If not seen with his own eyes, Yu Sheng would probably find it hard to imagine such a scene in the border region of Boundary Land, and even harder to imagine a mysterious Gothic mansion standing amid these fragnted desolate floating islands, giant rocks, and auroras — especially with a bunch of faceless mannequins wandering in the garden beside it, making his mind instinctively conjure words like "Witch’s House" or "Cursed Mansion" at first glance.
With this aesthetic, Yu Sheng pondered that this setting should at least be a level forty dungeon in a ga, especially the two holes on the mansion’s side roof, which looked incredibly impressive, exuding a dark, destructive, mysterious aura — one wonders what the initial renovation idea was.
Yu Sheng carried Erin, followed by Hu Li and Luna, the four of them looking up, sowhat bewildered, at the two large holes on the side roof, too distracted to greet Marin.
Two seconds later, Marin couldn’t hold it anymore, turning slightly awkwardly, "There is a reason for this..."
Yu Sheng blinked, looking at the living doll before him.
Maris sighed beside him, "It’s related to the previous battle..."
Yu Sheng beca more confused, "Previous? Was the battlefield within the Boundary City range too, even extending to the border?"
"Not exactly," Marin adjusted her expression, seemingly trying hard to divert the guests’ attention from the large holes on the roof, "but previously, the Space Rifts above Boundary City had spread over the outskirts, and we were unable to determine the extent of the fragntation zone, so..."
She awkwardly paused here, and Maris directly supplented the follow-up, "So the mistress decided to activate the floating island engine for an ergency evasive action."
Hu Li was curious, "...What happened then?"
"Next door was the castle of Bamasa Hermit Association — they also decided to take ergency evasive action."
Yu Sheng and the others: "..."
Then Erin stretched her neck, looking around.
Marin: "No need to look, their castle’s main building collapsed and warped back for repairs."
It’s unclear if it was an illusion, but the living doll seed a bit smug saying this — even obscuring the earlier awkwardness.
Yu Sheng listened with a shocked expression; it was his first ti knowing buildings could also rear-end each other, especially since in the prior fierce battle, most areas of Boundary City were protected unscathed by the Spiritual Fox system, yet the two embassies outside the battlefield were bumped — what model of mishap was this?!
"Ahem, let’s go inside first," Marin dry-coughed, interrupting this sowhat awkward conversation, and made an inviting gesture, "The wing building will be repaired soon, and the main areas there are just the viewing platform and space laboratory; the puppet printing room was not affected, so it won’t interfere with today’s repair plan."
Upon hearing this, Yu Sheng imdiately reacted and hurriedly followed behind.
They passed through the mansion’s main hall and were led by Marin and Maris through a long corridor lined with many oil paintings. Along the way, Yu Sheng saw many low-level puppets at work, as well as "servo robots" similar to Maris — albeit evidently lower-grade, and seemingly lacking Maris’s agile intelligence.
The Gothic mansion filled with mysterious atmosphere, guided by living dolls and spring-loaded maids, deep and long corridors, ancient oil paintings, and faceless mannequins and chanical attendants everywhere.
Yu Sheng thought this place would indeed be suitable for a thed horror house — no renovation needed, just turn off the lights and station a ticket seller at the entrance.
Afterward, the group reached the mansion’s depths, arriving at a place called the "puppet printing room."
The chamber lights up, and Yu Sheng sees a series of incomprehensible control equipnt and server units arrayed alongside the room walls, a massive "water tank" placed on a platform at the room’s center, with a silver-gray nanomachine cluster slowly surging within, and dizzyingly complex data charts displayed in the holographic projection before the tank.
Having walked all the way from the "Witch Mansion" outside, Yu Sheng is a bit bewildered by the scene inside the room.
"...Is there sothing off with this aesthetic?"
Marin, looking entirely matter-of-fact, "Nope, the puppet printing room is ant to be like this."
Yu Sheng: "..."
He pondered hard for a while, but didn’t know how to explain his montary bewildernt to the living doll before him, so he simply opted not to explain.
Marin then instructed the spring-loaded maid to adjust the "printing device" paraters, raising a hand to point at a section of alloy platform beside the tank, "Place Erin’s original shell here, I’ll check its condition first."
Hu Li nodded, went over with a "clink" sound effect to remove her tail storage, shook it vigorously over the platform, and a pile of fragntary remnants began to clatter onto the platform.
Witnessing this, Maris, busy at the nanomachine pool’s side, imdiately froze up.
Even the usually graceful and calm Marin was montarily stunned, turning her head only after two or three seconds, "Isn’t there sothing off with this aesthetic?"
Yu Sheng found the words eerily familiar...
But after all, being the envoy sent by Alice’s Cottage, Marin, who had seen all kinds of peculiar species in this Universe, was only surprised for that brief mont, and then promptly went over to restart the frozen spring-loaded maid, before coming over with Yu Sheng to the pile of puppet remnants.
The living doll silently stared at the dead puppet on the platform.
Erin visibly tense with her body tightening.
Yu Sheng, slightly anxious due to the small puppet beside him, seeing Marin not speaking for a while, cautiously asked, "...Is it too fragnted?"
Marin opened her mouth, squeezing out a sentence from her throat, "...It is a bit."
Then she held back for a few more seconds, but finally couldn’t resist: "I had heard you ntion that Erin’s original body was shattered by the On Goddess, but you didn’t say it was pulverized!"
Yu Sheng hurriedly made ands: "You can’t say it like that, you see there are still many large pieces here, the limbs, torso, and head all have relatively complete structures, it’s just that there are quite a few fragnts from where they’ve broken off..."
"In theory, it shouldn’t be so fragnted... Even when disassembled, the Alice Puppet retains mostly intact joint structures. Whether it’s an old generation or a new generation body, they all have a high degree of ’toughness’," Marin frowned, "... I can only say that the power of the ’Alien God’ was too strong, it seems to have exceeded the damage control limits of this body."
Erin, while pulling on Yu Sheng’s hair, anxiously looked at Marin: "Then, can it still be repaired?"
Marin thought seriously for a mont, then nodded: "...Yes, but it might require more computational power and a nanomachine swarm, I need to completely reconstruct those shattered structures. Rest assured, it’s not an issue—I have already stockpiled sufficient materials in advance."
Yu Sheng breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this: "That’s good, as long as it can be repaired."
Erin, while also relieved, thought of sothing else: "Ah, right, I rember you ntioned an ’Alice Secret Key’ back then, that... I still haven’t figured it out."
"It’s okay, once we’ve found the original body, there’ll be no need to worry about the Secret Key; as long as this body is activated, you’ll naturally regain your ’Secret Key’," Marin waved her hand, "and I see you’ve also retrieved your frying pan—with it, your chances of reconnecting to the Garden Network will greatly improve."
Even though Erin didn’t fully understand, she obviously realized all of this was good news, and she happily smiled.
Marin then looked towards the spring-loaded maid in front of the pool: "Maris, are you ready?"
"Yes, Miss Marin—the nanomachine swarm is ready."
A slight chanical friction sound and the humming of machinery operating ca from beneath the alloy platform.
Yu Sheng watched as the platform slowly lifted and was taken over by a complex set of chanical arms, brought to the center above the "tank," where the silvery-gray nanomachine swarm began to surge. The platform stacked with puppet remnants descended, gradually imrsing into the viscous tal "solution."
The puppet remnants were completely subrged by the nanomachine swarm, the various devices in the room started to buzz, and paraters on the holographic projection in front of the tank continually refreshed, revealing the outline of a complete puppet body—the blue color blocks, representing the progress of repair, began to fill the outline.
Maris pulled a cable from the side of her ear and plugged it directly into the console, while monitoring all system paraters and reporting the current status:
"Original body identification sequence read... matching pool alignnt... Candidate sequence 85 available.
"Loading base blueprint... printing missing skeleton and critical structures.
"Repairing Alice Secret Key, rewriting...
"Beginning to print missing skin..."
Hu Li, standing beside, widened her eyes, grasped Yu Sheng’s arm with her hand, her tail swaying, with a look of wonder on her face: "Wow... Erin, the birth process of your body is way cooler than before, at least it looks pretty professional!"
Even Luna, who usually didn’t get along with Erin, nodded in agreent this ti: "Yes, right."
Erin continued to hold tightly onto the handle of her beloved frying pan with one arm, and Yu Sheng’s head with the other: "Well, of course, I’m quite impressive!"
The little puppet was trembling with nervousness.
Yu Sheng worried that she might drop the pan onto his toes.
Just when he couldn’t help but want to ask Marin how long the repair process would take, the hum of various surrounding equipnt began to gradually quiet down.
The entire process was faster than he’d expected—and it appeared to go exceptionally smoothly.
The alloy platform that had previously been subrged in the tank rose again.
The blonde puppet in a dress lay quietly on the platform, her body intact, eyes closed, as if in a deep sleep.
There was a calm silence in the puppet printing room.
Even Erin herself, who was usually the most loudmouthed, was quiet now.
Yu Sheng slowly approached the platform, gazing at the golden-haired puppet lying on it—her face was actually identical to Erin’s, just with a different hair color and physique, making her look distinctly different from what he rembered.
The little puppet jumped down from Yu Sheng’s shoulder, hopped onto the platform, stood beside her original body, stared at her own face for a while before looking up: "I, I told you, I’m one ter sixty-seven..."
"Yes, you’re one ter sixty-seven," Yu Sheng laughed, pressing a hand on the little puppet’s head, "now try going back into your new body."
"Okay, okay!"
Erin nodded slightly nervously, placed her frying pan on the table first, then walked over, and pressed her hand on the forehead of her original body to try transferring her consciousness directly.
A few seconds later, nothing happened.
She stood there in a daze for a mont before slowly turning her head to look at Yu Sheng, confused: "Yu Sheng, there, there’s no reaction..."
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