Chapter 652: Chapter 652: The Formatted Girl
In the vast, boundless white world, the pure white girl almost seed to blend into the surrounding space, so delicate that she was nearly indistinguishable.
This was an exceptionally petite little girl, having dealt with the Rose Maidens for so long, I could tell at a glance that her small stature was due to her being a doll. She was dressed in a pure white bud dress, her skin snow white to the point of resembling flawless jade. Her disheveled twin tails sprawled over the curled-up girl’s body, her waist-length hair nearly covering most of her figure, a white rose that seed to have grown there covered her right eye, and her left eye remained tightly shut. Even after I arrived beside her, the girl didn’t open her eyes.
Upon closer observation, I noticed a greater issue with the little girl: she seed to be lting into the white space around her, with nearly a quarter of her body appearing blurry. A thin layer of cloud mist covered those blurred areas, on one side was the girl’s body, and on the other was my spirit world.
She was like a piece of dry ice that’s sublimating!
“Alaya, why has she beco like this?”
I didn’t voice my question but asked directly through spiritual connection. This here was my own spirit sea, and Alaya lived within it. Thus, my communication with her could be nearly as effortless and swift as one’s internal thoughts.
“Sorry, Lord Brother, I only just noticed sothing was wrong with her, but it has already co to this,” Alaya’s “voice” echoed in the spirit sea, a girl enveloped in a holy aura suddenly materialized from the white space, this girl now truly acting as if my spirit sea was her ho, you see how skilled she is at materialization, “However, my power has stabilized her condition. I believe it won’t be long before the girl awakens.”
“She’s so frail.”
I murmured, bending down gently to touch the snow-white girl’s cheek, “Can you hear ?”
Of course, she didn’t respond, but I’m not sure if it was an illusion, the “evaporation” of her body seed to have slowed down since before, the parts of her body that had beco semi-solid seed to be re-solidifying.
This weak spiritual body had appeared suddenly before we left the Rose Maidens’ world. I didn’t know why she had appeared all of a sudden, whether she realized her sisters were about to leave that world with two strange strangers and involuntarily followed, or if she intended to attack one of us. Either way, after finding her, I casually confined this interesting pure spiritual body, “Little One,” within my own spirit world, having just woken up Alaya look after her. Because I wasn’t yet sure of her identity, I hadn’t ntioned it to anyone else. Only Sandora and Alaya knew, but it seems the forr cared even less about this trivial matter—a “little one” who couldn’t even achieve spiritual embodint was hardly of any interest to the Soul Taker Queen, who could control an entire species with her thoughts.
Now that I had so free ti, I decided to check on the little one’s situation, but I hadn’t expected her to have weakened so much.
It seems I still don’t fully understand the strength of my own spiritual power. Alaya, such an exceptional energy body, might live comfortably in my mind, but that doesn’t an other weaker spiritual bodies have the sa resistance. This little girl had clearly been eroded by my spiritual power. It was just unconscious thought assimilation, yet it had almost cost her life.
“Lord Brother, she almost beca part of your thought process.”
Indeed, Alaya’s words confird my suspicion.
“What would that have ant?” I was a bit curious. The idea of a pure soul disappearing inside the thoughts of another, more powerful spirit world because of erosion, however absurd it sounded, was sothing I had to admit nearly happened just now.
“You might suddenly have one or two unfamiliar mory images, but more likely, you wouldn’t feel anything at all,” Alaya blinked her eyes, while gently bending down to brush away the ssy hair from the white girl’s forehead, “This little girl’s soul has been weakening ever since entering Lord Brother’s spirit world. It’s as if she’s losing her source of power and unstoppably heading towards exhaustion.”
“Is this Xue Huajing or Rose Crystal?”
I muttered with so confusion.
The mont I saw her form, these two nas flashed through my mind. Strictly speaking, having a spiritual body, covered with a white rose over her right eye, untidy twin tails—these characteristics all pointed to Xue Huajing. But after nurous plot twists, I’ve co to deeply mistrust any so-called original setups.
…In this mad age, even Sylvanas is leading the charge into Dark Slaughter.
But from the looks of it, if there are no surprises, she is most likely the true Seventh Doll, Luo Zhen’s last daughter, Xue Huajing.
To create the perfect girl Alice of his dreams, the Doll Master Luo Zhen had attempted countless tis throughout his long life. Xue Huajing was his final creation, and it could also be said to be the challenge to the world made by a doll maker on the brink of despair, turning to extres.
In the effort to create a perfect life, Luo Zhen realized the limitations of the physical body and the inherent barriers to further evolution, so when making the Seventh Doll, he resolutely abandoned her body. This smallest “daughter” possessed only a soul, I don’t know how Luo Zhen managed to do this, but he was clearly attempting to create a life with infinite possibilities, a Spiritual Body that could evolve in any direction, Xue Huajing, the Rose Maiden without physical form, the girl who could never be touched, ca into being in this way.
What an irresponsible Alchemist, right?
Judging by the results, Luo Zhen’s attempt indeed succeeded. The intangible doll nad Xue Huajing was really created by him, but he clearly hadn’t considered what thoughts might reside in the heart of a daughter who could never be touched by anyone, not even feel the warmth of her father. In the last monts of his life, “creating Alice” had probably beco a curse that made the long-lived Mortal exhibit symptoms like those of a paranoid madman. His love for the Rose Maiden was twisted to the point of selfishness, so creating Xue Huajing without hesitation.
“This girl is gradually adapting to her surroundings. Perhaps because she has lived in a similar Spirit World for a long ti, she is weak, but her adaptability is truly formidable,” Alaya bent down to straighten the clothes of this Soul Body. “Ah, Lord Brother, she’s awake!”
As soon as Alaya finished speaking, the pure white girl in front of us suddenly shivered lightly, her only left eye slowly opened, and then she looked at the strangers in front of her in confusion.
I put on a smile and moved in closer, “Awake yet?”
The white girl blinked and after a few seconds, shook her head vigorously, “No.”
: “…”
Alaya tugged at my sleeve, “Lord Brother, she isn’t awake.”
“…You aren’t awake either, go back to sleep!”
Dull Cat Angel considered this for a mont and obediently nodded, “Oh.” Then she went back to sleep.
This guy’s mind was truly beyond salvation.
Now there was just and this small white girl left, facing each other. I looked at her curiously, while she, even more so, stared unblinkingly at , mirroring every move and gaze of mine with a blink of her eyes, her reactions were like that of a newborn creature first observing the outside world.
“What’s your na?”
“What na?”
“Uh, I an, what is your na?”
“What is?”
The white girl happily repeated my question twice, with a very serene smile on her face and shining eyes, as if she were playing so interesting ga—this wasn’t Xue Huajing!
Indeed, mimicking others’ speech was a habit of Xue Huajing’s, but the pure smile and tranquil aura of the girl before were definitely not traits of Xue Huajing! Especially her bright golden eye shining with innocent joy, how could that possibly belong to the Rose Maiden?
Nor was it Rose Crystal, the girl before was even more distinct from her.
I chatted with this strangely behaving little one for a while, but in actuality, it was just speaking continuously, and her happily repeating the last few words of each of my sentences. I didn’t glean any valuable information from her mouth; the only certain thing was: this girl had no idea who she was.
As white as paper—whether she had always been this way or had been impacted into this state by my Spirit World in the past half a day was unknown, but one thing that was clear was that I wasn’t going to learn anything from her anyti soon.
It was just an impulse to bring this little one back with , and I hadn’t anticipated these consequences—keeping a Spiritual Body safely imprisoned in one’s own Spirit World was not so easily done, a slight mishap could format the other party.
I watched the girl in front of with her legs crossed, sitting in midair, smiling as she made eye contact with herself, and suddenly sighed, “I’ll give you a na… no, let’s still call you Xue Huajing, as a keepsake. I’m sorry, there’s a good chance I was the one who turned you into this… but perhaps it’s also a good thing for you.”
“Good stuff, right?”
Xue Huajing nodded vigorously, continuing to smile at .
“Hmm, you should rember your own na first: Xue Huajing. Repeat after : Xue Huajing.”
It was like teaching a toddler to speak, I patiently and ticulously repeated it, and the girl learned very quickly, imdiately replying clearly, “Xue Huajing!”
“Your na.”
“Na!”
If Little Baobao had this gift for language, I would have nothing to worry about.
Communicating with Xue Huajing took quite a bit of ti, but ti flowed differently in the Spirit World compared to the outside. When I finally managed to get the Rose Maiden woke up by my accidental formatting back to sleep and exited my soul introspection, less than thirty minutes had passed outside.
I sighed softly, feeling like I had gotten myself into a bit of trouble, neither big nor small—better talk with Sandora about this tomorrow first. As a Soul Master, she might know what this is all about.
That night, all was quiet.
The next morning… I was woken up by a heap of boxes…
Curse you Lilina, you crow’s mouth!
I was dazedly sleeping when suddenly the sound of whooshing air rang by my ear. I imdiately reacted; after spending so much ti with rcury Lamp, I could skillfully dodge the daily morning greeting of being hit, but…
I forgot that there was actually a long line of boxes in my room now.
“Bang! Bang! Bang bang! Bang! Bang!!”
Six whooshing boxes, as if they had conspired together, ca flying through the air, crashing down on the bed. My excellent reflexes allowed to twist and turn at high speed, dodging five of them, but the sixth landed squarely on my face.
… That had to be rcury Lamp’s doing. Apart from the Chairman who knew so well, who else could find such a devilish angle to launch such a brutal attack?
“Ti to get up! Get up!”
The boxes crashing beside clicked and clacked open. Chu i was the first to bounce out, hopping and shouting on the bed, while I fumbled to lift the big box off my face and shook it hard after flipping it over. Sure enough, rcury Lamp, who had just opened the lid to show off, fell out.
Lantern pants again…
“Perverted human! Stupid human! What are you looking at!”
Oh, rcury Lamp, you can blush too? This is truly a once-in-a-millennium spectacle!
“Alright, alright, move aside, move aside!” Feeling my parental authority being challenged, I imdiately pushed rcury Lamp flapping against my chest to the side and looked at the frolicking Rose Maidens seriously. Chu i was hopping around the bed, Cui Xingshi stood there pompously looking this way, Cang Xingshi showed a slightly apologetic expression, but I clearly rembered her box was the first to fall. Golden Canary looked impatiently at Chu i’s childish actions, with an “I’m so amazing” expression. Last ca Zhenhong—hey! Making tea on the bed is absolutely forbidden!
“What’s all this ruckus so early in the morning,” I said, massaging my temples with a headache. Although being hit by a box didn’t do much harm, the fact that these Rose Maidens with such diverse personalities had so cruelly agreed to wake up with a bang, was just too moving, “Who started this?”
Five little hands uniformly pointed towards the rcury Lamp who was sitting beside ; she imdiately turned her head away, huffing in response.
Indeed worthy of being Big Sister, huh? Such fierce rallying power?
“rcury Lamp says this is how she greets you every morning, and seeing how adept you are at dodging just now, it surely must be the case, right?” Cui Xingshi arrogantly stood with her hands on her hips, her little head tilted up, looking over here.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll cover my bed with two layers of warship armor — knock so sense into you lot!
All in all, it’s a ti of joyful family gathering with the milk dad, his daughter, and her sisters. It’s another bustling morning.
“Little Shui, ti to brush your teeth!” I lightly patted rcury Lamp’s head as she was about to sneak away. Under the stunned gaze of the group of Rose Maidens, Chairman Shui obediently hopped down to the ground, “Ugh, I’m almost out of toothpaste! I’ll use yours today!”
“This is so terrifying training…” Golden Canary trembled, looking at as if I were a monster.
But just as Chairman Shui reached the door, a sudden knock rang out.
“I hate doorknobs,” muttered rcury Lamp gloomily before she attempted to tiptoe to open the door. Surprisingly, when the door opened, no one seed to enter — just the sound of light footsteps slowly approaching.
“Pop,” a very cartoonish sound followed, and a big head popped up under my speechless gaze from under the bed.
…Actually, a three-headed rcury Lamp had jumped up, but from this angle, all I could see was a big head.
The suddenly appearing three-headed rcury Lamp seed oblivious to the surrounding gazes as she hopped rrily to my front and took out a piece of paper from her pocket: “Brother, the teacher asked us to hand this to our parents!”
Then the little doll turned to the 92.3 version of rcury Lamp, who was speechless, and greeted her loudly, “Good morning, Big Sister! Don’t forget to have your lactic acid bacteria today—”
After saying this, the three-headed figure strutted out of the room, leaving everyone exchanging puzzled looks.
“Whoa!!!” Cui Xingshi, as expected, was the first to scream, “A weird thing! There was a weird thing just now! It looked like rcury Lamp, a weird thing!”
“Weird, your sister!” I flicked the chatterbox doll on the head, “Just Magic Puppets of the rcury Lamp, specially made by the Imperial Alchemists for rcury Lamp’s corps. They’ve mostly been under maintenance recently, so you haven’t seen them.”
Even Zhenhong was shocked this ti, nearly dropping her teacup onto the bed, “What kind of terrifying coddling is this!”
Hmph, you’re all startled by this?
I snorted disdainfully. Just wait till you see the grand parade of the rcury Lamp Corps — over ten thousand three-headed figures marching by… Right, let’s see what this three-headed figure has brought . Is it sothing the Misaka teachers asked her to give ? When did those wretched Imperial instructors and Heroic Spirit teachers start doing such normal things?
But just as I looked down at it, I was internally devastated.
“Human, what does it say?” Cui Xingshi hopped over and snatched the printed paper out of my hands, reading it word for word, “Parent-teacher conference… invitation… What’s a parent-teacher conference?”
“Damn it…” I looked at the ceiling, speechless and choking up, as the world seed to dim at that mont, “They’re going to have a parent-teacher conference…”
Which genius instructor ca up with this idea!!(
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