Yu Sheng quietly retreated without disturbing the puppet sitting on the rooftop enjoying the scenery.
He patiently waited beside the big table in the attic, and after a while, he heard a slight noise from the rooftop. Erin quietly slipped back through the ventilation window.
The little puppet lowered herself backward, letting her legs hang in the air, and dragged a frying pan inside. She awkwardly held onto the pan handle with one arm while gripping the window fra with her other hand, slowly lowering herself in height—and then got stuck hanging there.
Yu Sheng had no idea how she managed to get out, but it was clear that she hadn’t considered the way back in.
"Ah... Ah, there’s a problem!" The panicked voice of the little creature ca from the window, "Can soone help... Yu Sheng! Yu Sheng!"
Crying and laughing, Yu Sheng walked over and casually lifted Erin off the window, turning her to face him: "How did you get up there?"
"You were nearby after all! I sensed you coming." As soon as Erin saw Yu Sheng’s face, she burst into a happy smile and proudly said, "I stacked three other bodies together! Then those bodies went to the room to play gas, and I forgot about them when coming down..."
Yu Sheng patted the little creature’s head and casually placed her on the ground.
"Is everything arranged in the valley?" Erin asked, clutching her frying pan and looking up, "Where’s the pointy-eared one, and the group that Shuji brought?"
Yu Sheng raised his eyebrows: "You’ve got four bodies in the valley. Do you need to ask about the situation there?"
Only then did Erin scratch her head sheepishly: "Right... But I didn’t pay attention! The mass-produced bodies over there are set on auto mode, running scripts, scripts—have you heard of them..."
The familiar chatter began again. The quiet little puppet enjoying the scenery on the rooftop seed like a different person. Yu Sheng listened to her babbling and chuckled. After she rambled on about auto mode, scripts, starting a guild single-handedly, making alt accounts, and more, he finally spoke: "Did you forget sothing?"
Erin was caught off guard by this, staring blankly and looking up: "...What?"
Yu Sheng glanced at the little creature and began walking towards the stairs: "That body you just retrieved is still wrapped in Hu Li’s tail."
Erin instantly realized, quickly scrambling with her short legs to catch up: "Wait, wait for ! Are you going to fix my body now? Shall we start now? Let tell you, back then I was 197 centiters..."
"I’m heading downstairs to cook first; Hu Li is still waiting hungrily. We’ll talk after the al," Yu Sheng said while walking, "Also, this ti it won’t be fixing it. I think we should contact real ’professionals’ for this."
Erin was hopping down the stairs, holding her frying pan, and montarily didn’t register: "Professionals? Who?"
"You forgot? There’s still a genuine ’Alice Puppet’ in Boundary City," Yu Sheng casually said, "The ’Envoy’ nad Marin, she should have professional puppet repair equipnt—this ti you’ve finally gotten your original body back, I think we shouldn’t resort to Primitive Alchemy like before. It’s best to use professional thods, as the success rate might be higher."
Erin’s eyes imdiately lit up: "Right! Now there’s a sister of mine in Boundary Land too! I wonder how she managed during the city’s chaos before..."
"Should be fine. According to Baili Qing, the ’City’ and ’Suburb’ of Boundary City might look connected, but they’re practically independent spaces, and the previous invasion mainly occurred in the city," Yu Sheng said, waving his hand, "Anyway, don’t think too much. I’ll make food, then call her—not too late yet, she probably hasn’t slept."
Erin: "Oh, okay... Wait, why not just go to the Special Service Bureau cafeteria and grab food there? Why cook ourselves?"
"...Makes sense," Yu Sheng thought for a mont but was puzzled, "Wait, is your mind sharper than before?"
The little puppet eagerly replied: "Is it? Haha..."
And then she got so excited she forgot to watch her step (maybe the pan obstructed her vision). While hopping down to the next step, she missed a step and with a series of yelps, tumbled down the stairs with the pan...
Yu Sheng stood in the middle of the staircase watching this scene and decided to retract his previous opinion about Erin’s sharper mind.
Then he reached the first floor, calling out to the fox girl lounging on the sofa while watching TV with her tail: "Let’s go! Today we’re going to the Special Service Bureau cafeteria for food!"
As soon as the word "cafeteria" was ntioned, the Great Demon Fox instantly leapt up, darting over in a flash of white light...
Clearly, after a fierce battle, she was eager to eat.
Just a few minutes later, the total battle at the Special Service Bureau First Cafeteria began.
While Hu Li was busy eating ravenously, Yu Sheng dialed the number the "Alice Puppet Envoy" had left him.
The phone rang for quite a while before being answered, and Yu Sheng noticed a bit of background noise in the receiver. It took a few more seconds before the voice of the puppet lady ca through.
Marin’s voice was as elegant and poised as ever: "Good evening, esteed ’Angel Hunter,’ is there anything I can do for you?"
Yu Sheng, upon hearing this graceful and polite greeting, was almost touched. He instinctively glanced up at the small puppet standing on the table, pushing around the empty plates Hu Li had licked clean, chattering about Hu Li’s large appetite while foolishly laughing in a noisy way. Yu Sheng thought to himself, he wasn’t asking for much—if only Erin could have half the grace of her sister, at least it wouldn’t raise his blood pressure to over 200 in three sentences...
But just as he thought this, Erin suddenly stopped, pointed over, and said, "What are you looking at? Did the call go through?"
Yu Sheng sighed and straightforwardly said into the phone, "We’ve found Erin’s original body."
There was silence on the other end of the line for two or three seconds.
"Ah, so it’s this matter," Marin seed to let out a light breath, apparently not surprised by this, "After learning that you resolved the ’on’ crisis, I guessed you would contact —let guess, you want to help repair that body, right?"
"Exactly," Yu Sheng said, "I’ve been using ’Primitive Alchemy’ to make bodies for Erin, but her original body likely can’t endure that kind of treatnt, and its condition is... not great. We hope to try the ’professional techniques’ at Alice’s Cottage."
"The Alice Puppet from 3,700 years ago... is quite different from the bodies we use now," Marin’s tone was quite cautious, "But theoretically, modern systems are backward-compatible, and the ’Garden’ network has stored the base data for each generation of Alice Puppets. I can try, but I can’t guarantee 100% success."
"Just trying is good enough," Yu Sheng imdiately replied, "Then..."
"I’ll send Maris to pick you up," Marin said, "Are you at ho now?"
"We’re at the Special Service Bureau."
Yu Sheng said, glancing across the table at the fox girl. Hu Li’s ears twitched, and she imdiately lifted her head from the big bowl, looking at him with bright eyes. Then, the demon fox girl suddenly bead a brilliant smile, grabbed a chicken leg from the plate, and handed it across the table: "Savior, have this~"
Yu Sheng took the chicken leg, hesitated for a long ti but didn’t voice, "to replenish the travel agency’s first firepower unit."
After agreeing on the eting ti and place, Yu Sheng hung up the phone and let out a soft breath.
He told Erin about Marin’s response, "not guaranteeing 100% success." But the little puppet didn’t seem to care much—she seed imrsed in the excitent of possibly being able to repair her original body. It could also be that she had a lot of trust in her "Alice sister." Of course, the more significant possibility is that, after four not-so-successful bodies, her expectations for the future have been set very low.
About 66 centiters low.
At this mont, Yu Sheng suddenly felt a stirring in his heart and instinctively looked to a certain direction beside him.
A figure had appeared there at so unknown ti.
It looked like Baili Qing, but for so reason, Yu Sheng felt that it was like several overlapping indistinct shadows. Though visually it appeared to be the director lady, he always felt that there was a circle of vague illusions around her.
For a mont, Yu Sheng thought he was so exhausted from "welding" the On Divine Temple into the valley that he was seeing double, so he rubbed his eyes vigorously: "Hey, Baili Qing? Why do I see double of you..."
After a rub of his eyes, Baili Qing’s figure turned into a pale illusion in his sight, with only another familiar pair of pale grey eyes looking back at him from the illusion.
The faint "illusion" spoke up: "I am Baili Xue."
Yu Sheng was startled, then saw the nearly transparent Baili Qing lift a finger to her lips, making a "shh" gesture.
"I didn’t expect you’d recognize it at a glance—this trick my sister and I have used many tis, never had a problem before," Baili Xue said as she sat down next to him, "Just take for my sister—I’m temporarily taking over her work, and most of the people here are kept in the dark."
Yu Sheng blinked; he didn’t expect Baili Xue to have such a trick. After briefly expressing his surprise, he was a bit curious: "Didn’t your sister already co back? I thought she’d return to her work post at the first opportunity according to her personality..."
"Her horn got stuck, can’t retract it," Baili Xue said offhandedly, "The colorless dragon’s horn can’t be ’concealed’ by conventional ans, so she’s sulking at ho now."
Yu Sheng: "...?"
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