Chapter 26: Eileen’s Capability

Page (1/3)

Aileen possessed the ability to burrow into other people’s dreams—and according to her, she could do more than simply enter them. To a certain extent, she could influence the course of a dream as well, doing things like pressing the end-of-exam bell in a dream to summon a dump truck.

Honestly, if used properly, it seemed like an incredibly powerful skill. Perhaps she could even perform advanced operations such as psychological suggestion, mental parasitism, or memory reconstruction.

But Yusheng was deeply skeptical about how much of this puppet’s boasting could actually be trusted. So far, she had proved utterly useless even inside a dream. She could not even hide properly in a patch of grass.

And even in the dream world, she was still trapped inside that oil painting.

Aileen’s oil painting floated before Yusheng. The puppet girl inside the frame looked somewhat awkward, while Yusheng found her current state increasingly strange the longer he looked at her. Floating in midair was somehow even worse than being hung on a wall.

“So you can only stay inside the painting even in a dream?” Yusheng finally asked, tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I thought that once we entered the realm of the mind, you might at least be able to come out and run around…”

“That’s why it’s called a curse,” Aileen said helplessly. “I’m trapped inside the painting in the real world, and it’s the same in the mental world. No matter where I go, I can’t leave this painting unless I find a suitable vessel. Freedom? There isn’t even any of that in dreams.”

“That really is pretty miserable,” Yusheng said sincerely.

“But dreams are still a little different from reality!” Perhaps feeling that her dignity had taken a hit, Aileen hurried to defend herself when she saw his sympathetic reaction. “I’m somewhat freer here than in the real world. Look, I can even float around… Don’t laugh! There’s—there’s more than that!”

Yusheng raised an eyebrow, genuinely curious. “More than that?”

Aileen thought for a moment, then struck a pose like a character powering up in The King of Fighters ’98. She began straining dramatically inside the painting, clearly preparing to activate some kind of ability. Even Yusheng was fooled for a moment and instinctively focused on the puppet’s transformation.

Then, in the next instant, a psychedelic layer of light began to ripple across the surface of the oil painting.

As Yusheng’s eyes gradually widened, the painting finally went bang—

—and transformed into an eighties-style poster.

Aileen had changed into the color palette of an old film and now stood inside the poster, staring wide-eyed at Yusheng.

Aileen said, “I can change the art style.”

Yusheng said nothing.

“You laughed out loud!”

Yusheng struggled to keep his face straight. “I did not.”

“Your inner voice did!”

Yusheng had no desire to continue dealing with the puppet. The enormous fox was still lying nearby, and he had yet to figure out what was going on with her.

Aileen was instantly hurt. Seeing that Yusheng was ignoring her, she floated off to the side and began muttering to herself. “I can turn into other things too, you know. Engravings, scrolls, and so on… I’m still researching how to become a relief sculpture. Then I’ll have some depth, and you won’t be able to say my character is shallow anymore…”

Yusheng could no longer tolerate her muttering. He abruptly turned his head toward her. “First, when did I ever say your character was shallow? Second, that isn’t even how the expression is used. By the same logic, turning into marble wouldn’t make your character any deeper.”

Aileen opened her mouth to say something, but before she could speak, she went bang and reverted to the form of an oil painting. Her transformation had timed out, lasting less than three minutes in total.

Yusheng was left utterly dumbfounded. He knew the puppet was useless even in dreams, but he had never imagined she could be this useless…

Aileen, however, did not seem disappointed this time. She had finally noticed the white fox lying in the grass nearby—or rather, she had finally realized that the enormous fox seemed strangely out of place amid the surrounding dreamscape. Her curiosity shifted her attention at once.

“Speaking of which, what’s up with this fox? Why is her color different from everything around her?”

Noticing the puzzled look on Yusheng’s face, she added, “Things in an ordinary person’s dreams generally share a consistent color palette. Even if the dreamer doesn’t notice it themselves, I can see it when I’m observing from the outside. Take your dream, for example. The sky and the grass are both gray and hazy. That’s the ‘base palette’ of your dream. But this fox… she looks like she wandered onto the wrong film set.”

She paused, then eyed Yusheng suspiciously. “How did something this strange appear in your dream?”

Yusheng was silent for a moment. Then he turned and looked at the sleeping white fox.

“Her name is Huli,” he said slowly.

“I know. She’s obviously a fox…”

“I mean her name is Huli,” Yusheng corrected her helplessly. Then he reminded her, “Remember when I was trapped in that ‘Otherworld’ before? I told you about a fox I met—a white-furred, red-eyed one with a whole bunch of tails…”

Aileen stared blankly for a moment. Her rather unreliable memory finally began to function, and she recalled what Yusheng had told her before.

Her expression became wonderfully animated. She widened her eyes at the enormous demon fox and opened her mouth several times before finally managing to sputter, “What?! How did you drag her into your dream…? No, wait. How are you capable of imprisoning someone…”

“I didn’t drag her here, and I don’t think she’s really been ‘imprisoned’ here either. This is probably something like a shadow, but I can’t say for sure,” Yusheng explained. “I saw her not long after I fell asleep, but I haven’t been able to wake her no matter what I do.”

Aileen glanced at Yusheng, then turned to look at the demon fox. Her gaze moved back and forth between the two of them several times, as though she were trying to sort out the logic behind what was happening. Clearly, that was no easy task.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this…” she murmured in astonishment. Then she suddenly turned her frame around and stared fixedly into Yusheng’s eyes. “Are you really human?”

Yusheng immediately frowned. “What kind of question is that? If I’m not human, then what are you?”

Aileen continued staring at him, an unprecedented seriousness settling over her face.

“Let’s see. A human being. An ordinary person. Someone who has lived in the Otherworld for a long time without realizing it, then wandered into another Otherworld and encountered a hostile entity. He not only came back alive, but also cut off a ‘local specialty’ from that entity, stir-fried it, and ate it. Afterward, he continued leaping around full of energy. And now he can store another consciousness inside his own dream—even though the original body of that consciousness is trapped somewhere else.

“All these absurd things happened to you, and then you tell me—you’re human? An ordinary human?”

Under the scrutiny of Aileen’s crimson eyes, Yusheng gradually began to feel uncomfortable. He instinctively looked away, thinking that she had left out one more thing: resurrection from the dead. Compared with that final incident, everything she had listed earlier barely counted as absurd at all…

“It’s true that a lot of strange things have happened. I’m a little confused myself. But if we’re putting it that way, you’re one of the ‘strange things’ that happened to me recently,” Yusheng said helplessly. “Stop looking at me. I don’t know what’s going on either. Huli won’t wake up no matter what I do. If I could wake her, maybe I could ask her about it.”

Aileen stared at Yusheng for a while longer, apparently confirming that he was not joking. Only then did she slowly withdraw her gaze and turn her attention back to the silver-white demon fox.

She thought for a long time.

“I have an idea.”

Page (2/3)

“Idea?” Yusheng asked curiously. “What is it?”

“I could try burrowing into this fox’s dream. If she happens to be dreaming right now…” Aileen raised a hand toward the demon fox. “Her current state looks a lot like a mental lockdown. But no matter how well a mind is sealed, dreams are difficult to defend. I might be able to ‘see’ something. And if I could wake her up while I’m at it, that would be even better.”

Yusheng was genuinely surprised. He had just been lamenting how unreliable the puppet was, yet now she had suddenly proposed such an advanced plan. He could not hide his astonishment.

“You can do that?”

“It won’t be difficult, as long as she’s dreaming… Even if she isn’t, the two of your minds are clearly connected right now. I can still find a way to ‘squeeze’ over and take a look. But… it’s a little risky, and I’ll need your help.”

Yusheng’s expression instantly became serious. “No problem. Tell me what I need to do.”

“Since we’ll be jumping between minds, it’ll be like ‘deep diving’ in unstable waters. If the ‘connection’ breaks somewhere along the way, I could end up trapped on the ‘other side,’” Aileen said, looking intently at Yusheng. “So I need a ‘rope,’ and you’re going to be that rope.

“You’ll have to ‘dive’ with me. From your own dream, we’ll continue sinking downward, plunging into the depths of this enormous fox’s mind. You’ll need to share some of the pressure with me so that I can spare enough attention to find our way. And if something really does go wrong during the process… I’ll wake you by somewhat more forceful means.

“Your awakening has the highest priority in this chain of dreams. It will drag my consciousness back along with yours, so the two of us should be able to return safely to the real world. But I should warn you first: my method of waking you may not be particularly pleasant.”

“How unpleasant are we talking?”

“…Imagine dreaming that you’re taking the college entrance exam, only the collection bell rings before you’ve had a chance to write your name. Then, before you can figure out what’s happening, a dump truck crashes into the examination hall and turns you and the person who left the deepest impression on you back in high school into paper dolls—ones with especially shallow characters…”

Yusheng could not make heads or tails of what Aileen was trying to say with that bizarre metaphor.

Still, he figured it could not be that serious. It was only waking up. No matter how unpleasant it was, could it really be worse than dying?

Compared with that small hesitation, he was far more concerned with finding out what was happening to Huli and what exactly his dream was.

“No problem. Let’s begin.” Yusheng drew a light breath and nodded solemnly at Aileen. “What’s the first step?”

“Go over to the big fox and get as close as possible… Lie directly on her tail.

“Then hold my frame, close your eyes, and we’ll jump from within the dream.”

Page (3/3)