Chapter 146: Glitched Into the Door
To be fair, the moment the little doll uttered the words “Mind and Intent as One,” Yu Sheng immediately found it incredibly difficult. After all, most of his time spent with Irene involved them thinking the other was insane. But then he thought about it more deeply—if both believed the other was unhinged, wasn’t that a kind of unity of thought?
His mind wandered so far and fast in that moment that even his own mother wouldn’t recognize the direction of his thoughts. It wasn’t until Irene headbutted him that he snapped back to reality.
“I told you to empty your mind! Not let it run wild! At least focus on opening the Door—”
“Oh, oh! Got it.”
Snapping back to his senses, Yu Sheng quickly centered himself and began the process of opening the Door in earnest.
This time, he only summoned a “Null Value Grand Door,” a portal that led nowhere. Maintaining its stability, he began gradually relaxing his mind.
He could feel Irene’s tiny palm pressing against his temple.
He saw her raise her other hand, pointing it solemnly at the Grand Door.
Black threads slithered out from the little doll’s fingertips—silent, eerie, as if some independently living organism. They quickly wove through the air, writhing, morphing, splitting, spawning…
Some threads pierced into his flesh, into his mind, and a chilling sensation crawled down his spine. If this were his first time encountering Irene’s threads, he would’ve instinctively flung the little doll far away. Those sinister tendrils didn’t look harmless at all—more fitting for a script titled “The Treacherous Cursed Doll Finally Strikes to Usurp the Throne at Wutong Road No. 66.”
But he was used to it now—apparently, that’s just how Dolls from Alice’s Little House were.
Meanwhile, other threads stretched toward the Grand Door, their tips gathering into a strange tendril-like shape. They gingerly touched the Door, then began probing its interior.
The connection was made.
And in that instant, Yu Sheng felt… dazed.
The wind in the Valley fell silent. A dark, heavy curtain seemed to drop over the world. Endless fog veiled his vision, and within its depths, he saw…
A golden-haired, shattered Doll, lying silently amidst ruins swallowed by shadow. A massive, collapsed silhouette loomed beside her in the gloom. Though lifeless, the Doll’s eyes were wide open—and Yu Sheng, even through the illusory veil, felt an uncanny sense that those eyes were watching him.
But it was gone in a blink. He didn’t even have time to confirm whether that was the same broken Doll he’d once seen in the Mirror Realm. The vision vanished like smoke.
All he heard was Irene’s excited voice: “Hey hey hey! The Door’s open! I think I got it! Yu Sheng, check if I did it right—”
Yu Sheng jolted back to clarity. Before him, the Grand Door leading into the Black Forest slowly opened in his hands. Black threads wreathed in eerie mist twisted and looped around its frame, forming chaotic, bramble-like patterns. Beyond the threshold lay the Forest shrouded in shadow.
The Grand Door to the Black Forest—had truly opened.
Yu Sheng stared at the Door entwined in dark “thorns,” dazed. Strange? Yes. But also… kind of cool.
Still, what gnawed at him more were the “visions” he’d just seen.
“Irene.”
“Huh?”
“Did you see anything just now? Like, when our minds were linked—any visions or hallucinations?”
“Nope,” the little doll paused, puzzled. “I was just focusing on aligning the Door. Didn’t want anything going wrong… What did you see?”
Yu Sheng hesitated, but chose not to hide it from the little doll. “…I saw that golden-haired Doll again.”
“Which one?” Irene was momentarily confused. “You know other Dolls out there?”
“The one I mentioned before. The one I saw in the Mirror Realm—shattered, dead, in some unknown place. You said we’d help her return home someday.”
“Oh, oh, now I remember!” Irene frowned deeply. “Why’d you see her again? What was it this time?”
“…The same scene as before. But I felt like she was looking at me,” Yu Sheng murmured. “I don’t know what happened. It was when your threads connected to me… I thought maybe you felt something too.”
They exchanged a glance—Yu Sheng and Irene—yet no amount of pondering between them yielded any answers.
Plenty of theories had surfaced in Yu Sheng’s mind, but lacking a single clue, they remained mere idle speculation.
With no answers in sight, he turned his focus back to the Door before him—yet this time, the mysterious golden-haired little doll had already carved a lasting impression deep in his mind.
Foxy padded over, clutching Yu Sheng’s arm, clearly uneasy.
“The Door to the Black Forest has opened,” Yu Sheng said, rubbing the soft fur behind the Demon Fox Maiden’s ear in a comforting gesture. “You’re coming in with me.”
Foxy nodded at once. “Mm.”
“Irene, you’ll stay here,” Yu Sheng then addressed the little doll perched on his shoulder. “Watch what happens as we pass through the Door. Foxy and I will remain on the other side for a few minutes, then open a Door to return—if all goes well, our return point should be right here.”
“You sure you don’t want me with you?” Irene looked concerned. “What if you get lost in there and need your resident Dream Expert?”
“You only need to ‘navigate’ if we’re returning to the real world from inside the Black Forest,” Yu Sheng explained. “You staying out here makes you our failsafe—a better safeguard.”
“Alright,” Irene found the logic sound and leapt off Yu Sheng’s shoulder. “I’ll hold the fort here—but I’m timing you! Just a few minutes, don’t die in there…”
Before she could finish, Foxy clenched her fists with solemn determination. “I shall protect our Benefactor with my life!”
Irene waved dismissively. “No need for that. Just keep yourself safe. Yu Sheng’s life isn’t worth much anyway…”
Yu Sheng opened his mouth to protest, only to find himself utterly stumped.
Even more frustrating—Foxy didn’t object either…
“Must’ve owed you two in a past life,” he muttered with a sigh, and turned with the Fox Girl to step into the Door.
A wave of disorientation and sensory resetting washed over him—then he stood once more in that familiar Black Forest.
The distant, faint howls of Wolves. The hollow echo of wind through Forest trees. That strange twilight twilight sky, suspended between dusk and night. The pervasive shadows. The bushes that always seemed to be hiding something malevolent.
Everything looked exactly as he remembered. The Black Forest never changed.
Foxy, eyes wide, took in her surroundings. It was her first time here. Having heard much about the Forest from Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood, she was on high alert. Her tails stood like a sword grave behind her, the fur on her ears slightly bristled.
After a quick survey of the area, Yu Sheng reached out mentally: “Irene, we’re in.”
“Saw you go in,” the little doll promptly replied. “The Door here disappeared just like when you usually open one. Nothing unusual.”
“Our bodies made it through too? Nothing left behind outside?”
“Nope. Both of you physically crossed the Door.”
Yu Sheng exhaled softly and looked down at his hands.
Indeed. After a string of “bug-like” maneuvers, he had successfully entered the Black Forest in the flesh—and brought along a Cyber Cultivator Fox.
Just as he’d predicted: in the Black Forest, the boundary between “consciousness” and “body” wasn’t rigid. Items from this world could manifest physically in the real world, and real-world matter could, under certain conditions, cross over into the Black Forest. The principles behind it remained unclear, but this conclusion alone was enough for him.
What he had feared most was that the Black Forest might be purely an “idea” world—a conceptual, formless domain.
Concepts and abstractions were the hardest to fight against. It meant one had to counter it with equally abstract forces—something Humans, rooted in the material, were ill-equipped to handle.
Yu Sheng still considered himself Human. He thought in Human terms.
But if the Black Forest could establish a bridge to the physical world through bugs and exploits, then everything became manageable.
It meant it had a health bar.
Yu Sheng liked things with health bars.
“Benefactor, what now?” Foxy crept closer, voice lowered. “Are we hunting those Wolves? Or waiting for that ‘Squirrel’ you mentioned?”
“The Wolf Pack is formless, and the Evil Wolf requires specific conditions to appear. Neither are easy to deal with,” Yu Sheng shook his head. “We’re not here to fight. And we’re not after the Squirrel.”
Even as he spoke, he reached out and opened another Door.
This time, what lay beyond was no longer chaotic darkness, but a clear view of the Valley.
He could even see Irene standing on the other side, eyes wide with surprise.
“Hey! Yu Sheng, I see you!”
“Looks like once you enter the Black Forest in the flesh, you can open full Doors from this side,” Yu Sheng grinned and nodded to the little doll across the Door. Then he turned to the Fox Girl beside him. “Time to go. But before we leave, I need to say ‘hello’ to whatever lurks behind the Black Forest.”
“Huh? Say hello?” The Demon Fox Maiden blinked. “What kind of hello?”
“The kind that costs twenty chicken legs.”
“…Got it!”