Chapter 25: Fox in Dream
Erin's reaction didn't seem fake.
In fact, Yu Sheng has been in contact with this doll until now, and he has never found that this guy has ever been insincere. Her every word and action reveals such a clear sincerity, as if she has a solid heart inside - either her acting skills are really great, or she really has a solid heart inside.
Yu Sheng cautiously maintained the first guess, but was more inclined to the second possibility.
Then, he described to Irene the appearance of the dead doll and the posture of the huge "shadow monster" that seemed to have died together with the doll, but the answer he got was still "I don't know".
Yu Sheng frowned and fell into deep thought.
Irene couldn't help but become curious: "Hey, why are you asking me all of a sudden? Didn't you go upstairs to sleep?"
Yu Sheng hesitated for a moment, but finally decided to tell the doll in front of him about the changes in the room - this did not involve his secrets, and might also be related to Irene herself. Telling it out loud might help solve the mystery.
"Something happened in the room upstairs..."
Yu Sheng told Irene everything he had seen when he went upstairs. Irene, for once, did not say a word the entire time. She just listened with her eyes wide open. After she finished listening, she was stunned for a long time before she finally came to her senses and stretched out her voice: "Wow—"
Yu Sheng suddenly felt that even if he talked to this guy, he would not be able to solve the mystery.
"It seems like you don't know what's going on either," Yu Sheng sighed, "You must have never seen that mirror, right?"
"I haven't seen it, so I don't know," Irene nodded confidently, and then added, "But I think your house is getting weirder and weirder."
"You don't need to tell me. I feel the same way," Yu Sheng sighed after hearing this. "You never know where you'll end up when you open the door. The furnishings in a room will suddenly change. The mirror will reflect the scenery of who knows when and where. I always thought this place was a good place to live. Sigh..."
Irene stared at the expression on Yu Sheng's face with her scarlet eyes wide open. After listening to his mumbling, she hesitated for a moment: "So... are you planning to move to a new house? Not living here anymore?"
Yu Sheng didn't say anything for a while, but he had to admit that he had indeed thought about this matter.
After all, he could tolerate the occasional haunted mirror, furniture of unknown origin, suspicious electrical appliances, or a girl sealed in an oil painting in the house. As long as he was not afraid of death, he might just take it as adding some fun to his life. But the fact that he might fall into some foreign land as soon as he pushed the door open was really a trouble. It was not something that could be tolerated.
For Sheng, the most terrible thing about entering a foreign land is not the risk of death, but the uncertainty of being able to come back. Just this point alone made him want to move to another place.
Seeing that Yu Sheng had been silent for a while, Ai Lin continued to speak on her own: "If you like a house, please tell me first. Find a way to get me into their community, and I will lower their price for you..."
Yu Sheng was stunned when he heard this: "I was just joking at the time... Don't you think this is an insult to the Puppet Master and your sisters now?"
"I just thought about it carefully, and I feel that the process you mentioned makes sense," Irene said seriously, "and I helped you get the house price down, so this can at least be considered a favor for living in your house, right?"
Yu Sheng suddenly realized that this guy seemed to be just worried that he would leave her here if he moved away suddenly.
But he didn't point it out, just shook his head: "Let's not talk about this for now, I just have some ideas, but I don't plan to move for the time being - don't worry, if I really move, I will take you with me, a painting doesn't take up much space."
"Oh, that's fine!" Irene suddenly became happy.
But soon, a little sadness appeared on her face again: "That...the dead doll you saw in the mirror, did she close her eyes?"
"...It seems not," Yu Sheng recalled, "Why do you ask this?"
Irene opened her mouth and looked a little sad: "After the living doll is broken, if the eyes are closed, it means that the soul has returned to the garden of Alice's cottage, and we will be reborn there, but if the eyes are still open... then she is still 'there'."
Yu Sheng was stunned, and suddenly he regretted giving an answer without thinking. He should have asked first.
"We don't know what is reflected in the mirror," he said softly after a moment's silence, "but since she appears in the mirror, maybe she is connected to this house. We may find her one day in the future. As for now, don't think too much about it. You are still trapped here."
"Well, that's true," Irene sighed, "Sometimes sisters go out and lose contact... We always meet each other, yes, we will meet each other."
Yu Sheng suddenly felt that this doll was not as heartless as he had imagined.
Then he talked to Irene for a while before going back to the second floor.
He checked the situation of the room at the end of the corridor again, and confirmed that it was still the same as he had just seen. He ignored it and turned into his bedroom.
Drawing the curtains and lying on the bed, Yu Sheng tossed and turned for a long time. He was sleepy and tired, but his mind was in a mess and he couldn't fall asleep. All kinds of thoughts and recent experiences were running through his mind like turbulent currents - Irene's affairs, the valley in the night, the exotic knowledge, the fox girl who tried to stay rational until the last moment and told him to run fast, and... his own resurrection.
After tossing and turning for an unknown amount of time, Yu Sheng gradually fell into a deep sleep.
He felt as if his consciousness was slowly submerged in a gentle and chaotic pool of water. Even when he fell asleep, the chaotic "turbulence" was still surrounding him. He looked at his own memories and fragments of thoughts through a layer of chaotic mist, and heard many hazy voices in his ears, until his consciousness hit the bottom of the "pool water" and the surroundings gradually fell into silence.
Yu Sheng was wandering in his dream, wandering in the dim skylight. He saw himself walking in the wilderness, and there seemed to be a small hill in the distance.
He felt like he had been wandering around this hill for a long, long time, without a purpose and without knowing who he was.
But a strange look in the corner of his eyes suddenly made him stop.
In the dark and chaotic sky and earth, Yu Sheng saw a bright color. He subconsciously walked towards the silver-white color. Then, his eyes flashed and he came directly in front of the silver-white color.
He saw a silver-white fox - two or three meters tall when lying down - sleeping quietly in the wilderness.
Beautiful, elegant, peaceful.
A breeze blew from afar, blowing the thin wild grass and the silver-white fur on the fox's body. She showed no signs of waking up, but just curled up quietly. Many thick tails curled around from behind her, some were held in her arms, and some covered her body like a quilt.
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Yu Sheng looked at the fox that appeared in his dream in astonishment - he didn't know since when he had clearly realized that he was dreaming.
After hesitating for a while, he took two steps forward and tentatively touched the big fox's front paw: "...Hu Li, is that you?"
The white fox was still sleeping, and did not respond to Sheng's touch or call.
Yu Sheng called out to her several times and even tried to pull her tail, but he failed to wake Hu Li up.
It felt as if she was not only sleeping, but also her perception was blocked by something.
Yu Sheng frowned and took two steps back.
Why did this fox appear in his dream? He admitted that before he fell asleep, his mind was full of random thoughts, and he did think of this fox trapped in a foreign land, but this situation was obviously not the usual "thinking about something during the day and dreaming about it at night", he could feel that the fox was really "here".
While thinking, Yu Sheng suddenly felt something in his heart. He sensed something and immediately looked down at his right hand.
A tiny drop of blood oozed out from his finger, and a circle of faint teeth marks could be seen around the drop of blood.
That was exactly when he was trying to snatch the chocolate back from Hu Li's hand. The other party's protective instinct took over and he bit it out.
Yu Sheng stared at the scene intently, and suddenly recalled the time in the valley when he suddenly "saw" Hu Li's memory fragments and sensed some of his thoughts.
"Because of the blood?"
He suddenly realized something and guessed that the other person's appearance here might be related to her accidentally "eating" his blood.
But then he began to wonder again—the frog in the rain and the abstract flesh-and-blood monster also ate his blood, so why didn’t they appear here? The flesh-and-blood monster had eaten several meals, much more than the fox…
Just as Yu Sheng's thoughts were gradually starting to run in a strange direction, he suddenly felt something, and then he heard a low, mocking chuckle suddenly coming from the bushes behind him.
Sounds a bit familiar.
Yu Sheng suddenly turned around to look in the direction of the sound. The next second, he heard Irene's angry complaint from the bushes: "I told you not to be happy, don't be happy, can't you just hold it in? Look, you've been discovered..."
Yu Sheng looked expressionlessly at the painting frame stuck in the bushes, and at Irene in the frame, who was holding a teddy bear and smiling silly at him in an attempt to get away with it.
"Watching TV is boring, so I'll just watch you dream..."
(End of this chapter)
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