Chapter 087

Chapter 87: Snow in the Room

At 66 Wutong Road, the biggest commotions usually came from Yu Sheng blowing a fuse and the little doll’s shrieks and scratching, and now there was also Foxy watching the chaos while crunching chips.

Ten minutes later, Yu Sheng managed to subdue the leaping, trying to bite doll and hung her from the clothes rack on the living room balcony.

“Yu Sheng, you jerk! Put me down!” Irene flailed in midair, arms spread, the rod threaded through her sleeves to hold her on the rack so she swung like a drying salted fish. “It’s a temporary ban! Just twelve hours! The account can be saved! You can’t mean to hang me for twelve hours. Doesn’t your conscience hurt? At least change me to a more comfortable pose!”

“If I used clothespins, you’d wriggle free,” Yu Sheng said from the sofa, giving the dangling Miss Doll a sidelong look. “Hanging you is so you remember not to mess with my stuff. Don’t worry, I’ll let you down before dinner. But if you do this again, I’ll hang you in the basement.”

At that, Miss Doll made a huge fuss, showing her unbending spirit and resistance to violent threats: “I was wrong, I was wrong! I won’t do it again! Put me down, put me down…”

Her main resistance was having no resistance. For all her bad gaming, sharp tongue, hot temper, and poor memory, she confessed fast.

Yu Sheng treated her ruckus as background noise and ignored her.

Foxy edged closer, still cradling a bag of chips. She looked up at the hanging doll, then at Yu Sheng. After two or three seconds of hesitation, she whispered: “Benefactor, I think Irene really knows she did wrong. Can you put her down?”

She offered the chips: “Have a snack so you won’t be mad.”

Yu Sheng grabbed a few and tossed them into his mouth, glanced at Irene, and turned on the TV.

The little doll fell quiet at once and stared at the screen.

“See? She’s loud, but if no one takes the bait, she settles,” Yu Sheng said to Foxy, sounding like someone who had been through this many times. “She’s thick skinned like a tough cut of meat.”

“Oh.” Foxy nodded, half understanding and not sure what “tough cut” meant.

Just then a bang from upstairs cut through the living room.

Hanging on the rack, Irene snapped her head up and looked toward the ceiling: “Hey, Yu Sheng, did something fall upstairs? Maybe that ladder in the attic?”

Yu Sheng rose from the sofa, frowning toward the second floor.

“…No. The sound came from the far end of the second floor hall,” he said quietly. “We have to check.”

Foxy shot to her feet, her tail buzzing out with a hum: “I’ll go with you!”

“Hey, put me down too! I’m coming!” Irene shouted at once. “I heard it too. It sounded wrong. If something happens, I need to protect you.”

“Who protects who is still up for debate,” Yu Sheng muttered, but he took the rod off the rack and tipped it so the doll slid down to the floor head first. “I’ll let it go this time. Next time, you’re hanging in the basement.”

Irene staggered, then stood, puffing as she straightened her clothes. She made a face at Yu Sheng, the picture of someone who admits defeat fast but is ready to rebel again.

Yu Sheng didn’t care. He limbered his hands and feet, gave Foxy a look, and took the lead up the stairs.

On the second floor, he headed straight to the far end of the hall, stopping at the door of the room that had once held Irene’s painting.

The door was shut. Inside was silent, with no sign of anything wrong.

But now he was more certain: that heavy thump had come from this room’s direction.

He remembered that after the last time they opened it, the room had changed from empty to a simple, ordinary space. The only thing inside that could make a thud like a heavy drop was the mirror on the wall. But the mirror was fixed tight. He had once pulled hard and could not yank it down.

Besides, if a mirror had fallen, there should have been the sound of shattering glass.

Yu Sheng stepped up, gripped the odd handle on the hinge side, and turned it quietly.

“Wait,” Irene whispered, spreading her hands. Fine black spider silk unspooled from her fingertips, slipped through the gap under the door, and crept into the room.

Beside her, Foxy popped off one of her fluffy ears with a soft pluck. Pressing it to the door like a stethoscope, she slowly moved it around with a very serious face.

Yu Sheng couldn’t help muttering: “Can’t you two be normal?”

[I’m perfectly normal!] Irene thought back at once. [That silly fox is the weird one.]

“Benefactor,” Foxy broke the silence softly, putting her ear back on. “I don’t hear anything inside.”

“I don’t sense any strange aura either,” Irene drew back the black threads. “Open the door and look.”

Yu Sheng nodded and pushed the door open a crack.

Even he felt they were overdoing it. This was their own house. All this probing and guarding just because of a noise from upstairs felt odd. But he also knew this caution was necessary.

After all, 66 Wutong Road was an Otherworld, and the room at the end of the second floor hall had been off from the start.

The door opened. A leftover chill blew out to meet them.

The strange cold air made Yu Sheng shiver, and his guard shot up.

Why would the room have a wind like that? It felt like a mountain gale mixed with the breath of ice and snow.

Yet when the door opened fully, the room… was still just a plain room.

A simple bed, a table and chairs, a mirror hanging on the wall, old floorboards, wallpaper faded with curled edges, and plain curtains.

Everything looked the same as before. No intruder from a different world had crawled in, and there was no hole torn open to the Otherworld.

Yu Sheng did not relax. He stayed careful, watching the surroundings as he stepped inside.

Irene followed, looking around with curiosity at this room that was supposed to be “hers.”

The little doll suddenly spotted something: “Hey! Yu Sheng, look at the baseboard! By the door!”

Yu Sheng turned at once in the direction of her finger.

On both sides of the doorway, near the wall, he saw a scatter of tiny white piles, and several small puddles that were already fading into the floor.

“…Snow?” He crouched to check, surprised to find the white piles were indeed snow. In the room’s warmth, it was melting fast into water stains.

Irene’s face went blank: “…It snowed inside? That’s creepy.”

“From the way it’s piled, it looks like wind stuck it to the wall bit by bit,” Yu Sheng said, frowning as he studied the half melted snow marks clinging to the baseboard. His confusion deepened.

Foxy crouched nearby, pressed her nose to the wall, and sniffed hard.

“A living scent,” the fox maiden said seriously. “This snow came from a place with living creatures.”

Irene gaped: “You can smell that?!”

Foxy looked proud: “A fox’s nose is very useful.”

“That beats a dog’s nose by a mile…” Irene breathed.

Just then, something flickered at the edge of Yu Sheng’s vision.

He stepped to the table, bent down, and picked up a palm sized black metal piece from the floor beneath.

It was a metal component with an unknown use, like a splitter for connecting several pipes and valves. It had a few threaded openings and was hollow inside. It was not heavy in the hand, but it felt tough.

Irene came over, stared at the odd device, and faltered: “Uh… I’m guessing this wasn’t part of the room?”

“Of course not,” Yu Sheng shook his head. “Just like it doesn’t snow indoors, there shouldn’t be… some random part that looks torn off a machine.”

He turned, cautious, and stopped before the mirror facing the door.

The glass showed the room behind him.

Then he frowned.

Because in the depths of that ordinary reflection, another faint image was layered over it: a small cave, and outside its mouth, snow fell thick and heavy.