Eileen's Abilities

Eileen has the ability to enter other people's dreams—and according to her, she can not only enter people's dreams but also influence their direction to some extent, like summoning a mud truck in a dream by ringing a bell.

Honestly, it sounds like a powerful skill if used well, potentially allowing for advanced operations like psychological suggestion, psychic parasitism, and memory reconstruction.

But Yu Sheng seriously doubted how much of this doll's boasting about her abilities was reliable—as it stood, she was useless even in dreams, failing to hide properly even in the bushes.

Moreover, even in the dreamscape, she was still trapped in that oil painting.

Eileen's oil painting floated before Yu Sheng. The doll girl in the frame looked a bit awkward, and Yu Sheng found her current state increasingly uncomfortable—her floating in mid-air looked worse than being hung on a wall.

"You can only stay in the painting even in dreams?" Yu Sheng smirked, finally voicing his confusion, "I thought since we're in the mental realm, you could at least come out and run around..."

"That's why I call it a curse," Eileen said with a helpless expression. "Trapped in a painting in reality, and the same in the mental world. No matter where I go, I can't leave this painting unless I find a suitable vessel—freedom? I don't even have that in dreams."

"Then you're really quite pathetic," Yu Sheng sighed sincerely.

"Hey, but dreams are still a little different from the real world!" Perhaps feeling a loss of face, Eileen quickly tried to save herself upon seeing Yu Sheng's sympathetic reaction. "I'm at least a bit freer here than in the real world. See, I can float around... Don't laugh, and, and there's more!"

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow at her words, genuinely curious, "More?"

Eileen thought for a moment, struck a pose like she was powering up in King of Fighters '98, and began to act like she was exerting herself within the oil painting, as if about to unleash some ability. Even Yu Sheng was momentarily awestruck, subconsciously becoming serious as he watched the doll in the painting change. And in the very next second, the surface of the oil painting actually shimmered with a layer of psychedelic light!

As Yu Sheng's eyes widened, the oil painting finally went "bang"—and transformed into an 80s-style poster.

Eileen, now in the vintage film color palette, stood within the poster, making eye contact with Yu Sheng.

Eileen: "I can change the art style."

Yu Sheng: "..."

"You're chuckling!!"

Yu Sheng forcefully held back a smile, "I am not."

"I heard your thoughts!"

Yu Sheng didn't want to deal with this doll anymore. That big fox was still lying nearby, and he hadn't figured out her situation yet.

Eileen immediately felt a little hurt. Seeing Yu Sheng ignore her, she floated to the side and started muttering, "I can change into other things too, like woodblock prints, scrolls... I'm still researching how to become a bas-relief, then I'll have depth, and you can't say I have a shallow character anymore..."

Yu Sheng couldn't stand her incessant chatter anymore and suddenly turned his head, "First, when did I ever say you had a shallow character? Second, that's not how you use the term 'shallow character'—similarly, even if you turned into marble, it wouldn't make your character 'deep'."

Eileen opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, she went "bang" and turned back into an oil painting—her transformation time was up, lasting less than three minutes in total.

Yu Sheng was dumbfounded: he knew this doll was useless even in dreams, but he truly hadn't expected her to be this useless...

However, Eileen didn't seem disappointed this time. She finally noticed the white fox lying on the grass nearby—or rather, she finally sensed something about this big fox that felt out of place with the surrounding dream environment. Curiosity shifted her attention, "Speaking of which, what's with this fox? Why does it look so different from everything else?"

Noticing the puzzled expression on Yu Sheng's face, she added an explanation, "Things in a normal person's dream tend to have a unified color tone. Even if the dreamer doesn't notice it themselves, I can see it when I observe. Like in your dream, the sky and the grass are all hazy gray, which is the 'base color tone' of your dream. But this fox... it looks like it wandered onto the wrong set."

She paused at this, looking at Yu Sheng with some suspicion, "Why would such a strange phenomenon appear in your dream?"

Yu Sheng fell silent for a moment, then turned to look at the sleeping white fox and slowly began, "Her name is Huli."

"I know, she's obviously a fox..."

"I mean her name, Huli," Yu Sheng corrected helplessly, then reminded her, "Remember what I told you when I was trapped in that 'Otherworld'? I encountered a fox, one with white fur, red eyes, and many tails..."

Eileen froze, her not-so-great memory finally kicking in, recalling what Yu Sheng had told her before.

Her expression became vivid. She stared at the giant demon fox, opening and closing her mouth several times before finally managing to stammer out, "What?! How did you drag her into your own dream... Wait, no, how are you so capable that you could trap someone in..."

"I didn't drag her here, and I don't think she's really 'trapped' here either. This might just be something like a shadow? I can't say for sure," Yu Sheng had to explain. "I saw her not long after I fell asleep, but I couldn't wake her up no matter what."

Eileen looked at Yu Sheng, then turned to look at the demon fox, her gaze flicking back and forth between the two "people" several times, seemingly trying to sort out the logic of what was happening, but it clearly wasn't easy.

"I've never heard of anything like this..." she murmured in astonishment, then suddenly turned her frame to stare intently into Yu Sheng's eyes, "Are you really human?"

Yu Sheng immediately frowned, "What do you mean by that! If I'm not human, are you?"

Eileen continued to stare at him, her expression more serious than ever, "Okay, a human, an ordinary person, living in an Otherworld for a long time without realizing it, then entering another Otherworld and encountering a malicious entity. Surviving and escaping is one thing, but you even cut off a 'local specialty' from that entity, cooked it, ate it, and came back to life, and now you can keep another consciousness in your own dream—the host of which is even trapped somewhere else.

"With so many absurd things happening to you, and then you say—you're human? An ordinary person?"

Yu Sheng felt increasingly uncomfortable under Eileen's scarlet gaze. He subconsciously shifted his gaze, thinking that "resurrection from the dead" was still missing, and that all the absurd things that happened before were nothing compared to the last one...

"It's true... many strange things have happened, and I'm a bit bewildered myself. But if I have to say, even you are one of the recent 'strange things' for me," Yu Sheng said helplessly. "Stop looking at me like that. I don't know what's going on either. I can't wake this Huli up. If I could wake her, maybe I could ask her about the situation."

Eileen stared at Yu Sheng for a while longer, seemingly confirming he wasn't joking, before slowly withdrawing her gaze and shifting her attention back to the silver-white demon fox.

She thought for a long time.

"I have an idea."

Eileen suddenly said.

"An idea?" Yu Sheng asked curiously, "Let's hear it?"

"I'll try to enter this fox's dream again. If she happens to be dreaming right now," Eileen pointed at the demon fox, "her current state seems like a mental lockdown, but no matter how well a mind is locked, it's hard to guard against it in dreams. Maybe I can 'see' something. It would be even better if I could wake her up from here."

Yu Sheng was genuinely surprised. After all, he had just been lamenting this doll's unreliability, and now she was proposing such a high-level plan. He couldn't hide his astonishment, "Can something like that be done?"

"It's not difficult, as long as she's dreaming... Even if she's not dreaming, your two minds are clearly connected now, and I have ways to 'squeeze' in and take a look. It's just... there's some risk involved, and I'll need your help."

Yu Sheng's expression immediately turned serious, "No problem, tell me what to do."

"Because I'll be jumping between minds, it's like 'deep diving' in unstable waters. If the 'connection' in the middle fails, I might get trapped on the 'other side'," Eileen said very seriously to Yu Sheng. "So, I need a 'rope,' and you'll be that rope.

"You'll have to 'dive' with me, sinking deeper from your own dream into the depths of this big fox's mind. You'll also have to share some of the pressure with me, making it easier for me to focus on finding the direction. And if anything goes wrong during this process... I'll use a more drastic method to 'wake you up'."

"Your awakening has the highest priority in this chain of dreams. It will also 'pull' my consciousness back, allowing both of us to safely return to the real world. However, I must warn you first, my 'awakening' process might not be very comfortable."

"How uncomfortable could it be?"

"…It's probably like dreaming you're taking the college entrance exam, and then the bell rings before you've even written your name. Before you can even react to what's happening, a mud truck crashes into the exam hall, turning you and the white moonlight of your high school memories into paper cutouts, the kind with really shallow character designs…"

Yu Sheng couldn't understand what this person was talking about from Eileen's bizarre analogy.

But he figured it couldn't be that big of a deal. It was just an awakening. How much more uncomfortable could it be than death?

More than this hesitation, he wanted to figure out Huli's current situation and what was going on with his own dream.

"No problem, let's start," Yu Sheng took a gentle breath and nodded seriously at Eileen. "What's the first step?"

"You go, get close to that big fox, as close as possible… just lie down on her tail.

"Then, hold my picture frame, close your eyes, and we'll jump in the dream."