Chapter 286: There's Definitely Something Wrong

Ai Lin was crying so sadly that she couldn't be comforted.

In fact, even Yu Sheng couldn't help but feel a bit of sympathy as he watched four Ai Lins, all 66.6 cm tall, standing in a row—though alongside that sympathy, he also had trouble holding back his laughter. Thankfully, after some strenuous effort, he managed to keep a straight face.

"Why?! Why!! W-h-y—"

The little doll let out a soulful wail from the alchemy platform (in four-channel stereo). At that moment, with her resentment and her bloodshot-eyed doll appearance, she was on the level of something that could chase a protagonist crew through six seasons of a horror movie, plus a twelve-episode spin-off, and still crawl out of the TV in the final episode. Even Hu Li instinctively took a step back behind Yu Sheng, then poked her head out from behind his arm and cautiously spoke, "Um... accept my condolences..."

Hearing that, Ai Lin felt even worse.

After a while, with Yu Sheng and Hu Li both comforting her, the unlucky little doll finally calmed down a bit. She wasn't crying anymore, but instead squatted at the edge of the platform with her back to everyone, all four bodies hanging their heads low in a self-reflection circle, questioning their existence.

Yu Sheng watched helplessly from the side, feeling a bit sentimental: indeed, after gaining a new body, her self-reflection circle was much more neatly arranged than before...

But he didn't dare say that out loud.

Then, after who knows how long of self-reflection, the newly created Ai Lin Pro Max (which could perhaps be abbreviated as Pro Ai Lin) finally lifted her head and sighed. "So what's the reason this time? There's no way the steps were wrong this time... I used the highest-grade materials; the Special Affairs Bureau's stock couldn't have any fakes... I drew the alchemy array myself, not a single symbol wrong... I personally oversaw the body shaping, from the framework to the filling process, everything was normal... So how did it shrink again..."

Yu Sheng watched the little doll muttering to herself. He tried several times to speak but couldn't find an opening. Finally, after a long while, he mustered his feelings, steeled himself, and stepped forward. "Ahem, well, could it be possible... that the current situation is related to a certain critical material?"

Ai Lin looked up, staring straight into Yu Sheng's eyes.

Yu Sheng felt a bit guilty under those crimson eyes, but since he'd already brought it up, there was no point in swallowing his words back now. He simply spread his hands. "Could it be related to my blood? Like, maybe when I first shaped you, I got the scale wrong, and then that error got bound to you, leaving a... how should I put it... an ancestral bug in every subsequent body you made?"

After saying that, he steeled himself again and stood there without flinching, already mentally prepared for all four dolls to pounce on him and leave bite marks all over his head.

But after waiting for a long time, not a single doll pounced on him.

Yu Sheng: "...Ai Lin?"

"You think I didn't suspect that!" Pro Ai Lin said, hands on her hips, eyes wide. "I suspected it from the time the third body went wrong!"

Yu Sheng: "...Uh, then you..."

"That's why I personally controlled the spirit infusion ritual and supervised the body-casting process this time!" Ai Lin wore an expression of utter despair, a great sorrow rippling across her tiny face. "And this time, when my soul entered the new body, I specifically left one part of my perception and three observing perspectives to confirm the whole process, trying to figure out exactly which moment the problem occurred..."

Hearing this, Yu Sheng vaguely guessed what was coming, but didn't dare jump to conclusions. He asked cautiously, "What did you... find?"

Ai Lin's head drooped. "It started going wrong after my soul entered."

Yu Sheng didn't say anything. The situation was roughly what he had expected.

Pro Ai Lin walked to the edge of the alchemy platform and sat down, elbows resting on her legs, lost in thought.

Yu Sheng also walked over and sat down next to Pro Ai Lin.

"So, the problem lies with your soul?"

"Probably," Ai Lin sighed. "But still, same question: Why? I really can't feel it. I feel... I feel fine all the time. I..."

Yu Sheng didn't speak. Instead, he suddenly reached out, grabbed the nearby Ai Lin Unit 1 who was carrying the painting frame on her back, took the oil painting off the little doll's back, and placed it in front of him, studying it seriously.

The chair and teddy bear in the painting were just as they always were.

The doll was not in the painting, but she had never left.

"Then the problem can only be here," Yu Sheng said after a moment of silence, shaking the painting in his hand. "I've actually suspected this all along, but I was afraid you'd be sad, so I didn't bring it up..."

Before he could finish, the little doll beside him began muttering, "If I had truly gained freedom, why would I still need to carry a prison around with me?"

"Uh, I thought you hadn't thought about that..."

"I'm just not very good at remembering things, I'm not stupid," Ai Lin looked up and gave Yu Sheng a roll of her eyes. "And what good would figuring that out do? I can't get rid of this thing anyway... Being able to carry it around everywhere is already way better than before. Besides, now I have several bodies that don't always have to carry the painting around, even if they are only this tall."

She stretched out her arm and gestured at the edge of the platform, indicating a height on the ground, looking resigned.

Yu Sheng reached out and pressed her arm down a bit lower.

"Be honest about your height."

"You're damn human! I'm heartbroken here!"

Seeing Ai Lin baring her teeth and claws like she was about to bite, Yu Sheng knew the little thing was okay now.

Hu Li also came over at this point. Though she didn't understand alchemy, she was clever and had already grasped what Yu Sheng and Ai Lin were talking about. She sat down on Yu Sheng's other side and thoughtfully spoke, "So, you're suspecting that because part of Ai Lin's soul is still sealed in this painting, the new bodies she creates always have flaws, right?"

"Right," Ai Lin looked up at Hu Li. "Any ideas?"

"I don't understand this 'alchemy' thing, and I'm not really clear on the 'Alice Doll' stuff," Hu Li answered honestly. "But if half your soul is sealed in a painting, shouldn't you be able to feel it normally? In the terms from my hometown, if your primordial spirit is split and imprisoned, shouldn't it be very uncomfortable? But you said you don't feel it..."

"I really don't feel it," the little doll said helplessly. "From all the evidence, I probably do have part of my soul sealed away. At the very least, the part of my soul that can move around outside right now must be damaged. But from my personal perspective... I just feel perfectly fine."

Yu Sheng thought about it. "...Could the half of your soul in the painting have atrophied or necrotized from being cooped up too long?"

"That's a soul! Not a peripheral nerve!" Pro Ai Lin jumped up and headbutted Yu Sheng's arm. "You're the one who's necrotized! Half your brain is necrotized!"

Yu Sheng scrambled to hold down the little thing. Then he hung the oil painting back on Ai Lin Unit 1's back, let out a soft breath, and stood up from the alchemy platform.

"Anyway, it seems like this body problem of yours can't be solved anytime soon," he said, his gaze falling on the little doll. "What now? What are you planning to do? Want to make another new body and observe the situation? There's still plenty of materials left..."

"No, no more," the little doll waved her hands repeatedly. "Making this one exhausted me. Next time, even if I make a new body, I'm not doing such a complicated spirit infusion ritual. I'm dizzy now."

"Alright then, let's pack up the remaining materials for now, and you can think about making a new body when you want to," Yu Sheng nodded, then called Hu Li to help clean up the leftover candles, spices, essential oils, and other items on the alchemy platform. His gaze then fell back on Pro Ai Lin, a thoughtful expression on his face.

The little doll immediately felt uncomfortable under his stare and instinctively shrank her neck. "Wh-what now?"

"How does this body of yours feel?"

"Huh? How does it feel?" Ai Lin was a bit confused for a moment. "Well, it's fine. Moves nimbly. It's newly made, after all."

"I mean, you used so many high-grade materials, top-tier alchemy formulas, and I even learned a smelting technique from an online video. This body is literally a Pro Max version. Shouldn't it have some differences from your usual bodies?" Yu Sheng looked like he was in research mode. "Even if the size hasn't changed... shouldn't it at least have a couple of golden affixes, red suffixes, or shiny bonus traits? It can't just be that its only feature is being expensive..."

"Oh, right?"

Ai Lin tilted her head, as if she thought what Yu Sheng said made sense. She jumped onto the floor, bounced in place a few times, then ran two laps around the alchemy platform like a little rocket—probably testing the agility and speed of this body. Finally, she came to Yu Sheng's feet, stepped forward, lowered her center of gravity, and struck a stance she'd learned from who knows where. Then, with a deep breath, she threw a punch: "Hiyah—"

She hit Yu Sheng's shin.

The scene was silent for two seconds. The little doll hesitantly looked up at Yu Sheng. "Does it... does it hurt?"

Yu Sheng: "...Not really."

"It hurts me!!" Ai Lin howled and jumped up, clutching her fist, hopping and skipping on the ground. "Ow ow ow ow! Yu Sheng, is your leg even a human leg?! Last time I ran too fast and hit a concrete wall, it wasn't this hard!"

Yu Sheng: "..."

What else could he say? He had to comfort her again.

After finally calming the little doll down, he sighed and tried to reason with her. "I think you don't need to force yourself to focus on combat ability or physical fitness. I mean, we have our limitations (66.6 cm) here, right? If you insist on fighting close-quarters against a C-shape hook with legs nearly 1.2 meters long, that's just pointless. One kick from them and you'd have to turn around and run for ages... Let go of my leg. Don't bite. Let go!"

Ai Lin glared with her crimson eyes. "Is that how you comfort someone?!"

"I didn't mean it like that. I'm saying you're an intelligence hero... yeah, intelligence. We're skill-based," Yu Sheng rubbed the spot where he'd been bitten on his calf and awkwardly explained to the little doll. "How about checking your skills? Let's see your usual threads."

"What could be different about threads? These are directly blessed by the Ancestor of Dolls," Ai Lin (Pro version) grumbled, but still did as Yu Sheng said, raised her hand, and flicked her finger toward an empty space. "This kind of innate ability every doll has, it's not like it changes with a new body..."

A dazzling blue beam shot from her hand with a "whoosh," cutting a hole straight through the thick stone wall that Yu Sheng had temporarily raised to set up the alchemy workspace.

(End of chapter)