First Step to Friendly Communication
Chapter 6 First Steps to Friendly Communication
The girl in the painting who called herself "Irene" stared blankly at Yu Sheng outside the frame, and so farthe two of them had not established the slightest relationship of trust.
Yu Sheng had no way of confirming the words of the "man in the painting" in front of him, which was like some kind of cursed object, including the other party's mention of Alice's cottage and the claim of being sealed into the painting, which was the first time he had ever heard of it - that was why, when Irene said that she didn't know why she had appeared in this house, he didn't dare to believe a word of it. That's why, when Irene said that she didn't know why she appeared in this house, he didn't dare to believe a word of it.
On the other hand, Erin also felt that this human named Yu Sheng must still be holding back to set himself on fire with the lighter, and her eyes kept watching for the movement of that lighter ...
"I think you must have bought the painting yourself and hung it in your home, then turned your head and forgot about it ..." Erin repeated, "Isn't that often the case, you humans see something rare and want to collect it, then buy it back and leave it at home to eat dust ..."
Yu Sheng let the other side so say heart really a little weak, because he really do not dare to determine this house things are what origin - after all, he really came to "here" is only two months, not to mention with the world is not familiar with, he is with their own are not familiar with , who knows in the Who knows what state this house and its owner were in two months ago?
Will that be another "Yu Sheng"?
However, these thoughts only flashed in his mind for a moment, and facing the gaze of the scarlet eyes of the painting, Yu Sheng still subconsciously shook his head and returned, "That must not be possible - this painting of yours looks very expensive, it's not like something I can afford to buy... ..."
"Hey, what if it's cheap!" Erin hugged the teddy bear and rubbed forward, "There are a lot of fake bottles and fans and paintings these days, maybe I'm the last seller who wholesaled two dollars and five pounds with other paintings and calligraphy from some fake antique dealer, either that or the second-hand dealers don't know what they're talking about ..."
Yu Sheng expression strange: "You that picture frame carry is solid old wood, the prongs are also embedded with gold thread ..."
Erin thought for a moment, "Mahogany veneer filled with resin inside ah! And copper plating on the outside of the wire."
Yusheng: "... That cost is no longer $2.50 a pound."
"Four and a half dollars is fine, it can't go any higher, no one will really buy it if it goes any higher."
Yusheng: "..."
Erin stared with scarlet eyes, "Hey why don't you say something?"
Yu Sheng squatted in front of Irene's picture frame, suddenly feeling a little happy, then really out of joy, he sat back on his butt, laughing and looking up at the ceiling, so happy that half of his body tilted over - he never thought in his life that he would go through such a scene, squatting in an empty room, arguing with a mannequin that was sealed in an oil painting The mannequin argued all this nonsense just to discuss whether the frame that sealed the mannequin was two and a half dollars a pound or four or five dollars a pound wholesale fake ...
And it wasn't that long ago that he had his heart ripped out by a frog that had refreshed in the freezing rain.
These things are so damn interesting.
Eileen, however, was a bit startled by Yu Sheng's sudden joyful noise, she and her frame were placed on the floor after Yu Sheng took them off the wall, at this time she could see the bare ceiling as well as hear the laughter coming from beside her, which made her finally couldn't help but to yell out, "Hey, don't laugh! What's so funny about this?"
Yu Sheng slowly stopped laughing, he moved forward and looked at Irene in the frame, his expression suddenly serious again, "I had that weird dream before, was it you?"
He was referring to his previous dream in which he had used an axe to chop at a locked gate and a strange laugh had come from behind it, and now it seemed that there was definitely a connection between this obviously bizarre dream and the painted girl in front of him.
Oh yeah, he also flashed his back in the dream - it still hurts.
"No!" Erin, however, immediately shook her head, but then stopped immediately afterward, her expression hesitant, "Rather ... not exactly ..."
"What do you mean?" Yusheng frowned, "That's a roundabout way of saying it."
"You made that dream yourself, but I did get into it," Erin explained patiently, "I originally just sensed that someone was dreaming and tried to get help that way, I didn't want to do anything bad! I didn't know you couldn't open that door, and were so grumpy that you used an axe to split the door when you forgot the key ..."
Listening to Erin's ramblings, Yu Sheng gradually reacted, "That is to say, you didn't lock the door either? You didn't induce the dream either? You just have the ability to enter other people's dreams?"
"Yeah - there's actually a lot more I can do!" Erin nodded her head with pride on her face, but that pride soon dimmed, "But now that I'm sealed in a painting, that's pretty much all I have left of my abilities ..."
Yu Sheng was half-convinced by Erin's statement, and at the same time, he had more doubts and thoughts about what he had experienced in that strange dream, and right after that, he had a second question, "You said that you were trying to find someone to help you through the dream? What kind of favor?"
"Help me get out of here, naturally!" Irene was all right, "It's better if you can get me out of this painting, if not, at least get me out of this room, it's empty and there's nothing here, but if you can hang a TV on the opposite wall, that's fine too. ... Voice-controlled would be better, I'm not very comfortable with remotes, and there's a brand that's pretty good. ..."
Yu Sheng had discovered that the young girl in this painting belonged to the typical free-spirited personality, but whenever no one was in charge to let her talk to herself, her thoughts would always be able to diverge to places you wouldn't expect - and usually in the direction of complacency and forgetfulness.
So he didn't hesitate to interrupt, "So what's with the weird laughs about getting help? What's with the jeering inside when I 'opened the door' outside?"
"That's not me!" Erin hurriedly waved her hand, then held the brown stuffed bear in her hand forward as soon as she could, "It's the one laughing!"
Yu Sheng also did not say anything, just so expressionless look, eyes are "you do not take me for a fool" meaning.
"Really!" Erin looked a little anxious, shook the teddy bear in her hand vigorously, "It was sealed into this painting with me, but maybe it's been too long, the brain is no longer very bright, now it's only giggling, usually when you poke it it'll laugh strangely, but sometimes when you don't poke it it'll suddenly laugh on its own, and I've often been startled by it ..."
Yu Sheng strained his face to listen to Eileen in that energetic explanation, after noticing the serious look on the face of the young girl in the painting gradually also some half-belief, his eyes finally fell on the body of that stuffed bear, after a moment's hesitation nodded: "Then you let it smile, I hear if it is."
Erin immediately reached out and poked the teddy bear in the head.
The teddy bear was unresponsive.
Erin froze and poked the teddy bear's head a little harder - still not making any noise, and she was on the verge of tears as she watched herself.
"Occasionally ... it does this," cried the young girl in the painting, "and it doesn't smile when I poke it ..."
The corners of Yu Sheng's mouth twitched.
"Which means that sometimes it's happy if you don't poke it, and sometimes it's not happy if you do, and in general it may or may not be happy if you do or don't poke it-" he analyzed the string in a roundabout way and came to a conclusion, " So does the fact that the bear is smiling have anything to do with whether you poke it or not?"
Erin froze and nodded sluggishly, "Right ... right oh."
Yu Sheng didn't want to bother with this "cursed oil painting" that didn't seem to be in its right mind.
And he no longer cared about that mocking voice he had heard earlier in his dream.
A grumble came from his stomach, the dinner that he had missed by falling asleep after arriving home began to show its presence at this moment, Yu Sheng smiled and shook his head as he slowly got up.
"Hey, you're leaving?" Erin look, voice immediately a little panicked, "You're not going to leave me on the floor just like that, right? Well at least give hang back to the wall ah, the opposite side of the wall and wallpaper can see it, nothing on the ceiling ..."
Yusheng reached down and lifted Erin's frame off the floor - then grimaced a bit from the back pain.
"I'm going to take you to the living room, so don't BB." He said casually.
Irene immediately cheered up, hugging the teddy bear and sitting back on her chair, looking at Yu Sheng dragging his picture frame out, "That's good, you're still strangely nice, ah yes, isn't it time for dinner now? What are we going to eat tonight?"
Yusheng looked down, "Can you eat?"
"I can watch!"
Yu Sheng felt like he was really sick to keep hitting on this bastard.
Holding his back and carrying Irene's frame with some difficulty, he walked slowly toward the stairs leading to the living room, and in the middle of it the trash-talking from the canvases didn't stop--the
"Hey your house is pretty big, so there's this big piece outside that room?"
"What's the room across the hall? Your bedroom? Hey is there anyone else here?"
"Do I have to greet people? Will they be scared? It doesn't seem like ordinary people have seen many talking dolls and paintings ..."
"By the way, I have not asked your name hey! What's your name? yusheng? What a strange name... not the fish sashimi that can be eaten ah?"
"What happened to your back? You've wasted your waist at such a young age, huh? I'm telling you, protect your back, your human joints are troublesome and can't be disassembled at will ... Ugh? Why are you staring at me? The eyes are scary ..."
Yu Sheng finally moved to the front of the stairs with difficulty, holding his waist, and glanced down at the steps below-usually he didn't feel it, but today, after flashing his waist and carrying an extraordinarily heavy oil painting frame, the steps appeared extraordinarily steep to him.
He had wanted to go downstairs with Irene's picture frame in both arms, but now he suddenly realized that his physical state didn't seem to allow it.
Yusheng lowered his head and pondered in silence.
As if sensing something, the raucous painted girl's voice gradually stopped and her expression slowly tensed.
Yu Sheng lowered his eyelids and glanced at a certain painted girl who had been chattering all the way through the conversation and was getting more and more indebted to the topic, "Erin."
The girl in the painting stirred, "Hey ... hey?"
"I feel like you've got a pretty sturdy frame here."
"Is ... is oh?"
Yusheng silently placed Irene's frame at the beginning of the stairway steps.
"It might be a little shaky, so sit tight."
Erin finally reacted, her eyes glazing over for a split second, "Hey you wait-"
"Go you!"
Oil painting frames embark on a ping-pong clankingadventure on the stairs.
Chapter 7: Irene's Escape Plan
Eileen can curse pretty hard.
Yu Sheng didn't even know how a mannequin sealed in an oil painting could have such a rich vocabulary - and still be able to curse coherently while sliding all the way down the stairs without even taking a breath in between.
I'm afraid it's not because the body is a doll so it doesn't have the ability to breathe at all.
But Yu Sheng is still very calm, Irene slipped from the stairs to the ground after cursing let her curse, he is still not panicked holding the handrail slowly down - mainly because of the back pain, but also can not walk fast - and so on to the first floor before the effort to bend down, the Irene's frame.
"You're sick!" Erin was holding the stuffed bear in the painting angrily, her clothes and hair in disarray, "Have you ever thrown someone straight down the stairs like that? What if you break the painting!"
"waist pain, you this painting is too heavy, holding down the stairs," Yu Sheng face frank, carrying the frame slowly toward the direction of the dining room, "I have observed, you this frame is very sturdy, and really break the frame maybe you get out of the trap?"
"If it was really that easy to get out of this I wouldn't have been sealed until now?!" Erin sat back in her chair in exasperation, "Ah, brain fog ..."
Yu Sheng suddenly stopped and looked down very seriously at the young girl in the oil painting.
Irene was a bit numb by this sight: "What ... do you want to do again? I'm telling you, if you throw me down the stairs again, I won't be able to forgive you. I'll be in your dreams every day while you're sleeping. I'll ring the bell when you're dreaming about your exams, I'll unplug you when you're dreaming about playing a game, I'll drive a dump truck after you when you're dreaming about leaving the house, I'll chase you when you're dreaming about having a relationship with me. ..."
What's with all the trash talk from this unlucky mannequin!
Yu Sheng resisted the urge to drag Irene to the second floor and throw her down from above one more time, straining his face in an effort to look serious: "I just want to ask, what is the principle of this 'seal' of yours? You said to get help to get out of the trap ... So what would it take to get you out of the trap?"
Irene did not expect Yu Sheng to say is actually this, sniffing a stunned, froze for two or three seconds before opening her mouth somewhat incredulously, "You ... you promised to help me out of this?!"
"Wasn't it you who said you were looking for help to get out of the trap?" Yu Sheng frowned, and immediately added, "I'm just asking first, I haven't agreed yet ..."
Irene, however, as if she did not hear the second half of his sentence, did not wait for him to finish and then hurriedly spoke: "There are three ... No, there are two ways! The first way is the best, is to find my body, I don't know where it is now, but it must be somewhere ... maybe not far away from this painting, in any case, find the original body then everything is fine, let me close to it, I can come out from this damn painting... ...
"But if I can't find one, or if my original body has been destroyed, then there's only the second option, to build a new one, but the new one certainly won't be as good as the original, and it's numbing to adapt ..."
Yu Sheng had been listening very attentively, and could not help but interject at this time: "Build a new one? How? Can I find a mannequin store to buy a ready-made one?"
"Of course not!" Erin said immediately, "I'm 'Alice's Doll'! A blessed living doll, you know? How can I be like those three-quarter dolls and four-quarter dolls in the store?"
Speaking of this she paused before continuing to speak with a slightly serious expression: ''The living dolls were all born from the garden of Alice's cottage, and our original bodies came from there as well, but I have now lost my connection with the garden and am unable to leave from the painting, so there is no way for me to return to the garden for a rebirth, but even if we don't have the garden, we have a set of in the present world to create temporary shells method to emergency ... But even though it is an emergency temporary shell, it is not easy to manufacture.
"First, you'll need to find hair that grows on its own, dirt that wriggles like a living thing, dead bones that break and heal, and a drop of a living doll's tear - two drops would be fine, so my skin will look a little better - and then You have to use alchemy to revitalize the above materials a second time, and then apply your own blood ... Hey why do you have this look on your face?"
Yu Sheng looked at the girl in the painting with a stern face, and sighed after a long time, "... Let's talk about the program to retrieve your original body?"
Erin blinked, "... You don't know alchemy?"
"Is everyone supposed to be able to do this stuff?!" Yu Sheng's expression was a bit frantic, "And let's not even talk about alchemy, where am I going to find you that outrageous pile of materials you're talking about! Are you sure you didn't copy this setting from some third-rate fantasy magazine? The Tears of the Living Dolls ... If I could find another living doll, I'd just hand you over to her along with the painting! Wouldn't it be better to let your sister take you home than to let me mess around?"
Yu Sheng thought that he had come to this "world" for a short period of time, so he didn't understand those strange shadows and the extraordinary realm behind the shadows, but at least judging from the information channels he had contacted so far, those "materials" mentioned by Irene were by no means something that ordinary people in this world could access. But at least judging from the information channels he had contacted so far, the "materials" mentioned by Irene were by no means something that ordinary people in this world could come into contact with, so how did this guy just say it out of the blue?
And Erin's expression after seeing Yu Sheng's reaction seemed to be a bit awkward, she moved slightly in her chair and changed her position after her voice were lowered quite a bit, "Actually, other materials will also work, such as buying some clay pigment wigs from the internet or something ..."
Yusheng: "...?"
He looked at the girl in the painting with an expression of "You're not amusing me", Irene couldn't help but shrink back in her chair again: "I'm not hoping that the temporary shell can be as good as possible,..., but if it can't be made in gold, then it's fine. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make it work.
"But even with those ordinary materials, the final step still requires your blood, and a little bit of alchemy skill, I can teach you, this is very simple, ordinary people can become ..."
Yu Sheng didn't open his mouth for the first time, he was just silent as if he was in thought, and only after a few seconds did he suddenly say, "You just wanted to say that there were three ways at the beginning, right, and there was another way why didn't you mention it?"
"... That solution isn't very good, it's a bit costly," Erin waved her hand with an honest look on her face, "I don't think you'd agree to it, and I wouldn't want you to try it, after all, you don't know me very well either ..."
"Don't always talk so much nonsense if you know you don't know each other well." Yu Sheng said casually, glaring at the girl in the painting.
Irene pursed her lips, somewhat constrained (she now knows that she is constrained) looked at Yu Sheng, carefully asked: "Then ... you want to help me come out of this? The second way is actually quite easy, you even casually pinch a body out of the line, craftsmanship is almost nothing, as long as the ritual process is right, I can be remodeled after I enter the shell ... just don't be too ugly, at least it must be like a person."
This time, Yu Sheng didn't fight with Irene, he just thought very seriously, and had been thinking for nearly half a minute before he gave a very solemn response, "I can't promise now, I need to think about it"
He didn't trust this painted maiden, at least not all of it.
Although she seemed honest and sincere, a little bit of a bad mouth but not bad in nature, with a distinctive and harmless personality, giving people the impression that she did not have a bad heart, but all this was only the superficial impression brought by knowing her for only one day - after removing these "human" impressions, Irene's essence was still a weird thing sealed in the painting. After removing these "humanized" impressions, Irene's essence is still a weird thing sealed in an oil painting.
Yu Sheng is not so fooled by her lovely appearance that he would build a shell for this "ghost in the painting" and release her without saying a word - what if she really changed her face after she came out and chopped him under the gothic skirt with her hand? ...
Yu Sheng had just died once not long ago and didn't want to die again for a while.
While Irene didn't say anything after getting the reply, she just looked at Yu Sheng fixedly for a while and then nodded naturally, "Oh, I see."
Yu Sheng was very surprised, he had thought that he still needed to pull the skin with this painted girl for this matter for a long time, but did not expect the other party to be surprisingly ... generous.
"After all, we're not familiar, right?" As if she could see the doubt in Yu Sheng's mind, Erin suddenly smiled and winked at the oil painting, "I'll ask again when we're familiar."
"... Well, talk to you later."
Yu Sheng smiled back, carrying Irene's picture frame to the dining room, casually placing it on the dining table against the wall standing up and putting it away, and turning toward the kitchen.
"I haven't eaten dinner yet, go ahead and cook."
"Good ... hey you turn on that TV across the table first, I'll watch some TV ..."
"There's a lot going on."
Yu Sheng smoothly turned on the TV across the dining table, before picking up the vegetables and seasonings that he had casually placed on the shelf earlier and bought from the supermarket to prepare his own dinner.
He was actually a person who loved to cook, and ever since he came to this familiar yet unfamiliar "Boundary City", he had to cook almost every meal at home himself to feel at ease - after all, only in this big house, there were no weird shadows to disturb him. After all, it was only in this big house that there were no creepy shadows to disturb him.
He didn't mind meeting any long, skinny ghostly figures while he was out catching up, but not when he was cooking or eating, because those two things were major events in his life.
... Although even this "safe house" now has a weird "Irene".
But an unlucky mannequin who can only ramble on in oil paintings is always much more lovable than the ghosts, freezing rain and frogs that haunt the city streets - at least she won't have her heart ripped out.
Chapter 8: Don't open the door.
Walked into the kitchen and closed the door, turned on the hood, accompanied by the noisy noise of the machine running, but Yu Sheng felt his heart slowly calm down.
It was as if the thin wooden door of the kitchen and the noises of the range hood had helped him to isolate a chaotic and bizarre world from the outside for a while - he had finally returned to a place that was completely his own, and he could even pretend for a while that he was not in that gigantic and weird "Boundary City" but in his own familiar, real "home". He could even pretend for a while that he was not in the huge and weird "Boundary City", but back in his familiar, real "home".
Everywhere in this big house was different from his original "home", but only this small kitchen was very close to the structure he remembered, so after settling down a little in this world, he tried his best to make this place look as familiar as possible.
Every day when he cooked here, he pretended that he was still in his real home, that he hadn't pushed the door open that morning, that he hadn't taken a step into a strange city filled with eerie shadows-sometimes when he was busy here, he would even feel as if if he could look up through the window and see the familiar streetscape of days gone by, see the The old street outside the kitchen was bathed in an orange-red cloudy haze, while reddish sunlight streamed over the facades of remembered residential buildings ...
But the scenery outside the window will always break his these short-lived imagination, now looking out of the window, he can only see a bare empty land and not far away from the low old bungalows, there is not much residential buildings here, but a lot of messy poles, and the memory of the warm and cozy sky, he has not seen for a long time.
The light of day in this city was always either blindingly white or so dim as to oppress the heart.
Yu Sheng sighed and smoothly pulled up the blinds outside the glass, not paying attention to the seemingly perpetual shadows of the night outside.
After picking and washing vegetables, heating the pan and cooling the oil, popping the onions, and then putting the ingredients into the pan, Yu Sheng heard the sound of the pan, and then he heard the sound of the TV program coming from outside the door - this strange city has a series of channels to obtain information, including TV, cell phones, and so on, and in the initial period of time, he learned a lot about this "world city" almost entirely through watching TV programs and swiping the cell phone news, and even now, this is one of the important ways for him to learn about this "world". In the first period of time, his understanding of this "Boundary City" was almost entirely realized by watching TV programs and swiping the news on his cell phone, and even now, this is one of the most important ways for him to understand this "world".
"Yu Sheng! The TV is too low! Turn it up for me! Please!"
Outside the door suddenly came the girl staggering voice, Yu Sheng was startled at once, hand shaking nearly flipped the dish to the pot outside.
He'd almost forgotten there was an Erin out there.
No one used to talk outside when he was frying in the kitchen!
"Wait!" Yu Sheng shouted back rather nonchalantly, and couldn't help but mutter, "... She's quite self-conscious ..."
But soon he pulled the corners of his mouth into a somewhat helpless smile.
Well, it's good to add some "popularity" to the house, at least it's a movement.
After a while, Yu Sheng walked out with a steaming hot meal, he set the dishes on the dining table, and turned up the volume of the TV across the dining table by two levels, and then sat down with his back to the TV across from Irene's picture frame - he didn't have the habit of watching TV when he was eating, but he would turn it on as a background sound, which wouldn't steal a seat from Irene who could only watch TV from a fixed angle - he didn't have the habit of watching TV when he was eating, but he would leave it on as background sound. Irene, who could only watch TV from a fixed angle.
Erin in the oil painting holding a teddy bear stretched his neck to look at the meal on the table, eyes a moment to glance at the program a moment to glance at the table, muttered, "quite sumptuous ah ..."
"It's all home-cooked food," Yu Sheng said casually, "I quite like cooking."
"Oh." Erin let out an oh and went back to watching TV honestly, but after Yusheng started to eat she poked her head to glance at the table again, and after holding her tongue for a while she finally couldn't help but speak, "Just you eating and me watching?"
Yusheng raised his eyelids and reached out his chopsticks in front of Irene's picture frame, "You take a bite?"
Erin glared, but then immediately dropped her head and began sulking with herself.
"... Okay, okay, okay, a formality." Yu Sheng also felt helpless when he took a look at the other party's appearance, and with a sigh, he took another empty bowl from the kitchen, dividing some of the rice from his own bowl into it, reaching out and placing it in front of Irene's picture frame, "I've left you a bowl and chopsticks ah - just take it as a whiff, I'll still end up eating it anyway. "
Irene frowned at the rice bowl in front of the picture frame, thought about it and thought it would work, so she jumped down from the chair, came over to the edge of the picture frame, a face that took up almost half of the frame, and looked at Yu Sheng earnestly: "Okay, it'll work - thanks ah, you're kinda thinking for people ..."
Yu Sheng lowered his head to pick up a mouthful of rice, vaguely responded to the sound, and then looked up to see the picture frame in the picture frame only revealed a head of Irene, followed by the eyes on the picture frame in front of the rice bowl, suddenly feel as if there is something wrong ...
Erin didn't notice anything wrong at all, she was a bit strange about Sheng's sudden daze, "What are you staring at?"
Yusheng hurriedly lowered his head and took two more mouthfuls of rice, and looked up at Irene again-
A dark and dreary frame, a dark and dreary background, the head of a mannequin girl, and a bowl of rice in front of the portrait.
The whole a-sound-is-alive-and-smile-is-still-alive.jpg.
The muscles in his face twitched twice, but after holding his tongue he still didn't dare to say what he had associated in his mind - not because of anything else, but mainly because Erin could curse so hard.
It was a dry meal, and he could only pretend that nothing had happened, burying his head in his mouth and eating hard under Irene's puzzled gaze, trying not to look across the table at the tone-deaf one in between ...
A meal that resembled a spiritual gathering.
After a good meal, Yu Sheng wiped his mouth and hurriedly removed all the cups, plates and dishes in front of Irene's picture frame, throwing them into the kitchen sink, ready to soak them until he woke up early tomorrow and then wash them - mainly because his back was still hurting, and bending down in front of the sink to wash the dishes was a bit burdensome for him right now.
But the dishes could go unwashed, the garbage couldn't go unthrown, and the garbage bags in the kitchen couldn't be left in the house overnight this season - he gathered up the trash against his aching back and headed for the door with the bags in hand.
Erin, who was watching TV, looked up curiously and asked, "Hey, where are you going this late?"
"I still have to report to you in my own home?" Yu Sheng returned this overly-self-contained painted mannequin's sentence without any good humor, but still lifted the garbage bag in his hand to show the other party, "I'm going out to throw out a piece of garbage."
"Oh, you come back early then," Erin's eyes had fallen back on the TV, "It's such a big house, I'm scared to be alone in case a burglar comes in ..."
Yu Sheng rolled his eyes, and said that such a large and gloomy house, really want someone to come in and see a ghost-like figure in a painting hanging around, the first to die of fear is definitely not the one in the painting, on the state of Irene, thieves will have to come in and call the police first ...
But it wasn't nice to say it to Erin's face.
Yu Sheng shook his head, bellyaching twice to the door, and reached out to grip the door handle of the gate after changing into the shoes for going out.
He pushed slightly harder in his hand, turned, pushed away.
For some reason, he suddenly recalled that ordinary morning two months ago, as if it were every ordinary day in his ordinary life.
Then, as now, he pushed open the front door of his home, stepped outside, and walked into a bizarre city so huge that it was suffocating, and to this day he has not been able to go back-
Weird associations flashed through his mind, and Yu Sheng smiled to himself and shook his head as he pushed the door out.
The crisp sound of a dead branch being stepped on broke the silence in the valley, and the chilly night wind was wrapped in some kind of disturbing rotten, fishy odor, and the coldness in the air made Yu Sheng, who had gone out wearing only a singlet, subconsciously shiver, and then it took him several seconds to get his brain, which had stopped functioning momentarily a moment ago, to restart.
He saw that he stood among a barren tumble of broken rocks, and that in the distance the night seemed like an eerie and grotesque dense forest, and that again on either side high mountains loomed up against the night sky, like silent and speechless hideous giants, looking down on the valley floor from either side, and bringing with them an intolerably heavy sense of oppression.
Yu Sheng's entire body stiffened in this cold night, then slowly turned back to where he had come from.
A collapsed and tumbled piece of broken bricks and tiles came into view, it looked like a broken temple that had been deserted and collapsed a hundred years ago, and a broken and tattered door - or perhaps it could only be said to be a crooked doorframe with half a doorplate - stood alone among the ruins, and when the night wind blew, a hollow whimper came from the cracks between the broken doorplate and the broken stones. When the night wind blew, a hollow whimper came from the cracks between the broken door and the rubble.
Yu Sheng stared, "This is for me to do where ..."
It finally dawned on him.
With the action of "opening the door", what happened two months ago repeated itself.
Once again he was thrown into a strange place.
And it was even worse than two months ago - that huge and weird "Boundary City" was different from the "Boundary City" where I grew up, but at least it was a modern city where people could survive. It was a modern city where people could survive, but this time the situation was not good.
He was thrown into a wilderness.
In front of the mangrove, the left and right dangerous mountains, behind only a collapsed do not know how many years of broken temple - Yu Sheng took a look at all feel that this place is not in situ refresh thirty or fifty mountain bandits or a few wolf demon fox fairy are sorry for this terrain and landscape ...
And the only thing he had in his hand was a bag of kitchen garbage he had just carried out of his house ...
Yu Sheng thought about it and cursed hard in his heart.
And in the very next second, when the fragrant elegant words in Yusheng's heart were spewing forth, an abrupt voice suddenly came from his mind--
"Yu Sheng! There's no signal on the TV! When are you coming back?"
Chapter 9: A Little Truth
The voice that came from his head caused Yu Sheng, who was originally being a bit froze by the cold wind in the valley, to be startled - and then froze even more.
Frozen until Erin yelled in his head for the second time he came to his senses with a jolt.
"... Irene?" Yu Sheng blinked, he was currently watching the situation in the valley vigilantly while carefully leaning over towards the broken and collapsed old temple in an attempt to find a temporary corner of peace and shelter while mentally trying to respond, "How did you ... get in touch with me? I mean you're talking ... directly inside my head here."
"Is that hard?" Erin's tone was particularly righteous, "I'm Alice's doll!"
Yu Sheng thought about it and froze, not connecting the two things together ... Meaning that all of Alice s dolls can do this? Can they all talk in other people's heads?
"Didn't I drill into your dream once? Once I drilled into your dream, I recognized the way," Ai Lin realized that Yu Sheng didn't respond to her, but she patiently explained again, but then her tone changed, "Hey no, where the hell did you go? How come I can't sense you ..."
Yu Sheng was silent for two seconds, looked up at the surrounding valleys and dense forests, and always felt that this place would be refreshed the next second to a seven or eight meter tall demon and resounded with impassioned BGM, which made his heart cold: "... I may have gone out on a long trip, and I guess it's not too good to go back ..."
Erin's side apparently froze for a moment as well, her voice coming through a few seconds late, "... I thought you said you were just going to go out and throw out a piece of trash? You got shoveled away by a garbage collection truck?!"
Yu Sheng don't even know where this bastard come up with such strong association ability ...
But it has to be admitted that after hearing Erin's voice, his heart, which had been panicked to death because he had suddenly been thrown into such a wilderness, settled down a little ... just a little.
The voice at least proved that his connection to the original world had not been completely severed, and since Erin could contact him, there should still be a possibility for him to go back - despite not having any train of thought, and not being able to think of any reason that could support this assumption, he had to be so convinced now.
And as for the moment, the first thing he had to do was to ensure his own safety.
The valley is very quiet, up to now the ears are only from time to time to come some empty wind sound, but Yu Sheng heart always has a kind of twisted and depressing feeling, he always feels that there is something here staring at himself, some kind of ... temperatureless, vain and hungry gaze, sweeping here over and over again, sweeping himself.
It made him more and more uneasy, desperate to find a corner to hide in first, or at least not stand in the open like that again.
However, the only place in sight where he could hide seemed to be the broken temple that had almost completely collapsed - the forest in the distance was dense, but the atmosphere was even more bizarre and eerie, coupled with the fact that "going into the forest in the middle of the night" was a classic element of horror stories of death, which he was never willing to He would never want to go near it.
But what sucks is that drilling a broken temple late at night is also a standard death-defying element, and the difference between the two options is that the forest is prone to refreshing beasts and the broken temple is prone to refreshing demons ...
Both are prone to triggering impassioned BGM.
Yu Sheng gritted his teeth and still walked towards the corner of the only side of that broken temple that was still intact.
At the same time, he mentally contacted Erin and explained his side of the story in general - not much could really be explained, since even he didn't know how it all happened, from start to finish he just opened the door ...
Erin's side froze for a long time after hearing this before speaking hesitantly, "It sounds like you've landed in the 'Otherworld'?"
Yu Sheng, who was standing in the ruins of the broken temple, froze at the words and suddenly reacted, "Exotic area? You call this place a foreign land? You know where I am?"
Erin's voice seemed a bit confused for some reason, "Huh? There are plenty of foreign lands, how would I know which one you fell into ..."
Listening to Irene's muttering, Yu Sheng frowned, suddenly realizing that he had increased his knowledge of the "supernatural realm", and even more so, he realized a crucial thing:
Maybe he hadn't been thrown to the "other side", but had encountered some kind of "natural phenomenon" that wasn't unusual to Irene?
While Yu Sheng's side muttered in his heart, Eileen apparently thought of something and said in his mind in a somewhat unbelievable tone, "... You wouldn't have never heard of 'exotic' at all, would you?"
Yu Sheng's expression was odd: "Should I have heard of ...? Is this stuff still some kind of common knowledge that any ordinary person would know?"
"Oh, it's normal for ordinary people to not know about the Otherworld, after all, the vast majority of people will never encounter anything in this area in their entire lives," Erin said casually, but her next sentence caused Yu Sheng to freeze, "But you shouldn't not know about it."
"Me? Why do I have to know?" Yu Sheng's expression was a bit confused, "I'm just an ordinary person ..."
"... But you live in a foreign land every day."
...
Shadows weaved through the night, trappers took shape in the shadows, and a hideous wolf leapt out of the shadows, made a few agile leaps along the high and low rooftops of the old town, and landed lightly and noiselessly in the middle of the empty street, standing in the middle of the road and looking to his left and to his right.
"Come back!" A somewhat irritated female voice came from the shadows of the building on the corner of the street.
The wolf instantly scrunched its neck, let out a muffled whine, and hurriedly trotted inside the shadows of the roadside building.
The young girl in the dark red jacket and black skirt stood on the corner between the two old houses, she reached up and rubbed the head of the wolf that had just run back, raising her eyes to the houses at the end of this old street.
It was a very short street, with only a few dozen households on the entire street, and the street was permeable from front to back, and the pavement was clear at a glance, so even without using the wolf's eyes, she could tell at a glance what was going on here.
The young girl frowned, and her cell phone rang just at the right time - still the classic 86 Journey to the West title song - and she answered it this time when the monkey had just flipped to its second heel, "It's me, yes, I'm in the old town, this side of Sycamore Road."
The voice of the middle-aged man who was working overtime until he was delirious rambled over the cell phone.
Little Red Riding Hood listened patiently for a moment, tugging at the corners of her mouth, "I'm here, but I haven't found anything - my wolves have searched this entire street back and forth three times now, and there's no sign of the Otherworld opening up, or of anything that's run out of it."
There was silence on the phone for two or three seconds, and a voice came from the opposite side: "But the monitor side can be sure that there is a reaction to the opening of the Otherworld on Sycamore Road in the old city, and the passage to the Otherworld must have briefly appeared over there ..."
"I'm sure," Little Red Riding Hood said somewhat breathlessly, "I still recognize the professionalism of your Secret Service monitors, but I trust my wolf just as much - maybe there really was a short-lived passage here, but it's now It must have disappeared cleanly ... Considering that under normal circumstances an otherworldly realm couldn't have disconnected from the present world in such a short period of time, maybe someone 'else' stepped in and took care of it."
"There aren't many people capable of severing an exotic connection in such a short period of time whose affiliations have filings and channels of contact with the Secret Service," the voice coming from the phone sounded a bit tired, "but I haven't received any communication in that regard this evening... ..."
"Then maybe it's the Hermit Society, they're all godly all day ..."
The young girl said casually, and then unsurprisingly heard another string of ramblings coming from the cell phone, so she could only sigh and promise again and again: ''OK, OK, OK, I know, that's all respected scholars alright ... I've always respected scholars quite a bit. Not to say no more, I'll take my wolf pack to search a circle from the shadow again, anyway, this 'Sycamore Road' is not big, a total of sixty-five door signs, it's not too much trouble to search again ..."
Hanging up the phone, her ears finally clearing with it, Little Red Riding Hood sighed as she looked at the screen off her cell phone, and then glanced down at the dog heads ... wolf heads rising and falling in the shadows around herself, and couldn t help but sigh again.
"I haven't done my homework yet ... Ugh, outsourcing is a hard life ..."
...
Yu Sheng sat in the corner of the broken temple under a corner of the wall that looked quite sturdy, blowing the cold wind that blew in through the big hole in the wall, looking up at the dark and murky night sky outside the broken hole in the roof, trying to let his brain empty, but unsuccessfully.
Just a moment ago, he learned a truth.
His only secure place in the city of boundaries, in his mind the safest and most normal place in the whole city, in fact, is an abnormal ... "place" called "foreign domain".
In Irene's words, the so-called "otherworldly" is the realm outside of normalcy, the dimension at the edge of rationality - the normal, orderly world that ordinary people live in appears to be a mountain with a solid foundation and a stable structure, but in reality, the subtle parts of this mountain are all "holes" that lead to irrationality and disorder. But in fact, all the subtleties of this mountain are "holes" leading to irrationality and non-order.
For the vast majority of people, they will never come into contact with these "holes" in their lives, and will never see the light on the other side of the hole.
But those shimmering lights leaking from the holes will always be reflected in the eyes of others - and for them, the moment they accidentally catch a glimpse of those lights, there are some things they can never get back.
-But even for the well-traveled painting dolls, it's still more than a little outrageous that a person could live in a foreign land for a long period of time ...
Chapter 10 - Blossoming twice
Irene thinks it's outrageous that Yusheng can live in a "foreign land" for so long without realizing it - but Yusheng thinks the world is outrageous.
"According to you, this world is full of 'foreign lands' right?" Hiding in the corner of the broken temple, Yu Sheng had a chat with the Erin in his head, "Only most people can't reach them? Because they can't observe them?"
"It's almost like this, but to say whether the entire 'world' is like this ... actually I'm not too sure," Erin said, "After all, the world is so big, right? It's so big, right, but at the very least, the probability of the appearance of foreign domains within the boundaries of the 'Boundary City'... is very high, so it seems that this place is also known as the 'Junction' or something like that ... I'm not sure about the specifics, I've been in the painting for too long and my brain is a bit confused."
"Junction?" Yu Sheng raised his eyebrows, always feeling as if there was a bit of vestigial feeling in this title, but immediately afterward he noticed another piece of information revealed in Erin's words just now-
She emphasized "within the boundaries of the city" - so the city, which was so huge that it seemed to have no boundaries, actually had an "outside"!
He hesitated for two or three seconds, but he still couldn't hold back from speaking, "What's 'out there' ... in Boundary City?"
"Outside the Boundary City? Maybe more cities? Or maybe ... a sea or something?" Erin's answer, however, seemed vague, "I don't remember, I've really been in this picture too long, I only remember a little bit of the city ..."
At this point she suddenly stopped and asked again with some confusion, "You don't know? You've never left Boundary City either?"
The corners of Yu Sheng's mouth twitched, and he immediately fell silent.
He didn't know! He'd only been in the area for two months - let alone outside of Boundary City - and he hadn't even backed up the bus routes four blocks away from his own house yet!
But after a long period of silence, he decided not to mention it - he did not want to let a "cursed portrait" he had just met know this secret about himself for the time being.
"I haven't gone out, I'm quite a homey ... person forget it, let's not talk about this first," he casually made a couple of perfunctory sentences, and then shifted the topic aside, "Let's just think of a way to solve the trouble I'm in here first, what do I have to do to get out of this How do I get out of this so-called 'foreign land'? Speaking of which,... this thing called the Otherworld can be gotten out of, right?"
Erin on the other side pondered for a while, seemingly organizing her memories that were messy and fuzzy because of the long seal, and it took a long time before she came back with a response, "There are many different kinds of exotic areas,..., sometimes it may just be a house that doesn't exist on the map, sometimes it may be an extra stop on the bus line, and sometimes it may even be a forest, a country that you can walk into by pushing the closet door. Sometimes it could even be a forest, a land you can walk into by pushing open a closet door - basically, smaller exotic lands have relatively fixed and obvious exits, or you can return to reality by following specific rules, but the larger the exotic land the more complicated the situation becomes."
Speaking of this she paused and continued, "I can't actually remember too much of the specifics, there should be a complete set of categorization methods for the foreign domains, and there's also a 'depth' division and a 'danger level' division standard, but I've really ... been in this painting too long ..."
Her voice trailed off, sounding as if she was a little lost.
Yu Sheng had wanted to spit out a few words, thinking that this mannequin was chattering a whole lot of information that turned out to be useful without remembering any of it, but after hearing the other party's last little muttering he closed his mouth and didn't fight with Erin as he had done before.
She'd tried so hard to help - she'd just been sealed off for too long.
"Look for it, there's always an exit," Yu Sheng shook his head and looked up at the valley outside the broken temple, "The size of this place doesn't look small to me, at least as far as the eye can see there's a big mountain on both sides and a forest in the distance, according to you, leaving... . it might not be so easy."
"Well," Erin hmmmed, "you can start by looking around your 'original landing spot' after entering the Otherworld to see if there's anything out of place in your surroundings, something that you feel at first glance that it shouldn't be there Something, usually the exit of the Otherworld will be near there, and if there's nothing nearby, find a higher place and see if you can see reflections like mirrors or hear the constant sound of wind ...
"But even if you find something similar, don't rush over to make contact, that could also be a trap to the 'deeper levels', I can't tell you exactly ..., you'll have to go with your feelings.
"Feelings?" Yusheng couldn't help but speak.
"... Right, technically what it requires is actually 'inspiration', a spiritual intuition, a trained investigator will have mastered this method of perception - -I know you're not trained in this, but there's nothing to be done about it now.
"But don't worry too much, spirituality exists in all intelligent beings, untrained ordinary people have it too, it just hasn't been stimulated, if you are more careful, you will be able to feel that kind of warning and omen originating from the essence of the self - if you really meet something you have no way of judging, talk to me about it. I ... try to help."
Yu Sheng agreed, slowly stepped out from the corner where he had hidden himself, and cautiously walked towards the gate of the broken temple - that disturbing sense of "peeping" and "hunger" still surrounded him, and even seemed to have infiltrated the air around him and become part of the whole valley, but he still walked out with his head held high. The uneasy feeling of "peeping" and "hunger" still surrounded him, and even seemed to have infiltrated the air around him, becoming part of the whole valley, but he still walked out with his head held high.
Because from the information provided by Irene, he had to find an "exit" as soon as possible in order to leave this place - waiting in the corner would not open a door in front of his eyes.
And at the same time, probably to relieve the tension in his mind, he was still making small talk with Erin in one way or another.
"How did you determine that where I've been living is an 'otherworldly' place? I don't think there's anything wrong with my house either ..."
"I can feel it," Erin replied, "It's that 'inspiration' I was talking about, I can clearly feel that there's something not right about this building- -Of course, it does all look pretty normal on the surface ... which I wouldn't know what's going on."
"Is it a feeling again ... " Yu Sheng shook his head, "Then according to you, every day I go home and enter the door is to walk into a foreign land, open the door and go out is to leave the foreign land chant? Then my home is really a 'good foreign land' that comes and goes freely and harmlessly."
After two or three seconds, Erin spoke quietly, "... Opening the door and going out doesn't necessarily arrive where you want to go, does it?"
Yu Sheng's expression instantly stiffened for a moment, recalling why he was unlucky enough to be trapped in this place.
He seemed to know what was wrong with his "home".
Thinking about it that way, it was a miracle in itself that he'd lived comfortably in that big house for two months!
As he spoke, he had already returned to the open space in front of the broken temple, which was the "landing point" when he first entered this "foreign land".
"There's nothing to be found here," Yu Sheng double-checked around the clearing to make sure he hadn't found any of those "key items that defy description" as described by Erin, "It really doesn't look like it's going to be that easy. "
"Yeah, well, that's to be expected," Erin sighed, "so try walking outside first, but remember, never touch anything that glows or moves suddenly in front of your eyes, and also don't eat or drink anything in the Otherworld if you don't have to ..."
"I know ... that said, would it be better to wait until daytime to search?" Yu Sheng said, looking up at the sky above that seemed to be perpetually covered with a murky curtain, "It always feels eerie to be out in the wilderness at night."
"Otherworlds tend to be counterintuitive, daytime isn't necessarily safer, or ... even daytime," Erin said immediately, "I'd still suggest you find the exit as soon as you can, drag it out and maybe something else on your end will something change."
Yu Sheng bristled and could only helplessly walk further away.
And just in the moment when he had just stepped out of the range of the broken temple, a voice came ... to his ears.
At first, it seemed like just a faint, muffled breath.
Yu Sheng subconsciously looked in the direction where the voice came from, and saw a white mist slowly escaping from the air, as if some invisible beast had just exhaled a mouthful of turbid air.
He heard a sound, and so the breath of the behemoth was generated.
He saw the white mist, and the existence of the Behemoth began to be conclusively proven.
Dark shadows emerged from the air, a shadow almost three times the size of Yu Sheng was slowly taking shape in front of him, accompanied by the sound of heavy breathing.
Now he saw the outline of the Behemoth - the Behemoth existed.
Yu Sheng's heart instantly tightened, and a great sense of crisis crushed over his head and face, heavier than the oppression brought to him by that frog in the rain!
And the moment he felt a tangle in his heart, the black shadow solidified.
It was something Yusheng had never seen before - a bear? A lion? An eagle? Or a tiger and a snake? Countless hideous and grotesque limbs were piled up on that huge and ugly ball of flesh, as if many beasts had been melted into a cauldron and blended together to come out of it, and this disgusting and horrible thing looked down at Yu Sheng with its swollen limbs of varying sizes and shapes, and in the haphazardly cascading eyes... ...filled with hunger.
Yu Sheng slowly raised his head and met the giant beast's gaze.
The beast lunged down without hesitation - in the nick of time, Yu Sheng pressed his body down and dodged past one of the beast's bloody mouths in a shocking manner.
Then it fell into its other giant mouth.
The sharp teeth closed viciously, and the small half of Yu Sheng's body was instantly torn apart, yet in this moment, the sharp pain instead seemed to turn into a distant numbing hallucination, and he felt that everything in front of him slowed down, and he saw snake-like limbs stretching out behind the behemoth again, and another huge mouth biting down on him, tearing at what was left of him below his chest- -he saw his heart again.
The heart was beating slowly, then disappeared into the depths of the snake's mouth.
"X your ass!"
Yu Sheng finally squeezed an angry curse out of his throat, he knew it seemed like he was going to die again, but he felt like he couldn't just leave it at that.
With the last bit of muscle in his body still able to contract, he turned his head as hard as he could and took a bite out of his side - he didn't know which part of the behemoth it was, he didn't know what he was doing with the bite, he just knew he was biting into the other guy.
At least take a piece of meat off me before I die.
All of Yu Sheng's strength was used up in this moment, as he violently tore into the behemoth, and the behemoth tore into him, blood and flesh, claws and teeth, food and eaters ...
Before his mind fell into complete darkness, Yu Sheng squeezed out one last thought in his mind - he spoke softly to Erin, who was far away in an unknown place, "Erin ..."
"Huh?"
"I'll hang up now if there's nothing else."
Erin was stunned for a moment.
Then Yu Sheng hung up.