Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Never More Than… Three

In the last second before death claimed him, Yu Sheng felt an endless, crushing weight—a kind of darkness with the texture of viscous fluid, almost as if it were an entity with hands.

His consciousness dissolved fast. The shell that supported it was losing life to horrific wounds. As his body shut down, the thoughts carried by flesh sank and scattered too. That was nature’s law.

Yet at the edge of that fading awareness, a force—or rather, a fierce thought, a stubborn refusal—clamped down on his mind. In a daze, he remembered the frog that had swallowed his heart, and the way he’d returned afterward.

What exactly had happened?

What had happened to him?

Why was he alive?

Those questions turned into an obsession. They held his mind at the rim of that endless dark. Even as he wavered, he never fully sank. He needed to know—how, after dying, he had come back.

The darkness pressed down. Its sticky texture turned cold and rough. He felt as if he were being buried beneath thick layers of soil, his soul struggling to breathe under the weight…

And then, suddenly, the pressure vanished.

In a flash of insight, a thought rose in his drifting mind:

In his death, death died before he did.

Yu Sheng’s death had died, and so the dead Yu Sheng returned once more from that boundless dark to the land of the living. He felt his “body” grow light, then accelerate, shooting upward through endless black.

Along the way, he vaguely saw something on the surface of that darkness—like he was skimming past a thin boundary at high speed. But he had no time to see it clearly before his eyes snapped open.

Cold night wind blew through a hole in the wall. Beyond the half-collapsed roof was a murky, chaotic sky, and deep in the valley the hollow wind howled.

Yu Sheng sat in a corner of the ruined temple, his head foggy. He knew this feeling. He’d been through it not long ago.

But this time he recovered faster. In just a few breaths, he remembered everything—especially that suffocating feeling of being buried in darkness.

After steadying his breathing, Yu Sheng rose slowly.

He felt every joint waking from stiffness, like a newborn body rapidly learning how to live. Strength flooded back. His mind cleared. Then he looked outside the ruined temple, toward the spot where he’d bled out moments ago.

There was nothing there now. The behemoth had left… or it had simply sunk back into hiding, like before.

After a brief silence, Yu Sheng tested the connection in his mind.

“…Irene.”

Almost the instant he thought her name, Irene’s loud voice exploded in his heart. “Yu Sheng! Holy—are you okay?!”

Then she launched into a breathless stream of chatter. “You suddenly stopped responding! No matter how I called, you didn’t answer. I couldn’t even feel where your mind was. I thought you died! You scared me to death! If you die, nobody will come fix the TV at home—are you really okay?!”

Yu Sheng’s face twitched. “So you were only worried no one would come back to fix your TV, huh?”

Irene hesitated. “…Not only that. I also kind of worried you really died…”

Yu Sheng: “…”

She actually hesitated.

He forced himself to breathe. Then he ground his teeth and made his voice steady. “What if I told you I really did die just now?”

Irene didn’t believe him for a second. “Quit it. You sound perfectly alive right now…”

“…Right. I was kidding,” Yu Sheng said, smoothly letting it go. He fell silent, then asked abruptly, “How long?”

“Huh? How long what?”

“How much time has passed since I told you I was hanging up?”

“Uh… I can’t see the clock in the living room from where I am. I’m guessing maybe half an hour? I’m not sure. I’ve been sealed in this painting for years, so my sense of time is dull. But the sky outside hasn’t changed much. At least it wasn’t a whole night. It’s not light yet…”

Yu Sheng’s eye twitched. “…Isn’t that a little too vague? Do you know how different half an hour and a whole night are?!”

Irene went quiet for a moment.

Then an ear-splitting, low chuckle rumbled from her side.

Irene blurted instantly, “Not me! It’s this bear!”

Yu Sheng lifted a hand weakly. “I know.”

Irene sounded oddly pleased. “Ah, you finally believe me…”

Yu Sheng didn’t have the energy to argue. He didn’t bother telling her it wasn’t belief—just the fact that if she ever wanted a beating, she didn’t even need to smile. Her voice alone was punchable enough.

And right now, with that nasty laugh in the background, it was even worse.

With useless thoughts spinning in his head, Yu Sheng stepped out of the ruined temple again.

Maybe it was an illusion, but he felt stronger than before he’d “hung up.” His steps were lighter. His movements were cleaner. Even his eyesight felt sharper.

He was adapting—to the darkness, to the ruins, to the malice and hungry stares that lurked everywhere.

He headed for the open ground in front of the ruined temple, toward the woods beyond it, and deeper into this Otherworld.

He knew he might die again—maybe with the next step, maybe in the next second.

“Yu Sheng,” Irene’s voice sounded again, smaller now. “Are you really okay?”

“I’m fine. Just a small injury. It’s already healed.”

“Well… maybe you should stay where you are, or hide somewhere safe. I’ll try to remember. Maybe I’ve seen that valley you described before…”

“Then keep remembering. I’ll keep looking around,” Yu Sheng said lightly.

“Huh? That might be a little dan—”

“Irene.” He cut her off. By now he’d reached the open ground. He drew a deep breath of the valley’s cold air, tainted with a strange stench, and looked toward the shadowy, ominous forest ahead. Then, suddenly, he smiled. “You know, these past days, I’ve been living in a haze.”

Irene clearly couldn’t follow him. “Uh… should I know that?”

Yu Sheng didn’t care. He kept going. “I heard you mention the Otherworld just now, and all those cases of people stumbling into it. Do you know what my first reaction was?”

“What reaction?”

“Happy.”

“Huh?”

“Happy,” Yu Sheng said, standing in the night and unable to stop smiling. “You said some people accidentally open the wrong door, or in some freak low-probability moment step onto the wrong floorboard and fall into a hellhole called the Otherworld, right? And you also said that if someone in the Otherworld is lucky and figures out its rules, they still have a chance to go back.”

“That’s what I said…” Irene replied hesitantly. “But it really depends on luck. Professionals like investigators have a better shot. If an ordinary person falls into the Otherworld without training, they’re basically just waiting to die…”

“It’s fine,” Yu Sheng murmured. “Die enough times and you’ll figure it out.”

Irene: “…What?”

“Nothing.” Yu Sheng let out a breath, like he was finally exhaling two months of stale air. “I just found something to do. I’ll start here. It might take time, but I’ll get out of this place.”

“I don’t know what’s going on over there, but it sounds like you’re… fired up?” Irene said uncertainly. “Well, that’s a good thing, I guess. Good luck? Try not to die… I’m still waiting for you to come back and fix the TV… and find me a body or something…”

“Sure. When I get back, I’ll try to solve your body problem,” Yu Sheng said casually. “I’ve dabbled in sculpture and model-making before. I can probably—”

Irene sounded genuinely excited now. “What? You’ve got puppet maker experience?! Why didn’t you say so earlier? How good are you? What level of doll can you make?”

Yu Sheng hesitated, then admitted honestly, “About the level where I watch masters knead clay in online videos, and afterward my brain tells my hands, ‘We’ve got this,’ but my hands don’t believe it.”

Two seconds later, Irene cursed so viciously it was hard to listen to.

Yu Sheng, however, felt completely relaxed. A loose, almost questionable calm filled him with confidence. He walked forward, then lifted his head in the night to glance toward the mountains to one side.

A several-meter-tall flesh behemoth—fused from countless twisted beast limbs—stood by the roadside, staring straight at him.

Yu Sheng stopped.

After thinking for a beat, he called in his mind to the portrait doll who was still swearing, “Irene.”

“What is it?”

“…Nothing,” Yu Sheng said. “I’m hanging up again.”

“Huh?”