Chapter 26: Erin's Abilities

Erin possesses the ability to dive into other people's dreams—and according to her, she can not only enter human dreams but also influence the direction of the dream to a certain extent, such as pressing the bell to summon a dump truck within the dream.

Honestly, if used well, it seems like a very powerful skill; who knows, she might be able to perform high-end operations like psychological suggestion, mental parasitism, or memory reshaping on people.

But Yu Sheng highly doubts how reliable this doll's boasting about her abilities really is—for the time being, even within the dream, she is utterly useless, and she can't even hide properly in the bushes.

Moreover, even inside the dream, she remains trapped within that oil painting.

Erin's oil painting floats before Yu Sheng; the doll girl inside the frame looks somewhat awkward, while Yu Sheng finds her current state uncomfortable no matter how he looks at it—her floating in mid-air is worse than hanging on a wall.

"You can only stay inside the painting even within the dream?" Yu Sheng tugged at the corner of his mouth, finally voicing his doubt, "I thought since we've reached the spiritual realm, you could at least come out and run around..."

"That's why they call it a curse," Erin said with a helpless expression. "Trapped in the painting in reality, and the same in the spiritual world. No matter where I go, I cannot exit this painting unless I find a suitable vessel. Freedom? There's none of that even in dreams."

"Then that is indeed quite miserable," Yu Sheng sighed from the bottom of his heart.

"Ah, but there are still some differences between the dream world and the real world!" As if feeling her pride was slightly wounded, Erin quickly made excuses upon seeing Yu Sheng's sympathetic reaction. "I'm at least a bit freer here than in the real world; look, I can even float around... Don't laugh, there's, there's even more than that!"

Hearing this, Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow, genuinely curious: "More than that?"

Erin thought for a moment, struck a pose identical to the Super Move in '98 King of Fighters, and began to act as if she was exerting great effort inside the oil painting, clearly preparing to activate some ability. Even Yu Sheng was momentarily fooled, instinctively focusing seriously on the changes in the doll within the painting. And just a second later, a layer of psychedelic light and shadow actually began to ripple across the surface of the oil painting!

As Yu Sheng gradually widened his eyes, the oil painting finally went "Bang!"—transforming into an eighties-style poster.

Erin switched to an old movie color tone, standing inside the poster and staring eye-to-eye with Yu Sheng.

Erin: "I can change the art style."

Yu Sheng: "..."

"You laughed out loud!!"

Yu Sheng strained his face hard: "I didn't."

"Telepathy!"

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

Erin immediately felt a bit hurt. Seeing Yu Sheng ignore her, she drifted to the side and started muttering: "I can turn into other things too, like woodblock prints, scrolls, and so on... I'm even researching how to become a relief sculpture; when that happens, I'll have thickness, and you won't be able to say my character is shallow anymore..."

Yu Sheng simply couldn't stand her muttering any longer. He suddenly turned his head and said, "First, when did I ever say your character is shallow? Second, the term 'shallow character' isn't used that way—by the same logic, even if you turned into marble, your character wouldn't become 'deep' because of it."

Erin opened her mouth as if to say something, but before she could speak, she went "Bang!" and instantly reverted to the appearance of an oil painting—her transformation time had expired, lasting less than three minutes in total.

Yu Sheng was dumbfounded: He knew this doll was useless even within the dream, but he never expected she could be this useless...

But this time, Erin didn't look particularly disappointed. She finally noticed the white fox lying on the grass nearby—or rather, she finally sensed that this big fox seemed somewhat out of place with the surrounding dream environment. Curiosity shifted her attention: "By the way, what's up with this fox? Why does its color differ from the surroundings?"

Noticing the confused expression on Yu Sheng's face, she added an explanation: "Things in a normal person's dream basically tend toward a unified color tone. Even if the dreamer themselves doesn't notice, I can see it as an observer. Just like your dream, the sky and the grass are both a hazy gray; this is the 'base tone' of your dream. But this fox... looks like it wandered onto the wrong film set."

Pausing there, she looked at Yu Sheng with some suspicion: "How could such a strange phenomenon appear in your dream?"

Yu Sheng fell silent for a moment, turned around to look at the sleeping white fox, and slowly spoke: "Her name is Hu Li."

"I know, she looks like a fox..."

"I'm talking about her name, Hu Li," Yu Sheng corrected helplessly, then reminded her, "Remember when I was trapped in that 'Otherworld' earlier and told you about it? I encountered a fox, white fur, red eyes, and a bunch of tails..."

Erin froze for a moment. Her not-so-sharp memory finally began to run, recalling what Yu Sheng had mentioned to her before. Her expression became dramatic; she widened her eyes at the huge demon fox, opened her mouth several times before finally managing to blurt out: "What?! How did you catch her and put her into your own dream... Wait, no, how do you have such great power to lock a person into..."

"I didn't catch her, and I feel she isn't really 'locked' here either; this should just be something like a shadow? I'm not entirely sure," Yu Sheng had to explain. "I saw her shortly after I fell asleep, but I couldn't wake her up no matter what."

Erin looked at Yu Sheng, then turned her head to look at the demon fox, shifting her gaze back and forth between the two "people" several times, as if trying to sort out the logic of this event happening before her eyes, but this was clearly not easy.

"I've never heard of such a thing..." she muttered in surprise, then suddenly turned the picture frame and stared fiercely at Yu Sheng's eyes. "Are you really a human?"

Yu Sheng immediately frowned: "What kind of question is that! If I'm not human, does that mean you are?"

But Erin continued to stare at him, her expression more serious than ever before: "Alright, a human, an ordinary person, living in the Otherworld for a long time without realizing it, then running into another Otherworld and encountering a malignant entity, surviving and escaping is one thing, but you even cut off a 'local specialty' from that entity, cooked and ate it, and after eating it, you're still lively and jumping around, and now you can even store another mind within your own dream—a mind whose original body is even trapped elsewhere.

"With so many outrageous things happening to you, and then you say—you are human? An ordinary person?"

Staring at Erin's scarlet eyes, Yu Sheng gradually felt uncomfortable. He instinctively shifted his gaze, thinking to himself that there was still one more thing missing: 'resurrection from the dead.' Compared to that final event, all the previous outrageous things were nothing...

"Indeed... many strange things have happened, and I'm a bit confused myself, but if I have to say it, even you are one of the recent 'strange things' to me," Yu Sheng said helplessly. "Stop looking at me; I don't know what's going on either. This Hu Li can't be woken up no matter how I call her. If I could wake her up, maybe I could ask her about the situation."

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

She thought for a long time.

!.

"I have an idea."

Erin suddenly said.

"An idea?" Yu Sheng asked curiously, "Tell me about it?"

"I'll try to dive into this fox's dream again. If she happens to be dreaming right now," Erin pointed at the demon fox, "her current state looks like a mental lock, but no matter how well a mind is locked, it's hard to defend within a dream. Maybe I can 'see' something, and if I can take the opportunity to wake her up here, that would be even better."

Yu Sheng was truly a bit surprised. After all, just moments ago he was lamenting this doll's unreliability, yet he never expected the other party to now propose such a high-end plan. He couldn't hide his surprise: "Can such a thing be done?"

"It's not difficult, as long as she is also dreaming... Even if she isn't dreaming, your two minds are clearly connected right now. I have a way to 'squeeze' over and take a look, but... this carries some risk and requires your help."

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

"Because we need to jump between minds, it's equivalent to 'deep diving' in unstable waters. If the 'connection' in the middle fails, I might get trapped on the 'other side'," Erin said very seriously, looking at Yu Sheng. "So, I need a 'rope,' and you will be that rope.

"You need to 'dive' with me, continuing to sink from your own dream down into the depths of this big fox's mind. You also need to share some of the pressure with me, making it easier for me to spare mental energy to find direction. And if something really goes wrong during this process... I will use somewhat more intense means to 'wake' you up.

"Your waking up in this chain of dreams has the highest priority; it will also 'pull' my mind back, so both of us can safely return to the real world. However, I must warn you first, my 'waking up' process might not be that comfortable."

"How uncomfortable can it be?"

"... Probably like taking the college entrance exam while dreaming, and before you even write your name, the bell for collecting papers rings. Before you can react to what's happening, a dump truck crashes into the exam hall, turning you and the white moonlight you remember most vividly from high school into paper-thin figures, the kind with an extremely shallow character..."

Yu Sheng completely couldn't figure out what this guy was talking about from Erin's strange metaphor.

But he figured it probably wasn't a big deal; it was just one waking up. How much worse could it be than death?

Compared to this slight hesitation, he was more eager to figure out exactly what situation Hu Li was in now, and what exactly was going on with his own dream.

"No problem, let's start," Yu Sheng took a light breath and nodded seriously to Erin. "What's the first step?"

"You go over, get close to that big fox, as close as possible... Just lie directly on her tail.

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

(End of Chapter)