Chapter 7: Irene’s Escape Plan
Irene was cursing with a colorful array of words.
Yu Sheng couldn’t fathom how a Doll sealed inside a Painting could possess such a vast vocabulary—especially while sliding down the stairs, seamlessly keeping up the rant without so much as pausing for breath. Perhaps it was because Dolls didn’t need to breathe at all.
Still, Yu Sheng remained unperturbed. After Irene finally slid to the floor, still muttering curses, he calmly descended the stairs, holding the handrail and moving at a leisurely pace—mainly because his back ached, making it impossible to move faster. When he finally reached the ground floor, he bent over with great effort and picked up Irene’s picture frame.
“You’re insane!” Irene sat inside the Painting, clutching a teddy bear, her hair and clothes in a chaotic mess. She glared at him furiously. “Who throws someone down the stairs like that?! What if the frame broke?!”
“My back hurts. Your frame is too heavy to carry down the stairs,” Yu Sheng replied nonchalantly, slowly walking toward the dining hall while carrying the frame. “Besides, I checked it earlier—your frame is solid. And if it really did break, maybe you’d be freed from the painting.”
“If it were that easy to escape, would I still be sealed up to this day?!” Irene plopped back onto the chair within the Painting, rubbing her head. “Ah, my brain feels all fuzzy…”
Yu Sheng suddenly halted, looking intently at the girl in the Painting. His gaze was so serious that Irene felt a chill crawl up her spine.
“What… what are you planning now?” Irene stammered. “I’m warning you—if you throw me down the stairs again, I swear I’ll haunt your dreams! I’ll make your alarm ring in the middle of your exams, pull your game cable just when you’re about to win, chase you with a mud truck when you dream about going out, and if you dare dream about romance, I’ll—”
[Why does this cursed Doll never run out of trash talk?!] Yu Sheng suppressed the urge to drag Irene back upstairs and throw her down again. Trying to keep a straight face, he asked seriously, “I just wanted to ask about the principles behind your ‘seal.’ You mentioned finding someone to help break it… How exactly can I help you escape?”
Irene was stunned, clearly not expecting such a question. After staring blankly for a moment, she blurted out in disbelief, “You… you’re agreeing to help me get out?!”
“You were the one who kept talking about needing help to break the seal,” Yu Sheng frowned, adding quickly, “I’m just asking—haven’t promised anything yet…”
But Irene didn’t seem to hear the last part. She hurriedly answered, “There are three—no, two ways! The best one is to find my original body. I don’t know where it is now, but it must be somewhere nearby… or at least not too far from this Painting. Once I get close to it, I can escape from this damned frame.
“But if we can’t find it, or if my original body has been destroyed, then the only option is the second way—creating a new one. Though, the new body definitely won’t be as good as the original and will take some time to get used to…”
Yu Sheng had been listening attentively and couldn’t help but interject, “Creating a new one? How do you do that? Can I just buy a Doll from a shop and use that?”
“Of course not!” Irene shot back immediately. “I’m an ‘Alice’s Doll’—a Living Doll blessed with vitality! You think I’m the same as those mass-produced Dolls from some cheap store?!”
She paused, her expression turning more solemn. “Living Dolls are born from Alice’s Little House Garden. Our original bodies came from there too. But I’ve lost my connection to the Garden and can’t leave the Painting, so I can’t return there to be reborn. Even without the Garden, though, we have a way to craft temporary shells in the physical world—but even those are not easy to make.
“First, you’ll need hair that grows on its own, soil that writhes like a living creature, bones of the dead that break and heal, and a drop of a Living Doll’s tear—or two, if you want better skin texture. Then you must use Alchemy to reanimate these materials and smear your own blood on them to complete the process… Hey, why do you look like that?”
Yu Sheng stared at her, expression rigid. After a long pause, he sighed. “Let’s focus on finding your original body, shall we?”
Irene blinked, hesitating. “You… don’t know Alchemy?”
“Should that be common knowledge?!” Yu Sheng almost shouted in frustration. “And forget Alchemy—where on earth am I supposed to find those ridiculous ingredients? Are you sure you didn’t just copy some cliché fantasy novel?! Living Doll tears… If I could find another Living Doll, I’d just hand you over to her and let her take you home instead of fumbling around like this!”
Yu Sheng couldn’t help but doubt the feasibility of Irene’s escape plan. Ever since he arrived in this peculiar world, he hadn’t yet grasped the vast mysteries lurking behind the shadows. Still, judging by what he had seen so far, the materials Irene mentioned didn’t sound like anything an ordinary person could get their hands on. How could she just nonchalantly throw out such a list?
Feeling awkward under his scrutiny, Irene shifted her position in the chair and lowered her voice, mumbling, “Well… you could always just order some clay, paints, and wigs online…”
Yu Sheng: “…?”
Yu Sheng’s expression was filled with the unmistakable look of, ‘Are you messing with me?’ as he stared at the girl within the painting. Irene couldn’t help but shrink back in her chair, nervously explaining, ‘I just wanted the temporary vessel to work a bit better… If creating a gold-grade one is impossible, even a plain one would do.’
‘But even if we use ordinary materials, the final step still requires your blood and a touch of alchemy. I can teach you, it’s simple—something even an ordinary person could manage…’
Yu Sheng remained silent at first, seemingly lost in thought. After a few seconds, he spoke abruptly, ‘You mentioned there were three methods earlier. Why didn’t you mention the third one?’
Irene waved her hand dismissively, looking unusually sincere. ‘That method… comes with a cost. You wouldn’t agree, and besides, we barely know each other.’
‘If you know we’re not close, then stop with the unnecessary chatter,’ Yu Sheng said casually, glaring at the girl in the painting.
Irene pursed her lips, suddenly appearing unusually cautious (as if she now knew how to be cautious) and looked at Yu Sheng timidly. ‘So… are you going to help me get out of here? The second method is actually pretty easy. You could just shape a body at random—it doesn’t have to be perfect. As long as the ritual procedure is correct, I can reshape it after I enter the vessel. Just… make sure it doesn’t look too ugly—at least make it resemble a human.’
This time, Yu Sheng didn’t bother to argue with Irene. Instead, he seemed to seriously contemplate the matter for nearly half a minute before replying solemnly, ‘I can’t promise right now. I need to think about it.’
He didn’t fully trust the girl in the painting—at least not yet. Though she appeared honest and straightforward, with a bit of a chatty nature and a harmless demeanor, all of it was just a surface impression from barely a day’s acquaintance. Stripping away these ‘humanizing’ traits, the essence of Irene remained that of a mysterious entity sealed within a cursed oil painting.
Yu Sheng wasn’t so easily fooled by her cute demeanor into building a vessel and freeing this ‘painting ghost’—what if she turned out to be a monstrous being who would kill him the moment she was released? Having recently faced death once, Yu Sheng was in no hurry to experience it again.
However, after hearing his answer, Irene didn’t protest. She just looked at him steadily for a moment before nodding naturally. ‘Oh, I understand.’
Yu Sheng was caught off guard, having expected a long, drawn-out argument with the painting girl. Instead, she was unexpectedly… reasonable.
‘After all, we barely know each other, right?’ As if sensing his surprise, Irene suddenly smiled, winking from within the painting. ‘Once we’re closer, I’ll ask again.’
‘Fine, we’ll talk about it later.’
Yu Sheng chuckled, carrying Irene’s painting into the dining room and propping it upright against the wall on the dining table before heading toward the kitchen.
‘I haven’t had dinner yet—gotta cook.’
‘Sure… but can you turn on the TV across from the table first? I’ll watch something while you cook.’
‘You’re really demanding,’ Yu Sheng muttered, but he still switched on the TV across from the dining table before grabbing the vegetables and seasonings he had left on the shelf earlier—groceries from the supermarket—to start preparing dinner.
Cooking was one of Yu Sheng’s passions, and ever since he arrived in the familiar yet strange Boundary City, he insisted on making his own meals at home to feel at ease. After all, only within the Big Manor was he free from the haunting shadows that plagued the city.
He didn’t mind running into a lanky ghost while wandering the streets, but not during cooking or eating—those were sacred moments of his life.
…Though now, even within this ‘safe house,’ there was the peculiar presence of Irene.
Compared to the grotesque shadows roaming the city streets, the freezing rain, and the ominous frogs, a chatty but harmless doll stuck in a painting was almost… adorable—at least she wasn’t about to dig his heart out.