Chapter 43 – Eileen’s Plan

Eileen truly possessed many remarkable abilities — this was something Yu Sheng had experienced deeply when he followed the little doll down into Hu Li’s dream — but it had to be said, this wretched doll was so useless in so many everyday situations that people couldn’t help but overlook that fact, intentionally or not.

“So there’s only one thing left to deal with — the most critical part,” Yu Sheng said, sitting on the sofa with a grave expression, looking at the little doll beside him. “We need to find a way to recreate that door to the Otherworld valley.”

“Are you still planning on brute force?” Eileen asked curiously. “Trying out each ‘frequency’ you think is close, one by one?”

Yu Sheng let out a sigh. “That’s all I can do. After all, the first time I entered the valley I hadn’t truly mastered the ‘Door Opening’ technique yet, and I overlooked too many details back then.”

Eileen turned her head to look at Yu Sheng. The little doll seemed to be thinking hard, and after a moment she hesitated before speaking. “Actually… I have an idea.”

Yu Sheng immediately leaned forward. “Oh? You have a way?!”

“It’s not necessarily going to work, because I don’t understand how your ‘Door Opening’ works either, and I don’t know what you mean by ‘frequency,'” Eileen shuffled around on the sofa cushion to face him. “But based on my understanding, what you actually need is some kind of ‘characteristic’ that can help you ‘lock onto’ a destination? Or some sort of navigation signal?”

“…That’s roughly how you could put it?” Yu Sheng himself felt a little uncertain. “Honestly, I haven’t fully figured it out myself — the whole process was something I stumbled through on my own, and a lot of it was done by ‘feel.’ But your ‘navigation signal’ description is actually pretty apt. The moment I open a door, the destination on the other side is completely random, but if I can accurately ‘remember’ some kind of ‘characteristic’ of what’s on the other side, the passage collapses into a single fixed destination. Something like that.”

“So in other words, if we could leave a navigation point on Hu Li’s side, you could directly recreate the passage?”

“Probably,” Yu Sheng nodded, but then looked puzzled. “But where would we get a navigation point like that? The whole problem is that we can’t find the way to the valley — if we could already leave a navigation point over there, we wouldn’t be in this predicament…”

“What about through a dream?” Eileen suddenly said.

Yu Sheng was taken aback, and then vaguely understood what the doll meant.

Eileen continued to explain in detail. “Last time when I sank into Hu Li’s dream with you, I already established a faint connection with her. If that connection deepens further, I might be able to link to her senses — and then I could bring you along. At that point, you could directly touch the aura of that valley through Hu Li’s perception. Wouldn’t that be equivalent to establishing a ‘navigation point’?”

Yu Sheng listened to Eileen’s plan with a stunned expression, and the more he heard, the more he felt that this doll’s wildly imaginative idea… might actually be workable?

“There are two difficulties in this process,” Eileen continued. “First, it requires Hu Li’s own cooperation — she has to be willing to open her mind to you. But that shouldn’t be a big problem; just explain it clearly to her. She should trust you. The second difficulty is a bit… dangerous.”

Yu Sheng didn’t interrupt, only signaling with his eyes for Eileen to keep going.

“The second difficulty is that Hu Li’s mind is no longer hers alone,” Eileen’s expression grew slightly more serious as she looked into Yu Sheng’s eyes. “Entity-Hunger has already penetrated deep into the foundations of her psyche. So the moment you establish a deep connection with Hu Li, it would be the same as establishing that same connection with Entity-Hunger… I’m not sure what might happen then. In theory, you should be able to withstand short-term contact, but what I’m worried about is that Hunger’s power could take root in the depths of your heart. When you actually enter the valley to confront that monster, that rooted influence could erupt at any moment…”

Yu Sheng sank into deep thought.

Eileen glanced at him and noticed he’d gone quiet. Her eyes darted around and she immediately caught on. She jumped up from the sofa and stood with her hands on her hips — though she was still shorter than Yu Sheng sitting down. “Don’t even think about dying first to see if that clears out the influence! I’m telling you, that tendency of yours is very dangerous. What if you die and come back and still can’t shake it off — then you’d really be in for it…”

Yu Sheng shifted his sitting position on the sofa with a slightly embarrassed expression. “I didn’t even say anything…”

“I can tell just by looking at you!”

Yu Sheng: “…”

This doll’s brain usually wasn’t all that sharp — so why was her intuition so keen right now of all times?!

“Alright, alright, I get it — in any situation, push the idea of ‘dying’ to the very back,” Yu Sheng was unnerved by Eileen’s pair of crimson eyes staring at him and could only surrender with a wave of his hand, then forcibly steered the conversation back on track. “But I’ve still decided to try your plan. The risk of direct contact with Entity-Hunger is real, but I think… it’s worth the gamble.”

Eileen’s crimson eyes continued to stare at Yu Sheng. After several more seconds, she finally spoke. “Fine. It looks like you really do want to save that fox. Her situation can’t be dragged out any longer either. So let’s go with this plan.”

But just then, Yu Sheng suddenly thought of something else. “There’s still one more problem, though.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t necessarily dream about the dream where Hu Li is,” Yu Sheng spread his hands. “Last night I didn’t even dream at all — I have no idea how to control my own dreams.”

Hearing this, Eileen actually laughed, her smile carrying a smug and boastful air.

“I can,” the little doll said triumphantly, arms crossed over her chest as she stood on the sofa — all 66.6 centimeters of her. “You just go ahead and dream. Leave the rest to me. I’m telling you, ever since I broke free from the restraints of that painting, I’ve become frighteningly powerful. Even I’m a little sca…”

Before she could finish, Yu Sheng shifted his position on the sofa. The cushion deformed beneath him, and Eileen, who had been standing right at the edge of the cushion, stumbled and let out an “Ah!” — then toppled right off the sofa. The frame of the oil painting on her back caught between the sofa and the coffee table, leaving her dangling beneath the frame.

The doll hung beneath the frame, flailing her limbs like she was about to fly up and bite someone.

The things she was saying were quite unpleasant to hear.

Yu Sheng reached out and lifted the frame up. “Looks like your restraints are still pretty severe.”

“You think it’s funny… you laugh again and I won’t help you!” Eileen’s arms were wedged between the straps on the back of the frame, dangling like a cross as Yu Sheng lifted it. “Put me down! Put me… ow ow, my arm — the joint in my arm is stuck! Fix it for me…”

Yu Sheng looked at Eileen wordlessly, casually detached her from the frame, and began patiently resetting her stuck joint while enduring the doll’s noisy fussing.

Late at night, Yu Sheng had made all his preparations to go to sleep. Eileen, however, was still running back and forth on his bed like a small rocket zooming every which way.

“Can’t you be quiet for a bit at a time like this?” Yu Sheng lay on the bed watching Eileen bounce around next to him, his face full of exasperation. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“Your bed is so big!” Eileen ran cheerfully toward the head of the bed, then bounced onto the bedside table and grabbed the lamp on it, shaking it back and forth, seemingly not hearing a word Yu Sheng had said. “Hey hey, this lamp is shorter than me! Yu Sheng, look! This lamp is shorter than me!”

“Next time I’ll buy an even smaller nightlight, shorter than you!” Yu Sheng rolled his eyes in annoyance, reached out and plucked Eileen off his lamp. “Have you forgotten what you’re supposed to be doing? Keep this up and I’ll lock you in the wardrobe!”

Only then did Eileen finally quiet down, laughing sheepishly. “I’m just a little excited… okay okay okay, you sleep, you sleep, I won’t cause trouble anymore.”

Yu Sheng, exhausted in body and spirit, let out a sigh and set Eileen down. “Go help me turn off the light.”

The doll said righteously: “Can’t reach it!”

“…Then drag a chair over!”

“Oh.”

The world finally fell quiet.

Yu Sheng let out a long breath, savoring this brief moment of peace in the now-darkened bedroom, and began to steady himself, attempting to fall asleep.

Then he turned his head — and saw two blood-red, glowing eyes staring at him from the darkness beside the bed.

Eileen was hanging off the edge of the bed like a koala, gripping the mattress, staring straight at Yu Sheng.

“…I really can’t fall asleep with you doing that,” Yu Sheng said helplessly. “Also, why do you have to come to my room in the first place? Weren’t you able to enter my dreams from downstairs before? Was it necessary to follow me up here?”

“Better signal when I’m closer.”

The doll said it so matter-of-factly it sounded like pure nonsense — and yet somehow completely convincing.

But she at least understood what Yu Sheng meant, and finally hopped down from the edge of the bed and went to sit down on the chair nearby.

Yu Sheng let out another sigh.

He knew Eileen was still watching him. He had no idea what was going on inside that doll’s head — if she even had one — but by the looks of it, there was no chasing her away tonight.

He could only try his best to ignore the crimson gaze coming from the darkness, clear his mind as much as possible, and coax himself toward sleep.

He didn’t know how long he tossed and turned on the bed — perhaps an hour, perhaps longer.

When exhaustion accumulated to its peak, he finally drifted, groggily, into a dim and misty darkness.

The dream descended, and from within the thin mist of the dreamworld came Eileen’s soft, quiet voice: “You’re finally asleep… come on, this way.”

Yu Sheng instinctively turned toward the direction the voice came from, and in the next instant the mist cleared away, and light and shadow emerged from the darkness.

He really did see that dim and desolate wilderness once more — a gloomy sky hanging over the land, nameless low hills in the distance, and the silver-white fox spirit still slumbering in the open wilds.

Yu Sheng walked forward, and then immediately noticed the “guide” floating beside him.

It was Eileen, who was guiding his dream.

Yu Sheng stopped in his tracks, looking at the oil painting floating in the air with a slightly strange expression.

The Eileen inside the painting stared back at him.

Yu Sheng: “…Why do I get the feeling that the painting is actually your true form!”

Eileen looked down at herself, then looked around, and finally — belatedly — caught on.

“How did I end up inside the painting again?!”