Chapter 32

Chapter 32: Blood Test

Irene didn’t just curse—she screamed loud enough to make your skull ring.

Yu Sheng honestly didn’t understand how a painting could project that much volume. Was the whole canvas secretly a speaker?

“Don’t ask me how it works. I don’t know,” Yu Sheng said helplessly, digging at his ear. He spread his hands at her. “The only thing I’m sure of is that I can open ‘doors,’ and those doors can lead to all sorts of places. It can be Otherworld, or what you just saw… somewhere far away. I still can’t tell if that’s another world, another planet, or some parallel timeline.”

He paused, then added, “Maybe I should ask the people on the other side what’s going on. But that elf doesn’t look like she’s in the mood for a conversation.”

Irene was half-dazed. It took her a moment to digest everything. Then she frowned. “Then… what about conditions? Like, under what circumstances can you do it?”

“I’m not sure yet. It feels like I can do it whenever I want.” Yu Sheng thought back on the sensations and answered honestly. “And it looks like there are two methods. One is opening a normal door that already exists. That’s easy. Sometimes I don’t even realize I did anything—one push and it leads straight to somewhere else. The other method is what you just saw.”

He lifted a hand and mimed pulling open a door in midair.

“A door I create from nothing. That’s exhausting. I have to focus, sense it, imagine it. If I get distracted while it’s forming, the whole thing can vanish.” He exhaled. “But the upside is I won’t accidentally step through a random doorway and end up somewhere insane.”

Irene stared at his hand, tracking the motion as if she could memorize it. She stayed silent for a long moment, then blurted, “…Are you even human?”

Yu Sheng looked offended. “What kind of question is that?”

“This is what you’re hung up on?” Irene muttered, then suddenly mimicked his tone and expression perfectly. “‘If I’m not human, are you?’”

She stared him down, crimson eyes unwavering.

“Some humans can awaken supernatural abilities. But I’ve never seen anything like you.”

“Maybe you’ve seen it and forgot,” Yu Sheng insisted stubbornly. “Your brain isn’t exactly reliable.”

Irene froze. “…Is—is that true?”

Now Yu Sheng felt awkward. He’d only been trading jabs out of habit. He hadn’t expected her to accept it that easily.

He cleared his throat and dragged the conversation back to something safer. “Anyway, this means my fall into that valley probably had nothing to do with the house. It was probably me—opening a passage at the instant I opened that door. So if I can reproduce what I did then, I should be able to go back, at least in theory.”

Once it was “business,” Irene’s face turned serious too. “Is this controllable?”

“…Half-controllable,” Yu Sheng admitted. “I can choose whether I open a passage to somewhere else or just open a normal door. But I can’t control where it leads. It’s entirely possible I open one and drop straight into a volcano.” He hesitated, then said, “But there’s one thing I confirmed.”

Irene leaned forward. “What?”

“The passage can be reproduced,” Yu Sheng said. “Under specific conditions, two door-openings can lead to the same place. Like that elf—you just saw her. I’ve met her twice now.”

Irene exhaled. “…No wonder she reacted like that.”

Yu Sheng rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. “I still don’t know how it happened, but I remember the feeling. If I train enough, I think I can lock onto places I’ve already connected to before.” His voice dropped. “The biggest issue is… the first time I entered that valley, I was completely unprepared. I don’t remember the sensation clearly. That makes reproducing it hard.”

“But at least you finally have a direction,” Irene said immediately. “I’ve been thinking your rush to go back and save that fox was impossible. Now it’s something that might actually work. Right?”

Yu Sheng studied the painting. “That’s the first nice thing I’ve heard you say. I thought your mouth only produced trash talk. I didn’t know you could comfort people.”

Irene stared at him for half a second.

Then she cursed him out in spectacular fashion.

Yu Sheng, however, was in a great mood. He could treat her profanity as background music.

He looked at his hands, flexed his fingers, stood up, and paced around the dining room like he’d just been injected with pure motivation.

Irene tracked him warily. “You’re not going to start… ‘training’ right now, are you?”

“The sooner the better. I slept all day—I’ve got energy to burn,” Yu Sheng said as if that settled everything. “And it doesn’t take space.”

“Then be careful,” Irene said. “If you open another door and run into that elf again, she might throw a fireball through it—and you’ll splatter me with blood.”

Now that sounded like her usual flavor of concern.

Yu Sheng waved it off and glanced toward the kitchen door.

Creating a door from nothing cost effort. For practice, it was better to use an existing door—something anchored to reality.

But then a different thought struck him.

“What did you just say?” Yu Sheng asked, turning back.

Irene blinked. “…Telling you to be careful? So she doesn’t throw a fireball over?”

“The more punchable line.”

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

“Right.” Yu Sheng smiled. “That one. I want to test that first.”

He picked up a small fruit knife from the table.

Irene panicked instantly. She hugged her teddy bear and sprang off the chair. “Hey! What are you doing?! I was kidding! You don’t need to pull a knife because of one sentence! I’m very easy to mess with, okay—you don’t even need a knife! Put it down! If you scratch the canvas, I might crack—”

When Irene panicked, she could produce a full stream of nonsense without taking a breath. Yu Sheng frowned. “Why are you so nervous? I’m not cutting you.”

Before the words had fully left his mouth, he pressed the blade to his finger—hesitated—then chose the back of his hand instead. Gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut, he drew a shallow cut.

It barely hurt.

Irene stared, stunned. Then Yu Sheng brought the bleeding hand toward the painting, and she backed away, shrieking, “What are you doing?! Wait—don’t tell me you actually believe that blood-recognition nonsense from novels! I told you to read less—”

“First,” Yu Sheng said dryly, “I write novels. I’m not doing great, but I’m still offended you have opinions. Second, this has nothing to do with blood-recognition.” He flicked her a look. “I’m testing a guess. Back in that valley, Foxy came into contact with my blood, and then both of us changed. I want to see if anything similar happens with you.”

What he meant was how Foxy, after touching his blood, suddenly seemed able to sense his “deaths,” and how he could sense flashes of Foxy’s thoughts and memories. He also suspected that silver demon fox projection in his dream world had something to do with that blood-linked connection.

Irene froze, sensing the seriousness underneath his words. Even though she still didn’t fully understand, her panic eased into wary cooperation.

Of course, it also helped that she couldn’t really run. Sealed inside a painting, Irene’s only real weapon was noise—and Yu Sheng had long since developed an immunity.

Still, Irene wasn’t the best test subject. Her “constitution” was… complicated.

Yu Sheng couldn’t tell whether his blood would affect Irene herself or the oil painting that served as her seal. He smeared blood onto the frame first. Then, before the wound closed, he forced a few drops onto the canvas. Either way, he couldn’t recreate what had happened with Foxy and let the blood touch Irene’s true body directly.

Irene watched. Yu Sheng had no idea what her perspective inside the painting was, but she clearly sensed the contact.

And that was all.

The painting didn’t absorb his blood the way Foxy had back then.

After waiting in uneasy silence, Yu Sheng asked, “Do you feel anything?”

Irene hesitated. “…Warm? But it’s cold now.”

Yu Sheng exhaled. “…Then it didn’t work.”