went from "speaking in unison" to "both talking at once but saying different things," he started to feel something was off. This small puppet was clearly adapting quickly to the state of having two bodies. She began using both mouths to speak in turn, and moments later, both mouths were speaking at the same time but saying different content.

Yu Sheng finally realized, belatedly, that his "spirit of scientific inquiry" might have, quite possibly, perhaps, maybe... caused a problem.

Now there were two of the noisy chatterbox!

"Use only one body to talk! Don't blabber at the same time!" Yu Sheng quickly stopped the puppet's noise. "You're giving me a headache—and from now on, don't do that either!"

"Oh, I was just about to say that I think this way of talking is really efficient," the Ai Lin carrying the painting immediately pouted, then looked up and blinked. "But you still haven't told me what you're going to buy."

"First, I'll buy more food—a couple of cases of instant noodles and vacuum-packed chicken legs as reserves for Hu Li. Then I need to buy some vegetable seeds. And speaking of that, I'll also need to buy some farm tools," Yu Sheng began listing his shopping items one by one, quickly tallying the costs in his head as he spoke. "Oh, right, I also need to go to the building materials market... Or maybe I'll put that off. That expense might be a bit much."

At that, a worried expression appeared on his face. After another big shopping spree, his savings would really be running on empty. He still didn't have a new manuscript in the works, the "inn" hadn't attracted any decent business, and he hadn't seen any payment yet from yesterday's commission with Little Red Riding Hood. Although the other party said the money might arrive as early as today, they had specifically emphasized "as early as."

These days, he was completely living beyond his means—actually, there were no "means" to speak of, only spending.

And the bulk of the expenses were on Hu Li. At least clothes and daily necessities were a one-time cost, but feeding her every day was a different story.

Yet Yu Sheng had to admit that every cent spent on Hu Li's food wasn't wasted. After all, twenty chicken legs and a single tail might sound like a lot, but to put it another way, where else could you get the price of a cruise missile for just twenty chicken legs?

If he were given a chicken farm now, he felt he could have this girl lay down suppressive fire over the entire old town area...

On the other hand, Ai Lin's household expenses were practically zero.

Aside from the material consumed to prepare a new body (and even that used cheap materials), he hadn't bought her clothes or food. In all these days, the only thing he got her was a little red hair clip, which Little Red Riding Hood had bought on her shopping trip with Ai Lin. That little "toy-like trinket" had made the puppet happy for an entire day...

Thinking about it, Yu Sheng even felt a bit guilty toward this puppet.

She was noisy, bad-tempered, gossipy, presumptuous, weak but cocky—but when it came down to it, she always stepped up.

"If worst comes to worst, I'll have to dip into that 'disaster recovery fund.' If it really can't hold out, I'll go to the Special Operations Bureau and see if I can sell that 'iron lump' I found last time directly to them..."

Yu Sheng muttered to himself, which caught Ai Lin's curiosity nearby. "What are you saying?"

"Nothing. Get ready, we're heading out," Yu Sheng waved his hand and stood up. "We're not going far this time. We should be able to buy everything at the farmers' market on the edge of the old town. And Hu Li, you still need to carry her out for 'camouflage.' Ai Lin, make sure you bring the painting so you don't disconnect on the way."

"Okay," Ai Lin nodded. She controlled her other body to sit leaning against the headboard, then awkwardly controlled her "main body" carrying the painting to climb down from the bed. She wobbled on the floor a few steps before breathing a sigh of relief. "Alright. As long as the other body stays still, it's much easier to control this one alone. By the way, how are we getting there? By taxi?"

"...I didn't leave a coordinate over there, otherwise I would have just opened a door and saved the taxi fare," Yu Sheng sighed. "We'll have to take a ride."

A dozen minutes later, Yu Sheng, accompanied by the fox transformed into a black-haired, straight-haired girl, arrived at the nearest intersection to their home, waiting for the ride-hailing car to arrive.

"When we have money, we should really get a car, shouldn't we?" Ai Lin's voice sounded in Yu Sheng's heart, full of anticipation for the future. "We can't keep relying on ride-hailing services..."

Yu Sheng turned his head and glanced at Ai Lin, who was being held in Hu Li's arms. He raised an eyebrow. "What if it ends up being another Special Operations Bureau car?"

"...Then I'd rather take a ride-hailing car."

Yu Sheng grinned. His mind began to wander. "Actually, I think an electric scooter would be enough. A big one that can carry a person. Hu Li can sit on the back. In the city, we'd ride it normally. Out in the middle of nowhere, we'd let her open her tail—a nine-tailed rocket-boosted electric scooter. Costs twenty cents in electricity and three steamed buns per hundred kilometers. If the scooter could support kinetic energy recovery, we could even make a profit on the electricity..."

"You've got quite the imagination," Ai Lin muttered, then quickly realized something. "Hey, wait, where would I sit?!"

"We'll put you in the front basket."

"...Yu Sheng, you son of a bitch!"

As she spoke, a sleek silver car with smooth lines suddenly caught Yu Sheng's eye. Ai Lin, who was about to bite him when no one was around, immediately calmed down again, continuing to lie limp in Hu Li's arms, maintaining her "camouflage."

With a screech, the small car stopped in front of Yu Sheng.

Hu Li leaned in close to Yu Sheng and whispered curiously, "Benefactor, is this the car you ordered? It got here so fast?"

Yu Sheng was also taken aback. He checked the ride-hailing app on his phone and compared it to the license plate of the car in front of him. "...No, the car I ordered is still two intersections away, waiting at a red light."

As he was puzzling over this, the window of the silver car rolled down.

Good news: This was not Xu Jiali's old Xiali that rattled and shook.

Bad news: The face that appeared behind the driver's seat window was still a familiar one, and it was a person who gave Yu Sheng a bit of a headache.

Ren Wenwen's smile was radiant. "Oh, it's you! Heading out?"