Chapter 5: Irene in the Painting

Yu Sheng felt that ever since that frog had gutted him, his heart seemed much more at ease.

Take now, for example—he had just awakened from a bizarre, unsettling dream, unlocked a strange, sealed room, and found a painting that could speak. The painting itself clearly concealed something sinister—possibly an evil door—but even so, he remained unfazed.

In fact, he calmly took a step forward, plucked the painting from the wall, and scrutinized it up close.

The frame had considerable weight, exuding a sense of luxury. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the surface of the dark, lacquered frame was covered with intricate and exquisite patterns. The lines seemed almost like a script written in continuous strokes, intertwining and twisting into vine-like structures that seamlessly merged with the floral motifs at the painting’s edges.

Yu Sheng didn’t know much about art, but he could tell that this thing was definitely worth a fortune.

Still, the figure lurking within the painting refused to reveal itself. All he could see was the faint movement of a skirt hem retreating further into the canvas.

He tried tilting his head to get a better look inside but saw nothing.

“I know you’re in there,” he said, giving the heavy frame a little shake. “Hiding now won’t fool anyone.”

A faint rustling sound came from the painting’s corner, but no response.

Yu Sheng placed the frame on the ground, squatting down as he fished a lighter from his pocket.

He flicked it on, holding the tiny flame close to the edge of the frame, his expression indifferent. “I’m going to count to three. If you don’t come out, I’ll burn this thing.”

After a few seconds of silence, a soft, youthful voice sounded from the painting, hesitant and wary, “…Mere mortal fire. Such flames have no effect on a dangerous entity.”

But Yu Sheng could hear the unease hidden in the voice.

He touched the flame to the frame’s corner without hesitation. “Oh? Then let’s test that out—”

The scream rang out almost simultaneously with his movement. “No! Are you really going to burn it?!”

Yu Sheng immediately extinguished the flame, and just then, he saw a figure hurriedly emerge from the painting’s intricate, thorny, vine-like border.

It was a young girl clad in an ornate, dark Gothic dress, adorned with a white-laced hairpin. Her long black hair flowed like a cascade, her skin pale as snow, and her appearance undeniably cute—if not for the striking pair of crimson eyes that glared at Yu Sheng, wide and fixed, as if trying to determine whether he would truly set the painting aflame.

Yu Sheng had to admit he was startled when the girl suddenly jumped to the painting’s center.

Despite her undeniable beauty, the eerie, dim backdrop of the painting combined with her abrupt appearance made the whole scene unsettling. And those blood-red eyes—like pools of crimson ink—staring at him, unnerved him even more.

She leaned closer, pressing her face almost entirely against the canvas, those scarlet eyes filling nearly the whole frame. It was downright unnerving.

“Don’t set it on fire,” she pleaded. “This is the only place I have to live.”

“Move back a bit,” Yu Sheng said instinctively, putting some distance between himself and the painting. Somehow, he couldn’t shake the feeling that those scarlet eyes held a malignant power, as if that red hue would seep into his memories and thoughts the longer he looked. Still, to maintain his upper hand in the conversation, he forced himself not to avert his gaze.

“Oh.” The girl didn’t seem to notice his brief discomfort. She nodded and moved back to the center of the painting, settling into a thickly cushioned red velvet armchair. Leaning forward slightly, she picked up a plush teddy bear from the ground and hugged it to her chest, resuming her silent observation of Yu Sheng.

A Gothic girl holding a teddy bear on a red velvet chair—for a moment, Yu Sheng thought he glimpsed the original, ‘normal’ form of the painting.

But then his expression hardened as he noticed something odd. The girl’s exposed wrist…had a distinct, spherical joint.

A human joint could never look like that.

Only a doll’s joint would.

Perhaps his stare was too direct, as the girl squirmed uncomfortably, frowning at him. “Why are you staring at me?”

Yu Sheng opened his mouth, initially wanting to ask about her wrist, but stopped himself. He didn’t know enough about this world, and asking about something supernatural might reveal his ignorance. So he changed the subject at the last second. “…Who are you? And why are you here?”

The girl hesitated but ultimately answered. “I’m Irene,” she said, adjusting her posture to appear more composed. “I come from Alice’s Little House. I was one of Alice’s dolls…but that was a long time ago.”

A doll?

Yu Sheng keenly noticed the peculiar term and subconsciously glanced again at “Irene’s” wrist, where the ball-jointed structure, distinctly inhuman, was evident. Immediately, his attention was drawn to the two terms that Irene had casually mentioned:
“Alice’s Little House” and “Alice’s Dolls”.

What did that mean? He knew what a Doll was, and he could imagine a talking Doll or a Doll hopping out of a painting. His open mind could accept that. But that “Alice”… what was that?
And that Little House—it sounded like a place, or maybe an organization named after a location. As for “Alice’s Dolls”… it sounded like some sort of collective term, maybe a group identity?

Was this young lady from the painting part of a whole group that identified as “Alice’s Dolls”?
Once the thought took root in his mind, Yu Sheng’s imagination started running wild. Was it possible that there was not just one like her but a whole bunch? Did they all hang in households like this? With house prices so high, they still took up space, locked doors they didn’t open, and mocked homeowners for not having keys, yet could be bluffed with a mere lighter…

[The main goal of this organization feels a bit mysterious.]

Apparently, Yu Sheng’s silence lasted a little too long because Irene finally couldn’t help but speak up.
“Why did you suddenly stop talking… You’re not still thinking of setting me on fire, are you?!”

Yu Sheng abruptly looked up, his face solemn, catching Irene off guard.
“Let me ask you something.”
“…Go ahead.”

With a serious expression, Yu Sheng asked, “That ‘Alice’s Little House’ you mentioned—does it specialize in bringing down property values?”
Irene: “…Huh?”

“I mean, someone pays you guys to hang around in people’s homes, taking up space and lying around, locking doors during the day and laughing secretly at night, just to drag down housing prices. Like… the kind of thing where someone hangs themselves at the property office to make housing more affordable.”

Irene stared at him, her crimson eyes widening in shock. It took nearly half a minute for her to process the insane line of thought, and then she snapped, looking genuinely offended.
“You… You can insult me if you want, but you can’t insult the Ancestor of the Dolls and my sisters! We… We’re an amazing—”

“Then why are you hanging in my house?!” Yu Sheng cut her off with a glare. “And why is the door locked? Oh, right, and that dream I had before—was that your doing? And that infuriating laugh…”

He fired off his questions one after another, fueled by a mix of irritation and curiosity. Yet, inwardly, he felt a twinge of unease, recalling the Rain Frog from that stormy night—a similarly eerie and dangerous thing. The painting before him, exuding the same kind of unsettling aura, might just be as perilous. Irene looked approachable now, but who knew if she’d suddenly turn hostile, her face changing as she grabbed her teddy bear and swung it at him…

However, he quickly shook off his fear. After all, the frog hadn’t caused any real harm beyond making him “die happily” once. If this painting Doll could be threatened with a lighter, how dangerous could she really be?

Yu Sheng’s mindset had shifted. After experiencing death once and realizing the world was filled with bizarre and sinister things, he was no longer as cautious. Now he just wanted to get to the bottom of it all, starting with the strange phenomena around him—beginning with this painting.

To his surprise, Irene was even more approachable than he’d expected.
The Doll inside the painting didn’t lash out or angrily swing her teddy bear. Instead, she curled up a bit on her chair, holding the plush bear tighter, and even looked somewhat… guilty.
“I… This is an accident. I wasn’t like this originally,” she admitted, shifting uneasily as she squeezed her teddy bear. “I encountered an accident a long time ago and ended up sealed within this painting. I lost contact with the other Dolls…”

She lifted her head, glancing out of the painting into the room beyond.
“As for why I’m in your house… I really don’t know. I’ve been trapped in this painting and have no say in where it’s hung. Are you sure you didn’t just pick me up at some gallery and put me on the wall yourself?”

Yu Sheng: “…”

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