Chapter 202: One of Ten Thousand Doors

The phone call ended, and Yu Sheng held the phone, still a bit dazed; two seconds later, he lowered his head, looking at Irene (the main unit) at his feet: "How come I can't tell if she's angry..."

"This time she really didn't curse the street, but I think it's just because she's used to it," Irene analyzed with a serious face, "Look on the bright side, at least this time you didn't suddenly get the urge to cause trouble in the middle of the night at twelve..."

Yu Sheng coughed twice, forcibly suppressed the slight guilt in his heart, and then shifted his attention to the door before him.

A mottled, old wooden door leaned slanted against the white wall of the basement; the doorframe and the surrounding ground were covered in strange, complex lines and symbols, several candles burned quietly not far away, and the faint scent of incense (still from that five-yuan store batch) permeated the air.

Whether the spirit-infusion ritual would succeed was uncertain, but at least the atmosphere looked quite on point.

Yu Sheng took a light breath, calmed his slightly nervous mood, and then began to follow the method he had previously pondered and modified: he cut his palm and guided his own blood to infuse into that door.

Spirit-infusion: infusing one's own "spirituality" into originally lifeless matter—since clay could become the flesh of a doll, and rebar could become the bones of a doll, then a door could naturally become a target for spirit-infusion.

The candles crackled, the flames gradually rose higher, the blood silently seeped into the mottled, old wooden door; gradually, the lines and patterns on the surrounding ground, originally drawn with ordinary ink, were faintly stained with a dark red color, as if the blood was gradually replacing every structure of the alchemical array, and Yu Sheng even heard a faint, burning-like sound.

He widened his eyes in some surprise.

"What's wrong?" Irene immediately noticed Yu Sheng's reaction, "Does it feel wrong?"

"No, it feels... too smooth," Yu Sheng, perceiving the connection established through the blood, said somewhat incredulously, "When I molded your body before, there wasn't such a distinct 'feeling' of something taking shape, but now I can clearly feel the 'spirituality' reshaping this door... is it because of the effect of your amplification nodes?"

"Maybe because you are establishing a connection with a 'door', and this is inherently your own power?" Irene analyzed very seriously, then immediately became smug, "Of course, the main reason must be that my amplification nodes were set up perfectly!"

Yu Sheng paid no attention to the little doll's boastful self-praise; he simply controlled the entire spirit-infusion ritual more cautiously, then placed his hand on the doorknob while continuing to "modify" this door.

Just as he had reshaped the clay and lotus root into the doll's body and limbs, the form of the door began to change.

Faint creaking sounds came from the door; the edges of its frame suddenly softened and deformed as if gaining life, the original wooden structure gradually began to "dissolve" together with the wall behind it, forming a biological, adhesive structure, and then the surface of the door began to reveal fine, vein-like patterns; those patterns gradually subsided, turning into thorn-like lines that faintly shimmered with a metallic luster.

Then, Yu Sheng gently turned the handle—the connection to the valley was instantly established.

But he did not push the door open as usual; instead, while maintaining its state of being about to open, he carefully perceived the situation on the "other side".

He wanted to completely shape the corresponding "connection point" on the other side of the valley in one go.

This step was not easy, because he had to divert a considerable amount of attention to generate a door device with material substance that could exist permanently on the "platform" on the valley side as well—although he could control the soil and rocks in that valley to shape any form, this was after all "remote control", and ensuring precision, position, and connection stability simultaneously was quite difficult.

Yu Sheng failed three times in a row.

By the fourth time, the candlelight at the edge of the alchemical array had clearly begun to become unstable.

But this time, he succeeded.

He felt a fixed connection had been established; a physical door had formed at the corresponding position on the valley side, and it could remain stable without him continuing to maintain it.

A few minutes later, after triple-confirming the connection channel was stable, Yu Sheng finally let out a light sigh, then released the doorknob in his hand.

Hu Li, who had been watching nervously nearby, finally blinked twice: "Benefactor, did you succeed?"

"It should be successful," Yu Sheng nodded with a smile, glanced at the door that had already directly fused and embedded into the wall, stepped back half a pace, "Irene, you try; theoretically, this door is now the same as the entrance door at 66 Wutong Road; people like you and Hu Li who have accepted my blood can open it directly, and it will lead fixedly to the valley."

Irene was actually still quite uneasy about this thing, but she hesitated for a moment, nodded out of trust in Yu Sheng himself, and then stepped forward a few paces.

The Young Lady doll stood silently at the doorway.

Silence is the roar of 66.6 cm.

Yu Sheng: "... Should I have left a small... for you on the lower half?"

"Shut up! No need! I can reach!"

Irene turned her head, raised her hand, pointed at Yu Sheng, shouted three times in a row, and flipped him off; then the other two Irenes walked over, and in front of Yu Sheng, the three little dolls skillfully stacked themselves in a triangular formation, only then successfully grabbing the doorknob, and then twisting it hard.

The door opened.

The open and pleasant valley scenery entered everyone's eyes.

Irene, still stacked together and clinging to the doorknob, instantly forgot the displeasure of the previous second, widened her eyes in wonder, and the three bodies spoke in unison: "Wow—Yu Sheng, you're amazing, it actually works!"

Then the topmost Irene quickly jumped down and ran happily towards the other side of the door: "I'll go over first to check the situation!" At this moment, Yu Sheng suddenly felt something seemed wrong with the view on the other side: "Hey, wait a minute, I think I messed up the direction over there..."

But his interception was ultimately a step too late; the little doll had already jumped over from the doorway.

The next second, her figure fell straight down: "Waaah—"

Then came a "splat" sound.

Yu Sheng and Hu Li hurriedly leaned over to peek at the other side of the door, and saw the Young Lady doll lying flat on her back on the gravel ground outside the edge of the valley platform.

The two Irenes remaining on the basement side jumped up and down cursing the street: "Yu Sheng, you damn it! You opened the door on the edge of a high platform, right! Why didn't you just open it in the sky!"

Yu Sheng hurriedly controlled the ground on the other side of the door to rise, sending the fallen Irene to a position level with the doorframe, then went over with Hu Li to pick up the dazed little doll, straightened her clothes while quickly explaining his original plan: "Well, I planned for the door to face the inner side of the high platform, so that in the future we could arrange a circle of doors around the high platform, the entire area would be a grand hall, named the 'Hall of Ten Thousand Doors', leading to various places in the universe, and the edge of the platform would be the outer wall of the hall..."

Irene darted up and grabbed Yu Sheng's hair: "Then why did I fall down?!"

"... I opened it backwards."

"Yu Sheng, you damn it! I &*%... ￥%￥..."

For the next two minutes, Irene cursed very unpleasantly.

Please... collect_(!)

Time passed minute by minute; in the third minute, the doll calmed down.

She sat on the platform, watching Yu Sheng busily adjusting that big door, muttering: "To be honest, your idea of the 'Hall of Ten Thousand Doors' is quite cool, it sounds a bit like a secret organization—like the kind that doesn't appear for over forty episodes in the main plot, only showing a silhouette at the end of the episode whenever the protagonist finally makes a breakthrough, and then whenever the writers really can't come up with anything for a season, the director arranges for the whole family to be wiped out—there are also those where the whole family is wiped out right at the beginning."

"You should watch fewer idiotic dramas in the future," Yu Sheng muttered while wiping sweat, "and couldn't you use a more auspicious example? It has to be wiping out the whole family, right?"

"This is popular now; without a deep blood feud, the protagonist has no motivation," Irene propped her chin with both hands, looking at Yu Sheng, "Can you adjust it? You've been busy for a long time... If you really can't, just let this door open backwards from now on; it could even serve as a trap to prevent outsiders from invading; those who don't know will fall when they open the door..."

"Anyone who can open the door has permission, so what's the point of preventing anything," Yu Sheng said without looking up, "Alright, it's adjusted, come take a look?"

Under his control, the teleportation gate with a few errors was finally repaired.

A simple, antique-style flat-top door with a rock-like texture, gray-white doorframe, and matching door leaf now stood quietly on the platform; although it looked quite simple, this simple shape and texture actually gave it a touch of mysterious solemnity.

And the "handle" of this door was a triangular "stone block" embedded in the door leaf—the surface of the stone block had no decoration, its edges were rough, it was simply embedded directly in the center of the big door, which made it look somewhat abrupt, yet actually quite fitting with the "style" of the entire door.

Now, anyone who has ever accepted "blood" can, by turning the triangular stone block in the center of this door, open a passage from here leading to the basement at 66 Wutong Road.

Irene and Hu Li curiously came over; the two examined the big door standing at the edge of the platform, and the little doll touched her chin and nodded slightly: "Not bad, honestly, it has more design than the toilet you built before."

Yu Sheng looked helpless: "How many times have I said that's not a toilet!"

"I know, I know, your 'Phase One Project'," Irene waved her hand impatiently, then curiously glanced again at the triangular "door handle" in the center of the door, "By the way, why is the handle in the center?"

"For aesthetics, it has a sense of mystery—and it can confuse first-time users, making you unable to immediately tell which side the hinges are on..."

Ailin: "... Are you crazy? Why is it a triangle?"

Yu Sheng rubbed his nose: "Oh, there's a reason—it symbolizes the three founders of the inn—that's us three."

Ailin looked skeptical: "... Really?"

Yu Sheng sighed: "I actually wanted to mold a tiger's head, but couldn't get the tiger's head right, so I thought I'd try a dog's head instead—then I couldn't get the dog's head right either..."

Ailin: "..."

Moments later, the little doll stepped back half a step, staring solemnly at the door before it, and at the triangular door handle embedded in the center of the gate.

"A design symbolizing the three founders of the inn—truly excellent," the little doll remarked expressionlessly.

Yu Sheng nodded along: "Truly excellent."

Hu Li glanced at Ailin, then at Yu Sheng, not understanding what had happened, so he clapped along: "Mm-hmm, truly excellent..."

(End of Chapter)