Chapter 526: Yu Sheng's Wonderful Little Tools

Yu Sheng quickly explained his ideas to Irene.

Tracing back to the source, these thoughts had first popped up during the post-battle review after his last trip to the Dark Alley.

"I feel like I lack long-range offensive options, and there's still a lot of room to develop my 'blood' in terms of utility," Yu Sheng said seriously, looking at the little doll. "My spiked club got a round of upgrades from Hu Li before, so it's fine for close combat, but it's not enough when I'm dealing with distant enemies or situations where I need to project my blood outward. Think of this blood storage tank as a blood grenade. The blood gun and blood needle launcher can be combined—the former sprays blood directly, the latter pre-loads blood into something like needle ammunition and fires it—longer range..."

The little doll sat on the sofa, listening dumbly. Luna had somehow come over and sat across from Yu Sheng, nodding along as she listened, looking like someone with plenty of relevant experience (i.e., experience being splattered in the face with Yu Sheng's blood).

After Yu Sheng finished explaining, Irene let out a long "Oh—" and then sat there with her arms crossed, frowning in thought. No one knew what she was thinking, but suddenly she clapped her hands together. "Sounds pretty pervy~"

Yu Sheng's brow furrowed when he heard that. "Is that really necessary!"

"Think about it," Irene said, climbing onto the coffee table. She spread her arms, grabbed the draft paper, and held it up like a shield, flipping it back and forth as she jabbered. "We're in the middle of a fight, the other side's got all kinds of guns and cannons, bullets and missiles and lasers and ion beams flying everywhere, smoke and flames rising, and then you come charging in happily with a spiked club on your shoulder, a squirt gun in your hand, and a string of water balloons around your waist, and after a couple swings, everything's a bloody mess—that look of yours would at least make you a psychotic boss in a movie. The kind that wears a mask or paints his face, crouches behind a fence and peeps at the school gate, and later they dedicate a whole episode to your childhood trauma..."

Yu Sheng was stunned speechless by the little thing's string of words. Then he suddenly snapped out of it and looked at the little doll in surprise. "Whoa, you can use idioms now?"

Irene paused and turned her head to look at Yu Sheng. "...Is that a compliment?"

"Sort of... Hey, I mean, the stuff you usually watch is a bit too varied," Yu Sheng said, reaching out to pat the doll's head while shaking the images that had involuntarily formed in his mind out of his head. It took some effort to break free from the rhythm the little thing had set. "Forget the style for now, just tell me if this set of gear works or not!"

Even as he said this, he couldn't help feeling a little doubtful—not about his own style, but about the style of the whole team under him.

The little doll had made a fair point—when they fought, the enemy's style of guns and cannons wasn't worth mentioning. The Traveler's Society's top fighter was a reckless man charging with a spiked club (and often dying on the charge), the second-in-command was a cursed doll who tied people up with spider silk on the battlefield, the third-in-command would howl and shoot her tail off, and the only one with an elegant style was the fourth-in-command, an artificial saint who would spin and dance on the battlefield while chopping people into mincemeat...

Well, they might not be villains yet, but they were far from heroes.

Meanwhile, Irene surprisingly didn't start jabbering right away this time. After hearing Yu Sheng's words, she actually thought seriously for a long time, then finally muttered while rubbing her chin, "Actually... it sounds theoretically useful, but I have a question—won't this blood become invalid after you die once?"

"I've actually considered that," Yu Sheng said with a grin. "Remember the blood I specially extracted in advance to make dolls for you in the valley?"

Irene blinked and quickly caught on. "Ah, right..."

"My death resets the state of myself or items I'm carrying. I've studied this process carefully, and it actually has a range for backtracking and repair," Yu Sheng said seriously. "The 'boundary' of this range, in easier terms, is the 'death event.'"

Irene's expression twisted. "Uh... what does that mean?"

Yu Sheng was patient. "The location of the event, the time of the event, the things I came into contact with during the event, the cause and result of the event... these limiting conditions together form the 'event boundary' of the 'death event.' When the reset occurs, everything strictly takes effect within that boundary.

"Therefore, only things that are directly connected to the death event, or things I directly touched at the time, will undergo this state backtracking—blood drawn in advance, clothes changed a day earlier, these are not part of the 'death event' and naturally won't be backtracked during my resurrection.

"So, as long as these blood storage tanks and blood needles are prepared in advance, there's no need to worry about them failing after I die..."

Irene listened with wide eyes, very seriously, but in the end, she couldn't help scratching her hair. "That makes sense, but the topic still feels a bit weird."

Hu Li's ears twitched from the side. "But Little Red Hood said before that no one in this house is normal."

"Yeah, that's true."

Well, watching the little doll accept so quickly that no one at 66 Wutong Road was normal, Yu Sheng couldn't help feeling a little hurt...

"To be fair, it doesn't matter that your drawings are a bit abstract—it's the principle that counts," Irene said, as if not noticing Yu Sheng's hurt feelings, and quickly brought up a new question. "Do you actually know how to make these? You can't just make a squirt gun, right..."

"Of course not," Yu Sheng said casually. "I'll just provide the requirements and let Mo Ran's people figure out how to implement them. She has quite a few refining experts over there."

He smacked his lips and added, "Actually, I initially thought about asking the Special Operations Bureau to handle this, since they have a lot of black tech too. But their technical path doesn't match mine—there's too much difference. Besides, if this stuff is produced in Shu Ji, at least that's my 'territory,' so the process is easier to control and there won't be any trouble afterward—mainly, it makes me feel more at ease."

Hu Li, who was sitting cross-legged on the carpet with a big tail in her arms, combing her fur, suddenly looked up in confusion. "The Special Operations Bureau's tech path isn't suitable, but Shu Ji's is? Sir, your blood control technique is unique in the world; no one else knows it, right?"

Yu Sheng clapped his hands at that, his face lighting up. "Well, they've got something called demonic cultivators there..."

Then the whole living room fell silent.

Yu Sheng also felt something was off, and carefully adjusted his sitting posture in embarrassment. "Well, let them try first. If they can't make anything too fancy, just making a simple storage container and launching device will do—I can't really go into battle holding a squirt gun and water balloons, can I? Using Irene's words, that would look like I had some serious childhood trauma..."

Irene responded with a string of hollow, forced laughter.

Luna went back to staring into space.

Only Hu Li, as usual, looked up at Yu Sheng with a face full of worship, wearing a Samoyed-like sweet smile—as if in her heart, her benefactor was always the most capable and correct. Even when he got splattered on the ground, she found it artistic...

Yu Sheng continued to bury himself in his designs while using his spare attention to control his "star body" in the Feiyu Star Domain, exchanging thoughts with Mo Ran about his "requirements."

When he mentioned capturing a couple of demonic cultivators specializing in blood curse techniques to assist the research progress, the Fairy City Lord showed great shock. But since the Shu Ji revitalization plan had already shocked her once with Yu Sheng Zhenjun's brilliant ideas, her tolerance had improved significantly this time. After a short shock, she began summoning her subordinates to discuss where to catch reliable demonic cultivators.

The discussion concluded to import them from the Demon-Suppression Tower of Taixu Lingshu. Demonic cultivators locked up there were usually good quality and quantity—their moral standards were questionable, but their professional skills were certainly solid. The only trouble was getting Taixu Lingshu to agree, but that wasn't too hard—just push Yu Sheng out.

Then they could tell them that Yu Sheng Zhenjun was preparing his wonderful little tools for the future battle against the Dark Sky...

A sudden ringtone interrupted Yu Sheng's busy work.

Irene carried the phone with both hands, jumped from the coffee table to the sofa, and held it out to Yu Sheng. "Here, it's Steel Face!"

Yu Sheng was a bit surprised. He took the phone, answered it casually, and put it to his ear. After listening for a few moments, his expression gradually turned serious.

Hu Li's ears immediately perked up.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?" Irene was incredibly curious on the side, leaning forward. "What happened that's so serious?"

Before Yu Sheng could speak, Hu Li, who had been eavesdropping from the side, answered for him. "A deep dive team led by Xu Jiali encountered something in the 'Mist City'—black spider webs appeared in the dense fog districts near East City. The kind you usually use. Then they also ran into a space station from the Black Dot Corporation running down the street."

Irene: "...Huh? What do you mean, a space station running down the street?!"

"It's hard to explain in a few words, but it's obvious that things happening in the 'Dark Alley' have now spread to other places," Yu Sheng said, having already hung up the phone. He suddenly stood up from beside the coffee table. "Let's go check it out."

He then grabbed Irene beside him, but just as he was about to put her on his shoulder, he felt the weight was off. He weighed her in his hand, put her back, walked to the dining room and picked up another, weighed it twice, and put it down again. Finally, he picked up a heavy one from the windowsill, nodded, and headed for the door.

He didn't open the door to the foggy foreign realm but directly turned the handle.

The next moment, the entire 66 Wutong Road plunged into the Mist City.