Eileen's Escape Plan

Eileen's cursing was truly vicious.

Yu Sheng had no idea how a doll sealed inside an oil painting could possess such an extensive vocabulary—especially when she could curse nonstop all the way down the stairs without even pausing for breath.

Perhaps dolls simply did not need to breathe in the first place.

Still, Yu Sheng remained perfectly calm. After Eileen slid down the stairs and hit the floor, he let her curse as much as she pleased while he slowly made his way down, holding the railing. Mainly because his back hurt, so he could not move quickly. Only after reaching the first floor did he laboriously bend over and pick up Eileen's frame.

"Are you insane?!" Eileen hugged her teddy bear in the painting, glaring furiously, her clothes and hair in a complete mess. "Who throws someone straight down the stairs like that? What if the painting broke?!"

"My back hurts, and your painting is too heavy. I couldn't carry it downstairs," Yu Sheng said matter-of-factly as he slowly carried the frame toward the dining room. "I checked. Your frame is sturdy. And if it really broke, maybe you'd get out of there."

"If it were that easy to get out, would I still be sealed in here?!" Eileen sat back down in her chair irritably. "Ugh, my head's spinning..."

Yu Sheng suddenly stopped and looked down at the maiden in the painting with grave attention.

Eileen felt her scalp tingle under his gaze. "Y-you... What are you trying to do now? I'm telling you, if you throw me down the stairs again, I won't let you off! Every day while you're asleep, I'll crawl into your dreams. If you dream about taking an exam, I'll ring the bell. If you dream about gaming, I'll pull the plug. If you dream about going out, I'll chase you in a dump truck. If you dream about dating, I'll..."

Why did this damned doll have so much trash talk?

Yu Sheng forcibly suppressed the urge to drag Eileen upstairs and throw her down again. Keeping a straight face, he tried to sound more serious. "I just wanted to ask how this 'seal' of yours works. You said you needed someone to help you escape... How exactly would someone help you get out?"

Eileen had not expected that to be what Yu Sheng wanted to say. She froze, then spoke in disbelief after two or three seconds. "Y-you... You're willing to help me get out of here?!"

"Didn't you say you needed someone to help you escape?" Yu Sheng frowned, then added, "I'm only asking. I haven't agreed yet..."

But Eileen seemed not to have heard the latter half. Before he finished speaking, she hurriedly said, "There are three... no, two methods! The first is the best: find my body. I don't know where it is now, but it must be somewhere... Maybe not far from this painting. In any case, once we find my original body, everything will be easy. Bring me close to it, and I can get out of this damned painting...

"But if we can't find it, or if my original body has already been destroyed, then there's only the second method: make a new one. Of course, a newly made body definitely won't be as useful as the original, and it'll be troublesome to adapt to..."

Yu Sheng had been listening closely, but he could not help cutting in. "Make a new one? How? Can I just buy a ready-made doll from a doll shop?"

"Of course not!" Eileen immediately said. "I'm Alice's Doll! A blessed living doll, understand? How could I be like those one-third-scale or one-fourth-scale dolls sold in stores?"

She paused, then continued with a somewhat solemn expression. "Living dolls are born in the garden of Alice's Cabin, and our original bodies come from there too. But I've lost my connection with the garden, and I can't leave the painting, so I can't return to the garden to be reborn. Still, even without the garden, we have a method for creating temporary bodies in the mortal world for emergencies... But even an emergency temporary body isn't easy to make.

"First, you need hair that grows by itself, soil that writhes like a living thing, dead bones that mend after being broken, and a drop of a living doll's tears—two drops would work too, and my skin would turn out a little better. Then you need to use alchemy to reactivate those materials before smearing your own blood... Hey, why are you making that face?"

Yu Sheng stared stiffly at the maiden in the painting. After a long while, he sighed. "...Let's talk about finding your original body instead, shall we?"

Eileen blinked. "...You don't know alchemy?"

"Is that something everyone is supposed to know?!" Yu Sheng looked close to losing it. "And forget alchemy. Where am I supposed to find all those absurd materials you mentioned? Did you copy this whole setup from some third-rate fantasy magazine? Living doll tears... If I could find another living doll, I'd just hand you and the painting over to her! Wouldn't having one of your sisters take you home be better than making me fumble around?"

Yu Sheng had only been in this "world" for a short time and did not yet understand much about the strange shadows or the supernatural realm behind them. But judging from the information available to him so far, the "materials" Eileen mentioned were definitely not things ordinary people in this world could get their hands on. How could she speak of them as though they were perfectly ordinary?

Yet after seeing Yu Sheng's reaction, Eileen seemed a little embarrassed too. She shifted slightly in her chair, changed her posture, and lowered her voice. "Actually, other materials would work too. You could buy some clay, paint, a wig, and things like that online..."

Yu Sheng: "...?"

He looked at the maiden in the painting as though she were deliberately messing with him. Eileen could not help shrinking back in her chair again. "I just wanted the temporary body to work as well as possible... But if we can't make a premium one, a basic model will do.

"But even with ordinary materials, the last step still requires your blood, plus a little alchemy. I can teach you. It's very simple. Ordinary people can do it too..."

Yu Sheng did not respond immediately. He fell silent as though deep in thought. A few seconds later, he suddenly said, "At first, you were going to say there were three methods, right? Why didn't you mention the other one?"

"...That method isn't very good. It comes with a price," Eileen said, waving a hand with an honest expression. "You probably wouldn't agree to it, and I don't want you to try it either. After all, we don't know each other that well..."

"If you know we aren't close, stop talking so much nonsense." Yu Sheng casually glared at the girl in the painting.

Eileen pursed her lips and looked at Yu Sheng somewhat timidly. She knew how to be timid now. Carefully, she asked, "Then... will you help me get out of here? The second method is actually pretty easy. You can just mold a body however you like. It doesn't matter if your craftsmanship is bad. As long as the ritual is done correctly, I can reshape it after entering the body... Just don't make it too ugly. At least make it look human."

This time, Yu Sheng did not bicker with Eileen. He merely thought it over seriously. After nearly half a minute, he gave her a solemn answer. "I can't agree right now. I need to think about it."

He did not trust the girl in the painting. At least, he did not dare trust her completely.

She looked honest and sincere, a little talkative but not bad-hearted, vivid in personality and harmless to humans and animals. She did not seem like someone with malicious intentions. But all that was merely a surface impression formed in less than a day of acquaintance. Strip away those "humanized" impressions, and Eileen's essence remained a strange thing sealed inside an oil painting.

Yu Sheng was not so easily fooled by her cute appearance that he would make a body for this "ghost in the painting" and release her without another thought. What if, once she got out, her face changed and she raised the teddy bear to strike him down beneath her Gothic dress...

Yu Sheng had just died once not long ago. For the time being, he did not want to die again.

Yet after receiving his answer, Eileen said nothing. She merely looked at Yu Sheng steadily for a while, then nodded naturally. "Oh, I understand."

Yu Sheng was surprised. He had thought he would need to argue with the girl in the painting over this for a long time, but she was unexpectedly... generous.

"After all, we don't know each other that well, right?" As though she had seen through his doubts, Eileen suddenly smiled and blinked at him from inside the painting. "When we know each other better, I'll ask again."

"...All right. We'll talk about it later."

Yu Sheng smiled too. Carrying Eileen's frame, he entered the dining room and casually set it upright on the table against the wall before turning toward the kitchen.

"I haven't had dinner yet. I'll make something first."

"Okay... Hey, turn on the television across from the table first. I want to watch TV..."

"You sure are demanding."

Yu Sheng switched on the television opposite the dining table, then picked up the vegetables and seasonings he had casually left on the shelf after buying them at the supermarket and began preparing his dinner.

He actually loved cooking. Ever since arriving in this familiar yet unfamiliar Boundary City, he had felt at ease only when he personally cooked every meal at home. After all, only inside this large house were there no strange shadows lurking around to disturb him.

He did not mind encountering some lanky ghostly figure while traveling outside, but not while cooking or eating, because those two things were major events in his life.

...Though now, even this "safe house" had acquired a strange Eileen.

Still, compared to the ghostly figures, freezing rain, and Frog that haunted the city streets, an unlucky doll who could only chatter away inside an oil painting was far more adorable—at least she would not dig out his heart.