Doubts

After a brief inspection of the television, Yu Sheng discovered the thing had simply frozen. It was the classic condition that cheap smart devices developed after being used for a while: *Oh dear, I've been running for two whole hours, my CPU is smoking / my memory is throwing errors / the power supply is overheating / nothing's wrong, I just feel like dying for a bit...* Yu Sheng couldn't help feeling a bit nostalgic for the rugged, durable vintage televisions from his memory. Back in the day, household appliances hadn't been nearly as finicky as today's smart gadgets. Sure, they had fewer functions, but as far as he was concerned, all the fancy smart features these days weren't that great anyway. Half the artificial intelligence out there acted more like artificial idiocy... "Just unplug it, wait two minutes, and turn it back on," Yu Sheng muttered to himself with a sigh as he casually switched off the television's power. Turning to Irene, he said, "The quality on this thing isn't great. Leave it on too long and it freezes up on its own." "Are you going to get a new one, then?" Irene's eyes lit up instantly. "Get one with voice control! That way I can change the channel myself and watch TV even when you're not home..." "You really have the nerve to make demands, don't you?" Looking at this little creature who treated herself like family without a shred of hesitation, Yu Sheng was amused despite himself. "You're squatting in my house and I haven't even complained, yet you want a new TV? Are you chipping in money or putting in labor?" "I..." Irene parted her lips, her face actually flushing a little, and stammered, "I—I don't have money, but I've been helping you catch up on knowledge about foreign domains! That makes me an adviser, more or less..." "An adviser whose memory is terrible, right? You're not even sure if half the stuff you say is reliable," Yu Sheng scoffed. "Hiring you as an adviser means I'd need to hire another adviser to advise you." Irene blushed crimson, but after trying for a while she couldn't find a single rebuttal. She could only hang her head and sulk. Fortunately, she had great resilience—she sulked for three whole seconds before bouncing right back, looking up at Yu Sheng. "Well, once you get me out—no matter how you pull it off—I'll work to pay you back! Besides, aren't you going to keep dealing with foreign domains from now on? I can be your helper! I can fight for you, how about that...?" Yu Sheng hadn't really thought about that. In fact, he hadn't considered at all what would happen if Irene actually did come out of the painting one day. Hearing this, he raised an eyebrow. "You? Are you sure?" "Hey, let me tell you, don't look down on me! I'm an Alice's Doll!" Irene put her hands on her hips and stood up from her chair, positively strutting with smugness. "Living dolls are blessed! In foreign domains, I'm way better in a fight than those so-called investigators or spirit-realm detectives or whatever..." "And then somebody stuffed you into a painting, right?" Irene's eyes instantly turned red with fury (though her eyes were already red to begin with). "Y-Y-You... Just you wait until I get out, then you'll see! Don't turn away!" "Alright, alright, I believe you, I believe you." Yu Sheng chuckled and turned around, waving a hand in resignation. To be fair, he had never taken this doll too seriously from the start. After all, she was stuck inside a painting. Squatter or not, she didn't eat his food; lying flat on the floor, she took up less than half a square meter, and hanging on the wall she didn't get in anyone's way at all. Aside from watching television, she consumed practically nothing, and bickering with her passed the time nicely. What's more, she truly had supplied him with plenty of knowledge about the "other world." As for her claims about working to pay him back or acting as his hired muscle after getting out of the painting... he humored her for now. The television screen lit up again. Yu Sheng pressed a few buttons on the remote and found a brainless urban drama. Irene was not picky about TV shows in the slightest—after all, even Teletubbies was more interesting than wallpaper. Yet right then, staring at the television screen before him, Yu Sheng suddenly thought of something he hadn't paid attention to before. "Irene." He turned back to look at the doll maiden in the oil painting. "Huh?" "I remember you saying that you've been sealed in the oil painting for a long time, right?" "Yeah, many, many years. I can't even remember when I was put in here..." "Then how do you know so much about modern things?" Yu Sheng asked with utter seriousness. "You even knew about smart TVs with voice control." He had spotted a hole in Irene's words and actions. Still, it wasn't necessarily a major issue. Many explanations could account for it: perhaps she had learned of the world's changes by observing the dreams of nearby people, or perhaps she had hung in other modern households before arriving in this house. Yu Sheng figured Irene's answer would likely follow such lines. Yet Irene's response was a blank: "...Huh?" The doll in the painting seemed completely bewildered by the question. It looked as though she was realizing it for the first time herself. After staring blankly with wide eyes for quite a while, she slowly turned her head. "I... I don't know why?" "You don't know why?" Yu Sheng looked stunned. "Yeah... I really have been trapped in this painting for a very, very long time. Honestly, it could be decades. But... but I just know what the modern world looks like, even though I have no idea how I know. I..." The doll in the painting stammered, seeming to doubt herself by the end, faltering until she couldn't go on. Yu Sheng stared intently at Irene's expression, searching her face for any hint of deceit. "Then do you remember how you were trapped in this painting in the first place? And what happened before you were sealed inside—do you remember that?" he followed up. "I... I just remember it was a curse," Irene said hesitantly. "This painting is an entity of some sort, too. I was supposed to resolve it, but ended up trapped inside instead. I can't remember the exact details, though. And what happened before I was trapped... before I was trapped..." The doll trailed off, seemingly tangled in fragmented memories of the past. Lost in thought, she searched her mind until, after what felt like an eternity, she whispered as if talking in her sleep, "I am Irene from Alice's Cottage, one of Alice's Dolls..." She raised her head, unease clouding her face. "Yu Sheng, that's all I remember." Yu Sheng frowned deeply. In that instant, countless theories spun through his head. From bizarre to conspiratorial to downright comical—none of them reliable. After all, he had no evidence or clues to unravel the mystery surrounding Irene. Irene looked exceptionally distressed. Clutched tight against her chest, the teddy bear was squeezed completely out of shape. "Is my brain broken?" Yu Sheng crossed off the conspiracy angle in his mind. He glanced up at Irene, adding another ten percent toward the comical direction. "If you can't remember, don't force it. At least don't dwell on it right now," he exhaled softly, shaking his head at Irene. "Maybe being trapped for so long really scrambled your memory and logic a bit." "I-Is that so?" Irene nodded hesitantly, and then seemed genuinely somewhat relieved. Yu Sheng: "..." Wait, how could she feel relieved after hearing that her memory and logic might be messed up? Didn't that just prove her brain really was broken?! Which part of what he just said was supposed to be comforting?! Yu Sheng's head was instantly full of question marks, but truth be told, Irene's reaction did ease many of the doubts that had just cropped up. Honestly, if the doll in the painting had come up with a flawless explanation for her "source of modern knowledge," Yu Sheng might have grown even more suspicious. Instead, that heartfelt "Huh?" of hers made her entire persona feel utterly transparent... With that in mind, he shook his head and casually said as he headed toward the stairs to the second floor, "You watch TV down here. I'm heading up to catch up on sleep." Irene waved her hand. "Sure, go ahead." Yu Sheng left the dining room and went upstairs, yawning as he walked toward his bedroom with all the fatigue accumulated from that nocturnal valley weighing on him. He truly was exhausted and drowsy, and having eaten and drank his fill, sleepiness washed over him even harder. What he needed most right now was a good rest. However, when he reached his bedroom door, he stopped in his tracks involuntarily and looked up toward the end of the hallway. The door once sealed by an unknown force stood silently in his view. The room at the end of the hallway was where he had discovered Irene in the first place. Yu Sheng frowned. Stirred by a sudden impulse, he walked over. Reaching the door, he noticed that the position of the handle had already changed. The hinges and handle had swapped places, resting in the "correct position" he had ultimately discovered that allowed the door to be opened. After a moment's hesitation, he reached out, grasped the handle, and gave it a gentle turn. With a soft click, this door that had once been impossible to open gave way as smoothly as any other room's door. He pushed the door open, and the scene inside greeted his eyes— Simple, ordinary furnishings: against the wall to the left of the door stood a single bed and a nightstand; against the right wall sat a wardrobe, a desk, and a chair. The old floorboards looked somewhat faded, and light-blue wallpaper covered the walls. Above the desk was a window through which bright sunlight poured, filling the entire room with warmth and light. And on the wall directly facing the door, right where Irene's oil painting had once hung, there now hung a mirror. Reflected in the mirror was Yu Sheng's steadily growing astonishment.