Erin's expression looked quite sad.
Yu Sheng glanced at his "masterpiece," which took him several hours to create, and then put himself in the shoes of someone whose soul had to resurrect in such a body. He really could have cried...
However, Erin's reaction still hurt Yu Sheng a bit. Suppressing the awkwardness, he kept a straight face and looked at the living doll in the painting, trying to appear serious: "I really tried my best, you see, at least the eyes are symmetrical..."
This time Erin really cried: "But the head isn't symmetrical..."
Yu Sheng turned his face away: "Uh... Indeed, it's somewhat unskilled, I'll definitely do better next time, practice makes perfect, practice makes perfect..."
"Let's not have a next time," Erin said listlessly waving her hand, then she seemed to remember that today was her hard-earned day of escape and should be happy, so she strained to smile—unsuccessfully, then a long sigh summed up everything, "Well, it's a body anyhow, I really do feel the connection has been established, alright, let's go with it."
She took a deep breath, hopped down from the chair in the painting, took a couple of steps forward, then seemed to remember something, and looked down at the plush toy bear she was holding in her hand.
After standing in silence for a few seconds, she hugged the little bear tightly, turned around, and placed it on the chair as if saying goodbye.
Yu Sheng was curious: "Don't want the bear anymore?"
"I can't take it out. It... is another entity sealed in this painting, its consciousness has long dissipated. I don't even know where it came from," Erin shook her head gently and patted the bear's head, "It can only stay here, but I won't throw away the painting, so it's like keeping it by my side."
"Oh."
Yu Sheng nodded, then his attention, laced with nervousness and curiosity, turned to Erin's next actions.
He was very interested in how this living doll was supposed to "come out" of the painting and how she would use the ugly "living doll container" on the table to "come to life."
Then, he saw Erin in the painting begin to... "dissolve"!
This scene was eerie and horrifying, Erin seemed like a wax figure being melted by fire, her whole body gradually showed a molten state and almost instantly lost all color and detail. Within seconds, she transformed into a constantly softening black material, collapsing within the frame, and little by little, oozed out from the bottom of the frame, beginning to flow towards the table!
The table made a slight hissing sound, as if it was rapidly corroding in some strong acid. Initially, the black material flowing from the frame was like thick mud, then it thinned like water, then, in the next second, it transformed into some sort of... cohesive black mist, swirling up around the living doll body on the table, and gradually penetrating into the lifeless clay.
Yu Sheng stared at this scene, not sure if it was an illusion, but he felt a coldness from the drifting eerie black mist.
If he hadn't witnessed this mist forming from Erin, he would have thought it was something sinister and dangerous, the whole scene was creepily weird, but even knowing this, he still felt the black mist was particularly spooky, an unshakable coldness like malice seeping into this world from a dark, distant abyss, which really didn't match Erin's usual heartless and harmless demeanor.
Yu Sheng shook his head to cast aside these miscellaneous thoughts and watched the black mist quickly seep into the clay, then suddenly a wild idea popped into his head—
What if he blew on the mist now? Or reached out to poke into the mist?
Erin would probably swear horribly...
Yu Sheng eventually controlled the impulse to mess around, and just then, the infiltration of the mist also swiftly reached its climax.
The living doll on the table visibly started to transform—this rough figure, which could be described as ugly, seemed suddenly bestowed with the characteristics of a living creature, its coarse surface instantly becoming smooth, while its previously twisted limbs quickly balanced and restructured; it began to take on the texture and color of skin, the contorted features melded into the skull, regenerated within the clay, and gradually appeared on the face...
Yu Sheng thought that out of politeness and respect, he should probably turn away now.
But before he could turn around, a delicate black dress seemed to grow from within the living doll, covering Erin's body like flesh.
Mimicry?
The word flashed through Yu Sheng's mind, and at that moment, he suddenly felt a... connection with Erin.
That feeling was fleeting, and he didn't even have time to discern whether that dream-like whisper was Erin's voice or not before the connection fell into silence.
Yu Sheng furrowed his brow, remembering the blood he had mixed into the clay while shaping the living doll's body, suspecting that the fleeting connection might be related to that.
He suddenly worried: My blood is somewhat special, could this affect Erin's "rebirth"?
But soon, his concern was dispelled.
The completely reshaped living doll lay quietly on the table, its skin human-like, hair like ink, the delicate features akin to a piece of art.
Under Yu Sheng's somewhat tense gaze, the doll's eyelashes fluttered slightly.
And then, those eyes finally slowly opened.
Scarlet eyes stared at the ceiling lifelessly, but in the next second, they regained their luster. Erin clumsily raised her hands, looking at them incredulously, then slowly clenched and stretched them as if feeling the texture of the air.
Frozen for a few seconds, the living doll slowly began to smile, yet the smile seemed to suppress a surge of emotions akin to crying.
Yu Sheng's voice sounded from the side: "Congratulations, Erin."
"Uh," Erin pressed her hands on the table and forcefully propped herself up, shakily standing on the table. Then, she turned towards Yu Sheng with a radiant smile, spreading her arms wide as if to offer a hug, "I'm alive! Yu Sheng! Thank..."
Suddenly, the living doll stopped, as if she realized something belatedly, and just stood there with her arms still outstretched, staring blankly at Yu Sheng beside the table.
Yu Sheng: "...?"
Erin slowly tilted her head back: "Why do you look... so tall?"
Yu Sheng thought for a moment: "Could it be because you are a bit short?"
Erin paused, then suddenly looked down at her own body and then up at the table lamp nearby—she gasped sharply and scurried over, stretching her hand between her head and the table lamp to gauge her height, and then stiffly turned her neck.
Yu Sheng began to feel something was not right.
"Why…" Erin's gaze was dull, muttering to herself, "Why am I so short…"
"Uh...because it's a doll's size, a large one," Yu Sheng was already starting to panic, but still kept a tight face, "I mean it's one-third the size of a doll...wait, did I make a mistake?!"
"...One-third my ass! A person, standard size of a person! Living dolls are the same size as humans! I'm a meter sixty-seven!" The tiny living doll Erin, as tall as the lamp, started stomping on the table, "Where are my long legs? Eh? Eh?! How come I'm only as tall as this lamp now! I... I can't even reach the chair next to me!"
Yu Sheng was completely dumbfounded, but then he felt something was truly amiss: "That's not right, when I was sculpting the body you were looking, too, you could see the size, why didn't you say anything then?"
The little living doll on the table stumbled for a moment, seeming to belatedly realize again: "Hey, right, I was watching…"
She scurried back to the center of the concentric circles where the doll's body was made, then turned to look back at the oil painting she was previously in, intensely pondering, and then some vague memories started to emerge from her mind.
"Yes...right, your handling was no problem, the clay body is just a medium, used to temporarily hold the soul...even if the size was off, my soul should have adjusted during the reshaping of the body…"
Erin stood on the table talking to herself, sometimes lowering her head thinking and sometimes looking around at the ritual setup, intermittently pinching her body and muttering.
"Because the size difference is too much? So the adjustment is limited? That's not right either... there should be some changes regardless... it can't possibly be just as tall as the lamp…"
Erin raised her hand above her head and then jumped vigorously on the spot, as if trying in vain to make herself taller.
One would know, of course, that it wouldn't be successful.
"So...did something go wrong with the ritual?" Yu Sheng looked on nervously, finally asking cautiously, "Was the body reshaping not adjusted properly? Then this shouldn't be my fault…"
Erin looked up, her face a mix of anger and tears, startling Yu Sheng.
"Ruler."
The living doll, only as tall as the lamp, reached out to Yu Sheng, her voice clenched.
"What for?"
"To measure my height!"
Yu Sheng responded with an "Okay," and rushed upstairs to fetch a tape measure.
Initially, he wanted to bring a ruler—but he felt that Erin might fly into a rage upon seeing a straight ruler, so he dared not.
Moments later, Erin stood straight on the table, an old book balanced on her head, while Yu Sheng next to her pulled out the tape measure, measuring the little doll's height.
Erin sneakily tilted the book a bit, which Yu Sheng immediately pressed down.
"How...how tall?" the little doll asked cautiously.
"...66.6 centimeters," Yu Sheng glanced at the ruler, his tone sympathetic, "I tried to measure high, even counting the 0.6 centimeters after the decimal point for you."
Erin finally really burst into tears.