Not only was Irene foul-mouthed, but her piercing screams were loud enough to make a person's head buzz.
Yu Sheng genuinely wondered how she could produce so much volume through an oil painting—could the entire canvas act as a power amplifier?
"Don't ask me how it works. I don't know the principles behind it myself," Yu Sheng said, picking at his ear with one hand while helplessly spreading the other toward Irene. "All I can confirm right now is that I can open 'doors,' and these doors lead to all sorts of places. It could be a foreign domain, or somewhere far away like what you just saw... Though right now, there's no telling whether that was another world, an alien planet, a parallel dimension, or whatever."
He paused for a moment before continuing, "Maybe I should ask around on the other side of the door to get a sense of things? But that female elf didn't seem to be in a very good mood just now..."
Irene sat in a half-dazed stupor. Only after listening to Yu Sheng ramble on at length did she snap out of it. After pondering the matter over and over, she finally spoke: "Then... what about the activation conditions and all that? Like, under what circumstances can you open a door?"
"I'm not too sure yet. It feels like I can do it whenever I want," Yu Sheng mused, explaining truthfully based on his current impressions. "As for the method of opening doors, it seems there are two ways. One is to directly open an ordinary door that already exists in reality. That kind is effortless—sometimes I don't even realize what I've done, and the moment the door swings open, it leads somewhere else. The second way is what you just saw—"
Yu Sheng raised a hand and made a pulling motion in empty air, mimicking opening a door.
"Conjuring a door out of thin air takes considerably more effort. It requires focused concentration, perception, and visualization. If my mind wanders during the process, the door might suddenly vanish. But the upside is that I won't accidentally push open a door and stumble into a foreign domain."
Irene's crimson eyes stared at Yu Sheng's demonstration, her gaze tracking his arm back and forth several times. After holding back for a long while, she broke the silence: "...Are you even human?"
Yu Sheng immediately took offense. "What's that supposed to mean?!"
"At a time like this, do you still have the nerve to say that line? You know, the one you said to me not long ago," Irene muttered, searching her memory before mimicking Yu Sheng's earlier tone and expression. "'—If I'm not human, are you?'"
Straightening her posture, she locked eyes with Yu Sheng.
"Some humans can master supernatural powers, but I've never seen anyone like you."
"Maybe you've seen it before and just forgot," Yu Sheng stubbornly retorted. "It's not like that head of yours is all that reliable."
Irene blinked blankly. "...Is, is that so?"
Now it was Yu Sheng's turn to feel a bit embarrassed. He had only been running his mouth, bantering with the doll out of habit, and hadn't expected her to have such an accurate sense of self-awareness. Her immediate reaction was actually to concede... She just accepted it...
Still, he quickly composed his expression, clearing his throat twice to steer the conversation back on track. "So, looking at it now, falling into that valley back then had nothing to do with this house's bizarre properties. Rather, it was a passage I opened myself the moment I pulled the door. That means as long as I can reproduce what I did back then, I can return to that foreign domain—theoretically, at least."
Turning to serious business, Irene's expression turned solemn as well. "Is this ability controllable?"
"...Semi-controllable, I suppose," Yu Sheng answered with some uncertainty before explaining further. "I can basically control when to open a passage to 'somewhere else' and when to open a normal door. But where exactly it leads is completely impossible to determine. I can't even rule out the possibility of opening a door and falling straight into a volcanic crater. Still... I just confirmed one thing."
Irene asked urgently, "What thing?"
"Passages can indeed be reproduced. Under specific circumstances, opening a door twice can lead to the same place," Yu Sheng said. "Just like that elf you saw—that was already my second time seeing her."
Irene: "...Oh. No wonder she reacted like that just now."
Yu Sheng looked slightly sheepish. "I'm not sure how it happened yet, but I vaguely remember that 'feeling.' I think as long as I practice and experiment a few more times, I should be able to reliably open doors that have connected once before. But the biggest problem right now is... when I entered that valley, I was completely unprepared, and I've mostly forgotten how it felt when I opened that door. That makes reproducing that specific passage very difficult."
"At least you finally have a lead now, don't you?" Irene offered comfort immediately. "Before, I thought your rush to go back and rescue that fox was pure daydreaming, but now it's turned into a feasible plan, right, right?"
Yu Sheng looked at the doll in the oil painting with surprise, his gaze sweeping over her from top to bottom. The scrutiny made her shrink back slightly against her chair. "What are you looking at me for? I told you, a romance between you and a flat paper girl has no—"
Yu Sheng cut her off before she could finish spouting nonsense. "This is the first time I've ever heard anything nice come out of your mouth. I thought you only knew how to talk trash. Never pegged you for someone who knows how to comfort people."
Irene: "..."
Irene's insults were truly foul.
Yet Yu Sheng was in high spirits, to the point where even Irene's swearing sounded like background music to his daily life.
He looked down at his hands, waved them in the air, then got up from the dining table and began pacing in circles around the dining room, looking full of energy.
Seeing this, Irene stopped her colorful stream of obscenities, her eyes following Yu Sheng as he paced. "Don't tell me you're about to start... uh, 'training' right now?"
"Sooner rather than later. Besides, I slept all day, so I'm wide awake right now," Yu Sheng said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "And this kind of practice doesn't take up any space."
"Then take it easy. If you open another door and see that elf again, she might just blast a giant fireball right in your face—and splash blood all over me."
Now that sounded like her usual trash talk.
Yu Sheng waved a hand dismissively, his gaze settling on the adjacent kitchen door.
Conjuring a doorway out of thin air cost extra energy. For practice, using an 'actual door' that consumed almost nothing was naturally far more suitable.
Before that, however, another thought suddenly struck Yu Sheng.
"What did you just say?" He turned back, looking at the painted doll on the dining table.
Irene thought for a second. "...To take it easy? To watch out for that elf blasting a giant fireball at you?"
"I mean the more infuriating line."
The corner of Irene's mouth twitched. "Don't splash blood all over me!"
"Right, exactly that. I want to test that first," Yu Sheng said with a grin. Walking over to the dining table, he picked up a small fruit knife resting on the surface. "My blood."
Irene visibly startled, clutching her teddy bear as she leapt straight up from her chair. "Hey, what are you doing?! I was just making a casual comment, do you really have to pull a knife?! I'm warning you, I'm super easy to push around, you don't need a knife at all! Put that thing down! If you scratch the canvas, I might just rip in half..."
In her panic, the doll babbled a frantic stream of words. Yu Sheng couldn't help but frown. "What are you getting so worked up about? I never said I was going to cut you."
Before the words had even settled, he pressed the blade against his finger—but after a moment's hesitation, he shifted it to the back of his hand. Gritting his teeth and closing his eyes, he sliced down with a squelch.
It didn't even hurt that much.
Irene watched in dumbfounded shock. As Yu Sheng brought his bleeding hand toward her, she scrambled backward repeatedly, crying out as she retreated, "What are you doing?! Wait... you don't actually believe that blood-bonding nonsense from novels, do you? I told you to read fewer of those..."
"First of all, I write novels for a living. I may not be doing great at it, but I take serious issue with you taking issue with novels," Yu Sheng said, shooting a sidelong glance at the terrified doll in the painting. "Second, this has nothing to do with blood-bonding. I just want to test a hypothesis. Back in that valley, Hu Li came into contact with my blood, and afterward, changes occurred in both of us. I want to see if something similar happens to you."
Yu Sheng was referring to how, after coming into contact with his blood, Hu Li had suddenly become capable of sensing his 'death,' and how he had become able to perceive parts of Hu Li's thoughts and memories. Moreover, he suspected that the silver-white demon fox projection appearing in his dream world was also linked to this 'blood connection.'
Irene paused slightly upon hearing Yu Sheng's explanation. Sensing his serious attitude, she gradually calmed down, even if she didn't fully understand what was going on. Though she still looked reluctant—chiefly because she didn't quite trust Yu Sheng's questionable procedure—she adopted a cooperative stance.
Of course, her cooperation was largely due to having nowhere to run. After all, she was sealed inside an oil painting; aside from screaming and ranting, there was nothing else she could do, and Yu Sheng was pretty much used to her loud rants by now...
To be fair, though, Irene was hardly a suitable 'test subject.'
Her 'constitution' was rather peculiar.
Yu Sheng found it hard to tell whether his blood was being applied to Irene herself or to the oil painting serving as her sealing medium. He smeared his blood onto the picture frame, and before the cut could close, squeezed a few droplets onto the canvas. Yet no matter what he did, there was no way for his blood to directly touch the doll's actual body within the painting the way it had with Hu Li.
Irene looked up. It was impossible to know what her perspective from inside the painting was like, but she clearly sensed the contact with the blood.
Yet that was all.
The painting didn't 'absorb' Yu Sheng's blood the way Hu Li had licked it up back then.
"Do you feel anything?" Yu Sheng asked hesitantly after waiting for a good while.
Irene thought it over. "...Warm? But now it's gone cold."
Yu Sheng: "...Then it looks like it didn't work."
Chapter 32