Doubts

After a simple check of the television, Yu Sheng found that the thing had merely frozen.

It was the classic problem cheap smart devices developed after prolonged use—Oh no, I've been working continuously for two hours. My CPU is smoking / my memory is throwing errors / my power supply is overheating / never mind, I just feel like dying for a bit...

Yu Sheng could not help missing the sturdy old televisions from his memories. Household appliances back then had not been as delicate as today's smart devices. Their functions had been fewer, but he did not think all the various smart features nowadays were particularly useful either. Every artificial intelligence seemed more like artificial stupidity...

"Unplug it, wait two minutes, and turn it back on," Yu Sheng thought ruefully as he casually switched off the television, then turned to Eileen and said, "The quality of this thing isn't great. Leave it on too long, and it freezes by itself."

"Are you going to replace it with a new one?" Eileen's eyes immediately lit up. "Get one with voice control. Then I can change channels myself, and I can watch TV even when you're not home..."

"You really have the nerve to make demands?" Seeing how this freeloader treated herself as one of the household, Yu Sheng was amused despite his irritation. "You've been squatting in my house and I haven't said anything, and now you want a new TV? Are you paying for it or doing the work?"

"I..." Eileen opened and closed her mouth, and her face actually reddened a little. She stammered, "I, I-I don't have any money, but I've been helping you fill in your knowledge about the Otherworld! That counts as being a consultant, at least..."

"This consultant's memory isn't very good either, is it? You can't even be sure whether the things you say are reliable," Yu Sheng said with a curl of his lips. "If I hire you as a consultant, I'll need to hire another consultant to consult you."

Eileen's face flushed bright red, but after struggling for quite a while, she still could not find anything to refute him with. She could only lower her head and sulk. Fortunately, she had a good temperament. After sulking for three seconds, she recovered, raised her head, and looked at Yu Sheng. "Then after you get me out—however you manage to do it—I'll work to pay you back. Besides, won't you be dealing with the Otherworld in the future? I can be your assistant! I can fight for you. That should count for something, right..."

Yu Sheng really had not considered that. In fact, he had never thought about what would happen if Eileen actually came out of the painting one day. Hearing this, he raised his brows. "You? Are you sure?"

"Hey, don't underestimate me! I'm one of Alice's Dolls!" Eileen stood up from her chair with her hands on her hips, looking incredibly smug. "Living dolls are blessed. In the Otherworld, I'm much stronger than those so-called investigators and Spirit Realm Detectives..."

"And then someone pinned you inside a painting?"

Eileen's eyes instantly turned red, although they had been red to begin with. "You... you-you-you... just wait until I get out! You'll see! Don't turn away!"

"Fine, fine, I believe you, I believe you." Yu Sheng turned around with a smile and waved his hand helplessly.

Actually, he had never seriously argued with this doll from the beginning. After all, she was staying inside a painting. Although she was squatting in his house, she did not eat his food, and even if she lay flat on the floor, she took up less than half a square meter. Hanging on the wall, she did not get in anyone's way. Aside from watching television, she consumed practically nothing, and arguing with her helped pass the time. More importantly, she really had helped fill in a great deal of his knowledge about "the other world."

As for what she had said about working to pay off her debt or becoming his follower and fighter after leaving the painting... he would take it as true for now.

The television screen lit up again. Yu Sheng pressed the remote a few times and found a nutritionally empty urban drama.

Eileen was not picky about television programs at all—after all, even Teletubbies were more interesting than wallpaper.

But it was then that Yu Sheng, looking at the television screen before him, suddenly thought of something he had previously overlooked.

"Eileen." He turned around and looked at the doll maiden in the oil painting.

"Hm?"

"I remember you saying that you've been sealed inside the oil painting for a very long time, right?"

"Yeah, for many, many years. I can't even remember when I got in anymore..."

"Then how do you know so much about all kinds of modern things?" Yu Sheng asked very seriously. "You even know about smart televisions with voice control?"

He had discovered a loophole in Eileen's words and actions.

But it was not actually a very serious problem. There were many explanations for it. For example, she might have learned about changes in the world by observing the dreams of people nearby. Or perhaps, before entering this house, she had been hung in another modern person's home. Yu Sheng thought Eileen's answer would probably be something like that.

But Eileen responded with a blank, "Huh?"

The person in the painting seemed completely bewildered by the question. She even looked as if she herself was realizing this for the first time. After staring blankly for a long while, she slowly turned her head. "I... don't know why?"

"You don't know why?" Yu Sheng asked in astonishment.

"Yeah, I... really have been locked in this painting for a very, very long time. Really, it might have been decades, but... but I just know what the world is like now. I don't know how I learned it either, I..."

The person in the painting stammered. By the end, she seemed to have begun doubting herself and could not continue, hesitating in silence.

Yu Sheng stared closely at Eileen's expression, trying to find any trace of a lie on her face.

"Do you remember how you were locked in this painting in the first place? And do you remember what happened before that?" he continued asking.

"I... only remember that it was a curse," Eileen said hesitantly. "This painting was also some kind of entity. I was supposed to come deal with it, but instead I was locked inside. I can't remember the specific process, though. And the things before I was locked inside... the things before I was locked inside..."

The doll slowly fell silent. It seemed that fragmented memories of the past had tangled around her thoughts. She recalled them in a daze, and after an unknown length of time, she finally spoke softly, as if in a dream. "I'm Eileen from Alice's Cabin, one of Alice's Dolls..."

She raised her head, unease showing on her face.

"Yu Sheng, that's all I remember."

Yu Sheng's brows furrowed deeply.

In that instant, his mind filled with an enormous number of possibilities.

There were eerie ones, conspiratorial ones, and even ridiculous ones—but none of them were reliable.

After all, he had no evidence or clues that could explain the mystery surrounding Eileen.

Eileen looked especially uneasy. She hugged the toy bear in her arms so tightly that the plush toy was deformed. "Is my brain broken?"

Yu Sheng struck the conspiratorial possibilities from his mind.

Then he looked up at Eileen and increased the likelihood of the ridiculous possibilities by ten percent.

"If you can't remember, don't force yourself to think about it. At least not for now," he said, exhaling softly and shaking his head at Eileen. "Maybe being locked up for too long really did mess up your memory and reasoning."

"R-Really?" Eileen nodded hesitantly, then seemed to relax a little.

Yu Sheng: "..."

No, why did she seem relieved after learning that her memory and reasoning might be malfunctioning? Didn't that prove her brain really was broken?! How exactly had anything he just said comforted her?!

Yu Sheng's head instantly filled with question marks, but despite everything, Eileen's reaction really did dispel much of the doubt that had just risen in his heart.

Honestly, if this person in the painting had come up with a perfect explanation for the source of her "modern knowledge," Yu Sheng might have become even more suspicious. Instead, the heartfelt "Huh?" she had just let out made him feel that her entire character had become transparent...

Thinking of this, he shook his head and walked toward the stairs leading to the second floor. "Watch TV downstairs. I'm going up to catch up on some sleep."

Eileen waved her hands. "Sure, sure. Go ahead."

Yu Sheng left the dining room and went upstairs, yawning as he walked toward his bedroom with the exhaustion he had accumulated in Nightfall Valley.

He was indeed exhausted and sleepy. After eating and drinking his fill, the drowsiness had grown even stronger. He really needed a good sleep.

But when he reached the bedroom door, he still stopped involuntarily and looked toward the end of the corridor.

The door that had once been sealed by an unknown force stood silently within his sight.

It was in the room at the end of the corridor that he had discovered Eileen.

Yu Sheng frowned. An impulse stirred in his heart, and he walked over.

When he reached the door, he noticed that the position of the handle had changed. The direction of the hinges and handle had been switched, becoming the "correct position" he had eventually discovered—the one that could successfully open the door.

After hesitating for a moment, he reached out, grasped the handle, and gently turned it.

With a soft click, the door that had once been impossible to open swung open as easily as the door to any other room.

He pushed the door wide open, and the scene inside came into view—

Plain, ordinary furnishings. Against the wall to the left of the door stood a single bed and a bedside table. Against the wall on the right were a wardrobe, a desk, and a chair. The old floor had faded somewhat, while pale blue wallpaper covered the walls.

There was a window above the desk. Bright sunlight streamed through it, filling the entire room with light and warmth.

On the wall directly opposite the door, where Eileen's oil painting had once hung, there was now a mirror.

In the mirror, Yu Sheng's expression gradually grew astonished.