Chapter 24: The Scene in the Mirror
This novel is translated and hosted on Bcatranslation.
The moment Yu Sheng stepped into that room, he knew something was off. It wasn’t supposed to look like this at all!
He remembered every detail of what the space had looked like before, back when Irene was trapped in it. Back then, it had been completely bare—no furniture at all, not even a stool. The only object hanging on the wall opposite the door had been a single lonely oil painting.
But now, it was different. There were all sorts of pieces of furniture scattered about, and instead of the painting, a mirror hung on the wall facing the doorway.
Yu Sheng stood at the threshold, feeling a strange twist in his stomach. He couldn’t explain it, but he knew something wasn’t quite right. Yet, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t sense any real danger. He had learned to trust his instincts after escaping death more than once, but now his usual ability to sniff out threats fell silent. The room looked perfectly safe—normal, even.
He hovered there, unsure whether he should go in or not. After a few seconds of hesitation, he decided to step inside.
As soon as he did, he realized there was nothing obviously wrong. Nothing jumped at him from behind the furniture. Nothing crashed down from the ceiling. No monsters lurked, holding pitchforks or fiery torches. Sunlight streamed gently through the window, and the air smelled fresh, not a hint of rot or anything foul. Everything seemed as ordinary as an old-fashioned guestroom.
He inspected each piece of furniture carefully and found nothing suspicious. Finally, he approached the mirror that hung directly opposite the door.
Yu Sheng couldn’t help feeling that hanging a mirror right across from a doorway was a bad idea. He had heard somewhere that it was poor Feng Shui—and, besides, walking in at night and suddenly seeing your own face in a mirror could give anyone a fright. He wondered if people in Boundary City paid attention to such customs. Something about this mirror felt… eerie. Not just because it replaced Irene’s old painting, but because its reflection of the room itself seemed slightly off, though he couldn’t say why.
He narrowed his eyes, trying to puzzle it out. The room in the mirror appeared perfectly normal, exactly like the one he stood in. He looked for crooked lines or strange lighting, or maybe something that existed in the reflection but not in real life. His suspicion grew stronger the longer he stared. There had to be something wrong, but what?
At last, he reached out and placed a finger on the mirror’s surface.
The glass was cold to the touch, and as soon as he pressed it, the surface began to quiver like the surface of a dark pond. Gentle ripples spread out where his finger touched, and right before his eyes, the reflection shattered like a broken windowpane!
Yu Sheng gasped, stepping back quickly. In that instant, the mirror’s surface turned utterly black. The image of the room dissolved and melted into inky darkness that swirled within the frame. It looked like a living shadow, moving slowly, as if it had its own mysterious heartbeat.
Then, something started to appear from the depths of that blackness. Even though he felt uneasy, Yu Sheng leaned in, determined to see what it was. The darkness peeled away like a heavy curtain being drawn aside, revealing a new scene hidden inside the mirror:
He saw a doll—clearly not Irene, but some other doll-like figure—lying in broken pieces amid a ruined landscape. The doll’s limbs were snapped, its pretty dress torn to shreds. Its body was covered in what looked like wounds, as if it had fought bravely and lost, dying there among the rubble.
Yu Sheng’s eyes widened. What was this place? Who was this broken doll?
As he wondered, the scene in the mirror pulled back, giving him a wider view. He could now see towering ruins, like the remains of ancient buildings. There were cracked pillars and what looked like collapsed rooftops, all sunk into dark, muddy chaos. The shattered doll parts were scattered everywhere. It seemed as if the entire place told a grim tale: a fierce battle had taken place here, leaving everything destroyed.
In that moment, Yu Sheng remembered something Irene had once told him:
“Living dolls are blessed, you know. In the Otherworld, I can fight even better than those so-called investigators and spirit realm detectives…”
Were living dolls truly so powerful? Yu Sheng found it hard to imagine that even a strong doll could end up in such a terrible state. But the proof was right before him—this doll had clearly met something far stronger. Because, as the scene in the mirror drew back even more, he finally glimpsed the enemy that had fought the doll.
It was a massive shadow, huge enough to dwarf the doll’s broken body by ten times over. Its shape was vaguely human, but warped by twisted, layered wings folded awkwardly against its back. This shadowy creature was also sprawled out among the ruins, and parts of its body looked as if they had melted into the murky rubble. Its form was broken and twisted, just as destroyed as the doll.
Yu Sheng couldn’t tell if the doll had managed to injure the creature before dying, or if the creature had always looked this strange. One thing was certain: the doll and this winged shadow had both perished here, locked forever in a moment of bitter defeat.
Just as Yu Sheng tried to focus on the scene for more details, the surface of the mirror shimmered again, rippling like water disturbed by a tossed stone. In an instant, the darkness shattered and faded. The inky shadows drew back up and out, draining away to the edges of the frame. Suddenly, Yu Sheng found himself staring at his own reflection once more. The mirror looked completely ordinary—just a mirror showing the quiet, furnished room behind him.
Yu Sheng blinked, stunned. He tapped the glass a few more times, but nothing else happened. It was as if the strange vision had never appeared.
What in the world had he just witnessed?
After all the strange encounters he’d had in recent days, Yu Sheng found he was surprisingly calm about it. He wasn’t scared—just curious, very curious. He wondered if the scene he had seen was real, something that had happened in another time or place. Who was that broken doll? And who was that gigantic shadow creature? Where were these ruins? And why had this vision appeared here, in this house, for him to see?
He began to think of Irene. Did this frightening scene have anything to do with her? The doll in the mirror didn’t look like Irene at all. Its face was battered, its hair golden rather than Irene’s color. Yet Yu Sheng couldn’t help remembering the girl sealed inside a painting who was now happily watching TV downstairs.
Eventually, he let out a sigh and decided to stop chasing these questions for the moment. He tried to pull the mirror off the wall, grabbing hold of its frame and tugging with all his might. But it wouldn’t budge. It felt as if it had been forged right into the wall’s surface, immovable.
Yu Sheng tried a few more times, then gave up. He shrugged, turned around, and headed for the door. Just as he reached the doorway, he paused, a sudden thought popping into his head. Swiftly, he whirled around and flung the door open again, as if hoping to catch the room in the act of changing behind his back.
But nothing happened. The room remained exactly as it was.
Frowning, he stayed there, gripping the doorknob, peering suspiciously inside. The mirror looked perfectly normal—just a mirror reflecting the furniture. He began to feel a bit foolish, as if he were losing his mind. After one last careful glance, he finally accepted that nothing had changed.
He gave a small shake of his head and went downstairs, heading for the dining area.
There, Irene was sitting at the table, her face inside the painting but leaning out as if watching television. She turned her head at the sound of his footsteps. “Hey, weren’t you going to bed?” she called, grinning mischievously. “What’s the matter? Can’t sleep? Just so you know, I’m not telling you a bedtime story.”
She sounded as carefree and cheeky as ever.
Yu Sheng didn’t answer straightaway. Instead, he sat down across from her, staring intently at her face. His gaze was so steady and serious that Irene began to look uncomfortable.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked, shrinking back a bit into her frame. “I know I’m pretty, but you and a painting? That’s never going to work out…”
That single line nearly threw Yu Sheng off completely. He coughed awkwardly, trying to get his thoughts in order and steer the conversation back to what he’d planned. “I’m being serious here,” he said firmly. “I have a question for you.”
Irene tilted her head, watching him with curiosity.
“Do you remember what the room looked like when you were trapped in it?” Yu Sheng asked.
“Of course I do,” Irene replied, thinking it over before giving a casual shrug. “It was completely empty. Really empty. I could see the door straight ahead, and the wallpaper was peeling in the corners from mold. You never bothered to fix that.”
Yu Sheng nodded slowly. That matched what he remembered. Good.
“Next question,” he said, leaning forward a bit. “Do you remember any place that looked like a ruin? A place with lots of old pillars and broken rooftops, all smothered in darkness. And there was a doll—maybe not you, but a doll—lying there dead, broken to pieces, arms and legs all over the place…”
Irene made a face and leaned backward as if trying to escape the mental image. “Ugh! That sounds terrifying.”
“Scary or not, do you remember seeing anything like it?” Yu Sheng pressed. “Anything at all?”
Irene answered at once, shaking her head. “Nope. Never.”