Chapter 87: Snow in the Room
Within Wutong Road No. 66, the usual uproar typically stemmed from Yu Sheng’s burning temper and the little doll’s screeching and scratching. Now, however, a new sound joined the chaos—the crunching of potato chips being munched by the Fox Girl, who watched the spectacle with interest.
After a few minutes of frenzied activity, Yu Sheng finally subdued the leaping, biting Doll Lady and sentenced her to hang from the clothesline on the living room balcony.
“Yu Sheng, you bastard! Put me down!” Irene flailed her arms in the air, legs kicking desperately. The clothes rod threaded through her sleeves held her up from behind, suspending her mid-air like a wind-drying Salty Fish. “It was just a temporary ban! Just twelve hours! My account can still be saved! You’re not really going to leave me here for twelve hours, are you? Doesn’t your conscience hurt? At least hang me in a more comfortable position!”
“You’d slip out if I used clips,” Yu Sheng replied, lounging on the sofa and casting a sideways glance at the suspended Doll Lady. “This is to teach you a lesson—don’t mess with my stuff. Relax, I’ll let you down before dinner. But next time, I’ll hang you in the basement.”
Doll Lady immediately launched into a noisy protest, her spirit of rebellion flaring—though her resistance mostly consisted of begging for mercy. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I won’t do it again! Let me down, please!”
For all her foul-mouthed gaming, tantrums, and forgetfulness, this young lady surrendered surprisingly quickly.
Yu Sheng simply treated her ruckus as background noise.
Foxy cautiously approached, clutching a bag of chips. She glanced at the dangling Doll Lady, then at Yu Sheng, hesitating for a couple of seconds before speaking in a soft voice. “Benefactor, Irene really seems to know she’s wrong. Can you let her down?”
She extended the chips toward him. “Eat something, and maybe you won’t be mad anymore.”
Yu Sheng grabbed a few chips and tossed them into his mouth, then glanced at Irene before turning on the TV.
Little doll instantly went quiet, staring intently at the screen.
“See that? She just makes a lot of noise. Ignore her and she quiets down,” Yu Sheng said to Foxy with a sigh, speaking like someone who’d been through it all. “She’s a tough nut to crack.”
“Oh,” Foxy nodded with a half-understood look, clearly unsure what a “tough nut” was.
Just then, a loud thump echoed from upstairs, snapping everyone’s attention.
Suspended in the air, Irene immediately lifted her head and peered toward the ceiling. “Hey, Yu Sheng, something fell up there? Maybe that ladder in the attic corner tipped over?”
Yu Sheng stood, his brow furrowed as he gazed toward the second floor.
“…No, that sound came from the far end of the second-floor hallway,” he murmured. “I need to check it out.”
Foxy jumped up instantly, her tail swishing out with a soft hum. “I’ll go with you!”
“Hey, let me down too! I want to come!” Irene shouted. “That noise didn’t sound right. If something happens, I need to protect you guys!”
“It’s debatable who’s protecting who,” Yu Sheng muttered, but still walked over and detached the clothes rod from the rack, letting little doll slide down to the floor headfirst.
Irene stumbled but quickly found her footing, huffily straightening her clothes and making a face at Yu Sheng—her expression screaming, [Sure, I gave in fast, but I’ll mess with you again in a heartbeat.]
Yu Sheng didn’t mind. He stretched his limbs, exchanged a glance with Foxy, and headed up the stairs.
Once on the second floor, he moved straight down the hallway to the room that once displayed Irene’s Painting.
The door stood tightly shut, silence within. It appeared normal.
Still, Yu Sheng was certain the loud thud came from inside.
He remembered that after it had last been opened, the room had changed from empty to a plainly furnished one. The only object inside heavy enough to cause that noise was a mirror fixed securely to the wall—so firmly that even Yu Sheng hadn’t been able to pull it off.
And if it had fallen, there would’ve been the sound of shattering glass.
He stepped forward and grasped the odd handle on the door’s hinge side, carefully twisting it.
“Don’t open it yet,” Irene whispered, extending her hands. Wisps of black spider silk unfurled from her fingertips, snaking through the gap beneath the door and creeping into the room.
Beside her, Foxy removed one of her fluffy ears with a pop and pressed it against the door like a stethoscope, slowly sliding it along as her expression grew serious.
“Could the two of you act even remotely normal?” Yu Sheng couldn’t help but mutter at the strange scene before him.
“I’m perfectly normal!” Irene retorted in her mind with certainty. “It’s this silly Fox that’s off her rocker.”
“Benefactor…” The Demon Fox Maiden softly broke the tense silence, ears folding down against her head. “There’s no movement inside.”
“I sense no irregular auras either,” Irene added, her black spider silk retreating into the void. “Let’s open the Door.”
Yu Sheng nodded and cautiously pushed the Door open a crack.
Even he had to admit, their reaction might be a bit much—they were at home, after all. Yet just one strange noise from upstairs had the trio treating the situation like a full-scale invasion. Still, their caution wasn’t without reason.
Wutong Road No. 66 was an Otherworld. And the room at the far end of the second-floor corridor… had always felt wrong.
As the Door creaked open, a residual chill gusted outward.
Yu Sheng shivered involuntarily, every instinct snapping to alert.
Why was there cold wind coming from this room? The sensation was like a glacial breeze from a snowy mountain—laden with icy breath.
But once the Door fully opened, what met their eyes was an entirely mundane room.
A simple bed. A desk and chairs. A Mirror mounted on the wall. Aged wooden flooring. Peeling wallpaper curled at the corners. Plain curtains.
Everything looked as it always had. No Intruder from another realm. No gaping rift to some abyssal plane.
Still, Yu Sheng remained vigilant, eyes scanning every corner as he stepped cautiously inside.
Irene followed, curiosity glinting in her eyes as she took in what was theoretically “her room.”
The little doll suddenly pointed and shouted, “Hey! Yu Sheng, check the wall—near the Door!”
Yu Sheng spun toward where Irene was pointing.
At the base of the walls flanking the Door, tiny white granules lay scattered across the floorboards, along with several small, fading puddles.
“Snow?” Yu Sheng knelt down, inspecting the curious residue. To his disbelief, the white clumps were indeed snow—melting rapidly in the room’s warmth, leaving watery traces in their wake.
Irene looked stupefied. “It snowed… inside the house? That’s absurdly cursed!”
“The way the snow is piled, it looks like it was blown in from outside,” Yu Sheng noted with a frown, studying the remnants clinging to the wall.
The Demon Fox Maiden crouched beside him, pressing her nose close to the surface, sniffing intently.
“There’s a scent of life,” she declared solemnly. “This snow came from somewhere inhabited.”
Irene gawked. “You can tell that from a smell?!”
Foxy beamed proudly. “Fox. Nose. Excellent.”
“Better than any dog,” Irene muttered in awe.
Just then, something flickered in the corner of Yu Sheng’s eye.
He stepped over to the nearby desk and bent down, retrieving a small, pitch-black Metal Component from beneath.
It was palm-sized, metallic, and resembled a manifold for linking multiple pipes or valves. Hollow with threaded openings, the part felt light yet unnervingly sturdy.
Irene joined him and blinked at the strange device. “Uh… that wasn’t part of the room’s original furnishings, right?”
“Definitely not,” Yu Sheng said firmly. “Just like how snow doesn’t belong indoors, this… weird bit looks like it was ripped off some machine.”
Still on guard, he approached the Mirror opposite the Door.
Its surface reflected the familiar room.
But something was off.
Yu Sheng’s brow furrowed deeply.
Behind the reflection of the room’s interior, another image flickered faintly. Overlaid like a ghostly double exposure, it was the entrance to a cave—beyond which snowflakes whirled in a relentless blizzard.