Chapter 032

Chapter 32: The Blood Test

Irene did not just curse; when she screamed, the sound made Yu Sheng’s head buzz.

Yu Sheng wondered about the noise as he rubbed his ear: [How can a painting be this loud, is the whole canvas a speaker?] He opened his hands and said to Irene: “Don’t ask me for the science. I don’t know the science. What I do know is this: I can open the Door, and those Doors lead to all kinds of places. Sometimes it is an Otherworld, and sometimes, like you just saw, it’s some faraway place. I still don’t know if that was another world, another planet, or a parallel timeline.”

He paused, then added: “Maybe I should try asking whoever is on the other side next time, but that elf woman didn’t look in a great mood.”

Irene, half dazed, finally came back to herself after his long talk. She thought for a while, then asked: “What about the rules to make it work? Like when it can do a Door Opening?”

Yu Sheng considered, then told the truth based on how it felt so far: “Not sure yet. It feels like I can open it anytime. As for the methods, there are two. First is just opening a normal Door that already exists in the real world. That kind of Door Opening is easy. Sometimes I don’t even notice what I did, and once the Door swings open, it goes straight to somewhere else. The second way is what you just saw.” He raised his hand and made a pulling motion in the air, as if sliding open an invisible door.

He went on: “That is a Door I create out of thin air. It takes effort. I need to focus, feel it, and picture it. If I get distracted, the Door can blink out. The good side is I won’t accidentally shove a Door open and tumble into the Otherworld.”

Irene stared with red eyes, following his arm back and forth several times, then finally broke the silence: “Are you even human?”

Yu Sheng was not pleased: “What is that supposed to mean?”

Irene lifted her chin and imitated his old tone, eyes locked on his: “A while back you told me this: ‘If I’m not human, are you?’ Some humans can use supernatural power, but I’ve never seen anyone like you.”

Yu Sheng stayed stubborn: “Maybe you have, and you forgot. Your memory isn’t exactly reliable.”

Irene froze, then nodded: “Right. That’s true.”

Now Yu Sheng felt a little awkward. He had only wanted to be snarky and bicker with the doll, not make her accept it so fast. [I was only trying to tease her.] He cleared his throat and steered back to the point: “So it looks like my fall into that Valley wasn’t because of this house’s weirdness. It was me opening a passage at that moment. If I can repeat what I did, I should be able to go back to that Otherworld. In theory, anyway.”

When it turned serious, Irene’s expression turned serious too: “Can you control this power?”

“Half controllable,” Yu Sheng said, not very sure. He explained: “I can mostly choose when to open a passage to somewhere else and when to open a normal Door. But I can’t choose where it goes. It might even open straight above a volcano crater. But I did just confirm one thing.”

Irene leaned in: “What thing?”

“The passage can repeat,” Yu Sheng said. “Under certain conditions, two Door Openings can lead to the same place. Like that elf you saw. It was my second time meeting her.”

“Oh,” Irene muttered. “No wonder she reacted like that.”

Yu Sheng looked a bit embarrassed: “I’m still not sure how it happened, but I kind of remember the feeling. If I practice, I think I can stabilize Doors I’ve connected through before. The biggest problem is, when I first entered that Valley, I wasn’t ready. The feeling I had during that Door Opening is almost gone, so it’s hard to repeat that exact passage.”

“At least you finally have a plan,” Irene said, trying to cheer him up. “Before this I thought your idea of rushing back to save that fox was a daydream. Now it sounds doable, right?”

Yu Sheng looked the doll in the painting up and down with surprise, which made her shift in her chair, uncomfortable. She snapped: “What are you staring at? I told you nothing can happen between you and a 2D girl.”

He cut her off before she could finish: “This is the first time you said something nice. I thought you only had trash talk. I didn’t know you could comfort people.”

Irene went silent.

Her curses were awful, but Yu Sheng was in such a good mood that even her noise felt like background music. He looked at his hands, waved them through the air, then got up and paced around the dining room, full of energy.

Seeing that, Irene paused her flowery insults. Her eyes followed him: “You aren’t about to start, um, training right now, are you?”

“The sooner the better. I slept all day and I’m wide awake,” Yu Sheng said. “This practice doesn’t take much space.” Irene muttered, rolling her eyes: “Take it easy. If you do another Door Opening and run into that elf again, she might throw a fireball and blow you up. Don’t splatter me with blood.”

That trash talk landed just right.

Yu Sheng waved it off and looked at the kitchen Door. Creating a Door from nothing cost extra effort, so for practice, a real, physical Door made more sense.

But before that, something else came to mind. He turned back to the portrait doll at the table and asked: “What did you say just now?”

Irene thought: “Take it easy? In case the elf sends over a big fireball?”

“I mean the more annoying line.”

Irene’s mouth twitched: “Don’t splatter me with blood.”

“Right. I want to test that,” Yu Sheng said with a grin. He picked up a small fruit knife from the table. “My blood.”

Irene visibly jolted. Hugging her teddy bear, she hopped up on the chair: “Hey, what are you doing? I was just talking. No need to pull a knife! I’m warning you, I’m super easy to anger. You don’t need a knife. Put it down. Scratch the canvas and I might even crack.”

She babbled in a panic. Yu Sheng frowned: “What are you nervous about? I’m not cutting you.” He set the blade to his fingertip, hesitated, moved it to the back of his hand, then grit his teeth and nicked it. The cut opened with a soft sound. It didn’t even hurt much.

Irene stared, shocked, and backed away as he held his bleeding hand closer. She yelped: “What are you doing? Wait, don’t tell me you believe that blood-binds-the-master stuff from novels. I told you to read less of that…”

“First, I write novels. I’m not doing great, but I take offense that you take offense at novels,” Yu Sheng said, giving the portrait doll a look. “Second, this isn’t blood-binding. I want to test a theory. In that Valley, Foxy touched my blood. After that, both of us changed. I want to see if the same thing happens to you.”

He meant that after Foxy touched his blood, she suddenly became able to sense his death, and he could sense parts of Foxy’s thoughts and memories. He also suspected the silver demon fox that showed up in his dreams was linked to that blood tie.

Irene, hearing his serious tone, went still. She did not understand the details, but she quieted down. She still looked unwilling to trust his shady process, yet she chose to cooperate. Of course, the main reason was that she could not run. Sealed in a painting, she could do little except yell, and Yu Sheng was getting used to that.

To be honest, Irene was not a great test partner. Her nature was special. Yu Sheng could not tell if his blood was acting on Irene herself or on the painting that sealed her. He smeared blood on the frame and, while the cut was fresh, let a few drops fall on the canvas. But unlike with Foxy, there was no way for his blood to touch the doll’s real body.

Irene looked up, and whatever her perspective in the painting was, she clearly sensed the touch of blood.

That was all.

The painting did not absorb it the way Foxy’s tongue had taken in fresh blood.

After waiting, Yu Sheng asked, unsure: “Do you feel anything?”

Irene thought: “Warm. Now it’s cool.”

“Looks like it did nothing,” Yu Sheng said.