Chapter 009

Chapter 9: A Bit of Truth

The voice in his head made Yu Sheng jump. The cold wind in the valley had left him a bit numb, and now he was wide awake, then stunned again.

Only when Irene shouted a second time in his head did he snap back.

He blinked and, while he kept a careful eye on the valley and edged toward the one solid looking corner of the ruined temple, he answered in his thoughts: “Irene? How are you talking to me? I mean, you’re speaking right in my head.”

She sounded perfectly confident as she said: “Is that so hard? I’m one of Alice’s Dolls.”

Yu Sheng tried to connect those facts and failed. [So all of Alice’s Dolls can do this? Talk in people’s heads?]

She patiently explained: “I already crawled into your dream once, right? If I go once, I remember the way.” Then her tone flipped: “Hey, where did you go? I can’t sense you at all.”

He went quiet for two seconds, looking at the gloomy dense forest and feeling like a seven meter tall monster might spawn any moment along with epic music. His heart went cold as he said: “I might have stepped out a very far door. I don’t think I can get back easily.”

Irene went blank for a few beats, then said: “Weren’t you just taking out the trash? Did the garbage truck scoop you up?”

He had no idea where she got that kind of imagination. Still, hearing her voice settled him a little. Just a little.

At least it proved his link to the other place had not been cut off. If Irene could reach him, maybe he could still return. He had no plan and no reason to believe it, but he had to believe it.

Right now, he needed to make sure he was safe.

The valley was quiet. Only the empty wind came now and then. Even so, he felt a weird pressure. It was like something was watching him. The gaze had no warmth, only a hollow, hungry sweep that kept passing over this place and over him.

The feeling made him more uneasy. He needed cover. He should not be standing out in the open.

The only real hiding place in sight was the broken temple. The forest was thick, but it felt even creepier. Going into the woods at night was a classic way to ask for trouble in horror stories, so he would not go near it.

The problem was that sneaking into a ruined temple at midnight was also a classic way to ask for trouble. The difference was that the woods were more likely to spawn wild beasts and the temple was more likely to spawn a monster.

Either way, epic music might start.

He gritted his teeth and moved toward the only corner of the temple that looked sound.

As he went, he explained the situation to Irene in his thoughts. There was not much to explain. He had only opened a door, and here he was.

After a long pause, Irene said, unsure: “It sounds like you fell into an Otherworld.”

Yu Sheng froze, then asked quickly: “Otherworld? You call this place the Otherworld? Do you know where I am?”

She sounded a little foggy: “Huh? There are lots of Otherworlds. How would I know which one you fell into?”

Hearing her mumble, he frowned. He realized he had just learned a bit more about the supernatural Domain, and one crucial point:

Maybe he had not been thrown into some totally different universe. Maybe, to Irene, he had run into a kind of natural event.

While he turned that over, Irene seemed to think of something and said in disbelief: “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Otherworld.”

He made a face and said: “Should I have? Is this something normal people just know?”

She said lightly: “It’s normal for normal people not to know. Most people will never meet anything like this in their whole lives.” Then she added the line that stunned him: “But you shouldn’t be in the dark.”

He was confused: “Why me? I’m just a normal guy.”

She said: “You live in an Otherworld every day.”

…

Shadows slid under the night. Predators took shape inside them. A fierce wolf sprang out of the dark, hopped across the old rooftops in quick jumps, and dropped to the empty street. It stood in the middle of the road and looked left and right.

From a shadow at the corner of the buildings, a girl’s annoyed voice called: “Come back.”

The wolf hunched at once with a muffled whine and trotted into the shadow by the wall.

A girl in a dark red jacket and black skirt stood between two old houses. She scratched the head of the wolf that had returned, then lifted her eyes to the houses at the end of the short old street.

It was a short block with only a few dozen homes. The street was clear from end to end. Even without a wolf’s eyes, she could take in everything at a glance.

She frowned. Right then, her phone rang with the classic 1986 Journey to the West theme. She picked up when the Monkey King had just finished his second flip and said: “It’s me. Yes, I’m in the old town, over by Wutong Road.”

A middle aged man, half out of his mind from overtime, droned on from the other end.

Little Red Riding Hood listened patiently, then tugged one corner of her mouth and said: “I’m here, but I found nothing. My wolf has searched this whole street three times, front and back. No sign that an Otherworld opened, and nothing slipped out of an Otherworld.”

There was a two second pause, then the tired voice came back: “But our monitoring staff are sure there was a reaction on Wutong Road. A channel to the Otherworld must have appeared for a moment.”

She answered with a hint of helplessness: “I believe your Special Affairs Bureau monitors. They are pros. But I also believe my wolves. Maybe a short channel really did show up, but it is gone now. Normally an Otherworld does not cut off from the present world this fast. Maybe someone else handled it.”

The man said, weary: “There are not many who can cut an Otherworld connection that quickly. The groups they belong to all have registrations and contact lines with the Special Affairs Bureau. I got no messages tonight.”

She said: “Then maybe it was the Hermit Society. They act all mystical.”

He started another lecture. She sighed and gave in: “Okay, okay, they are respected scholars. I respect scholars. Fine. I’ll take my wolf pack and search the shadows again. Wutong Road is small. Sixty five house numbers in all. One more sweep won’t kill me.”

She hung up. The sudden quiet felt good. She looked down at the wolf heads rising and sinking in the shadows around her and sighed again.

She muttered: “I still haven’t done my homework. The life of a contractor is hard.”

…

Yu Sheng sat in the corner of the ruined temple where the wall looked least likely to fall. Cold wind poured through holes in the roof. He watched the murky night sky through a gap and tried to empty his mind. He failed.

Just now, he had learned a piece of truth.

The only safe place he had in Boundary City, the place that felt most normal to him, was actually an abnormal place called an Otherworld.

As Irene explained it, the Otherworld is a Domain outside the normal, a dimension at the edge of reason. The world where ordinary people live seems like a mountain with a firm base and stable structure, but in truth there are tiny pores everywhere in that mountain. Those pores open into places that are not rational and not orderly.

Most people will never touch those pores. They will never see the strange sights on the other side.

But the light that leaks out will catch the eyes of certain people. For them, once they glimpse that light, some things can never go back to how they were.

Even so, Irene added, for someone to live long term inside an Otherworld is unusual, even for a well traveled portrait doll.