Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 581: Two Mysteries, Two Hypotheses

The secrets of Erin’s new body seem to be quite numerous, but the little thing herself didn’t seem to think much of it—she was just enthusiastically exploring her easily detachable and reattachable ball joints, sometimes popping one off with a "poof," then clicking it back on, or spreading her arms and legs out, crawling all over the place, or installing her arms backward and making Yu Sheng guess if she had raised her left or right hand...

Watching this bizarre scene, Yu Sheng felt an unspeakable eeriness in his heart. As he washed Erin’s head in the water basin, he muttered to himself, "Good thing you’ve shrunk in height now, or you’d really scare someone to death, I’m telling you..."

Erin: "Gurgle gurgle gurgle..."

Yu Sheng: "Talk with another body!"

So, a small black-haired puppet (made of clay) that had just washed its face climbed onto a nearby shelf, put her hands on her hips, and looked up: "Why aren’t you done washing yet!"

"Almost there, almost there, there’s a stubborn black spot on your chin," Yu Sheng

said as he lifted Erin’s head out of the water basin, instinctively shaking it to get rid of the water, only to get bitten hard on the second shake. He had to apologize quickly, then casually remarked, "Be careful taking those joints apart so often, they might get looser over time. If you sneeze and they fall apart, you’ll be waiting for Luna to make fun of you."

"It won’t happen. The looseness of the Alice Puppet’s joints is determined from the day they’re created," Erin retorted confidently, "Besides, I can use those golden threads to reinforce them. As long as I hold them tightly, they won’t fall apart."

"...With those threads, you could be doing something more useful." Yu Sheng pouted, dried the puppet’s head with a towel, casually blew it with a hairdryer, and "clicked" it back onto its neck. "Alright, go downstairs and see what Hu Li and Luna are up to."

Yu Sheng led a series of Erins downstairs, only to find two figures in front of the electrical panel in the living room—Luna was opening the panel cover, preparing to reset the main switch, while Hu Li was beside her, holding a flatbread, giving suggestions in between bites: "I think it’s definitely an aging circuit. Listen to me, draw a Thunder Attracting Curse below the breaker switch, it’ll be powerful..."

Luna looked down: "You’re unreliable."

Hu Li pouted, her ears twitched, and she turned to see Yu Sheng coming down the stairs. She immediately leaped over joyfully: "Savior, you’re awake! I don’t know why the power tripped again. I was going to heat up the leftovers from the cafeteria for you, but the microwave isn’t working..."

"I know it tripped; Erin tried to charge herself and messed it up," Yu Sheng waved his hand. "Since everyone is here, let’s study Erin’s current situation together."

A moment later, they sat around the living room sofa, watching Erin (with blonde hair) perform a one-man operation, crawling ominously all over the tea table.

Upon seeing this, Hu Li’s tails "poofed" into a fluffy sword tomb behind her: "This is absurd, Erin, is this not a bit grotesque?"

"Aren’t you the one who shoots your tails out every day calling me grotesque?" Erin stuck her tongue out at Hu Li while reassembling herself, "Do you have any idea how shocked I was the first time you did that... Hey, wait, I’ve got another trick..."

"The talent show ends here," Yu Sheng quickly intervened, stopping the puppet as she prepared to showcase another bizarre trick. "Now let’s talk business... mainly two things, one is the anomaly with your current body, and the other is the situation in your ’Mind’."

Erin tilted her head up, blinking her eyes.

Then five voices chorused: "What?!"

"Don’t worry, you can still run and jump, so it’s not a big issue," Yu Sheng wasn’t surprised by Erin’s reaction and first calmed down the seemingly startled puppet. He then carefully chose his words while looking into her eyes, "Let’s talk about the Mind aspect first. This was discovered during Maris’s examination of you, and I did mention it to you at the time. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"Erin, have you ever felt like there’s an ’alien’ in your ’mind’? I mean on the level of thoughts, like vague memories you can’t understand that don’t belong to you, or uncontrollable thoughts blocking your thinking, or even memory blackouts—do you understand what I’m saying?"

Yu Sheng struggled to find the right words, hoping to convey his meaning accurately. He wasn’t sure if this perpetually bewildered puppet really understood, but Erin was listening seriously and even showed a thinking expression after hearing him out. After nearly half a minute of hard contemplation, she shook her head vigorously.

"No, I feel pretty good about myself," the puppet said confidently, then suddenly looked a bit tense, "So, what exactly did you find?"

"A ’data package,’ quite large, existing deep within your memory," Yu Sheng said seriously, "It not only occupies a large amount of storage space but also uses up a considerable amount of your underlying computing power—we suspect that thing might be the part of the ’Omen’ left inside you."

Then Yu Sheng explained everything discovered during the previous examination to the puppet in front of him, just as he had done with Marin, without holding anything back.

Erin, who usually didn’t like to think much, seemed to understand the matter Yu Sheng was discussing this time.

"Oh dear..."

The little puppet exclaimed softly.

"Don’t get ahead of yourself; this could be tricky. Anyway, Maris and Marin have no solutions at the moment. They’re both planning to reach out to people on the Garden Network for help," Yu Sheng shook his head, "Do you really feel nothing? No corresponding impressions in your memory? Haven’t you already integrated part of the Omen Goddess’s memory? In that part..."

"Nope," Erin shook her head vigorously again, "I only remember some scattered fragments, all from before my home was destroyed. Starting from that, you know... ’Sanctuary’ plan, or when scholars began calculating the creator’s equation, my memory just went blank."

As Erin spoke, she frowned hard, seriously searching through her chaotic mixed memories. There were a few flashback fragments, where she felt she had returned to the perspective of the Omen Goddess, but those memories disappeared like flowing water after just a moment.

"It seems... from the beginning of the ’Sanctuary’ plan, the ’omen’ personality started consciously self-compressing," the little puppet murmured, "All computational power and memory were paving the way for the ’Sanctuary’... Although the Sanctuary was never eventually built, sigh."

Yu Sheng raised his head and exchanged glances with Hu Li and Luna beside him.

Hu Li’s ears twitched.

"...Could it be that you’ve packed the entire Sanctuary blueprint into your memory?!" The demon fox girl stared wide-eyed.

Erin was stunned: "Really, really?"

"How would I know! It’s just a guess," Hu Li’s tail shook vigorously, "But you did say earlier, starting from the Sanctuary plan, your memories related to the ’omen’ got blank, that’s a very obvious clue."

The little puppet sat cross-legged on the coffee table, five bodies forming a ring of thinkers, but after several minutes, nothing was pondered.

"Let’s note this issue first," Yu Sheng looked around and temporarily memorized the conclusion that "the unusual data structures in Erin’s memories might involve the ’Sanctuary’ plan of the omen’s mother civilization," then said, "The second issue is Erin’s current physical form."

The blond little puppet immediately straightened up, her gaze becoming sharp.

"I still find the phenomenon where this body suddenly ’shrunk’ after normal activity for two hours very suspicious," Yu Sheng rubbed his chin, "Being able to undergo these changes even after ’Spirit Injection’ is completed and even after Maris’s inspection process is finished indicates that, at least during those two hours, there was some ’strength’ or ’factor’ maintaining Erin’s original shell in a ’normal’ state."

"Right, right! I was in a normal state at that time, but this body shrinking like this is absolutely not right!" Erin perked up immediately upon hearing this, "There was definitely something wrong at that time; when I jumped off the table and walked towards you, there was obviously a state switch..."

Yu Sheng seemed not to hear the little puppet’s chatter but continued rubbing his chin thoughtfully, his gaze still on blonde Erin: "’Erin’ when dominant is the normal state, ’Omen Goddess’ when dominant is a three-part puppet? Or... does this body really need regular recharging?"

"Who knows, definitely not charging," Erin propped her head with her hands, "The main thing is that I myself didn’t feel any physical decline. It doesn’t seem like energy depletion at all."

Yu Sheng fell into thought, but this time, before he could figure anything out, a vibration from his phone awakened him from contemplation.

He took out his phone and saw a message from Baili Qing:

"Are you available? Come to the Special Service Bureau if you have time."

A pair of furry big ears popped over: "Savior, savior, who is it?"

Yu Sheng openly showed the phone screen to Hu Li: "Baili Qing is back to work, asking me to go over. Just as well, I also have something to discuss with her."

As he spoke, he recalled the bizarre ’illusion’ he had seen through the spatial cracks during his synchronization process with the Inference Star Body Crystal Tree.

That distant starlight illusion like the edge of the Universe, the giant ship, and the flames curtain.

What do these images signify? Does the Special Service Bureau have intelligence on this matter?

Yu Sheng was uncertain about this, but besides the Special Service Bureau, he couldn’t think of anywhere else that might have answers in this world.