Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Flowers Bloom Again

Irene thought it was absurd that Yu Sheng could live in an Otherworld for so long without even realizing it. Yu Sheng thought this whole world was absurd.

“So, like you said, the Otherworld is everywhere in this world, right?”

Huddled in a corner of the ruined temple, Yu Sheng chatted idly with Irene in his mind. “It’s just that most people can’t reach it… because they can’t perceive it?”

“More or less. But whether the whole world works that way… honestly, I’m not sure,” Irene said. “The world’s huge. At the very least, within Boundary City, the odds of an Otherworld forming are high. That’s why people seem to call this place the Borderland, or something. I don’t really know the details. I’ve been stuck in this painting too long, and my head’s a little foggy.”

“The Borderland?”

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow. The name felt oddly familiar—but what really caught his attention was the way she’d emphasized within Boundary City.

Which meant this city, vast enough to feel endless, actually had an outside.

He hesitated for two or three seconds, but he couldn’t hold it back. “Outside Boundary City… what’s there?”

“Outside Boundary City?” Irene’s answer came vague and distant. “Maybe more cities? Or maybe… the sea or something? I don’t remember. I really have been stuck in this painting too long. I only remember a few things about this city…”

She paused, then asked, genuinely confused, “You don’t know?”

Yu Sheng didn’t respond.

“You’ve never left Boundary City either?”

Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched. He went quiet.

How would he know?

He’d been here two months—forget what lay beyond the city, he still hadn’t even sorted out the bus routes four blocks from his own place.

After a long silence, he decided not to push it. This little secret of his—he wasn’t ready to share it with a sealed doll he’d only just met.

“I haven’t gone out. I’m pretty much a homebody… forget it, let’s not talk about that,” he said, brushing it off. “Let’s deal with my problem first. How do I get out of this so-called Otherworld? I mean… you can leave an Otherworld, right?”

Irene fell silent, as if sorting through memories muddied by years of sealing. After a long moment, she said, “Otherworlds come in many forms. Sometimes it’s just a house that isn’t on any map. Sometimes it’s a station platform that shouldn’t exist on a bus line. Sometimes it’s even a forest—a realm you can walk into by opening a wardrobe door. In general, smaller Otherworlds have fairly fixed, obvious exits, or rules you can follow to return to reality. But the larger the Otherworld, the more complicated it gets.”

She paused again. “I can’t remember the details. There’s supposed to be a full classification system, plus some kind of depth scale and danger scale, but I really… I’ve been in this painting too long.”

Her voice sank, and for the first time she sounded a little lost.

Yu Sheng had wanted to complain—[This doll rambles on forever and can’t remember a single useful detail]—but after hearing that last soft mumble, he swallowed it.

“Then we’ll look,” he said, shaking his head as he stared out at the valley beyond the ruined temple. “This place isn’t small. Just what I can see includes mountains on both sides and woods in the distance. If you’re right, getting out… won’t be easy.”

“Mm,” Irene said. “Start by circling around the ‘drop point’ where you entered the Otherworld. Look for something that doesn’t fit the surroundings—something you see and instantly think shouldn’t be there. Usually the exit is nearby. If there isn’t one, find a higher spot and see if you can catch a mirror-like glint, or hear a steady rushing wind…”

She drew a breath. “But even if you find something like that, don’t rush over and touch it. It could be a trap leading to a deeper layer. I can’t explain the details. You’ll have to go with your gut.”

“My gut?” Yu Sheng blurted.

“…Yes. Strictly speaking, what you need is ‘inspiration’—a spiritual intuition. Trained investigators learn how to use it. I know you’ve never trained, but we don’t have a choice. You’ll have to tough it out.”

Irene’s voice softened. “Don’t worry too much. All intelligent beings have spirituality. Even an ordinary person has it—it’s just not awakened. If you pay close attention, you’ll feel warnings and omens that come from your own essence. If you run into something you can’t judge, tell me. I’ll… do my best to help.”

Yu Sheng agreed and slowly stepped out of his hiding corner, cautiously heading for the temple’s doorway. That uneasy sense of being watched—and of hunger—still clung to him. It had seeped into the air, becoming part of the whole valley.

He forced himself out anyway.

From what Irene had said, he needed to find an exit as soon as possible. Waiting in a corner wouldn’t make a door appear.

At the same time—maybe to keep his nerves from snapping—he kept talking in fits and starts.

“You said the place I’ve been living is an Otherworld. How could you tell? I never felt like there was anything wrong with my place…”

“I can feel it,” Irene replied. “It’s that inspiration I mentioned. I can clearly sense something off about that building—even if it looks perfectly normal on the surface. I don’t know why.”

“So it’s feelings again…” Yu Sheng shook his head. “Then by your logic, every time I go home and walk through the door, I’m entering an Otherworld. And when I walk out, I’m leaving the Otherworld, right? My place really is a harmless ‘good Otherworld’ where you can come and go freely.”

Two or three seconds passed before Irene spoke again, very softly. “…Walking out through a doorway doesn’t always take you where you want to go, does it?”

Yu Sheng froze.

He remembered exactly why he’d ended up trapped here.

Suddenly, he knew what had been wrong with his “home” all along.

Come to think of it, the fact he’d lived peacefully in that big manor for two whole months was a miracle in itself.

As they talked, he made it back to the open ground in front of the ruined temple—the spot where he’d first been “dropped” into this Otherworld.

“There’s nothing here,” Yu Sheng said after checking the area and finding nothing that felt out of place—no key object, no wrongness he could point to. “So yeah. It wouldn’t be that easy.”

“Yeah. That’s about what I expected,” Irene sighed. “Try walking farther out, but remember—don’t touch anything that glows, or anything that suddenly starts moving right in front of you. And unless you absolutely have to, don’t eat or drink anything in the Otherworld…”

“I know… but wouldn’t it be better to search after daylight?” Yu Sheng lifted his eyes to the sky, which seemed permanently smeared with a muddy veil. “Being out in the open at night just feels creepy.”

“The Otherworld often works against common sense. Daylight isn’t necessarily safer—and there might not even be daylight,” Irene said at once. “I still suggest you find the exit quickly. If you drag this out, who knows what might change on your side.”

Yu Sheng pursed his lips and could only trudge forward.

The instant he stepped beyond the ruined temple’s boundaries, a sound reached his ears.

At first it was nothing more than a faint, hazy breath.

Yu Sheng turned toward it and saw a wisp of white fog slowly spreading, as if some unseen behemoth had exhaled a stale breath into the valley.

He heard it, and so the behemoth’s breathing came into being.

He saw the fog, and so the behemoth’s existence began to take shape.

A shadow surfaced in the air—something nearly three times Yu Sheng’s size, slowly gathering itself together with heavy, labored breaths.

Now he could make out the outline.

Now it existed.

Yu Sheng’s heart clenched. A crushing sense of danger slammed down on him, even heavier than the pressure that frog in the rain had brought.

The moment his chest tightened, the shadow solidified.

It was something Yu Sheng had never seen before.

A bear?

A lion?

An eagle?

A tiger and a snake?

Countless savage, grotesque, almost-but-not-quite limbs were piled onto a huge, ugly ball of flesh. It looked like a pack of beasts had been melted in a boiling pot, mashed together, then crawled out as one. Swollen limbs of every size and shape propped up its massive body as it loomed over Yu Sheng. In its layered, jumbled eyes, there was only hunger.

Yu Sheng slowly lifted his head and met its gaze.

The behemoth lunged without hesitation.

At the last possible instant, Yu Sheng dropped low and slipped past one gaping mouth—

—and fell straight into another.

Fangs snapped shut. Half of Yu Sheng’s body was torn apart in an instant, yet the agony turned distant and numb, like it belonged to someone else. Everything slowed. He saw snake-like limbs extend from the behemoth’s back. He saw another enormous mouth clamp onto him and rip away what remained below his chest.

He saw his own heart.

It beat once, slow and stubborn, and then vanished into the depths of a snake’s throat.

“Screw you!”

Yu Sheng forced the curse out through his throat. He knew he was about to die again, but he refused to let it end like this.

While the last scraps of muscle in his body could still move, he twisted with everything he had and bit down on whatever was beside him. He didn’t know which part of the behemoth it was. He didn’t know what one bite could possibly do.

He only knew his teeth sank in.

If he had to die, he’d at least tear off a chunk of flesh.

He burned through every last shred of strength. He tore at the behemoth, and the behemoth tore at him—blood and meat, claws and teeth, food and eater—

Before his mind sank into total darkness, Yu Sheng squeezed out one last thought and whispered to Irene, somewhere far away he couldn’t name, “Irene…”

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” he whispered. “I’m hanging up now.”

Irene froze. For a moment, she didn’t react at all.

Then Yu Sheng hung up.