Chapter 287: Insufficient Battery Life

A blinding blue beam shot out with a "Vwoop!" sound; not only were Yu Sheng and Hu Li caught off guard, but even Irene herself didn't realize what had happened.

This Irene Promax, standing 66.6cm tall, stared blankly at the round, scorched hole in the distant wall. It took several full seconds before she realized she had made it. Only then did she look down at her fingertips, then back up at the nearby wall, repeating this a few times before her gaze finally settled on Yu Sheng beside her.

"Oh my god—"

Yu Sheng finally reacted too, staring wide-eyed at the small doll: "Stop saying 'oh my god'! How did you do this?"

"I don't know either!" Pro Irene stared wide-eyed, waving her hands around, "I just did as you said and tried to release the silk threads, gave it a little flick, and then..."

Seeing the small doll's waving gestures, Yu Sheng reflexively jumped aside: "Just talk, don't wave your hands around! I'm telling you, those two hands of yours count as controlled weapons right now!"

Meanwhile, Hu Li had run up to that wall, looked up and examined it carefully for a while, then flew up to inspect the cut. After a long moment, she returned to Yu Sheng with a strange expression: "Benefactor, it seems to be something similar to Fox Fire, but it's very strange; I've never seen anything like this."

Yu Sheng's mouth twitched. He turned to look at Irene, only to see the small doll looking down and counting on her fingers, muttering to herself as she did so: "Light is also a thread... how did I do that just now..."

After a while, she seemed to have figured it out. She looked up at the sky, then struck a meaningless pose as if charging a ultimate move, gathering energy and sinking her waist, before pushing both hands upward: "Hey—"

A blue beam thicker than before shot out with a "Vwoop!" sound, piercing the sky and leaving a bright, conspicuous trail through the clouds.

Irene watched with wide eyes, jumping up happily: "Wow!!"

"Your 'silk threads' have turned into this?" Yu Sheng watched for a long time before finally speaking up, "Or is it only this body?"

"Only this body," Irene said, her excitement still high, continuing to count on her fingers and study them without looking up, "Other bodies still produce ordinary silk threads. This one shoots out like a laser..."

As she spoke, she fired several more beams into the sky. Then, jumping happily to Yu Sheng's side like a child who had just received a new toy, she said: "Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng, this is great! Whoosh, biubiu—I feel super powerful! This is definitely better than that C-clamp. Even if she's fast, can she be faster than light? Next time I see her, I'll poke a bunch of holes in her..."

Seeing her excited state, Yu Sheng knew this fellow had completely forgotten what he had just said. Things like "the blessing of the Ancestor of Dolls" or "the silk threads of the Alice Doll are an innate skill" had probably already been tossed aside by her already forgetful brain...

Beyond his sigh, he couldn't help but start pondering exactly what was going on with the laser the small doll had just shot out.

He naturally connected it to the clue Hu Li had mentioned earlier.

"... So, it's related to the 'skeleton' used this time?"

Irene didn't catch that immediately. She turned to look at Yu Sheng: "Huh?"

"I'm saying your ability change might be related to the 'skeleton' currently used by this body," Yu Sheng said thoughtfully, "Didn't Hu Li say that the beam you shot out is somewhat similar in nature to Fox Fire? And the material of this body's skeleton was 'refined' by her. According to her, that thing has 'spiritual resonance'..."

Irene listened with a dazed expression, her face showing the look of someone trying hard to understand something they didn't get. After a long pause, she slapped her palm: "Oh—"

Then she laughed, happily swinging her arms: "Anyway, this body of mine is very powerful, right?"

Yu Sheng: "... Right."

Sometimes he really envied this small doll's attitude toward life. It highlighted green, low-carbon thinking and an ultra-low-power brain (she didn't even have that organ). All that limited intelligence was used solely to make herself happy...

Afterwards, he ignored Pro Irene, who had started counting on her fingers again, and went over to Hu Li's side. Lowering his voice, he asked: "... Is this a normal situation?"

"I don't know," Hu Li was honest too. Hearing this, she shook her head. "There are no dolls like Irene in my hometown either. We have all kinds of mechanical people there, but I've never heard of any mechanical person who could learn to shoot Fox Fire like a laser just by using Spirit Fox Black Iron as a skeleton..."

This question seemed impossible to figure out for the time being.

Yu Sheng shook his head and didn't dwell on it too much. After all, there were countless things around him he couldn't figure out right now. It wasn't like this doll that suddenly could shoot lasers was the only mystery. Besides, Irene was happy, and this extremely high-cost body did seem to have higher combat power now, so overall it was still a good thing.

"Alright, stop researching for now, and stop wrecking my wall," Yu Sheng went over to Pro Irene, bent down, and rubbed the small doll's head. "I'll remove these temporary walls first, then plan a scheme to cap the entire platform. Later, when I have time, I'll open up a dedicated training ground for you in the valley and set up all kinds of practice targets so you can shoot to your heart's content."

Irene immediately nodded happily: "Great, great!"

Yu Sheng smiled, then waved his hand to remove the circle of temporary walls he had raised.

The solid, heavy gray-white "rocks" began to wriggle and descend in the blink of an eye, softening and contracting as if re-integrating into the earth. Within a short while, this one-time "Alchemy Laboratory" re-integrated into part of the teleportation platform. Just as the walls melted back into the ground, Yu Sheng saw several familiar figures outside the wall.

Rapunzel had the King slung over her shoulder. Bai Xue was leading a group of children with bobbed hair. Beside them were Cinderella and the Mermaid. A large group stood blankly on the platform, staring wide-eyed at Yu Sheng and Hu Li.

And the four Irenes behind Yu Sheng.

Yu Sheng: "Why are you guys here?!"

"We saw some commotion over here just now," Rapunzel spoke up. "We could see lasers shooting up into the sky from far away. The four of us came over to see what was going on, but we saw a strange circle of walls suddenly appear here. I thought maybe big brother was working on some new invention again..."

As soon as she finished speaking, Bai Xue beside her raised a finger and pointed at the four dolls behind Yu Sheng: "How come... there's one more?"

Yu Sheng knew anyone seeing the new Irene would ask that. He immediately laughed, smiling as he casually said: "It just grew out of the ground."

He was just making things up on the spot, but he didn't expect someone in the scene to actually believe him. The Mermaid was immediately amazed: "Really?!"

Yu Sheng spoke seriously: "That's how our inn works. If you leave it alone, dolls will grow..."

"Don't listen to his nonsense!" Irene finally got anxious. All four voices shouted together, "I just created a new body! For easier fighting!"

As she spoke, Pro Irene jumped out from behind Yu Sheng and proudly approached the several "Fairy Tale" members: "Let me tell you, I have a special tactical model now. The one in front of you is my super form... Hey, what are those looks? Do you think I'm small? Let me show you..."

!

As the small doll spoke, she was about to demonstrate her super power again. She started stepping and twisting her waist to strike a pose. Although she didn't need any wind-up at all when shooting lasers, she deliberately added a bunch of cool moves for style. In the end, she basically performed a set of military boxing moves before finally raising both hands and making a kung fu energy blast pose toward an empty area: "Ha—"

A tiny blue flame, the size of a match head, flickered on her fingertip and went out in the blink of an eye.

Irene paused, staring blankly at her own hands. Then she tried again, but this time not even a flame appeared.

"How come..."

She muttered, turning to look at Yu Sheng, but suddenly found her neck was as if rusted and hard to turn. Immediately after, every joint in her entire body became sluggish and heavy. In almost the blink of an eye, she could barely move a single finger.

Only her mouth still worked.

"Hey, hey, hey! Yu Sheng! Help, help, help, help, help... Help! Something's wrong! This body is broken! I can't move!!"

Yu Sheng had been watching the fun from behind, thinking the small doll was just putting on a show. Only then did he realize the situation was truly wrong. He instantly rushed forward, only to find that all the joints of this Irene Promax version doll were stiff. Even when he picked her up, she felt as hard as a plaster statue.

The small doll was almost crying. Several bodies crowded over. Some tugged Yu Sheng's sleeve, some tugged his pant leg, and some climbed onto him. They made a noisy fuss: "What do we do, what do we do? I didn't do anything..." "No! I finally got such a powerful body!" "Is it one-time use? We used so many high-grade materials!"

Yu Sheng's head was about to explode from the chatter of all those shorties. But just as he didn't know what was going on, he suddenly felt the stiff body of Pro Irene in his arms move again.

Irene herself obviously felt it immediately: "Hey! Yu Sheng! This body seems to be able to move again! My hand just moved!"

Yu Sheng looked at this inexplicable situation with a puzzled expression. Finally, his gaze settled on Hu Li beside him.

The fox demon girl was obviously thinking too. She had been looking at Irene's body thoughtfully since earlier. Suddenly, her ears twitched, and she turned to look at Yu Sheng.

"Maybe the spiritual energy is exhausted," she said with a serious face.

Yu Sheng: "...?"

"There's no way around it. She just used so much," Hu Li said with a helpless expression. "She's so small to begin with. It's normal for the battery life to be insufficient."

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then looked down at the Irene Promax in his arms.

As expected, the little thing was about to cry again…

(End of Chapter)