Irene's reaction didn't seem fake.
In fact, from his interactions with this doll so far, Yu Sheng had never found her to be insincere. Her every word and action revealed a kind of clear honesty, as if her head were solid—either her acting skills were really that good, or her head was really solid.
Yu Sheng cautiously maintained the first guess, but was more inclined to the second possibility.
Then, he described to Irene the appearance of the dead doll and the posture of the huge "shadow monster" that had seemingly perished with the doll, and the answer was still "I don't know."
Yu Sheng frowned, lost in deep thought.
Irene, on the other hand, couldn't help but be curious. "Hey, why did you suddenly come and ask me this? Didn't you go upstairs to sleep?"
Yu Sheng hesitated for a moment, and finally decided to tell the doll in front of him about the changes in that room—this did not involve his secrets, and it might even be related to Irene herself. Telling her might help solve the mystery.
"The room upstairs, there's been a situation…"
Yu Sheng told Irene everything he had seen when he went upstairs just now. This time, the latter rarely babbled throughout the whole process. She just listened with her eyes widening, and after she finished, she was stunned for a long time before she finally came to her senses and drew out her voice, "Wow—"
Yu Sheng immediately felt that even if he told this person, he wouldn't be able to solve the mystery.
"It seems you don't know what's going on either," Yu Sheng sighed. "You've definitely never seen that mirror either, right?"
"Never seen it, don't know," Irene nodded righteously, then added, "But I think your house is getting more and more strange."
"You don't have to tell me that, I think so too," Yu Sheng sighed upon hearing this. "Who knows where I'll end up when I open the door. The furnishings in a certain room will suddenly change. The mirror will reflect the scenery of who knows when and where. To think I used to find this place quite livable, sigh…"
Irene stared at Yu Sheng's expression with her scarlet eyes unblinkingly. After listening to his grumbling, she hesitated for a moment. "Then… are you planning to move? Not live here anymore?"
Yu Sheng didn't say anything for a moment, but he had to admit that he had indeed considered this matter.
After all, he could tolerate the occasional haunted mirror, furniture of unknown origin, suspicious electrical appliances, or a blabbermouth sealed in an oil painting in the house. Since he wasn't afraid of death, he could just treat it as adding a little fun to his life. But the feature of falling into some Otherworld whenever he pushed open the door was really a problem. This was not something that could be tolerated.
For Yu Sheng, the most deadly thing about entering an Otherworld was not dying, but the uncertainty of being able to return. Just this point alone made him really have the idea of moving to another place.
Seeing Yu Sheng's silence, Irene was quiet for a while before continuing on her own, "Then if you see a house you like, tell me first. You find a way to get me into their neighborhood, and I'll bring down their housing prices for you…"
Yu Sheng was stunned when he heard this. "I was just joking back then… you don't find this an insult to the ancestor of dolls and your sisters now?"
"I thought about it carefully just now, and I feel that the process you described makes a lot of sense," Irene said with a straight face. "And I've already helped you bring down the housing prices. This can be counted as a favor for living in your house, right?"
Yu Sheng suddenly realized that this person seemed to be just worried that she would be thrown here if he suddenly moved away.
But he didn't point this out. He just shook his head. "Let's not talk about this for now. I just have some ideas, but I'm not planning to move yet—don't worry, if I really move, I'll take you with me. A painting doesn't take up much space."
"Oh, okay then!" Irene was instantly happy.
But soon, a hint of sorrow appeared on her face again. "That… the dead doll you saw in the mirror, were her eyes closed?"
"…I don't think so," Yu Sheng recalled. "Why do you ask?"
Irene opened her mouth, looking a little sad. "After a living doll is broken, if her eyes are closed, it means her soul has returned to the garden of Alice's Cottage, and we will be reborn there. But if her eyes are still open… then she is still 'there'."
Yu Sheng was stunned for a moment, suddenly regretting that he had answered without thinking. He should have asked first.
"We don't know where the place reflected in the mirror is," he said softly after a moment of silence. "But since she appeared in the mirror, maybe she's also connected to this house. Maybe we'll find her one day in the future. As for now, don't think too much about it. You're still trapped here yourself."
"Okay, you have a point," Irene sighed. "Occasionally, some sisters do lose contact after going out… it's bound to happen, yes, it will happen."
Yu Sheng suddenly felt that this doll might not be as heartless as he had imagined.
Then he talked with Irene for a while longer before returning to the second floor.
He went to check the situation in the room at the end of the corridor again, and after confirming that it was still the same as he had seen before, he ignored it and turned into his bedroom.
He drew the curtains, lay on the bed, and tossed and turned for a long time. He was tired and sleepy, but his mind was in a mess and he couldn't sleep. All kinds of thoughts and recent experiences were like turbulent currents swirling in his mind—Irene's matter, the valley in the night, the knowledge of the Otherworld, the fox girl who tried to maintain her sanity until the last moment and told him to run, and… his own death and resurrection.
After tossing and turning for an unknown amount of time, Yu Sheng gradually fell into a daze and slept.
He felt his consciousness slowly sinking into a gentle and chaotic pool of water. Even though he was asleep, those messy "turbulent currents" were still surrounding him around the pool of water. He looked at the fragments of his own memories and thoughts through a layer of chaotic mist, and heard many hazy sounds in his ears, until his consciousness hit the bottom in the "pool of water," and the surroundings gradually fell silent.
Yu Sheng wandered in his dream, wandering in the dim light. He saw himself walking on a vast wilderness, and there seemed to be a small hill in the distance.
He felt that he had been wandering around this small hill for a long, long time, without a purpose, and without knowing who he was.
But a strange color at the corner of his eye suddenly made him stop.
Between a dim and chaotic sky and earth, Yu Sheng saw a patch of bright color. He subconsciously walked towards the silver-white patch, and in the next moment, he was directly in front of it.
He saw a silver-haired fox demon—at least two or three meters tall even when lying down—sleeping quietly on the wilderness.
Beautiful, elegant, and serene.
A gentle breeze blew from the distance, blowing through the slender wild grass and the silver-white fur on the fox demon. She showed no signs of waking up, just quietly curled up, with many thick tails wrapped around her from behind, some held in her arms, some covering her body like a blanket.
Yu Sheng looked at this fox that had appeared in his dream with astonishment—he had been clearly aware that he was dreaming since some time ago.
After a moment of hesitation, he took two steps forward and tentatively touched the big fox's front paw. "…Hu Li, is that you?"
But the white fox was still fast asleep, with no reaction to Yu Sheng's touch and call.
Yu Sheng called her several more times, and even tried to pull her tail, but failed to wake Hu Li up.
It felt as if she was not just asleep, but had her senses blocked by something.
Yu Sheng frowned and took two steps back.
Why did this fox appear in his dream?
He admitted that he had been thinking about this and that before he fell asleep, and he had indeed thought of this fox who was trapped in an Otherworld. But the situation now was obviously not the usual "what you think about during the day, you dream about at night." He could feel that Hu Li was really "right here."
While thinking, Yu Sheng's heart suddenly moved. He felt something and immediately looked down at his right hand.
A small drop of blood seeped out from his finger, and a faint circle of teeth marks could be seen around the drop of blood.
That was from when he had snatched the chocolate from Hu Li's hand earlier, and she had bitten him out of instinct.
Yu Sheng stared at this scene, suddenly recalling the time in the valley when he had suddenly "seen" fragments of Hu Li's memory and sensed part of her thoughts.
"Because of the blood?"
He had a sudden realization, guessing that her appearance here might also be related to her accidentally "eating" his blood.
But then a doubt popped up in his mind—the frog in the rain and that abstract flesh-and-blood monster had also eaten his blood. Why didn't they appear here? That flesh-and-blood monster had even eaten several meals, much more than Hu Li had eaten…
Just as Yu Sheng's thoughts began to drift in a strange direction, he suddenly felt something. Then, he heard a low, mocking laugh coming from the grass behind him.
It sounded a little familiar.
Yu Sheng abruptly turned to look in the direction of the sound. The next second, he heard Irene's exasperated complaint from the grass, "I told you not to laugh, not to laugh. Can't you hold it in! See, we've been discovered…"
Yu Sheng looked at the oil painting frame stuck in the grass with a deadpan expression, and at Irene in the frame, who was hugging a teddy bear and trying to get away with a silly smile.
"I got bored watching TV, so I came to see you dream…"