Chapter 576: Anyway, It's Normal Now

Ailin was crying her eyes out.

Yu Sheng could fully understand her sorrow. Putting himself in her shoes, he felt that if this happened to him, he probably wouldn't be able to hold it together either.

After all, the little puppet's previous bodies were either only 66.6 centimeters tall when made, or they shrank to 66.6 centimeters right after being infused with spirit. There was never much expectation to begin with. But this time was different—she had actually restored her "original form" and even maintained that state through the entire checkup with Maris. Not even she herself, but even Yu Sheng thought it was a sure thing this time. Who would have thought this would suddenly happen?

This unlucky puppet's original body could shrink too!

But the most dumbstruck ones on site weren't Yu Sheng and his group, but Marlene and her servant, who had witnessed the whole process.

As a proper "Alice puppet" with a normal worldview, Marlene's entire cosmology and knowledge system couldn't explain what she had just seen. "What's the principle behind this?" kept circling in her mind. As for Maris standing beside her, it was simpler—thanks to Marlene saving two hundred when upgrading the hardware for her servo assistant last time, Maris was now smoking.

Yu Sheng stood at a loss, holding the heartbroken little puppet. It took him a while to finally calm the little thing down a bit. He then lined up the gold-haired-blue-eyed and black-haired-red-eyed puppets side by side on the alloy platform. With a quick glance confirming that the two puppets were indeed the same height, he rubbed his chin and muttered, "This doesn't make sense... If it had shrunk right after activation, I could understand it. But after moving around normally for two whole hours, suddenly shrinking back? What's the logic?"

"There is no logic!" Ailin's eyes were red (although the black-haired one's eyes were already red). "And I just barely got used to the normal height perspective again. I didn't even get to do anything—just sat here getting checked... My long legs! My 1.98-meter..."

"Stop, stop, stop. I sympathize with your situation, but you imagining yourself growing taller right after shrinking back is a bit ridiculous," Yu Sheng waved his hand to cut off the little thing's chatter. His gaze fell on the gold-haired puppet (66.6 cm) in front of him. Though his mind was still a bit hazy, he subconsciously entered a state of pondering. "Don't be too sad for now. I think there's something suspicious about this shrinking process."

Both Ailins tilted their heads and thought for a moment. The gold-haired one spoke first: "...What do you mean?"

"Think about it. This body of yours only had problems after moving around for a while. That's clearly different from before. Rather than a body issue, it's more like... after moving around for a while, it ran out of energy. Or maybe not energy, but something similar," Yu Sheng pondered as he spoke. "Is it similar to when your Spirit Fox Blacksteel body ran out of power back then? Except one couldn't move, and the other shrank. But both had problems after moving around for a while."

Ailin blinked as she listened. Although she felt this speculation lacked evidence, she had always believed in Yu Sheng's "pondering" power. The man before her, despite being weak in mysticism, thin on theory, and terrible at practical work, had unparalleled intuition. His pondering hit the mark with absurd accuracy.

So after hearing him out, she followed that line of thought and pondered too. After a moment, she hesitated and said, "Then... charge it?"

"Hard to say. This body might not run on electricity," Yu Sheng rubbed his chin. "Try to remember the feeling when your body suddenly shrank just now. Was there any moment when your strength gave out or your joints didn't obey?"

"Not that I noticed..."

While Yu Sheng and Ailin were analyzing the situation, Marlene was frantically rebooting Maris. She pried open the bionic skin on the clockwork maid's back, lifted a cover plate to assist with heat dissipation, and the next second, the faint light in Maris's eyes flickered twice. With a "beep," she lifted her head, glanced toward Yu Sheng and Ailin, then turned slightly to her mistress beside her: "Their topic of discussion is very strange."

Marlene didn't look up, busy with the clockwork maid's back: "I know."

Maris thought for a moment. "Also, could you please install a better cooling system next time? And I think my new coprocessor might have issues... Are you sure it's brand new?"

"It must be new," Marlene said immediately. "You unboxed it yourself."

Maris tilted her head.

"Maybe it's a factory defect," the clockwork maid said dejectedly.

"If it comes to it, I'll switch you back to the old one and make do for a few days," Marlene frowned. "Where's the old processor you replaced?"

"I put it—"

But before Maris could say more than a few words, Yu Sheng's voice suddenly interrupted the mistress and servant's conversation.

"Sorry to interrupt," Yu Sheng waved. "Could you check Ailin again?"

"Of course," Marlene nodded immediately. In fact, she had been rushing to reboot Maris for this very purpose. "Wait a moment. Maris needs a minor adjustment... Alright, where's that data cable from earlier?"

Yu Sheng quickly found the cable used to check Ailin earlier from beside the alloy platform and handed it to the little puppet. "Here—same as before, put it in your mouth."

The gold-haired Ailin took the data cable, stuffed the connector into her mouth, and mumbled indistinctly, "My mouth is smaller now, more uncomfortable than before..."

Yu Sheng felt that was very reasonable and precise.

Maris, meanwhile, kept her back heat-dissipation cover open and began checking the shrunken body's condition while emitting steam.

"Connection established. Beginning parameter reading..."

Pale blue data light streams flowed rapidly in the clockwork maid's eyes. The basic inspection items progressed quickly, not requiring the lengthy boot-up process from before.

Several devices in the puppet printing room started automatically. A holographic projection above the nano-tank began refreshing rows of parameters rapidly.

Marlene frowned, focusing intently on the data. After a long while, she shook her head in confusion: "...Everything at the data level is normal. In fact..."

Yu Sheng and Ailin said in unison: "In fact?"

"...There are even fewer error reports than before," Marlene's tone carried disbelief. "This body's current operational efficiency is extremely high—almost like a newly born Alice puppet."

Yu Sheng was stunned at this. He and Ailin, who was sitting on the alloy platform, stared at each other with wide eyes.

Both fell silent.

In truth, Yu Sheng wasn't completely clueless about Ailin's "constant height" of 66.6 centimeters. He had some thoughts in his mind.

He still remembered the Omen Goddess's home world, and the Omen Mother Civilization's 6,660-year history that began with observing the sky.

Information from outside the universe, when entering the observable universe, would be distorted into another appearance. Some things were simply unreasonable like this—Ankaila had carved her obsession with reconstruction into the distortion of the "fairy tale" concept; the Stellar Derivative had carved the obsession with life continuation into its cycles of transformation and ascension; the Omen Goddess had apparently carved the Mother Civilization's history into this universe too...

But it seemed she had carved it crookedly.

Yu Sheng looked at the little puppet before him. The fusion of the gold-haired Ailin and the Omen Goddess had given birth to a new individual. What was now inside this shell was neither the original "Alice puppet" nor the otherworldly deity descending from the Boundary Bridge. "Ailin" had her own essence—albeit an essence that now seemed a bit troublesome.

He looked at the puppet; the puppet looked at him.

Then Ailin sighed.

She spit the data cable out of her mouth, clapped her hands, jumped off the alloy platform, walked up to Yu Sheng, and opened her arms.

"Hold me."

Yu Sheng picked up the little puppet.

"Let's go home."

"Okay."

The other black-haired red-eyed Ailin also jumped off the platform, still holding the frying pan in one hand and dragging the large picture frame with the other.

But the moment she jumped down, the pitch-black picture frame suddenly made a faint cracking sound. It landed on the ground, and abruptly shattered like an item formed from loose black ash, turning into a pile of dust in the blink of an eye.

Until today, it had always been exceptionally sturdy.

Yu Sheng: "...What the?!"

Everyone instinctively looked at the pile of ash. Hu Li's ears twitched, and she let out a small exclamation: "Ah, it broke."

The gold-haired Ailin was stunned for about two or three seconds. Then she looked down at her hands, slowly opening and clenching her fists.

Yu Sheng tensed up immediately: "Do you feel anything wrong?"

"No, I feel... really good," Ailin seemed a bit dazed, but that seemed more because the sudden shattering of the frame hadn't sunk in yet. "My body feels much lighter too."

But Yu Sheng was still uneasy. He lifted Ailin up again, observed her thoroughly for a while, and only relaxed after confirming there were no abnormal reactions and her speech and expression were as uncouth and impatient as usual. He put the already-protesting little puppet on his shoulder.

The ash that fell from the frame had already begun to dissipate rapidly, and in a few breaths, only a tiny residue remained.

"It seems that because your original shell was activated, the frame serving as the seal's carrier disintegrated on its own," Yu Sheng said thoughtfully. "After all, this seal was left by you yourself back then."

"Is, is that so?"

Ailin scratched her head. As the person involved, she didn't have much to say about it. But the picture frame that had been carried on her back for so long suddenly disappearing made her a little wistful—though she couldn't quite explain the feeling, since it had been a troublesome cage to her for a long time. Still, she felt a little... empty inside.

It was as if the sudden lightness left her at a loss.

But the little puppet's strength was that she wouldn't waste time on things she couldn't understand. She soon cheered up again and patted Yu Sheng's head.

"Let's go home! Home!"

Yu Sheng exhaled and decided to study the little puppet's current state and the specifics of her new body when they got back.

A door leading to 66 Wutong Road opened. Yu Sheng and his group said goodbye to Marlene and stepped back into their home.

The puppet printing room fell quiet, leaving only the low hum of various devices running.

After seeing Yu Sheng off, Marlene didn't leave the room either. She silently watched Maris tidying things up nearby while frowning, lost in thought.

After pondering for who knows how long, she suddenly walked to the alloy platform beside the nano-tank. Staring at the connecting cables on the platform's edge, she seemed deep in thought.

After hesitating for a moment, she picked up one of the data cables and put it in her mouth, then looked up at the clockwork maid beside her: "Maris, any signal?"

Maris was taken aback, and her tone was hesitant: "Miss Marlene, this is a bit... stupid."

Marlene spit the data cable out and continued standing beside the platform, still deep in thought.

...What was the principle behind this?

(End of Chapter)