Chapter 006

Chapter 6: The First Step of Friendly Communication

The girl in the painting who called herself “Irene” stared wide-eyed at the person outside the frame, Yu Sheng, and he stared back. So far, there was zero trust between them.

Yu Sheng could not confirm if anything this strange “person in a painting” said was true. It was the first time he had ever heard about Alice’s Little House or someone being sealed into a painting. So when Irene said she didn’t know why she had appeared in this house, he didn’t believe a single word.

On the other hand, Irene kept glancing at his lighter like he might use it to set her on fire. Her eyes never stopped tracking that lighter’s movement.

Irene spoke again like she was sure of it: “I think you bought this painting yourself, hung it up at home, then turned around and forgot.”

She kept going with a huff: “Doesn’t that happen all the time? You humans see something weird and want to collect it, then bring it home to gather dust.”

Her words actually made Yu Sheng feel a little unsure. He truly didn’t know where the things in this house came from. He had only been “here” for two months. He wasn’t just unfamiliar with this world. He was unfamiliar with himself. Who knew what the house and its master were like before those two months? [Was there another Yu Sheng back then?]

Those thoughts only flashed by. Staring into the painting at those scarlet eyes, he still shook his head and said: “No way. This painting looks expensive. It’s not something I could afford.”

Irene hugged her teddy bear and scooted closer as she countered: “What if it was cheap? There are tons of fake vases, fake fans, and fake paintings these days. Maybe the previous seller bought me from some phony antique dealer for two-fifty a pound along with other paintings. Or some middleman didn’t know what I was.”

Yu Sheng made a face and pointed out: “That frame is solid old wood, and there’s a thin line of gold inlaid along the edge.”

Irene thought it over and said calmly: “Rosewood veneer with resin poured inside, then copper plated wire along the trim.”

Yu Sheng sighed: “Then the cost is already more than two-fifty a pound.”

Irene haggled like a shopkeeper: “Four-fifty works. Any higher and no one would buy.”

Yu Sheng fell silent.

Irene blinked her scarlet eyes and demanded: “Hey, why aren’t you talking?”

Yu Sheng crouched in front of the frame. Suddenly he felt a laugh coming on, and then it burst out. He plopped down on the floor, leaned back until he was almost staring at the ceiling, and laughed. [I never thought I would go through something like this.] He was in an empty room, arguing with a girl sealed in a painting about whether the frame of a cursed oil painting was wholesale two-fifty a pound or four-fifty a pound.

Not long ago, a frog that spawned out of freezing rain had ripped out his heart.

[These things are way too funny.]

Irene, startled by his sudden laughing, got spooked. Since he had taken the frame off the wall and set it on the floor, she could see the bare ceiling and hear his laugh right next to her. She finally yelled: “Hey, don’t laugh! What’s so funny?”

Yu Sheng let the laughter fade. He scooted closer, looked into the frame, and his face turned serious as he asked: “That weird dream I had earlier. Was that you?”

He meant the dream where he swung an axe at a locked door and heard creepy laughter from behind the Door. Now that he was thinking about it, the dream felt linked to the girl in the painting. Oh, and he had pulled a muscle in his back in that dream too. [It still hurts.]

Irene shook her head fast, then hesitated and added: “Not exactly not me.”

Yu Sheng frowned and pressed her: “What does that even mean?”

She explained with surprising patience: “You dreamed that on your own, but I did go inside it. I sensed someone dreaming and tried to use that to find help. I wasn’t trying to do anything bad. I didn’t know you couldn’t open the Door. You got so angry, and since you forgot the key, you started chopping the Door with an axe.”

Listening to her ramble, Yu Sheng slowly pieced it together and said: “So you didn’t lock the Door, and you didn’t make me dream. You just have the ability to enter other people’s dreams.”

Irene nodded with a flash of pride: “Exactly. Actually, I can do a lot more.” The pride faded as fast as it came. “But now that I’m sealed in a painting, that’s almost all I can do.”

Yu Sheng was half convinced. He also had more questions about what he had experienced in that bizarre dream. Then he asked his second question: “You said you were looking for help through the dream. Help with what?”

She answered like it was obvious: “Help me get out! Best case, out of this painting. If not, at least out of this room. There’s nothing in here. If the wall across from me had a TV, that’d be something. Voice control would be great. Remotes are not convenient for me. There’s a brand I like.”

Yu Sheng realized the girl in the painting had a classic scatterbrain personality. If no one stopped her, her thoughts would wander to places you’d never expect, usually toward getting carried away.

So he cut her off without hesitation: “Then why the creepy laughter when I was trying to open the Door? If you wanted help, what was that?”

She waved both hands quickly and thrust the brown teddy bear forward as she blurted: “That wasn’t me. It was this guy!”

Yu Sheng just stared at her in silence, expression flat. His eyes clearly said, You think I’m an idiot?

“It’s true,” Irene said, getting anxious as she shook the bear. “It was sealed into the painting with me. Maybe time messed up its brain. All it does is chuckle now. If I poke it, it laughs, but sometimes it laughs without being poked. It even startles me sometimes.”

Face tight, Yu Sheng watched her earnest look and started to half believe it. His eyes finally moved to the teddy bear. After a pause, he nodded: “Make it laugh. Let me hear it.”

Irene immediately poked the bear’s head.

Nothing.

She froze, then poked harder.

Still nothing. Her eyes got watery. “S sometimes it’s like this,” she said in a small voice. “I poke it and it won’t laugh.”

Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched.

He summed it up like a tongue twister: “So sometimes you don’t poke and it laughs, sometimes you poke and it doesn’t. In short, whether you poke it or not, it may laugh or may not. So does your poking have anything to do with the laughing at all?”

Irene blinked, then nodded slowly: “R right. Huh.”

Yu Sheng didn’t want to keep dealing with this possibly not-right-in-the-head cursed oil painting.

He also stopped caring about the mocking laugh in the dream.

His stomach growled. He had crashed into bed when he got home and missed dinner, and now his belly made its presence known. He chuckled, shook his head, and pushed himself up.

Irene’s voice turned nervous as soon as she saw him move: “Are you leaving? You’re not going to leave me on the floor, right? At least hang me back on the wall. The wall across has wallpaper I can look at. There’s nothing on the ceiling.”

Yu Sheng grabbed the frame and lifted it, then hissed through his teeth when his back twinged.

“I’m taking you to the living room, so stop complaining,” he said casually.

Irene brightened, hugged her teddy, and sat back on her little chair inside the painting as he dragged the frame toward the door: “Great. You’re actually pretty nice. Oh, is it dinner time? What are we eating tonight?”

He looked down at her and asked: “Can you eat?”

“I can watch.”

[Why am I still humoring her?] He sighed, braced his lower back, and awkwardly lugged the frame toward the stairs. The chatter from the painting did not stop the entire way.

She marveled like a tourist: “Your place is big. There’s a whole open area outside that room.”

She peppered him with questions: “What’s that room across the hall? Your bedroom? Is anyone else here? Should I say hi? Ordinary people probably haven’t seen a talking doll in a painting.”

Then she poked at his name: “I didn’t ask your name yet. Are you yusheng? Weird name. Not the sashimi yusheng, right?”

Then she nagged like a grandma: “What’s wrong with your back? You’re too young to have a bad back. Protect your waist. Human joints are a hassle, and you can’t take them off and fix them.” She squeaked, “Why are you glaring? That look is scary.”

At the stairs, Yu Sheng eyed the steps. On a normal day he wouldn’t mind, but with a pulled back and a heavy oil painting frame, the stairs looked extra steep.

He had planned to carry the frame with both hands, but his body said no.

He lowered his eyes and thought in silence.

Irene sensed something. Her chatter slowed. Her face grew tense.

Yu Sheng glanced at the girl who had been yapping the whole way and whose topics got more and more punchable: “Irene.”

She flinched: “Y yes?”

He said calmly: “Your frame looks sturdy.”

She nodded, unsure: “It does?”

He set the frame at the top of the stairs.

“It might shake. Sit tight.”

Irene finally understood and her eyes went wide like saucers: “Wait, hold on”

“Go.”

The oil painting frame clattered down the steps, banging and bouncing in a chaotic adventure.

Irene provided running commentary at full volume the entire way: “Yu Sheng, you eldest master of mine… ahhh wow ahhh oh oh ahhh *&%$#*”