Chapter 25: Fox in the Dream

Erin's reaction didn't seem fake.

In fact, since Yu Sheng had come into contact with this doll, he had never found her to be insincere; every word and action she took revealed a kind of clear honesty, as if her head were solid inside—either her acting was truly that good, or her head was genuinely solid.

Yu Sheng cautiously kept the first hypothesis, but leaned more toward the second possibility.

Afterwards, he described to Erin the appearance of that dead doll, as well as the posture of the massive "shadow monster" that seemed to have perished along with the doll, and the answer he received was still "I don't know."

Yu Sheng frowned, sinking into deep thought.

Erin couldn't help but become curious: "Hey, why did you suddenly come up to ask me these things? Didn't you go upstairs to sleep?"

Yu Sheng hesitated for a moment, but finally decided to tell the doll before him about the changes in that room—this didn't involve his secrets, and it might even be related to Erin herself; speaking it out might actually help unravel the mystery.

"Something's wrong with that room upstairs..."

Yu Sheng recounted to Erin everything he had seen when he went upstairs just now; the latter, unusually, didn't chatter once the whole time, only widening her eyes as she listened, and after hearing it all, she remained stunned for a long while before finally coming to her senses and drawing out her voice: "Wow—"

Yu Sheng immediately felt that even if he told this guy, the mystery wouldn't be solved.

"Looks like you don't know what's going on either," Yu Sheng sighed, "You definitely haven't seen that mirror, right?"

"Never seen it, don't know," Erin nodded with righteous confidence, then immediately added, "But I think your house is getting stranger and stranger."

"You don't need to tell me that; I think so too," Yu Sheng sighed upon hearing this, "Who knows where opening a door might lead, some room might suddenly change its furnishings, and the mirror might reflect scenery from who-knows-when or where; it's a pity I used to think this place was quite livable, sigh..."

Erin stared unblinkingly at Yu Sheng's expression with her scarlet eyes, and after listening to the latter's muttering, hesitated: "So... are you planning to move? Not living here anymore?"

Yu Sheng didn't speak for a moment, but he had to admit, he had indeed considered this matter.

After all, he could tolerate a haunted mirror occasionally appearing in the house, furniture of unknown origin, suspicious appliances, or a chatterbox girl sealed inside an oil painting; since he wasn't afraid of death anyway, he might as well treat it as adding some life fun, but the trait of not knowing which otherworld you might fall into when pushing open a door was truly a trouble; this wasn't something you could just endure and get past.

For Yu Sheng, the most deadly thing about otherworlds wasn't dying, but that you might not necessarily return; just that point made him truly develop the thought of moving somewhere else.

Seeing that Yu Sheng kept silent, Erin waited quietly for a while, then continued on her own: "So if you like a house somewhere, tell me first; you figure out how to get me into their residential area, and I'll drive down their house prices for you..."

Upon hearing this, Yu Sheng was stunned: "I was just joking back then... aren't you ashamed of insulting the Ancestor of Dolls and your sisters at a time like this?"

"I just thought it over carefully, and feel that the process you described makes a lot of sense," Erin said seriously, "And since I've driven down the house prices for you, this can at least be counted as some gratitude for living in your house, right?"

Yu Sheng suddenly realized that this guy was simply worried that if he suddenly moved, he would leave her behind.

But he didn't point this out, only shaking his head: "Let's not talk about that for now; I just have some ideas, but I don't plan to move yet—don't worry, if I really move, I'll take you with me; a painting doesn't take up much space."

"Oh, that works!" Erin immediately became happy.

However, soon, a hint of worry appeared on her face again: "Um... did the eyes of that dead doll you saw in the mirror close?"

"... I don't think so," Yu Sheng recalled, "Why ask that?"

Erin opened her mouth, looking a bit sad: "After a living doll is broken, if her eyes close, it means her soul has returned to the garden of Alice's House; we will be reborn there, but if her eyes are still open... then she is still 'there'."

Yu Sheng was stunned, suddenly regretting having answered without thinking just now; he should have asked first.

"We don't know what place is reflected in the mirror," after a moment of silence, he said softly, "But since she appeared in the mirror, perhaps she has also formed a connection with this house; maybe one day in the future we will find her; as for now, don't think too much about it; you are still trapped here yourself."

"Alright, that's true too," Erin sighed, "Sometimes a sister goes out and loses contact... we will meet eventually, yes, we will meet."

Yu Sheng suddenly felt that this doll wasn't as heartless as he had imagined.

Afterwards, he talked with Erin for a while before returning to the second floor.

He went again to confirm the situation in the room at the end of the corridor; after confirming that it was still the same as he had seen just now, he stopped paying attention to it, turned around, and entered his bedroom. Pulling the curtains shut and lying in bed, Yu Sheng tossed and turned for a long time; he was sleepy and exhausted, but his mind was so chaotic that he couldn't fall asleep at all; various thoughts and recent experiences were like turbulent currents rushing wildly in his mind—Erin's matter, that valley in the night, knowledge of otherworlds, the fox Miss who had struggled to maintain her sanity until the very last moment and urged him to run, and... his own resurrection.

After tossing and turning for who knows how long, Yu Sheng gradually fell into a drowsy sleep.

He felt his consciousness slowly submerge into a gentle and chaotic pool of water; even while asleep, those messy "turbulent currents" surrounded him around the pool; he gazed at his own memories and fragments of thought through a layer of chaotic mist, hearing many hazy voices by his ear, until his consciousness touched the bottom in the "pool," and the surroundings gradually fell into silence.

Yu Sheng wandered in the dream, wandering in dim daylight; he saw himself walking across a wilderness, and in the distance of the wilderness, there seemed to be a small hill.

He felt he had been wandering around this small hill for a very, very long time, with no purpose, and not knowing who he was.

But a splash of different color in the corner of his eye suddenly made him stop.

Between the dim and chaotic sky and earth, Yu Sheng saw a patch of brightness; he instinctively walked toward that silver-white, and immediately, his vision flickered, and he arrived directly before that silver-white.

He saw a silver-white-furred demon fox—standing even when lying down, it was at least two or three meters tall—sleeping quietly on the wilderness.

Beautiful, elegant, serene.

A gentle breeze blew from afar, rustling the slender wild grass and the silver-white fur on the demon fox; she showed no sign of waking, only curling up quietly, with many thick tails curling over from behind her, some held in her arms, others covering her body like a blanket.

!.

Yu Sheng stared in shock at this fox appearing in his dream—since when had he become lucidly aware that he was dreaming?

After hesitating for a while, he took two steps forward and tentatively touched the big fox's front paw: "... Huli, is that you?"

The white fox remained asleep, showing no response to Yu Sheng's touch or call.

Yu Sheng called out several more times, even trying to tug at her tail, but couldn't wake Huli.

It gave the feeling that she wasn't just asleep, but that her senses had been blocked by something.

Yu Sheng frowned and stepped back a couple of paces.

Why was this fox appearing in his dream?

He admitted that before falling asleep, his mind was all over the place, and he did think of this fox trapped in the otherworld, but the current situation was obviously not the ordinary "what you think of during the day, you dream of at night"; he could feel that Huli was truly "right here."

While pondering, Yu Sheng suddenly felt a stirring in his heart; he sensed something and immediately looked down at his right hand.

A tiny drop of blood seeped out from his finger; around the drop of blood, a faint ring of tooth marks could be seen.

That was exactly the bite mark from when Huli's food-guarding instinct had kicked in and she bit him while he was snatching the chocolate back from her.

Yu Sheng stared fixedly at this scene, suddenly recalling the memory fragments of how he had suddenly "seen" Huli and perceived part of her thoughts in the valley before.

"Because of the blood?"

He had an epiphany, guessing that her appearing here might also be related to her accidentally "eating" his blood.

But immediately, a doubt arose in his heart—that frog in the rain and that abstract flesh monster had also eaten his blood, so why hadn't they appeared here? That flesh monster had even eaten several meals, far more than Huli did...

Just as Yu Sheng's thoughts began to drift toward the bizarre, he suddenly felt something; immediately afterwards, he heard a low, mocking chuckle suddenly come from the grass behind him.

It sounded a bit familiar.

Yu Sheng whirled around to look toward the direction the sound came from; the next second, he heard Erin's indignant complaint from within the grass: "I told you not to laugh, don't laugh, can't you hold it in? Look, you've been discovered..."

Yu Sheng stared expressionlessly at the oil painting frame stuck in the grass, and at Irene inside the frame, who was hugging a teddy bear, smiling foolishly at him, and trying to get away with it by being cute.

"Watching TV is boring, so I came to see your dream..."

(End of this chapter)