Chapter 23: Doubts

After a quick check of the TV, Yu Sheng discovered that the thing had simply frozen.

It was a classic occurrence for cheap smart devices after long-term use—*Oh, I've been working for two hours straight, my CPU is smoking / my memory is erroring / my power supply is overheating / I just feel like dying for a bit...*

Yu Sheng couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia for the rugged, durable antique televisions in his memory. The household appliances of those years weren't as temperamental as today's smart devices. Although they had fewer functions, he felt that all these various smart features nowadays weren't much better; every "Artificial Intelligence" seemed more like "Artificial Stupidity"...

"Just unplug it, wait two minutes, and restart it," Yu Sheng muttered to himself with a sigh. He reached out to turn off the power and turned to Irene. "This thing is low quality; it just freezes up if you leave it on too long."

"Then do you want to get a new one?" Irene's eyes instantly lit up. "Get one with voice control! Then I can change the channels myself, and I can watch TV even when you're not home..."

"You've got some nerve making demands, don't you?" Looking at this girl who clearly didn't treat him like an outsider, Yu Sheng was actually amused by her audacity. "I haven't said a word about you crashing at my place, yet you want a new TV? Are you paying for it or working for it?"

"I..." Irene opened her mouth, her face actually turning a bit red as she stammered, "I... I don't have money, but I've been helping you supplement your knowledge about the Otherworld! I'm at least a sort of consultant..."

"And this consultant has a terrible memory, right? She can't even be sure if the things she says are reliable," Yu Sheng curled his lip. "If I hired you as a consultant, I'd have to hire another consultant just to consult for you."

Irene's face flushed deep red, but after struggling for a while, she couldn't find a way to argue back. She could only lower her head and sulk. However, she had a resilient temperament; her sulking lasted only three seconds before she recovered. She looked up at Yu Sheng. "Fine, then once you get me out—no matter how you do it—I'll work to pay you back. Besides, won't you be dealing with the Otherworld in the future? I can be your helper! I can fight for you, that's good enough, right...?"

Yu Sheng actually hadn't thought of that. In fact, he hadn't considered what would happen if Irene truly emerged from the painting one day. Hearing this, he raised an eyebrow. "You? Are you sure?"

"Hey, don't underestimate me! I am one of Alice's dolls!" Irene stood up from her chair with her hands on her hips, looking incredibly smug. "Living dolls are blessed. In the Otherworld, I'm much better at fighting than those so-called Investigators or Spirit Detectives..."

"And then someone pressed you into a painting, right?"

Irene's eyes instantly reddened (though they were naturally red to begin with). "You... you... you... just you wait until I get out! Don't turn your head away!"

"Alright, alright, I believe you, I believe you," Yu Sheng said with a smile, turning around and waving his hand helplessly.

In truth, he hadn't taken the doll seriously from the start. After all, she was just staying in the painting. Although she was "crashing" at his house, she didn't eat his rice. Even if she were laid flat on the floor, she wouldn't take up even half a square meter, and hanging on the wall meant she was in the way of nothing. Aside from watching TV, she consumed almost nothing, and bickering with her was a decent way to pass the time—moreover, she truly had helped him supplement a great deal of knowledge regarding "the other world."

As for her talk of working off her debt or being his sidekick/enforcer once she got out of the painting... he decided to take it at face value for now.

The TV screen lit up again. Yu Sheng picked up the remote and pressed a few buttons until he found a mindless urban drama.

Irene wasn't picky about TV shows—after all, the Teletubbies were more interesting than wallpaper.

But just then, as Yu Sheng looked at the screen, a thought occurred to him that he hadn't noticed before.

"Irene." He turned back to look at the doll girl in the oil painting.

"Yeah?"

"I remember you saying you've been sealed in this oil painting for a very long time, right?"

"Yeah, many, many years. I can't even remember when I first came in..."

"Then how do you know so much about modern things?" Yu Sheng asked seriously. "You even know about smart TVs with voice control?"

He had discovered a flaw in Irene's words and actions.

However, it wasn't necessarily a massive problem; there were many ways to explain it. For instance, she might have learned about the changes in the world by observing the dreams of people nearby, or perhaps she had been hanging in the homes of other modern people before arriving at this house. Yu Sheng suspected her answer would likely be something along those lines.

But what Irene gave him was a blank, stunned, "Huh?"

The doll in the painting seemed completely bewildered by the question. It even looked as though it was the first time she had realized this herself. After staring blankly for a long time, she slowly turned her head. "I... I don't know why?"

"You don't know why?" Yu Sheng looked astonished.

"Yeah... I... I really have been trapped in this painting for a very, very long time. Really, it could have been decades. But... but I just know what the world is like now. Even though I don't know how I know, I..."

The doll in the painting stammered, and by the end, she seemed to begin doubting herself, hesitating as she lost her train of thought.

Yu Sheng stared intently at Irene's expression, trying to find even a trace of a lie on her face.

"Then do you remember how you were sealed in this painting? Do you remember anything from before you were trapped?" he followed up.

"I... I only remember a curse," Irene said hesitantly. "This painting is also some kind of entity. I was supposed to come and deal with it, but instead, I was trapped inside. But I can't remember the specific process. And as for things before I was trapped... before I was trapped..."

The doll slowly went quiet, as if her fragmented past memories were tangling her thoughts. She searched through her mind in a daze. After an unknown amount of time, she spoke softly, as if in a dream: "I am Irene from Alice's Cottage, one of Alice's dolls..."

She looked up, her expression filled with unease.

"Yu Sheng, that's all I remember."

Yu Sheng frowned deeply.

In that instant, his mind raced with too many possibilities.

They ranged from the eerie to the conspiratorial to the comedic—but none of them seemed reliable.

After all, he had no evidence or clues to resolve the mystery surrounding Irene.

Irene looked exceptionally anxious. She hugged the teddy bear in her arms so tightly that the plush toy began to deform. "Is my brain broken?"

Yu Sheng discarded the conspiratorial theories in his head.

Then he looked up at Irene and increased the weight of the "comedic" possibilities by ten percent.

"If you can't remember, don't force it. At least don't think about it for now," he exhaled softly and shook his head at her. "Maybe being trapped for so long has just made your memory and logic a bit muddled."

"O-oh, really?" Irene nodded hesitantly, and then seemed to actually feel a little relieved.

Yu Sheng: "..."

*Wait, how can she feel relieved after finding out her memory and logic might be broken? Doesn't that just prove her brain really is broken?! Did what I just say actually comfort her at all?!*

Yu Sheng was instantly filled with question marks, but truth be told, Irene's reaction actually dispelled many of the doubts that had just surfaced in his mind.

Honestly, if this doll had found a perfect explanation for her "source of modern knowledge," Yu Sheng might have been even more suspicious. Instead, the moment that heartfelt "Huh?" popped out, Yu Sheng felt that her entire persona became "clear" and transparent...

Thinking of this, he shook his head and said casually as he walked toward the stairs leading to the second floor, "Watch TV downstairs. I'm going up to catch some sleep."

Irene waved her hand. "Yeah, yeah, go ahead."

Yu Sheng left the dining room and went upstairs, walking toward his bedroom with a yawn, carrying the exhaustion accumulated from the Nightfall Valley.

He was indeed tired and sleepy; after eating his fill, the drowsiness had intensified. He truly needed a good sleep.

However, as he reached the bedroom door, he couldn't help but stop and look toward the end of the hallway.

That door, which had once been sealed by an unknown power, stood silently in his line of sight.

That was the room at the end of the hallway where he had discovered Irene.

Yu Sheng frowned, a thought striking him, and he stepped toward it.

Upon reaching the door, he noticed that the position of the handle had changed. The orientation of the hinges and the handle had been swapped, replaced by the "correct position" he had eventually discovered to successfully open the door.

After a moment of hesitation, he reached out, gripped the handle, and turned it gently.

With a soft *click*, the door that had once been impossible to open now swung open easily, just like every other door in the house.

Pushing the door open, the scene inside met Yu Sheng's eyes—

The furnishings were simple and ordinary. Against the wall to the left of the door sat a single bed and a nightstand; against the wall to the right were a wardrobe, a desk, and a chair. The old floorboards appeared somewhat faded, and the walls were covered in light blue wallpaper.

A window sat above the desk, and bright sunlight streamed through, making the entire room appear bright and warm.

And on the wall directly facing the door, where Irene's oil painting had once hung, there was now a mirror.

In the mirror, Yu Sheng's expression of growing astonishment was reflected.

(End of Chapter)