Chapter 323: New Member

In the living room of No. 66 Wutong Road, the Artificial Saintess sat on the sofa opposite Yu Sheng in a somewhat constrained posture.

The main reason for her constraint was her height of three Eirens; visually, sitting on the sofa made her look as if she were squatting there...

"I told you, being too tall isn't good either," Eiren muttered beside Yu Sheng, as if trying to brainwash herself, "Look how uncomfortable she looks sitting there."

Yu Sheng turned his head to glance at this shorty; seeing her calves dangle from the sofa without even reaching the edge of the cushion made him feel too embarrassed to even tease her.

Meanwhile, the communication with the "Artificial Saintess" was still proceeding with difficulty.

The good news was that after some time of interaction, the other party's response speed seemed to have improved somewhat, and the situation where they would suddenly "freeze" during conversation had decreased significantly; she seemed to be rapidly adapting to her "resurrected" state. The bad news was—her language function seemed to have a major problem indeed.

Yes, language function. The Artificial Saintess could actually speak. According to Yu Sheng's observation, there was no lack of a sound module within her body; it was just that this module might be severely damaged, or perhaps it was a sequela caused by mental damage—during conversation, she would occasionally emit some sounds, but they were vague and short, making the content extremely difficult to understand.

However, for Yu Sheng, being able to communicate with the other party was already excellent.

"Do you remember your own things?" he asked tentatively, "I mean, the things from when you were a 'human'."

The Artificial Saintess nodded slowly, while emitting some short and meaningless syllables.

"And the things that happened to you after that, you remember those too, right?" Yu Sheng asked again.

He received another slow and affirmative reply.

Eiren jumped from the sofa onto the coffee table, sitting cross-legged in front of the Artificial Saintess: "Hey, Type-C, so what do you want to do next?"

The Artificial Saintess froze for a moment; this was a question that couldn't be simply answered with a nod or a shake of the head, so she tried hard to think, then gestured with her hands and feet—after quite a while, some short and vague static finally came from that shell.

"Ah, I can't hear clearly," Eiren scratched her head, "I forgot you can't speak... Then should I change the way I ask?"

But this time, the Artificial Saintess, who had been responding gently, suddenly waved her hand vigorously, then continued trying hard to emit a few short syllables, which were still too vague to hear clearly.

Eiren was stunned for a while, then finally couldn't help it: "Hey, don't bother, if you really can't say it..."

She hadn't finished speaking when Yu Sheng gently patted her shoulder.

"You want to say it yourself, right?" Yu Sheng casually pulled Eiren back while looking seriously at the iron puppet opposite, "Don't rush, speak slowly, your pronunciation is already clearer than before."

The Artificial Saintess nodded slowly. After quite a while, she tried to emit some syllables again; after another while, she tried once more.

Yu Sheng and the others finally managed to barely hear clearly—or rather, understood what she said by listening and guessing.

"Want... to go home," a voice like rusted gears grinding and tearing came from that steel shell. Then she raised her hand and gestured again, as if feeling what she said was still not clear enough, and repeated it, "Go home."

"... Okay, go home," Yu Sheng fell silent for a few seconds after hearing the other party's reply, then nodded gently, "I will try to find your hometown."

The Artificial Saintess nodded, but seemed not to have finished yet. She tried hard several more times, and after emitting a continuous stream of meaningless noise, a few clear syllables finally came from her body: "Save... them... save..."

Then came more noise.

Seeing how hard it was for her to speak, Eiren quickly jumped back onto the coffee table: "Okay, okay, I understand, you just want to help the people from your hometown, save them from that beastly Hidden Cultivation Society... uh, but to be honest, that seems like a huge project."

The little puppet turned her head halfway through, looking at Yu Sheng with some hesitation.

"Did you promise her before?" she asked hesitantly, "But to be honest, the three of us attacking a planet might be a bit tough—you might not even have enough blood disaster, disaster, disaster, disaster, disaster, disaster at that time..."

What the little puppet said was actually quite euphemistic; Yu Sheng even felt she had omitted at least a thousand or eight hundred "disasters," but even so, there was another person nearby who feared nothing and dared to agree to anything—Hu Li swished his tail and rubbed over: "It doesn't matter, I can be the vanguard then!"

Eiren widened her eyes: "Vanguard my foot! Relying on your pile of Fox-Root Missiles you usually save up? Will pulling your tail bald be enough to take down a planet?!"

"No problem, I can call for reinforcements then," Yu Sheng waved his hand, "The Borderlands will step in—the Hidden Cultivation Society has built a tower right under the Council's nose; won't they have to find some face? Besides, it's too early to talk about this now; we haven't even found the coordinates yet."

Saying this, he turned his head back, his gaze falling on the Artificial Saintess again: "Don't worry, we will help you."

The Artificial Saintess nodded slowly, then exerted great effort to spit out another word from a string of noise—

"Revenge."

The scene fell silent. A few seconds later, Yu Sheng, with an extremely solemn expression, said to the "iron puppet" opposite the sofa: "Okay, revenge."

"Alright, that's three things then," Eiren stood up and clapped her hands, "Go home, save the folks, revenge. Pretty understandable requests. Anything else?"

The Artificial Saintess shook her head.

"But let's agree beforehand, these are goals that can't be accomplished in a short while," Eiren added, "You have nowhere to go during this time, so stay and work in our organization—Yu Sheng, is that the meaning?"

The little puppet seemed to remember her setting as the second-in-command halfway through her sentence and quickly turned back to confirm.

Yu Sheng didn't pay much attention to it; he just smiled and nodded, saying to the Artificial Saintess: "If you are willing, you can join the 'Inn'. We are indeed short on hands, but it's not forced. You can also stay here even if you don't join; anyway, there's no shortage of places to stay. What is your will?"

The other party's reaction this time was faster than any previous one.

She nodded very solemnly. Because it was difficult to speak complete long sentences, she simply emitted one syllable: "Okay."

"Then, welcome to the team," Yu Sheng smiled and extended his hand to the other party, "From today on, you are our fourth member."

The Artificial Saintess hesitated for a moment, then imitated Yu Sheng's action and extended her hand. Flesh and blood met a metal palm, conveying each other's warmth.

"Great!" Eiren became happy immediately. This guy seemed to have completely forgotten the grudge between her and "Type-C" before, and she happily ran over to Hu Li, poking the other's tail, "Fox, Fox, you are a senior now too! Now the Inn has four leaders..."

"Didn't you say you still wanted to fight 'Type-C'?" Yu Sheng, seeing this situation, couldn't help but tease her, "Why do you have no objection to her now?"

"Ah, right, right," Eiren seemed to suddenly react after being reminded like this. Her whole lotus root froze on the coffee table as she started processing the process conflicts in her brain. After processing for a long time without figuring it out, she simply widened her eyes and looked at Yu Sheng, "Isn't the atmosphere inappropriate right now! Wait until the atmosphere is right, then see if we fight or not... Don't laugh!"

Saying this, she turned around and ran over to the Artificial Saintess with a clatter, clatter, looking arrogant: "Listen, you are a puppet now, and I am a puppet too, but you are Type-C and a junior, so from now on in the Puppet Action Squad, I am the Captain, and you are the Vice-Captain. The Vice-Captain must listen to the Captain! Do you understand?"

The Artificial Saintess just tilted her head, as if feeling that what this noisy shorty in front of her was saying was sick, and simply ignored her.

"Hey, Yu Sheng, look at her attitude!" Eiren became very dissatisfied immediately and turned her head to complain, "I was magnanimous and accepted this Type-C, and she won't even pay attention to me..."

"Alright, alright, there are only two puppets in total, one Captain and one Vice-Captain. If you don't feel ashamed, I feel it's embarrassing," Yu Sheng helplessly reached out and picked the little puppet back, "And don't always call her Type-C, Type-C. She should have a name..."

Saying this, he suddenly stopped, looking at the iron puppet opposite with curiosity: "By the way, what is your name?"

Then the Artificial Saintess froze—no movement for a long time.

After quite a while, she suddenly moved, emitting a string of noise from her body that couldn't be distinguished at all.

Eiren spread her hands: "It's over, the biggest communication problem has appeared!"

Hu Li, however, rolled his eyes, ran to get paper and pen, placed them on the coffee table, and pushed them in front of the Artificial Saintess: "Write it down. Can you write?"

Seeing this, Eiren was stunned: "Ah, right, you can do it this way too. Why didn't I think of it just now..."

But before she finished speaking, she swallowed the rest of the sentence.

Because she saw the iron puppet opposite pick up the pen and write a string of symbols on the paper that no one recognized.

The Artificial Saintess raised her head, looking at Yu Sheng somewhat constrained and uneasy, obviously realizing that no one recognized what she had written.

This was the script the "clerics" in the hometown church had taught everyone.

After a moment of somewhat awkward silence, she raised her hand again, pointed at herself, and once more attempted to produce sound from within this steel shell, speaking the name she had borne as a human long, long ago, before the monotonous, cold title of "Saintess" existed.

What had Father and Mother called her back then?

"Lu ¥#@%..."

She tried again, and this time the sound finally emerged a bit clearer—

"Lu-na..."

"Your name is Luna?" Yu Sheng looked at her and confirmed once more.

"Mm." The Artificial Saintess nodded slowly, emitting a short syllable.

"Very well, Luna," Yu Sheng said with a gentle smile, "I am pleased to meet you, Luna."

(End of Chapter)