Chapter 163 – Eileen Enhancement Plan

The hair dryer whirred loudly. Eileen sat cross-legged on the coffee table, both hands gripping its edges to keep herself from being blown away, waiting for Yu Sheng to finish drying her hair.

Whenever the nozzle swung around to face her, she would suddenly look up into the wind with her mouth wide open, going “Ahwahwahwahwah——” and having the time of her life.

Sometimes Yu Sheng genuinely wondered what exactly was going on inside this doll’s head.

“Stop playing around.” He had no choice but to physically hold Eileen’s head down the third time she “ahwahwah’d” at the hair dryer, letting out a somewhat helpless sigh. “Just a little more and it’ll be dry… There, that’s good enough.”

“Thanks~” Eileen reached up and ruffled her own hair, then watched Yu Sheng put away the hair dryer. Suddenly she blurted out, “Did something happen? You seem distracted.”

Yu Sheng’s hands paused. He let out a soft breath. “It’s nothing really. I ran into Little Red Riding Hood in my dream and chatted with her a bit.”

“Ran into Little Red Riding Hood in a dream?” Eileen was confused at first, but quickly caught on. “Oh! That weird dream of yours, right? The one where you met Hu Li last time… Little Red Riding Hood got pulled in too?!”

“Yeah, and unlike with Hu Li, she was fully conscious when she entered,” Yu Sheng said casually, though he didn’t mention what he had seen in Little Red Riding Hood’s memories. “…I’m planning to go to the Dark Forest again tonight.”

Eileen blinked but said nothing, just watching Yu Sheng.

“Little Red Riding Hood’s condition has already reached the ‘late stage.’ Basically every time she falls asleep, she ends up in the Dark Forest,” Yu Sheng continued. “Going there should let me help somewhat, and if we’re lucky, maybe I can even catch the ‘Grandmother Wolf’ she’s been facing, or run into that ‘Hunter’ again… She turns eighteen next month. There isn’t much time left.”

“Wow, you actually call running into Grandmother Wolf ‘lucky.’ Classic you,” Eileen finally sighed. “Fine then. You can open a door and go in whenever you want now anyway… Are you bringing me and Hu Li? There’s almost certainly going to be a fight.”

“Hu Li is definitely coming,” Yu Sheng nodded, but then his tone turned hesitant. “As for you…”

The moment Eileen saw his reaction, she shot to her feet on the coffee table. “What about me?! How many times have I played a critical role?! You—”

“I’m just worried your frontline survivability isn’t enough and the Wolf will one-shot you,” Yu Sheng sighed helplessly, though something seemed to be turning over in his mind. In the end, he nodded. “But you have a point. I need your support abilities. Your threads might be really useful against those invisible wolf packs.”

Eileen finally looked satisfied. “Now that’s more like it.”

The little doll had always been easy to appease.

Yu Sheng smiled, then casually pulled out his phone and composed a private message to Little Red Riding Hood on Frontier Communications: “Send me a message before you go to sleep tonight.”

Eileen leaned over from the side, peering at the phone screen. Only after Yu Sheng had already sent the message did she suddenly pipe up: “That sounds really weird, you know. No matter how you read it, it looks like you’re harassing some poor girl…”

“Do you have to put it like that?!” Yu Sheng immediately turned to glare at the doll. “And why did you wait until after I sent it to say something?”

Eileen looked away. “I just realized it, okay…”

Yu Sheng didn’t buy it for a second. Just then, his phone buzzed, and a private message popped up:

Little Red Riding Hood: “…???”

Two seconds later, another message came through: “Why?”

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, looked up and saw Eileen staring at him intently, so he swallowed the lengthy explanation he’d been formulating and simply typed three words in his reply: “Dark Forest.”

This time, it took quite a while before Little Red Riding Hood responded. She seemed to have spent a long time trying to compose her thoughts, but what she ultimately sent was just a few brief words: “Okay… and, thank you.”

Yu Sheng put his phone away and leaned back against the sofa, letting out a long breath.

Eileen looked at him curiously. “So what now? We just wait until tonight?”

Yu Sheng didn’t answer, just gazed at the little doll before him with a contemplative expression, staring until she gradually started to squirm. “Hey, why are you staring at me? I didn’t say anything wrong, did I…”

“I need to give you an upgrade,” Yu Sheng said abruptly.

Eileen: “…Huh?”

“The Dark Forest is dangerous. You haven’t encountered that biggest ‘Wolf’—you don’t know. In terms of raw threat level, that thing is probably an even tougher fighter than The Hunger was. Your threads might be able to restrain it, but your body absolutely can’t take the hits.” Yu Sheng’s expression grew serious, and when his tone turned grave, even Eileen set aside her usual carefree attitude. “After all, no matter how good a fighter Hu Li is, there’s only one of her. If you as the support can’t stay standing… then that Wolf becomes exponentially harder to deal with.”

A thoughtful look crossed Eileen’s face. Yu Sheng lifted his gaze to the daylight outside the window.

“It’s still early. There’s time to prepare for tonight’s operation… We need to go out.”

“Go where?” Eileen asked reflexively.

“The Valley. The terrain there is suitable,” Yu Sheng said, then turned to the Fox-Spirit Girl who had already walked over. “Hu Li, come upstairs with me first. We need to grab some things.”

“Okay!”

Moments later, a door connected the living room of No. 66 Wutong Road to the Valley. Yu Sheng led Hu Li and Eileen (the one whose clothes were intact) through the door and onto the large platform at the center of the Valley.

“This’ll do.” Yu Sheng looked around, seemingly picking a spot at random, then pointed to the open area nearby. “Hu Li, set the stuff down here.”

The Fox-Spirit Girl nodded, then rummaged around inside her tail and began unloading things onto the ground—ritual candles (just ordinary candles from a convenience store), rose oil that probably contained no actual rose, what were likely no-brand essential oils made from food coloring mixed with fragrance, tea powder of questionable expiration date, assorted bottles and jars of dubious utility…

Finally, she detached her tail and shook it in midair, causing the air to ripple and warp as several pieces of rebar clattered to the ground with a series of jarring clangs…

Eileen watched from the side, completely dumbfounded, staring at Yu Sheng in utter disbelief. “…You’re not seriously planning to build me a body out of rebar and cement, are you?!”

“Why not? I said I was going to give you an upgrade,” Yu Sheng replied as though it were the most natural thing in the world. But he quickly added, “Of course, the rebar we can use, but let’s hold off on the cement. I tried it last time and cement isn’t like clay—you need to pour it into a mold to get it to set properly, and it’s hard to control… That’s actually why I chose this location. This Valley has more than enough raw materials, and more importantly, the materials here are very easy for me to ‘control.'”

Eileen’s mouth twitched as she listened to Yu Sheng’s train of thought. “Will this actually work?”

Yu Sheng nodded. “As long as the skeleton is solid, the overall durability should improve dramatically—that’s how I see it, anyway.”

“That’s not what I meant…” Eileen mumbled, but trailed off into a sigh. “Ugh, forget it. Do whatever you want with me.”

Without needing her permission, Yu Sheng had already started.

He didn’t bother with the painstaking process of etching alchemical symbols and arrays on a table like he did at the Alchemy Table in his attic back home.

He simply stood on the open ground and extended his hand toward the flat surface before him.

A faint sound of grinding stone rose from the earth, and carved lines began spreading outward from beneath Yu Sheng’s feet, rapidly branching, interweaving, and converging.

The alchemical array needed for crafting a doll was fully formed in just a few breaths.

Yu Sheng focused intently on controlling the process, a faint smile gradually forming on his face.

Yes. This was how it should be used. He should have been doing this all along.

He looked down and met Eileen’s astonished gaze.

“That’s really convenient!” the little doll couldn’t help but exclaim.

“You bet. I should’ve been making use of this place way sooner.” Yu Sheng chuckled happily, then began directing Hu Li to help. Together, they quickly arranged the ritual candles. He then raised a temporary wall around the open area to shield the candle flames from the Valley’s winds, picked up Eileen—still strapped to her painting frame—and placed her on a specific node of the array on the ground.

Preparations were soon complete, and Yu Sheng’s gaze settled on the rebar.

“Next, I need to shape these into a skeleton for the doll,” he murmured.

Eileen looked up at him. “Yeah, so get started.”

Yu Sheng rubbed his chin, his expression dead serious. “…I forgot to buy a welding torch.”

Eileen froze for two seconds. “…”

Then the doll launched herself into the air, flying at him with teeth bared: “Then what was all that preparation for?! You brought the rebar but not a welding torch?!”

Yu Sheng flailed and scrambled to fend off the doll’s leaping assault while frantically explaining: “It just slipped my mind, okay? Who needs a welding torch when making a doll…”

“Then who the hell uses REBAR when making a doll?!” Eileen sputtered furiously. “You managed to think of using rebar for an alchemical doll but you’re telling me a welding torch didn’t cross your mind?!”

The lodge’s number one and number two instantly descended into a serious internal conflict, the two of them going at it like a kiln in full blaze. But just as Eileen finally managed to sink her teeth into Yu Sheng’s hand, a sudden flash of light from nearby interrupted them both.

Yu Sheng turned his head in bewilderment to see that Hu Li had just used a searing, focused beam of Fox Fire to slice clean through a piece of rebar. She then pressed two pieces together and used the flame at the tip of her tail to fuse them with a sharp hiss.

A moment later, Hu Li held up the welded rebar in one hand, cradled her tail with the other, and looked up at Yu Sheng with expectant eyes. “Benefactor, will this work?”

Yu Sheng: “…Did someone say argon-fox welding?!”

(End of Chapter)