Chapter 23

Chapter 23: Doubts

After a quick check, Yu Sheng found the TV hadn’t “lost signal.” It had simply crashed.

A classic cheap smart device problem: run it too long and it throws a tantrum. My CPU is frying. Memory error. Power supply overheating. Nothing. I just want to die for a second.

Yu Sheng couldn’t help missing the old, sturdy TVs he remembered. Back then, appliances weren’t this fragile. Sure, they had fewer functions, but at least they didn’t freeze because someone watched too much television. Half the so-called “AI” features now felt less like artificial intelligence and more like artificial idiot.

“Just cut the power, wait two minutes, then turn it back on,” Yu Sheng muttered. He shut off the TV, then glanced at Irene. “This thing’s quality sucks. Leave it on too long and it locks up.”

“Then are you going to buy a new one?” Irene’s eyes lit up. “Get one with voice control. Then I can change channels myself. If you’re not home, I can still watch TV…”

“You’ve got some nerve making demands.” Yu Sheng was actually amused by how shamelessly she treated this place like her own. “You’re squatting in my house and I haven’t even complained, and now you want a new TV? Are you paying, or doing the work?”

“I…” Irene opened her mouth, cheeks turning a little pink. She stammered, “I-I don’t have money, but I’ve been helping you with knowledge about the Otherworld. That counts as consulting…”

“A consultant with a bad memory,” Yu Sheng said dryly. “You don’t even dare swear what you say is reliable. If I hired you, I’d still need to hire another consultant to consult you.”

Irene’s face went red. She tried to find a comeback, failed, and sulked—only to recover three seconds later, because her mindset was apparently indestructible.

“Then when you get me out,” she said, “however you do it, I’ll work to pay you back. And aren’t you going to keep dealing with Otherworld stuff? I can be your helper! I can fight for you. That works, right?”

Yu Sheng had never actually thought about that. He’d never considered what would happen if Irene really got out of the painting someday. He raised an eyebrow. “You? Seriously?”

“Hey, don’t underestimate me!” Irene stood up on her chair, hands on her hips, full of swagger. “A living doll is blessed. In the Otherworld, I’m stronger than those so-called investigators and spirit realm detectives and all that…”

“And then you got pressed into a painting,” Yu Sheng said.

Irene’s eyes turned red—though, admittedly, they were already red. “You… you you you…” She shook with outrage. “Just wait until I get out! You’ll see! Don’t turn around!”

“Alright, alright.” Yu Sheng laughed and waved a hand. “I believe you.”

Truthfully, he’d never taken her too seriously in the first place. She was stuck in a painting. Sure, she was freeloading in his house, but she didn’t eat his food. Even laid flat on the floor, the frame took up less than half a square meter, and hung on a wall, it wasn’t in the way at all. Aside from watching TV, she barely consumed anything. And bickering with her even helped kill the boredom.

More importantly, she really had filled in a lot of knowledge about the Otherworld.

As for her promises about paying him back, or becoming some kind of enforcer at his side… he filed it under nice things to hear.

The TV screen lit up again. Yu Sheng pressed the remote a few times and found some bland city drama with zero nutritional value.

Irene wasn’t picky. After all, even Teletubbies were more interesting than staring at wallpaper.

But as Yu Sheng watched the screen, something occurred to him—something he hadn’t questioned until now.

“Irene,” he said, turning back toward the painting.

“Huh?”

“You said you’ve been trapped for so many years—decades, maybe.” Yu Sheng’s tone sharpened. “Then how do you know so much about modern stuff? You even know about smart TVs with voice control.”

He’d found a crack in her story. Not necessarily a fatal one—there were plenty of explanations. Maybe she learned about the world through people’s dreams. Maybe she’d hung in a different modern home before ending up here.

He expected an answer like that.

Instead, Irene gave him a blank stare. “Huh?”

She looked genuinely startled by the question, as if she’d never considered it until now. After a long moment, she turned her head slowly. “I… I don’t know why.”

“You don’t know?” Yu Sheng couldn’t hide his shock.

“Yeah.” Irene’s voice wavered. “I really have been trapped in this painting for a very, very long time. It could’ve been decades. But… I just know what the world is like now. Even though I don’t know how I know it…”

The more she spoke, the more uncertain she sounded, until she finally trailed off, unable to continue.

Yu Sheng stared hard at her face, trying to catch even a flicker of a lie.

“Then do you remember how you got trapped?” he asked. “And what happened before that—do you remember any of it?”

“I…” Irene hesitated. “I only remember it was a curse. This painting is also some kind of entity. I should’ve come to deal with it, but instead I got trapped inside. I can’t remember the process, and what happened before… what happened before…”

She fell silent, as if fragments of the past were snagging and tangling inside her head. She drifted, confused, trying to pull them free. After who knew how long, she finally spoke softly, like someone talking in her sleep.

“I’m Irene from Alice’s Little House. I’m a doll from Alice…”

She looked up, uneasy. She hugged her teddy bear so tightly the plush warped.

“Yu Sheng… that’s all I remember.”

Yu Sheng’s frown deepened.

In that instant, his mind filled with too many possibilities—eerie theories, conspiracies, ridiculous nonsense—but none of it felt solid.

Because he had no evidence. No clues.

Irene’s anxiety spiked. “Is my brain broken?”

Yu Sheng crossed out the conspiracy theories.

Then, in a grim kind of mercy, he gave the ridiculous possibilities a little more weight.

“If you can’t remember, don’t force it,” he said quietly. “At least not right now. Maybe you really were trapped too long, and your memory got scrambled.”

“I-Is that so?” Irene hesitated, then nodded—and somehow looked relieved.

Yu Sheng stared at her.

No. Why did that comfort her? That just meant her brain really was broken.

Still, her reaction eased some of the doubt that had risen in his chest. To be fair, if she’d produced a perfect explanation on the spot, he might’ve been even more suspicious. That honest, baffled “Huh?” made her feel… simple. Real.

With that thought, he shook his head and headed for the stairs. “You watch TV downstairs. I’m going up to sleep.”

Irene waved him off. “Yeah, yeah, go ahead.”

Yu Sheng left the dining room and climbed the stairs, carrying exhaustion from that night-shrouded valley up to the second floor. He yawned hard as he walked toward his bedroom.

He truly was tired. After eating his fill, the drowsiness hit like a wave. He needed sleep.

But when he reached his bedroom door, he stopped instinctively and looked toward the end of the hallway.

The door that had once been sealed shut by some unknown force stood quietly in view.

That was the room where he’d found Irene back then.

Something stirred in his chest. He turned and walked over.

When he reached the door, he noticed the handle’s position had changed. The hinge and handle had swapped sides—becoming the “correct” arrangement he’d eventually discovered before, the only way the door would open.

After a moment of hesitation, he reached out, gripped the handle, and turned it gently.

With a soft click, the door swung open like any normal room.

Yu Sheng stepped forward, and the room came into view—

Plain, ordinary furnishings. A single bed and bedside table on the left. A wardrobe, desk, and chair on the right. Faded old floorboards. Pale blue wallpaper.

A window above the desk. Bright sunlight pouring in, warming the space.

And on the wall directly facing the door—where Irene’s painting had once hung—there was now a mirror.

In that mirror, Yu Sheng saw his own face slowly tightening in shock.