Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 573: Postoperative Examination

Marin quickly prepared everything for the "patient’s" post-surgery check-up.

Under her guidance, Erin (blonde) sat back on the alloy platform. Maris joined her, and then a set of mechanical arms rose from the edge of the platform, starting to connect some cables near Maris’ back of the neck and keyhole.

Yu Sheng watched as those mechanical arms busily connected the servo robot, feeling a bit curious: "Hey, isn’t this check-up for Erin...?"

"Maris is the analysis mainframe, she must participate in the upcoming check-up," Marin explained. "She also has the Garden Network’s guidance module installed—Erin has been disconnected from the Garden Network for too long, and she doesn’t remember much about it anymore. Without assistance, she might find it difficult to cooperate with the check-up."

Yu Sheng let out an understanding "oh", while Erin, who was sitting on the platform watching the servo robot being connected, suddenly turned her head excitedly towards Marin: "Hey! Should I be connected too? Where do I connect?"

"Of course you need to connect too," Marin nodded and stepped towards the platform. "I’ll help you."

Seeing this, Yu Sheng curiously joined in, even though he had no clue about the "check-up" Marin mentioned. He was genuinely interested in "where to connect the wires."

Then he watched as Marin pulled a thin, faintly glowing cable from a groove at the platform’s edge, bringing the connector near the back of Erin’s neck.

After two seconds, Marin stood there with a bewildered expression.

The blonde Erin felt no movement behind her and curiously twisted her neck: "Hey sister, what are you doing?"

"No way..." Marin snapped out of her daze, looking bewilderedly at the blonde doll in front of her. "Where’s your universal port?!"

Erin was stunned upon hearing this: "...What’s a universal port?"

Yu Sheng’s reaction was even bigger than Erin’s: "Wait a minute, is that hole in the back of her neck a connecting port?!"

It’s no exaggeration to say that his words brought complete silence to the room—even Maris momentarily froze.

Marin was dazed for two or three seconds, seemingly comprehending something: "You... you didn’t..."

Yu Sheng had never been this embarrassed in his life: "I thought it was missing a piece, so I patched it up."

His words had barely fallen when he felt a spiritual intuition "ping" up, and he saw from the corner of his eye the blonde girl on the platform leap into the air, screaming as she pounced over, accompanied by Erin’s exasperated voice: "Yu Sheng! You jerk!!"

Yu Sheng was immediately flustered; after all, dealing with a 167 cm living doll was not the same as dealing with a 66.6 cm shorty, especially when the original-bodied blonde Erin had ridiculous strength: "Hey, hey don’t bite! Let go! Release! Hu Li, help—"

Meanwhile, Marin was still stunned. The normally composed living doll lady, who always followed the rules, had never encountered such a situation. She still held onto the data cable, trying to comprehend Yu Sheng’s "primitive alchemy," pondering the principle behind this situation while subconsciously muttering, "This can’t be... This isn’t logical..."

She blinked and looked towards the big and little Erin both hanging on Yu Sheng: "It shouldn’t be... The Alice Puppet’s body has a strong reset capability. Even if there were some missteps during the repair, it should reset quickly after a body restart. Theoretically, this shouldn’t happen..."

But no one was listening to her.

Luckily, Erin didn’t fuss for long—maybe she had developed psychological resilience from all the pits fate had thrown her way—she quickly calmed down and returned to sit on the alloy platform, visibly annoyed.

"So what now," the 66.6cm small doll sat beside the big doll, both maintaining the same puffy-cheeked posture, "Am I never going to connect to the home network in my life?"

Marin, holding the data cable, came over to Erin’s side, wanting to console her but unsure how to start, so she honestly stated her thoughts: "Actually, this situation has exceeded my understanding from the start; my plan wasn’t like this..."

"Of course, there’s hardly anything related to Yu Sheng that goes according to plan," Erin sighed, taking the data cable from Marin with a forlorn look, muttering to herself, "I guess I was just born under a bad sign..."

As she spoke, she didn’t know what came over her, casually biting on the end of the cable as though snacking on some spicy sticks, mumbling through her full mouth: "Back when he molded my first body..."

Before she could finish, Maris "dinged" herself back to rebooting, a flow of blue light flashing through the spring doll’s eyes, as she spoke up: "Data source detected."

The room fell even quieter than when Yu Sheng mentioned "patched it up."

Hu Li’s eyes widened, breaking the silence first: "Does this work?!"

Erin herself was shocked, instinctively reaching towards the line in her mouth, only for Yu Sheng to urgently stop her: "Don’t move! Keep biting! It’s finally connected!"

Erin immediately froze, maintaining the posture with the data cable in her mouth, sitting still, only daring to roll her eyes. The small doll beside her hopped off the platform in delight, looking up at Marin: "Hey, sister, this thing of yours is amazing, is it really so compatible?"

Marin was still stunned: "...?"

Is this really about compatibility?!

After holding back for a while, the living doll lady could only blurt out one sentence: "What’s the principle here?"

Yu Sheng chuckled upon hearing this: "Hey, I have a friend who loves to say that."

Marin pursed her lips, glanced at the blonde doll sitting upright with a data cable in its mouth, and then turned her gaze towards Maris.

The spring-loaded maid nodded slightly to her mistress, her eyes still flowing with blue data light.

Marin decided on the spot to push all her doubts away, treating it as the arrangement of the Ancient Saints—after all, if she thought about it too much, she would start to suspect that the great Puppet Progenitor didn’t actually have much intricate construction and long-term design when creating the "Alice Puppets," relying entirely on their "own musings"...

"The examination has already started," Marin exhaled deeply, looked at Yu Sheng after confirming everything was smooth on Maris’s end, "This process will take several dozen minutes; during this time, it’d be best for Maris and Erin not to be disturbed—let’s wait in the next room."

"Oh, okay," Yu Sheng quickly nodded, then looked at the 66.6 cm tall little Erin before leaving, "You stay here with that body, but don’t go messing with things."

The little puppet waved her hand vigorously: "Hey, I know, I know, I’m not a kid."

While saying this, she climbed onto the alloy platform, sitting beside her blonde shell; she’d been silent for merely a couple of seconds before leaning down, resting her head on her legs, and started giggling foolishly: "Long legs, hehe..."

Like a schizophrenia-affected pervert.

Luckily, Yu Sheng and his group had deep familiarity and unique understanding of such mental issues and main symptoms, so they acted as if they hadn’t seen anything, turning and leaving the "Puppet Printing Room" with Maris.

Next to the Puppet Printing Room was a not-too-large but cozy and elegant lounge.

Maris had prepared tea and snacks for her guests.

A faceless doll attendant pushed a trolley into the room, placing hot tea and snacks on the round tea table adorned with a purple tablecloth; not far, a pointed window was half-open with a view of the garden outside.

Yu Sheng sat at the tea table, relaxed, sipping tea and feeling a newfound calmness from the ear to the heart.

A large tail stretched over from beside him, flexibly rolled away the plate of snacks from the table.

Moments later, the snack plate was returned to the table, each snack precisely bitten halfway, leaving the other half for Yu Sheng.

Yu Sheng turned his head to see Hu Li sprawled on the ground beside him, wiping her mouth with her tail, occasionally yawning.

She was sleepy.

Sometimes the demon fox girl would enter this instinctive state when sleepy, like a... lazy wild fox.

After bending over to rub the fur behind Hu Li’s ears, Yu Sheng withdrew his gaze and engaged in casual conversation with Marin across the round table.

The two weren’t familiar, so naturally, there wasn’t much to talk about; the conversation mostly revolved around Erin’s situation interspersed with some open information about Alice’s Cottage, most of which Yu Sheng had previously heard from Baili Qing, but hearing details from a true "Alice Puppet" enriched the narrative.

Yu Sheng learned for the first time that, in outsiders’ eyes, the mysterious Alice’s Cottage was actually involved in many civilian sectors.

They had their own commercial routes, their own colonial bases and industrial systems—many Alice Puppets enjoyed interacting with ordinary species, publicly operating on developed planets; others preferred seclusion, achieving necessary "tasks" backstage through servo assistants or their self-made doll attendants.

On certain semi-developed planets, there were even many "legends" about living dolls—these legends almost became part of the local mythological system.

Being the world’s oldest "force," and simultaneously a clan directly created by the Ancient Saints, they had ample time and freedom to pursue virtually anything.

"... Before disconnecting from the observable universe, the Puppet Progenitor left a message in the Garden Network, saying for us to ’live freely,’ so we chose this way of life," Marin said with a relaxed smile, unhurried, "We wander throughout the observable universe, reaching out to those willing to interact amicably with us; we assist locals in handling issues related to ’loss of control supernatural,’ and we do business with them; if they’re willing, we even make friends...

"This universe has various problems, most of which stem from the apocalyptic catastrophe before the ’Second Singularity Explosion’; as a race directly created by the Ancient Saints, solving these issues is our inherent mission, which is why living dolls often appear in severely mutated pollution zones or bizarre incidents..."

Yu Sheng listened intently to Marin sharing these things, feeling as if he was gaining a better understanding of the world from another perspective—a viewpoint from an ancient, free, universally-traveling clan.

But just then, amid Marin’s exciting exposition, she abruptly paused.

The living doll frowned slightly, seemingly listening, as her expression subtly changed.

Yu Sheng, noticing, became curious: "What’s going on?"

Marin hesitated: "It’s about Erin..."

Yu Sheng suddenly got tense: "What’s up with Erin!?"

"... Maris says she noticed Erin’s mind operation efficiency is somewhat abnormal."