Chapter 7: Irene’s Plan to Escape

Irene’s curses were downright harsh. Yu Sheng couldn’t fathom how a puppet sealed inside an oil painting could possess such a vast vocabulary—let alone curse fluently while sliding all the way down the stairs without even pausing for breath.

It was probably because, as a puppet, she didn’t actually need to breathe.

Still, Yu Sheng remained calm. After Irene slid down the stairs and landed on the floor, she kept cursing, but he paid no mind. He leisurely descended the stairs, holding onto the railing—mainly because his back hurt and he couldn’t move quickly. Once he reached the first floor, he bent down with effort and lifted the frame holding Irene’s portrait.

“Are you crazy?” Irene glared at him from inside the painting, clutching a plush bear, her clothes and hair all disheveled. “Who just throws someone down the stairs like that? What if the painting got damaged?”

“My back hurts, and your painting’s too heavy for me to carry downstairs otherwise,” Yu Sheng said nonchalantly as he slowly made his way toward the dining room. “I checked—the frame is very sturdy. Maybe if it did break, you’d finally be free.”

“If it were that easy to get out, do you think I’d still be sealed in here?” Irene snapped, sitting back down in her chair. “Ugh, my head feels all dizzy…”

Yu Sheng suddenly stopped and looked down seriously at the girl within the painting.

Irene felt a chill under his gaze. “What… what are you trying to do now? Listen, if you throw me down the stairs again, I won’t let you off. I’ll sneak into your dreams every night while you sleep. Dreaming of an exam? I’ll ring a bell. Dreaming of playing games? I’ll pull the plug. Dreaming of going out? I’ll chase you in a dump truck. Dreaming of dating? I…”

How did this unlucky puppet have so much trash talk?

Yu Sheng bit back the urge to drag her upstairs and throw her down again. Keeping a straight face, he made himself sound serious. “I just want to ask, what exactly is the principle behind your ‘seal’? You mentioned needing help to break free… so how exactly could someone help you escape?”

Irene hadn’t expected this question and froze for a few seconds before, with some disbelief, she said, “You… you’re willing to help me get out of here?!”

“I thought you said you wanted to find someone to help you break free?” Yu Sheng frowned, then quickly added, “I’m just asking first. I haven’t promised anything yet…”

But Irene seemed not to hear the last part. She hurriedly said, “There are three… no, two ways! The best is to find my original body. I don’t know where it is now, but it must be somewhere… maybe not far from this painting. If I find my body, everything becomes easy. If I get close to it, I can leave this damn painting…”

“But if it can’t be found, or if my original body has been destroyed, then there’s the second way: make a new one. But a new body definitely won’t be as good as the original, and it might take some time to adjust…”

Yu Sheng listened attentively and couldn’t help but interrupt, “Make a new one? How? Can’t I just buy a ready-made puppet from a store?”

“Of course not!” Irene said immediately. “I’m an ‘Alice Puppet’! We’re blessed living puppets, understand? We can’t be compared to those three-part or four-part dolls you find in stores.”

She paused for a moment, then continued with a more serious tone, “Living puppets are born from the garden of the Alice Cottage, and our original bodies come from there as well. But now, I’ve lost contact with the garden and can’t leave the painting, so I can’t return there to be reborn. Even without the garden, we have a way to create temporary bodies in this world as a backup… but even those temporary bodies aren’t easy to make.”

“First, you need to find hair that grows automatically, soil that writhes like a living thing, broken bones that can heal, and a drop of a living puppet’s tear—two drops are better, so my skin turns out nicer—then you use alchemy to reactivate these materials, and smear your own blood on them… Hey, why are you making that face?”

Yu Sheng stared blankly at the girl in the painting, then sighed after a long pause. “Maybe we should just talk about finding your original body instead?”

Irene blinked. “You… don’t know alchemy?”

“Isn’t that something everyone knows?!” Yu Sheng looked a bit exasperated. “Forget alchemy—where am I supposed to find all those ridiculous materials you just mentioned? Did you copy that from some third-rate fantasy magazine? And tears from a living puppet… If I could find another living puppet, I’d just hand you and the painting to her so she could take you home! Wouldn’t that be better than me stumbling around blindly?”

Yu Sheng figured he hadn’t been in this “world” long enough to fully understand the strange shadows or the extraordinary realms behind them, but from everything he’d seen so far, none of the materials Irene mentioned were things ordinary people could get their hands on. How did she just say that stuff so matter-of-factly?

Seeing Yu Sheng’s reaction, Irene’s expression turned a bit awkward. She shifted slightly in her chair, lowered her voice, and said cautiously, “Actually, other materials could work too. Like buying some clay, paint, and wigs online…”

Yu Sheng gave her a look that said, “Are you kidding me?”

Irene shrank back a little in her chair. “I just want the temporary body to work as well as possible… But if I can’t get the fancy materials, a plain one will do.”

“Even with ordinary materials, the last step still needs your blood and a bit of alchemy skill. I can teach you—that part’s easy. Anyone can learn it…”

Yu Sheng didn’t respond at once. He was silent, lost in thought. After a few seconds, he asked suddenly, “You said at first there were three ways. Why didn’t you mention the third?”

“That one’s not so good—it comes with a cost,” Irene waved her hand, looking honest. “You probably wouldn’t agree, and I don’t want you to try it, since we don’t really know each other…”

“Knowing we don’t know each other, stop wasting time.” Yu Sheng said casually, glaring at the girl in the painting.

Irene pursed her lips and looked at him with some hesitation—now she knew what hesitation meant—and asked carefully, “So… will you help me get out? The second way is actually pretty easy. You could just roughly shape a body, even if the craftsmanship is poor. As long as the ritual’s right, I can reshape it after I enter… Just don’t make it too ugly—it should at least look human.”

This time, Yu Sheng didn’t argue back. He thought seriously for nearly half a minute before replying solemnly, “I can’t promise now. I need to think it over.”

He didn’t trust the girl in the painting—not completely, at least.

Though she seemed honest and sincere, a bit talkative but basically good-natured, with a distinct and harmless personality, all of that was just a surface impression formed in barely a day. Beneath those “humanized” traits, Irene’s true nature was that of a strange entity sealed inside an oil painting.

Yu Sheng wasn’t about to be fooled by her cute appearance into immediately making a body to set this “painting ghost” free—what if she changed into something terrifying once out and swiftly ended him beneath her Gothic skirt…

Yu Sheng had died not long ago and wasn’t eager to die again just yet.

After he gave his answer, Irene said nothing more. She just stared at him quietly for a moment before nodding naturally. “Okay, I understand.”

Yu Sheng was surprised—he thought they’d be arguing about this for a long time, but she was unexpectedly… generous.

“Besides, we’re not that close yet, right?” As if sensing his doubt, Irene suddenly smiled and winked outside the painting. “Once we get to know each other better, I’ll ask again.”

“…Alright, we’ll talk later.”

Yu Sheng smiled too, then carried Irene’s painting frame over to the dining room and carefully placed it upright on the table against the wall before turning toward the kitchen.

“I haven’t eaten dinner yet; I’ll go cook first.”

“Okay… Hey, can you turn on the TV across from the table? I want to watch for a bit…”

“You’re really demanding.”

Yu Sheng switched on the TV across from the dining table, then picked up the vegetables and seasonings he’d bought from the supermarket earlier and began preparing his dinner.

He actually loved cooking. Since arriving in this familiar yet strange “Border City,” he’d made it a habit to cook every meal at home to feel at ease—after all, only inside this big house was he free from those eerie shadows that haunted the outside.

He didn’t mind encountering thin, ghostly figures while traveling outside, but not while cooking or eating—those were too important in his life.

…Though now, even this “safe house” had gained a strange new presence: Irene, the unlucky puppet who babbled inside the oil painting.

Still, compared to those ghosts roaming the city streets, the freezing rain, and the frogs, a puppet who could only nag inside a painting was definitely much more endearing—at least she wouldn’t rip out his heart.