Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 576: Anyway, It’s All Fine Now

Erin was crying so sadly.

Yu Sheng completely understood her sadness. Putting himself in her shoes, he felt that if this situation happened to him, it would be hard to hold it together as well.

After all, the previous puppet bodies either were only 66.6 centimeters tall from the start, or they shrank to 66.6 centimeters immediately after the spirit injection, so there weren’t any high expectations. But this time was different; she had just solidly restored her "original appearance" and even completed a full inspection process with Maris while in that state. Not just her, even Yu Sheng thought this time everything was settled—who would have thought something like this would pop up?

This unlucky puppet’s original body could shrink too!

But the most dumbfounded people at the scene weren’t Yu Sheng and his group, but Marin and her servant who witnessed the entire process from the side.

As a "Alice Puppet" with proper values and worldview, Marin’s entire worldview and knowledge system couldn’t explain what just happened before her eyes. The words, "How does this work," circled over and over in her mind. As for Maris next to her, it was simpler—the last time Marin upgraded Maris’ hardware, she saved two hundred bucks, and now Maris was literally smoking.

Yu Sheng, at a loss, held the heartbroken little puppet. After a while, he finally managed to comfort the little thing a bit. He placed the blonde, blue-eyed and the black-haired, red-eyed puppets side by side on the alloy platform. After visually confirming that both puppets were indeed the same height, he stroked his chin and started mumbling: "This shouldn’t be... If it had shrunk immediately upon activation, I could understand. It’s reasonable. But for it to shrink suddenly after active for two hours, what’s going on?"

"It’s just unreasonable!" Erin’s eyes were red (although, admittedly, the black-haired one’s eyes were originally red), "I barely got used to the normal height perspective, and I didn’t even have time to do anything before sitting down for a physical checkup... My long legs, my six feet five..."

"Stop, stop, though I sympathize with your situation, imagining you just shrank back and grew to nearly six-and-a-half feet is a bit out there," Yu Sheng waved his hand to interrupt the little thing’s ramble, his eyes landing on the blonde puppet in front of him (66.6 cm), getting into a thoughtful state instinctively, "Don’t be so quick to grieve. I think there was something odd about your height shrinking back this time."

The two Erins tilted their heads thinking, the blonde one spoke first, "...What do you mean?"

"Think about it, your body only had issues after being normal for a while; it’s obvious that it differs from the earlier situations—rather than the body having issues, it’s more like... after being active for a while, energy ran out—or maybe not energy, but something similar," Yu Sheng said, pondering aloud, "Isn’t it similar to when your Spiritual Fox Mysterious Iron body ran out of power? Though one couldn’t move, and the other shrank, both had problems after some activity."

Erin blinked, listening, though she felt this theory lacked evidence, but she always held high regard for Yu Sheng’s "pondering" ability—despite his lack of knowledge, weak theories, and poor practical skills in mysticism, his intuition was unparalleled, and his thoughts tended to be extraordinarily accurate.

So after listening, she also followed this line of thinking and hesitated before speaking: "Then, maybe a recharge?"

"Hard to say, your body might not be battery-powered," Yu Sheng stroked his chin, "Reflect on when your body suddenly shrank—did you feel like your strength couldn’t keep up or your joints weren’t cooperating?"

"Not really..."

While Yu Sheng and Erin were analyzing the situation, Marin was busy rebooting Maris; she removed the bionic skin from the spring-loaded maid’s back, then opened a cover to assist in cooling down. In the next second, the light in Maris’ eyes flickered twice, she let out a "beep" and raised her head, first looking at Yu Sheng and Erin’s direction, then slightly turned her head towards her mistress: "Their discussion topic is odd."

Marin didn’t lift her head while busy with the spring-loaded maid’s back, "I know."

Maris thought for a moment: "Additionally, can you get me a better cooling system next time? Also, I think the new coprocessor you gave me has issues... are you sure it was new?"

"Definitely new," Marin immediately replied, "You unpacked it yourself."

Maris tilted her head.

"Perhaps, it’s a manufacturing defect." The spring-loaded maid said somewhat dejectedly.

"If it doesn’t work out, I’ll switch you back to the old one for a few days," Marin frowned, "Where’s the old processor you replaced?"

"I put it..."

However, Maris had just said a few words when Yu Sheng’s voice suddenly intervened, interrupting the conversation between master and servant.

"Sorry to interrupt," Yu Sheng waved, "Could you check Erin again?"

"Of course," Marin nodded immediately; she was busy rebooting Maris just for this, "Please wait a bit, Maris here needs some adjustments... Alright, where’s that data cable from just now?"

Yu Sheng quickly found the cable used for Erin’s check beside the alloy platform and casually handed it to the little puppet: "Here it is—same as before, hold it in your mouth."

The blonde Erin accepted the data cable, plugged the connector into her mouth, and muttered slightly slurred: "Mouth’s gotten smaller, more uncomfortable than before..."

Yu Sheng immediately thought that made perfect sense and was fully reasonable.

Meanwhile, Maris maintained her open-back cooling posture, began steaming while checking Erin’s now shrunken body.

"Connection established successfully; beginning to read primary parameters..."

Pale blue streams of data flowed rapidly through the spring-loaded maid’s eyes. The procedure for basic checks proceeded quickly, not requiring the lengthy guidance process as before.

Some devices in the puppet printing room automatically turned on, with reams of parameters refreshing rapidly on the holographic display beside the nano tank.

Marin frowned, focusing intently on those data points, and after quite a while, she shook her head in puzzlement: "...Everything is normal on a data level and even..."

Yu Sheng and Erin spoke in unison: "Even?"

"...There are even fewer error reports than before," Marin’s voice filled with disbelief, "The operational efficiency of this body is very high—like a newly born Alice Puppet." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Yu Sheng was taken aback by her words, exchanging wide-eyed glances with Erin sitting on the alloy platform.

Both fell silent together.

In fact, Yu Sheng wasn’t entirely clueless about Erin’s "constant height" of 66.6 centimeters, he had some ideas about it.

He still remembered the homeland of the Omen Goddess, and also the mother civilization’s history of observing the sky that spanned six thousand six hundred and sixty years.

Information from beyond the world, once it enters the observable universe, transforms into something quite different, some things just don’t adhere to logic—Anka Aela engraved her obsession with reconstruction on the distortion of the concept of "Fairy Tales," the Inference Star Body marked its fixation with life’s continuity on its transformations and the Ascension Cycle, the Omen Goddess apparently also inscribed the history of the mother civilization into this universe...

But damn it, it seems she marked it crookedly.

Yu Sheng looked at the little puppet before him, the fusion of golden-haired Erin and the Omen Goddess gave birth to a new entity, and within this shell now, was neither the "Alice Puppet" of the past nor the god from the Otherworld descending from the World Bridge, "Erin" had her own essence—though this "essence" seemed a bit difficult to decipher at the moment.

He looked at the puppet, and the puppet looked at him.

Then Erin sighed.

She spit out the data cable from her mouth, clapped her hands, jumped off the alloy platform, walked over to Yu Sheng, and opened her arms.

"Hug."

Yu Sheng then picked up the little puppet.

"Let’s go home."

"Okay."

Another black-haired, red-eyed Erin also jumped down from the platform, holding a frying pan in one hand, while dragging a large picture frame with the other.

But just as she jumped down from the platform, that dark picture frame suddenly made a slight cracking sound—it fell to the ground, splitting abruptly into pieces like an item made of loose black ash and in the blink of an eye, turned into a pile of ashes.

Until today, it had always been extraordinarily sturdy.

Yu Sheng: "...Holy crap?!"

Everyone instinctively looked at the pile of ashes, Hu Li’s ears twitched, and she exclaimed softly: "Ah, it’s broken."

Golden-haired Erin was also stunned for probably two or three seconds, then she bowed her head to look at her own hands, slowly opened and clenched her fists.

Yu Sheng suddenly felt a bit tense: "Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?"

"No, I feel... really good," Erin seemed a bit dazed, but more because of the frame’s sudden rupture catching her off guard, "and I feel much lighter."

Yu Sheng still felt a bit uneasy, lifting Erin up and observing her repeatedly for a while, confirming there were no abnormal reactions physically, and her demeanor still seemed as usual lacking grace and patience before he finally breathed a sigh of relief, placing the now protesting little puppet onto his shoulder.

Meanwhile, the ashes formed by the fallen frame began to rapidly dissipate, leaving only a small remnant in a few breaths.

"It seems your original shell was activated, causing the frame that served as the seal carrier to disintegrate itself," Yu Sheng mused, "After all, this seal was something you left behind."

"Is, is that so?"

Erin scratched her head, as the concerned party she didn’t have much opinion about it, but the frame she carried for so long was suddenly gone which left her a bit pensive—even though she couldn’t quite understand this feeling of melancholy, considering that thing had been a bothersome cage for her for a long time, yet now she felt... hollow inside.

It’s as if the sudden lightness left her feeling a bit lost.

However, one advantage of the little puppet is not dwelling on incomprehensible matters—she soon cheered up again, patting Yu Sheng’s head.

"Let’s go home! Go home!"

Yu Sheng then exhaled, deciding to study the little puppet’s current state further, as well as her new body’s specifics once they returned.

A door leading to No. 66 Wutong Road opened, and Yu Sheng and his group bid farewell to Marin and stepped back home.

The puppet printing room quieted down, leaving only a low humming sound from the operating equipment.

After bidding farewell to Yu Sheng, Marin did not leave the room, instead silently watching Maris tidying up nearby, brows slightly furrowed in thought.

After pondering for who knows how long, she suddenly stepped next to the alloy platform by the nanite basin, thoughtfully gazing at the connecting cables at the platform’s edge.

After hesitating for a moment, she picked up one of the data cables and held it in her mouth, looking up at the spring-loaded maid beside her: "Maris, is there a signal?"

Maris was taken aback, hesitating: "Miss Marin, that’s kind of... silly."

Marin spat out the data cable, continuing to stand by the platform lost in thought.

...Just what principle is this?