Chapter 87: The Snow in the Room
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation
Wutong Road No. 66 was usually filled with noise. Between Yu Sheng’s fiery temper and the sharp cries of the little Doll, there was never a quiet moment. And now, adding to the chaos, Foxy, the fox girl, sat nearby munching on chips, happily watching the drama unfold.
After about ten minutes of chaos, Yu Sheng finally managed to catch the frantic, biting Doll and hang her up on the drying rack in the living room balcony.
“Yu Sheng, you jerk! Let me down!” Irene yelled, her arms flailing in the air. The drying rod went through her sleeves and fixed her from behind, making her dangle like a salted fish in the wind. “It’s only temporary! Just a twelve-hour ban, alright? My account can still be saved! You’re not really going to keep me here for twelve hours, are you? Don’t you feel any guilt? At least hang me in a more comfortable position!”
“If I used clips, you’d just escape,” Yu Sheng said as he sat on the sofa, giving her a sideways glance. “This is to teach you a lesson—stop messing with my stuff. Relax, I’ll let you down before dinner. But if you do this again, I’ll hang you in the basement.”
At the mention of the basement, Irene started to kick up a bigger fuss, showing her indomitable spirit in the face of threats. “I was wrong! I was wrong! I won’t do it again! Please let me down…”
Her “indomitable spirit” mainly consisted of giving in very easily. Despite being terrible at games, foul-mouthed, bad-tempered, and forgetful, Irene could admit defeat incredibly quickly. Yu Sheng ignored her racket, treating it like background noise.
Foxy tiptoed over, holding her bag of chips. She glanced up at the Doll hanging on the drying rack, then at Yu Sheng. After hesitating for a few seconds, she spoke softly, “Benefactor, Irene seems really sorry. Could you let her down?”
She offered her bag of chips to Yu Sheng. “Have some. It’ll help you calm down.”
Yu Sheng casually grabbed a few chips and tossed them into his mouth, turning his head to glance at Irene. Then he switched on the TV, which instantly quieted Irene down as she focused her gaze on the screen.
“See that? She’s all noise. Once you ignore her, she just stops,” Yu Sheng sighed, adopting the tone of someone who’d learned from experience. He said to Foxy, “That’s what’s called a tough cookie.”
“Oh,” Foxy nodded, half-understanding. She clearly didn’t quite get what a “tough cookie” meant. Just then, a sudden “BANG” sounded from upstairs, drawing everyone’s attention.
Irene, still hanging on the rack, lifted her head immediately, staring at the ceiling. “Hey, Yu Sheng, what just fell upstairs? Was it that ladder in the attic corner?”
Yu Sheng stood up from the sofa, frowning toward the second floor. “…No, it came from the far end of the hallway on the second floor,” he murmured. “I’d better go check.”
Foxy jumped up instantly, her tail “swooshing” into view. “I’ll go with you!” she said eagerly.
“Hey, let me down too! I’m coming with you!” Irene yelled. “That noise didn’t sound right. I might need to protect you two!”
“Who’s protecting who here?” Yu Sheng muttered, but he still stepped forward to unhook the drying rod and let the Doll slide down to the ground. “Alright, just this time. But next time, you’re really going in the basement.”
Irene stumbled slightly as she landed, then straightened her clothes with a huff, pulling a face at Yu Sheng. Her expression was pure “I’ll admit defeat now, but I’m still daring enough to provoke you.”
Yu Sheng ignored her antics, stretching his limbs before giving Foxy a nod. He led the way to the stairs. Once they reached the second floor, he headed straight down the hallway to the room at the end, the one that used to have Irene’s portrait hanging on the door.
The door was closed, and everything inside seemed quiet. Nothing seemed out of place.
But Yu Sheng felt sure that the loud “thump” just now had come from this room.
He remembered how the room had changed the last time they opened it—from an empty space to a simple, furnished room. The only thing heavy enough to make that sound was a mirror hanging on the wall—but that mirror had been so securely fastened that he’d struggled to take it down.
And besides, if it really had been the mirror falling, there should’ve been the sound of glass breaking too. Yu Sheng stepped forward and quietly grasped the strange door handle, ready to turn it.
“Wait,” Irene whispered, her voice low. She spread her hands, and black “webs” began to spin from her fingertips, slipping through the crack beneath the door and slowly extending into the room. “Let me check things out first.”
Foxy, seeing this, gave a little “pop” as she took off one of her fox ears. She pressed the fluffy ear to the door like a stethoscope, moving it slowly while her face showed intense concentration.
Yu Sheng couldn’t help muttering, “Can’t either of you act normal?”
“I’m perfectly normal!” Irene retorted in her mind. “It’s that silly fox who’s strange.”
“Benefactor,” Foxy broke the silence in a whisper. She replaced her ear back on her head. “There’s no noise inside.”
“I don’t sense any unusual aura either,” Irene said, retracting her black webs. “Go ahead and open it.”
Yu Sheng nodded, gently pushing the door open a crack.
Honestly, even he felt their caution was a bit much. This was their home, after all. Just because there was a noise upstairs didn’t mean they had to treat it like a full-blown crisis, with all the sneaking and tension. But then again, he also knew that caution was necessary.
After all, Wutong Road No. 66 wasn’t an ordinary place, and the room at the end of the hallway on the second floor had always been a little strange. The door swung open, and a cold draft blew out.
Yu Sheng shivered, instantly on high alert.
Why was it so cold in there? It felt like the chill wind that blew off snowy mountains, full of icy bite! But when the door opened fully, it was just… the same room as before.
A simple bed, a desk and chair, a mirror hanging on the wall, an old wooden floor, faded wallpaper curling at the edges, and plain curtains. Everything was just as it had been—no intruders from another world, no gaping hole leading into some other realm.
Yu Sheng didn’t let his guard down. He stepped carefully into the room, eyes scanning every corner. Irene followed, curiously looking around what was supposed to be “her room.” Suddenly, her eyes widened. “Hey! Yu Sheng, look near the wall! By the door!”
Yu Sheng turned, following her pointed finger.
There, near the base of the door, he saw something small and white piled on the floor, along with a few wet spots that were slowly fading into the floorboards.
“…Is that snow?” Yu Sheng knelt to get a closer look, surprised to find that the white stuff was indeed snow. Because of the room’s warmth, it was quickly melting into water.
Irene blinked in disbelief. “…Did it snow inside the room? That’s so weird!”
“Judging by the way the snow’s piled up, it looks like it was blown in by strong wind and collected along the wall,” Yu Sheng said, frowning as he examined the still-melting snow stuck to the wallpaper. The mystery only deepened.
Foxy crouched down beside him, pressing her nose against the wall and sniffing carefully.
“It smells like a living creature,” the fox girl said seriously. “This snow came from somewhere with living things.”
Irene was stunned. “You can tell just by sniffing it?!”
Foxy looked proud. “Foxes have great noses.”
“That’s way better than a dog’s nose…” Irene muttered in amazement.
Just then, something caught Yu Sheng’s eye.
He stepped over to the desk, bending down to pick up a small, pitch-black metallic object from the floor.
It was an unidentifiable metal part, something that looked like it was meant to connect multiple pipes and valves—a distribution gadget of sorts. It had several threaded openings, was hollow inside, and felt both light and sturdy in his hand.
Irene came over, staring at the strange object in Yu Sheng’s hand. “Uh… I’m guessing this thing wasn’t originally part of this room?”
“Of course not,” Yu Sheng shook his head. “Just like there shouldn’t be snow inside the room, there shouldn’t be some weird machine part here either.”
He moved cautiously toward the mirror hanging on the wall directly opposite the door.
The mirror reflected the room as it was. But Yu Sheng frowned.
Because beyond the seemingly normal room reflected in the glass, he could faintly see another scene—superimposed within the mirror was the image of a cave. A small cave, with snow falling heavily just beyond its entrance.