Suspicious Points

Yu Sheng did a quick check of the TV and found that it had simply frozen.

It was a classic problem with cheap smart devices that had been used for too long—Oh dear, I've been working for two hours straight, my CPU is smoking / memory error / power overheating / I just feel like dying for no reason...

Yu Sheng couldn't help but miss the old, sturdy, classic TVs from his memories. Home appliances back then weren't as fussy as these smart devices today. Although they had fewer functions, he felt that all the fancy smart features nowadays weren't that useful anyway. All these artificial intelligences felt more like artificial idiocy...

"Just unplug it and plug it back in after two minutes," Yu Sheng thought to himself, sighing. He casually turned off the TV's power and then turned to Eileen, saying, "This thing isn't very well-made. It just freezes up if you leave it on for too long."

"Then do you want to get a new one?" Eileen's eyes lit up. "Get one with voice control! Then I can change channels myself. I can watch TV even when you're not home..."

"You actually have the nerve to make demands?" Seeing this person who didn't treat him like an outsider at all, Yu Sheng was amused rather than angered. "I haven't said anything about you staying at my place, and now you want a new TV? Are you paying for it, or are you contributing any labor?"

"I..." Eileen opened her mouth, and her face actually turned a little red. She stammered, "I, I don't have money, but I've been helping you catch up on knowledge about the Otherworld! You can consider me a consultant..."

"This consultant doesn't have a very good memory, does she? She's not even sure if what she says is reliable," Yu Sheng pouted. "If I need you as a consultant, I'll have to find another consultant to consult you."

Eileen's face turned red, but after blushing for a long time, she couldn't find anything to refute him with. She could only lower her head and sulk to herself. However, she had a good mindset and quickly recovered after sulking for three seconds. She looked up at Yu Sheng and said, "Then when you get me out, no matter how you 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 helper! I can fight for you, that should be acceptable..."

Yu Sheng had never actually considered this. In fact, he hadn't thought about what would happen if Eileen ever actually got out of the painting. Hearing her words, he raised an eyebrow. "You? Are you sure?"

"Hey, let me tell you, don't look down on me! I'm one of Alice's Dolls!" Eileen put her hands on her hips and stood up from the chair, acting incredibly smug. "Living dolls are blessed. I'm much stronger than those so-called investigators or spirit detectives in the Otherworld..."

"And then someone pushed you into the painting, right?"

Eileen's eyes instantly turned red (though her eyes were already red). "You... You you you... You just wait until I get out, and you'll know! Don't turn away!"

"Alright, alright, I believe you, I believe you," Yu Sheng said with a smile, turning around and waving his hand helplessly.

Actually, he had never taken this doll seriously from the beginning. After all, she was stuck in the painting. Although she was staying at his place, she didn't eat his food, and her footprint, even if laid flat on the ground, was less than half a square meter. When hung on the wall, she didn't get in the way at all. Besides watching TV, she had almost no consumption. Arguing with her could even pass the time—what's more, she had indeed helped him supplement a lot of knowledge about "another world."

As for her talk about working to pay him back or being his henchman after getting out of the painting... he would just take her word for it, for now.

The TV screen lit up again. Yu Sheng pressed a few buttons on the remote and found a mindless urban drama.

Eileen wasn't picky about TV shows at all—after all, even Teletubbies were more interesting than wallpaper.

But at this moment, looking at the TV screen, Yu Sheng suddenly thought of something he hadn't paid attention to before.

"Eileen," he turned his head and looked at the doll girl in the oil painting.

"Yes?"

"I remember you said you've been sealed in the oil painting for a very long time, right?"

"Yes, for many, many years. I can't even remember when I came in..."

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

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

But this wasn't really a big problem. There were many possible explanations for this, such as her learning about the changes in the world by observing the dreams of people nearby, or perhaps she had been hung in another modern person's home before entering this house—Yu Sheng thought Eileen's answer would likely be one of these.

But Eileen's response to him was a stunned "Huh?"

The doll in the painting seemed completely bewildered by the question. It even looked like she herself was realizing it for the first time. After staring blankly for a long time, she slowly turned her head. "I... I don't know why?"

"You don't know why?" Yu Sheng looked astonished.

"Yeah, I... I've really been trapped in this painting for a very, very long time, really, it could be decades, but... but I just know what the current world is like. Although I don't know how I know, I..."

The doll in the painting stammered, and by the end, she seemed to be doubting herself, hesitating and unable to continue.

Yu Sheng stared intently at Eileen's expression, trying to find any hint of lying on her face.

"Then do you remember how you were sealed into this painting? And what happened before you were sealed, do you remember?" he continued to ask.

"I... I just remember it was a curse," Eileen hesitated to speak. "This painting is also some kind of Entity. I was supposed to solve it, but I ended up being sealed in. But I can't remember the specific process, and what happened before I was sealed... what happened before I was sealed..."

The doll slowly stopped, as if fragmented memories of the past had ensnared her thoughts. She was lost in recollection, and after an unknown amount of time, she finally spoke softly, as if in a dream, "I am Eileen from Alice's Cabin, one of Alice's Dolls..."

She looked up, her expression filled with unease.

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

Yu Sheng frowned deeply.

At that moment, his mind was filled with countless possibilities.

They ranged from the bizarre to the conspiratorial to the comical—but none of them were reliable.

After all, he had no evidence or clues to solve the mystery surrounding Eileen.

Eileen, on the other hand, looked extremely uneasy. She tightly hugged the plush bear in her arms, squeezing the fluffy toy so hard it deformed. "Is my brain broken?"

Yu Sheng crossed out the conspiratorial scenarios he had imagined in his mind.

Then he looked up at Eileen and increased the weight of the comical scenarios by ten percent.

"If you can't remember, don't force it. At least don't think about it for now," he exhaled softly and shook his head at Eileen. "Maybe it's really because you were sealed for too long that your memory and logic are a bit confused."

"R-really?" Eileen nodded hesitantly, and then seemed to be slightly relieved.

Yu Sheng: "..."

Wait, why was she relieved after knowing that her memory and logic might be messed up? Doesn't that prove her brain is actually broken?! Did anything he just said comfort her at all?!

Yu Sheng was instantly filled with a thousand questions, but he had to admit, Eileen's reaction at the moment did alleviate quite a bit of his lingering doubts.

Honestly, if this doll in the painting had come up with a perfect explanation for her "source of modern knowledge," Yu Sheng might have been more suspicious. Instead, the moment she let out that genuine "Huh?", Yu Sheng felt that her entire persona had become crystal clear...

With that thought, he shook his head and casually said as he walked towards the stairs to the second floor, "You can watch TV downstairs. I'm going up to catch up on some sleep."

Eileen waved her hand, "Oh, oh, go ahead."

Yu Sheng then left the dining room and went upstairs, yawning as he headed to his bedroom, carrying the fatigue accumulated from the valley under the night sky.

He was indeed tired and sleepy, the drowsiness growing even stronger after eating and drinking his fill. He really needed a good sleep right now.

However, as he reached his bedroom door, he couldn't help but stop and look up towards the end of the hallway.

The door that had once been sealed by an unknown power stood quietly within his sight.

It was in the room at the end of the hallway where Eileen had been discovered by him at that time.

Yu Sheng frowned, a thought crossing his mind, and he walked towards it.

When he reached the door, he noticed that the position of the doorknob had changed. The hinge and the knob's direction had been swapped, replaced by the "correct position" he had eventually discovered that could successfully open the large door.

After a moment of hesitation, he reached out, grasped the doorknob, and turned it gently.

With a soft click, the door that had once been impossible to open was now easily opened, just like every other door in the house.

Pushing the door open, the scene inside the room met Yu Sheng's eyes—

The furnishings were simple and ordinary. To the left of the door, against the wall, stood a single bed and a nightstand. To the right, against the wall, were a wardrobe, a desk, and a chair. The old floor looked somewhat faded, and the walls were covered with light blue wallpaper.

Above the desk was a window, and bright sunlight streamed in through it, making the entire room feel bright and warm.

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

The mirror reflected Yu Sheng's increasingly astonished expression.