The girl in the painting who called herself 'Irene' and Yu Sheng outside the frame stared each other down, and so far they had not established the slightest bit of trust between them.
Yu Sheng had no way at all to confirm whether the words of this 'person in the painting,' who seemed like some kind of cursed object, were true or false. Everything she mentioned—Alice's Cottage and being sealed inside the painting—he was hearing for the first time. And because of that, when Irene said she had no idea why she had appeared in this house, he did not dare believe a single word.
On the other hand, Irene was also sure that this human named Yu Sheng was still itching to set her on fire with his lighter. She kept watching it out of the corner of her eye, alert to every move...
'I think you must have bought the painting yourself and hung it up at home, then turned around and forgot about it...' Irene repeated. 'Doesn't that happen all the time? You humans see something strange and want to collect it, then once you buy it you leave it at home gathering dust...'
Yu Sheng actually felt a little unsure of himself after she said that, because he really could not be sure where all the things in this house had come from—after all, he had only truly been 'here' for two months. Never mind not being familiar with this world; he wasn't even familiar with himself. Who knew what state this house and its owner had been in two months ago?
Could it have been another 'Yu Sheng'?
But those thoughts only flashed through his mind. Facing the crimson eyes of the girl in the painting, Yu Sheng still instinctively shook his head and replied, 'No way—just look at that painting. It's obviously expensive. It doesn't look like something I could afford...'
'Hey, what if it was really cheap!' Irene scooted forward, clutching the teddy bear. 'These days there are plenty of fake vases, fake fans, and fake calligraphy and paintings. Maybe the previous seller bought me wholesale from some fake-antiques dealer at two and a half yuan a jin, along with a bunch of other paintings, or maybe a reseller just didn't know what they had...'
Yu Sheng made a strange face. 'That frame of yours feels like solid old wood when you lift it, and there's gold wire inlaid along the edges...'
Irene thought for a moment. 'Rosewood veneer over a resin fill! Copper-plated iron wire.'
Yu Sheng: '...Then the cost isn't two and a half yuan a jin anymore.'
'Four and a half works too. Can't go any higher—any higher and nobody would really buy it.'
Yu Sheng: '...'
Irene glared at him with her crimson eyes. 'Hey, why'd you go quiet?'
Yu Sheng was squatting in front of Irene's frame when he suddenly felt a little amused, and then he actually laughed out loud. He plopped down onto the floor, and as he laughed he looked up at the ceiling, leaning back until he was nearly lying down—never in his life had he imagined he would end up in a scene like this: squatting in an empty room, arguing about such nonsense with a doll sealed inside an oil painting, all to debate whether the frame that sealed the doll was counterfeit goods wholesaled at two and a half yuan a jin or four or five yuan a jin...
And not long ago, a frog that had spawned in the freezing rain had ripped out his heart.
All of this was just too damn funny.
Irene, however, was spooked by Yu Sheng's sudden outburst of laughter. She and her frame had been taken down from the wall and set on the floor, and now she could see the bare ceiling and hear the laughter coming from beside her. Finally she could not help shouting, 'Hey, stop laughing! What's so funny?'
Yu Sheng slowly stopped laughing. He shuffled forward a little, looked at Irene inside the frame, and his expression suddenly turned serious again. 'That strange dream I had before—was that you?'
He meant the dream where he had hacked at the locked door with an axe and strange laughter had come from behind it. Now it seemed clear that this uncanny dream was connected to the girl in the painting before him.
Oh, right—he had also wrenched his back in the dream. It was still hurting now.
'No!' Irene immediately shook her head, but then stopped, her expression hesitant. 'Well... not entirely no...'
'What do you mean?' Yu Sheng frowned. 'You're talking in circles.'
'That dream was your own, but I did slip into it,' Irene explained patiently. 'At first I only sensed that someone was dreaming, and I thought I could use that method to find someone to help me. I wasn't trying to do anything bad! I didn't know you couldn't open that door, or that you had such a bad temper, hacking at the door with an axe just because you'd forgotten your key...'
Listening to Irene ramble on, Yu Sheng gradually caught on. 'So you didn't lock the door either? And you didn't cause the dream? You just have the ability to enter other people's dreams?'
'Right—and actually, I can do lots more than that!' Irene nodded, her face proud, but the pride quickly dimmed. 'But now that I'm sealed in this painting, that's almost the only ability I have left...'
Yu Sheng was half convinced and half skeptical of Irene's account, and at the same time he now had more doubts and questions about what he had gone through in that strange dream. Then a second question followed. 'You said you wanted to find someone through dreams to help you? Help with what?'
'Help me get out, obviously!' Irene said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 'Getting me out of this painting would be even better, but if that's not possible, at least get me out of this room. It's so empty; there's nothing at all. If only there were a TV on the opposite wall... A voice-controlled one would be even better. Using a remote is a bit inconvenient for me. A brand-name one would be pretty nice...'
Yu Sheng had figured out that this girl in the painting had the classic free-association personality. Left unchecked to ramble on, her train of thought would always wander somewhere utterly unexpected—and it usually headed straight toward getting completely carried away.
So he cut her off without hesitation. 'Then why were you cackling while looking for someone to help? What was with that mocking laughter from inside while I was supposedly opening the door outside?'
'That wasn't me!' Irene waved her hands hastily, then thrust the brown teddy bear in her arms forward. 'It was laughing!'
Yu Sheng said nothing, just looked at her expressionlessly, his eyes clearly asking whether she took him for an idiot.
'It's true!' Irene looked a little frantic and shook the teddy bear hard. 'It was sealed into this painting with me, but maybe it's been too long and its mind doesn't work too well anymore. Now all it does is laugh foolishly. Usually if you poke it, it gives that creepy laugh, but sometimes it suddenly starts laughing on its own even if you don't poke it. It startles me all the time...'
Yu Sheng listened with a straight face as Irene explained so earnestly. After noticing how serious the girl in the painting looked, he gradually began to half believe her. His gaze finally settled on the teddy bear, and after a moment's hesitation he nodded. 'Then make it laugh. Let me hear whether it's the same.'
Irene immediately reached over and poked the teddy bear on the head.
The teddy bear had no reaction.
Irene froze for a moment, then poked the teddy bear's head hard again—still not a sound. She looked about to cry.
'S-sometimes it's like this,' the girl in the painting said with a miserable expression. 'I poke it and it doesn't laugh...'
The corner of Yu Sheng's mouth twitched.
'So, sometimes it laughs even if you don't poke it, and sometimes it doesn't laugh even if you do poke it. In short, whether you poke it or not, it may or may not laugh—' He rattled it off like a tongue twister and reached a conclusion. 'So does whether this bear laughs have anything to do with whether you poke it?'
Irene froze, then nodded belatedly. 'Right... right.'
Yu Sheng was beginning to feel he'd rather not keep dealing with this 'cursed oil painting' that didn't seem quite right in the head.
Besides, he no longer cared about that mocking laughter he had heard in the dream.
His stomach growled. He had come home and gone straight to sleep, missing dinner, and now the dinner he'd missed was making itself felt. Yu Sheng shook his head with a smile and slowly got up.
'Hey, you're leaving?' Seeing this, Irene's voice immediately turned panicky. 'You're not planning to just leave me on the floor, are you? At least hang me back on the wall. There's wallpaper to look at across the way, and there's nothing at all on the ceiling...'
Yu Sheng reached down and lifted Irene's frame from the floor—then grimaced as his back hurt.
'I'm taking you to the living room, so quit yapping,' he said offhandedly.
Irene immediately brightened, settled back into her chair with the teddy bear, and watched Yu Sheng drag her frame toward the door. 'That's good. You're actually pretty nice. Oh, right—isn't it dinnertime now? What are we having tonight?'
Yu Sheng glanced down at her. 'Can you eat?'
'I can watch!'
Yu Sheng felt he'd have to be out of his mind to keep humoring this one.
With a hand pressed to his back, he carried Irene's frame with some difficulty and slowly headed toward the stairs leading to the living room. The whole way, the trash talk from the oil painting never stopped—
'Hey, your house is pretty big. So there's this whole big space outside that room?'
'What's the room across the hall? Your bedroom? Hey, is there anyone else here?'
'Do I need to say hello to anyone else? Will they be scared? Ordinary people don't seem to have seen talking dolls and oil paintings much, right...'
'Oh, right, I haven't asked your name yet! What's your name? Yu Sheng? What a weird name... Not the raw-fish dish yusheng, are you?'
'What's wrong with your back? So young and your back's already ruined? I'm telling you, you have to take care of your back. You humans have such troublesome joints, and they can't just be taken apart, either... Huh? Why are you glaring at me? Your eyes are kind of scary...'
Yu Sheng finally struggled over to the stairs with a hand still pressed to his back and glanced down at the steps below. Normally he wouldn't have thought twice about them, but today, after wrenching his back and carrying an especially heavy framed oil painting, the steps looked especially steep.
At first he had meant to carry Irene's frame downstairs with both arms, but now he suddenly realized his body didn't seem to allow it.
Yu Sheng lowered his head and thought in silence.
The noisy girl in the painting seemed to sense something. Her voice gradually trailed off, and her expression slowly grew tense.
Yu Sheng lowered his eyelids and looked at the girl in the painting who had been chattering away the whole way and whose remarks were getting more and more likely to earn her a smack. 'Irene.'
The girl in the painting flinched. 'Huh... huh?'
'I get the feeling this frame of yours is pretty sturdy.'
'Is... is it?'
Yu Sheng silently set Irene's frame at the top of the stairs.
'It might be a little bumpy. Sit tight.'
Irene finally caught on, her eyes going wide in an instant. 'Hey, wait—'
'Off you go!'
The framed oil painting set off on a great banging, clattering adventure down the stairs.
All the way down came Irene's enthusiastic thanks: 'Yu Sheng, you absolute bastard, I— Aaah! Waah! Aaah! Waah! Oh! Oh! Ah! *&%￥#*—'
Chapter 6