Yu Sheng woke up to find Irene sprawled out at the foot of his bed, limbs splayed in all directions. Her picture fra rested on the bedside table, leaning against the wall.
He sighed. Last night, he hadn’t managed to get this doll to leave—mainly because every ti he tried to carry her to the door, she would kick up such a fuss that it gave him a headache.
Sighing deeply again, Yu Sheng noticed that Irene showed no signs of waking up. He stretched out his foot and nudged her twice.
“Ti to get up. If you don’t, I’ll take your picture fra away and let you sleep back in the painting.”
Irene finally stirred, slowly sitting up. With her hair a tangled ss and eyes half-closed, she looked at him. “Good morning… hey…”
“Morning? It’s almost noon!” Yu Sheng suppressed the urge to kick this troubleso doll off the bed. “Do you know how many tis you rolled around last night?! You’re a doll; it’s strange enough that you need to sleep, but how can you sleep so restlessly?!”
“I don’t know… yawn…” Irene rubbed her eyes, stretching lazily while muttering, “Don’t be so grumpy. I’m so pretty, and you’re still not happy sharing a room with …”
Yu Sheng broke into a cold sweat, looking at this tiny being no more than a few centiters tall, feeling his temples throb. “You’ve got a big ego for soone so small. Do you even know what you’re saying?”
Irene didn’t seem to care at all. With her hair still disheveled, she crawled up to him, lowered her head boldly, and said matter-of-factly, “Help
brush my hair.”
A vein twitched on Yu Sheng’s forehead. He got out of bed, went to the bathroom, grabbed a comb, and tossed it onto the bed. “Not my problem. Brush it yourself.”
Irene grabbed the comb that was as big as her head with both hands, rolling her eyes. “Do you think I can brush it myself? I can’t even hold this thing with one hand. Why don’t you get
a doll-sized comb…”
Then she launched into a long list of complaints: “Usually when my hair’s ssy, I have to use my hands,” “I had to sleep on a chair the first day,” “No one cares about a doll’s feelings,” and so on, without a pause. Listening to her, Yu Sheng felt like his ears were about to catch fire.
“… I must owe you from a past life,” Yu Sheng finally couldn’t take it anymore. He ca over, took the comb from her hands, and lifted her onto the bedside table. “Sit here and don’t move.”
Irene imdiately grinned victoriously, sitting on the bedside table while muttering, “Since you made this body, it’s only natural you handle the after-sales service…”
Yu Sheng grumpily brushed the doll’s hair while speaking, “‘After-sales service’—is that how you use that term?”
“Close enough—hey, be gentle! Don’t pull it out. A doll’s hair is precious.”
Yu Sheng sighed yet again. He managed to smooth out Irene’s hair, which had beco a tangled ss from her restless sleep. Then he hung the picture fra that had been leaning against the wall back onto her and turned to go wash up.
“Hey, Yu Sheng! What’s for breakfast?” Irene’s voice ca from outside the bathroom shortly after.
At that mont, Yu Sheng’s mouth was full of toothpaste foam. He mumbled a reply, “I’ll cook so noodles later, just sothing quick—and then we’re heading out.”
An “Oh” ca from outside the bathroom, and then the doll finally quieted down.
But Yu Sheng had a nagging feeling that Irene’s temporary silence ant she was planning sothing bigger—he felt his intuition was tingling.
Though, intuition tingling in this situation seed a bit odd.
After washing up, Yu Sheng wiped his face and looked up at himself in the mirror.
He looked energetic, his complexion good, even a slight smile playing on his lips.
He realized he hadn’t seen himself looking this spirited in the mirror for a long ti, and for a mont, he felt a bit dazed.
He still rembered not long ago, living anxiously in this vast city that made him uneasy. During those two months, he fell asleep each day under tension and pressure, spent restless nights filled with dreams, and woke up exhausted. He washed his face only every few days, and the self he saw in the mirror was always listless.
But now, he saw a vibrant young man, with a hint of expectation for the future in his eyes—not at all like soone who had been kicked all night by a restless doll.
“… My mindset has really changed…” Yu Sheng couldn’t help but chuckle, whispering to himself.
Then he heard Irene’s wailing voice coming from outside the door: “Yu—Sheng! Did you fall in—? I’ll get Foxy to fish you out—”
The smile on Yu Sheng’s face froze instantly. He turned his head and pulled the door open, only to see Irene standing energetically on the floor outside the bathroom, her picture fra on her back, grinning up at him.
“You’ve been in there for over half an hour!” the doll said, looking up.
Yu Sheng walked past her directly, opened the bedroom door, and prepared to see if Foxy had woken up.
As soon as he opened the door, he was startled: Foxy was standing right at the doorway, leaning forward like a thief, hesitating whether to co in.
Foxy was also startled by Yu Sheng’s sudden opening of the door—really startled. The big fluffy tail behind her “poofed” up instantly, standing like a screen in the hallway, and even the two large ears on her head stood straight up.
After two or three seconds, the fluffed-up fox girl slowly relaxed, looking at Yu Sheng sowhat sheepishly. “Um… Benefactor…”
Yu Sheng was curious: “What are you doing?”
“I woke up but didn’t know what to do, so… I waited here, but I didn’t know if you were awake, so I didn’t dare to knock,” Foxy imdiately explained nervously, then looked at Yu Sheng worriedly. “Are you okay? Did you fall sowhere?”
“I didn’t fall anywhere! Don’t listen to Irene’s nonsense in the future,” Yu Sheng scolded, then frowned as he looked Foxy up and down. “Have you been waiting at the door like this?”
“Yes.”
“… From now on, this is your ho. You don’t have to be so nervous. If you have nothing to do, you can watch TV or sothing… Oh, when I have ti, I’ll teach you how to use the appliances at ho,” Yu Sheng said casually, turning and heading towards the stairs. “Let’s go downstairs to eat first. I’ll cook so noodles to make do with. Today I’ll take you shopping.”
As soon as she heard the word “eat,” Foxy’s eyes visibly lit up, and she almost skipped along to keep up with Yu Sheng.
But Yu Sheng took two steps and stopped again, turning his head to look at the fox girl, his expression hesitant.
Foxy tilted her head. “Benefactor?”
“I just thought of sothing…” Yu Sheng’s gaze fell on the top of Foxy’s head. “You can hide your tail, but what about your ears? If you go out like this… it might attract attention.”
Hearing Yu Sheng say this, Foxy seed a bit puzzled. Since she arrived here, she hadn’t stepped out of the house, so she had no idea what the outside world was like, let alone imagine what’s wrong with her appearance outside.
But since the benefactor said so, she believed him.
The fox girl rubbed her hands, raised her hands to take off the ears on top of her head, and stuffed them into her tail, then hid her tail.
The scene fell into silence.
Yu Sheng stood there, frozen in the middle of his sentence, like a statue in the hallway.
Until Irene’s shrill scream broke the silence: “Aaaaah—Fox girl, what did you just take off your head?!”
Foxy pulled out the pair of fluffy ears from her tail and showed them to Irene. “My ears.”
Yu Sheng’s eyes widened. “Those things are detachable?! They’re fake?!”
“They’re real,” Foxy said matter-of-factly while putting her ears away. “Fox spirits are good at transformation.”
Yu Sheng exclaid, “The fox spirits I know don’t ‘transform’ like that…”
Foxy imdiately looked surprised. “Benefactor, you’ve t other fox spirits?”
Yu Sheng was stunned for a mont, then quickly composed himself. “… No, I’ve never t any.”
“A fox spirit has to learn the art of refinent and transformation. The first step is to start by refining oneself. If practiced well, one can transform,” Foxy earnestly explained to Yu Sheng and Irene what she considered common knowledge. “But my parents didn’t have ti to teach
much. I only learned… basic transformations. I heard from the immortal that powerful fox spirits can even transform themselves into stories in books, shadows in history, relying only on people’s word of mouth to traverse ancient and modern tis in an instant, crossing the stars, but I… can’t!”
Yu Sheng listened, dumbfounded, his imagination working overti to keep up with the fox girl’s description. His ears understood, but his brain refused to believe it, always feeling that this girl was pulling his leg.
But Foxy’s innocent face didn’t look like soone who would make up lies.
“I feel like sothing’s off,” Irene muttered, touching her chin. “My mory isn’t working well right now. Don’t try to fool … Where did you get this ‘common knowledge’ from? Wasn’t that immortal pulling your leg? Let
tell you, those tour guide types will say anything…”
Foxy shook her head vigorously. “I don’t know, but my transformation thod was really taught by my parents. It’s really like this—”
As she spoke, she carefully observed Yu Sheng again. Then, her hair and eye color instantly changed, mimicking Yu Sheng’s black hair and black eyes.
Now, she looked completely like an ordinary pretty girl, clearly a local.
“Is this okay?” the fox girl looked at Yu Sheng expectantly.
Yu Sheng paused for a mont, finally nodding with a bit of daze.
At least this ti, her transformation process seed much more normal…
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