Chapter 58: Yu Sheng's Spirit of Exploration

Two Special Bureau agents and the spirit-world detective who called herself "Little Red Riding Hood" (a temporary worker) left, and Yu Sheng let out a soft sigh at the main gate before turning back to the living room.

Irene, who had been watching TV, immediately turned her head: "I thought you'd be chatting for a long time. Didn't you have many things you wanted to ask them?"

"I mainly wanted to get in touch with them—since Hu Li has already been brought out, the rest isn't that urgent," Yu Sheng said casually, his gaze falling on the side of the coffee table.

The fox-girl sitting on the floor guarding a pile of food sensed the gaze, looked up, and flashed Yu Sheng a happy smile: "Benefactor!"

"You need to take a bath, mainly to change your clothes," Yu Sheng said with concern, glancing at the wretched-looking Hu Li.

This unlucky fox had been trapped in another realm for many years; when first trapped, she was even a child. The clothes on her body now were unknown to be stripped from which corpse back then; one glance showed they were terribly ill-fitting, and now they were almost tattered into a heap of rags. Her body was filthy, covered in mud. Although there was water in that other realm and she should have had chances to wash, after all, she lived in wild mountains and remote fields, far from civilized society, and now even her tail was matted and clumped together.

Hu Li lowered her head and looked at herself.

She had probably grown accustomed to her appearance, not even considering the possibility of leaving that valley one day. Hearing Yu Sheng's words now, some distant memories and common sense slowly returned to her mind. She stared blankly for a long time, just as she had recently relearned how to speak, and finally began to mentally detach from the state of a "beast."

Yes, she needed to clean her body and change clothes—the Benefactor's cave dwelling was so clean; she couldn't make it dirty.

She nodded vigorously.

Yu Sheng looked at Irene again.

The little doll's two arms were still broken, looking quite pitiful indeed, but she seemed completely unaware, watching TV with a carefree heart, laughing hysterically over a mindless variety show.

Yu Sheng found it hard to bear: "Shouldn't I fix your arms first?"

"You take that fox to bathe first; she definitely won't know how to use the things in the bathroom," Irene waved her arms carelessly. "I'm not in a hurry; fixing me later is fine."

"Alright then, I'll come help you as soon as possible," Yu Sheng nodded, then extended his hand toward Hu Li. "Come with me."

Hu Li stood up but hesitated, looking at the food on the floor as if she dared not leave it even a step.

Seeing this, Yu Sheng smiled: "Don't worry, the food won't grow legs and run away. Eat after your bath—Irene is here to keep an eye on it."

However, Hu Li still hesitated. Unconvinced, she glanced at the doll watching TV on the sofa, then suddenly bent down, grabbed two cans of eight-treasure porridge and two packs of biscuits from the plastic bag, stuffed them casually into her tail, and only then turned to stand before Yu Sheng.

Yu Sheng's mouth still held the smile from before; he stood frozen in place, momentarily unable to process what had happened. After two or three seconds, he stiffly turned his head, looking at the large tail behind Hu Li.

"... Where did you hide them?"

Hu Li pulled the biscuits and eight-treasure porridge out of her tail, showed them to Yu Sheng, immediately stuffed them back into her tail, then blinked her big eyes at him.

Yu Sheng was shocked: "You can use it like that?!"

"Mm." The fox-girl nodded, still looking as if she didn't know what was happening but found it perfectly natural.

Yu Sheng suddenly remembered something else: "... Didn't you shoot out a tail before..."

"It's grown back."

Yu Sheng: "...?"

His forehead was full of question marks—so foxes were like this?

But no one could answer his question; Irene didn't know a second fox like Hu Li.

Yu Sheng frowned, shook his head, temporarily shoved the question marks from his forehead aside, grabbed the fox-girl, and led her to the bathroom on the first floor.

"This is the water heater; you don't need to worry about it for now. Anyway, hot water comes from here. This valve controls hot and cold; turn left for hot water, right for cold water, and pull to release water... The bathtub here works the same way; the valve is here. This bottle contains body wash; you can use the sponge nearby to make bubbles, don't squeeze too much. This bottle is for shampoo... it should work for washing the tail too."

Yu Sheng carefully and patiently introduced the items in the bathroom to Hu Li, speaking very slowly, ensuring the fox-girl understood and nodded before introducing the next item, yet even so, he suspected Hu Li would still be flustered when bathing.

"Anyway, just know how to use water. You can soak in the bathtub for a while. The towel and bath towel are hanging by the mirror cabinet here. Remember to dry your body before coming out so you don't catch a cold."

Hu Li nodded hard: "Mm, mm."

"Remember to take out the things you hid in your tail before bathing... never mind, you figure it out yourself; they're all packaged." "Mm, mm."

"I don't have any clothes for girls. I'll give you a set of mine to wear for now; you can make do. Tomorrow I'll go to the mall and buy you new ones."

"Mm, mm."

Hu Li seemed reduced to nothing but constant nodding; whatever Yu Sheng said, she nodded.

Yu Sheng felt quite worried; at this moment, he suddenly envied Irene's open-mindedness.

After giving some more instructions and letting Hu Li try turning on the showerhead herself, he finally felt slightly relieved. He then fetched a set of his own loose pajamas and pants, placed them at the door, turned, left the bathroom, and returned to the living room.

Irene was struggling to climb onto the sofa with her broken arms.

Yu Sheng: "... What are you doing?"

"I fell off the sofa because I laughed too hard just now," Irene explained awkwardly while climbing. "Hey, don't just stand there watching; come help me get up."

Yu Sheng stepped forward two paces, casually lifted Irene along with her picture frame: "Alright, stop watching TV. I'll go repair your body."

Hearing this, Irene froze: "What about that fox?"

!.

"She's bathing in the bathroom herself," Yu Sheng said casually. "I taught her how to use all those things."

"Can she manage? She just got over the effects of hunger; her mind hasn't recovered yet, has it?" Irene hung on Yu Sheng's arm, looking doubtfully toward the bathroom. "She won't blow up the bathroom, will she..."

Upon hearing this, Yu Sheng's steps hesitated for a moment. He looked uneasily toward the bathroom—now the sound of rushing water could be heard from there: "It should... not be that bad, unless she suddenly shoots out her tail halfway through washing."

"Forget it, don't think too much," Irene waved her arms, quickly becoming open-minded again. "Anyway, she's not stupid. She's survived in the wilderness for so long; she'll adapt to the environment quickly. Upstairs, upstairs. Fix my arms first. It's really inconvenient like this; even changing channels is hard."

Yu Sheng made an "oh" sound and led Irene up the stairs.

Arriving at the attic, turning on the light, Yu Sheng removed the picture frame from Irene's back, then carefully placed the little doll on that large table.

"No need to be so cautious; I'm not made of porcelain," Irene laughed at Yu Sheng's careful movements. "You won't accidentally crush me."

Yu Sheng looked strangely at the porcelain-like broken ends on Irene's arm: "It's not my fault for being careful; mainly, your broken places look really terrifying. Doesn't it hurt at all?"

"It doesn't hurt. It hurt a little bit just when it broke," Irene raised her arm and looked at it. "But now that I look, it does look a bit scary... Hurry up and fix it."

Pausing here, she began to guide the operation: "The process is similar to when creating the body, but you don't need to create the torso anymore; just make the arms. The spirit-infusion process is the same as last time; I will guide and complete it. After repairing the arms come the legs. There are a few cracks on my legs, but they aren't completely broken. You need to activate the clay after alchemical processing to make the repairs. This part requires more care; you'd better use a scraper to trim it well, and I can save some effort..."

Listening to the little doll's explanation, Yu Sheng spoke hesitantly only after she finished: "By the way, there's something I wanted to tell you just now..."

Irene: "Huh?"

"The clay we bought last time is actually used up," Yu Sheng spread his hands. "At this hour, you probably can't buy any more even if you go out."

Irene was stunned: "... Why didn't you say so earlier? Then why did you bring me up here to mess around?"

Yu Sheng simply took out the lotus roots he had bought last time from the drawer nearby...

The little puppet instantly widened its eyes, nearly jumping up (but its broken legs wouldn't let it): "Hey, you just can't let lotus root be, can you! Didn't I already tell you... Wait, why did you put the lotus root in the alchemy table's drawer! You've been plotting this all along, haven't you?"

"I was just curious whether this thing actually works," Yu Sheng admitted he had indeed plotted this a little bit, but he attributed it to a spirit of scientific exploration—just like when he had researched how to stew the flesh of the "Hunger Entity" to make it taste good, it was all for the sake of research—"Let's just try it; this lotus root was quite expensive, after all."

"Try your grandpa!" Eileen glared with scarlet eyes, "Putting aside everything else, before infusing spirit, you have to add your blood into the materials; you could knead that into even a ball of dough, but with a lotus root, how are you supposed to..."

The little puppet stopped mid-sentence as it saw Yu Sheng pull out another syringe from the drawer.

Eileen: "... Hey, wait, are you sick or something!"

(End of Chapter)