Chapter 21 – Stranger the First Time, Old Friends the Second

In truth, ever since he had learned that something as dangerous and widespread as the “Otherworld” existed in this world, and that this massive “Boundary City” was a special place known as the “Borderland,” Yu Sheng had already surmised that there must be people who dealt specifically with such phenomena — not lone wolves fighting on their own (though those certainly existed too), but organized groups, perhaps even professional and institutionalized ones.

Official ones would exist, and there might be civilian ones as well.

But as Eileen had said, under normal circumstances, these people would not make contact with ordinary people.

The Otherworld lay beyond common sense, at the farthest edge of reason — it was the countless small and dangerous holes riddling the mountain of seemingly stable reality. Ordinary people might go their entire lives without ever brushing against the sights hidden deep within those holes, but the unlucky ones who happened to catch a glimpse of the flickering light leaking out from them could never turn back.

This was the “knowledge” Eileen had told him from the very beginning. From those descriptions alone, Yu Sheng could judge that those who dealt specifically with the Otherworld would certainly find ways to prevent ordinary people from accessing any intelligence related to it — including their own existence.

But if something truly did happen, they should have their own response mechanisms in place…

Yu Sheng looked up again at the cold and desolate street outside the window.

“Honestly, how long does it usually take for those ‘professionals’ you mentioned to respond?” he asked, unable to stop himself from worrying.

“No idea, I can’t really remember… but I have an impression it was very quick,” Eileen said, hugging the Toy Bear and rocking back and forth in the Chair, looking rather insufferable. “They have a whole arsenal of methods to detect abnormal situations. The entire Borderland should be covered by their surveillance — it was like that before I was sealed away, and it’s definitely even more advanced now.”

Yu Sheng said nothing, just stared at the doll inside the Oil Painting.

“W-well, of course, professionals are still people, and people always have their amateur side — sometimes they might be a little slow to react?” Eileen suddenly looked guilty. “They might not have even detected the abnormality on your end… even though the disturbance you caused was already pretty significant…”

“That doesn’t sound very reliable at all,” Yu Sheng frowned, then let out a sigh. “By your account, this entire house of mine is an ‘Otherworld,’ and yet no one has come knocking. I seriously doubt the professionalism of these ‘professionals’ you speak of… Sigh, I think in the end I’ll still have to rely on myself.”

Eileen blinked. “Is, is that so?”

Then she spoke up curiously: “What are you planning to do? From the sound of it… you’re still planning to deal with that valley, and the entity inside it?”

“It’s not that I want to deal with it — it’s that it will come looking for me sooner or later. I have that feeling,” Yu Sheng said, tugging at the corner of his mouth. He thought of that strange freezing rain, and the frog within it. “And didn’t you say so yourself? Once you’ve had dealings with the Otherworld, there’s no going back — my first contact with the ‘Otherworld’ was probably earlier than you’d imagine.”

“This… alright, you have a point. There really are quite a few people who specialize in dealing with the Otherworld who started out as ordinary people unlucky enough to get dragged into an incident,” Eileen muttered. “I seem to recall that roughly one in ten ordinary people, after making contact with the Otherworld, ended up becoming ‘Otherworld’ experts — whether willingly or not. After all, this does count as being latched onto by something dirty…”

Yu Sheng couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at Eileen’s words. “Only one in ten? What about the other nine?” he asked. “Did they successfully return to normal life?”

Eileen tilted her face upward. “They died.”

Yu Sheng: “…”

“A-also… there are those who survive, quite a few people get rescued every year,” Eileen noticed Yu Sheng’s expression and immediately rushed to explain, though once she finished explaining she added another line. “Of course, the ones who die seem to be more numerous.”

“…Eileen.” Yu Sheng looked at the doll in the Oil Painting.

“Yes, yes?”

“If you don’t know how to speak, you don’t have to.”

“Is, is that so?”

Yu Sheng let out a sigh and slowly rose from the dining table.

“Whether I die or not doesn’t actually have much bearing on me, but I do need to find a way to learn more intelligence related to the Otherworld. Those ‘professionals’ you mentioned… if they can’t come to me, then I’ll have to go find them myself,” he said, thinking as he spoke. “After all, your memory and experience are also genuinely unreliable.”

“Go find them yourself?” Eileen seemed unbothered by the second half of Yu Sheng’s sentence and still looked cheerful. “Then… then how about you really do go look at the utility poles nearby to see if one of those Otherworld security companies has put up a small advertisement?”

Yu Sheng looked exasperated. “…I’m being serious.”

“So am I,” Eileen blinked. “They really do leave contact information like that — it’s so that ordinary people like you who’ve had one encounter with the Otherworld and managed to return can ask for help. It’s just that normal people generally can’t see those kinds of contact details; they’ve all been processed with ‘technical means’ — but people who have made contact with the Otherworld are different. They’ll have undergone some degree of ‘spiritual awakening,’ and will have a much higher chance of noticing those ‘seal symbols’ that are normally hidden from view.”

At that, Eileen suddenly paused, and with a rather serious expression she looked Yu Sheng up and down. “Haven’t you felt any… changes happening to yourself?”

Changes after making contact with the Otherworld?!

Hearing the doll’s words, Yu Sheng’s heart immediately stirred, and he quickly spoke up: “The kind of changes you’re talking about — would that be things like becoming strong enough to crush rocks, recovering from a sword slash after just a few breaths, being able to sense the memories and thoughts of others, and also being able to come back from the dead and so on…”

Eileen listened, completely dumbfounded, staring at Yu Sheng as if looking at an alien: “What?”

“…Is that not it?”

“At most you’d be able to see some things you normally can’t! The things you’re describing — could those even be human? You’d be a whole different species — stop reading so many light novels and watching so many anime, will you.”

Yu Sheng: “…” Seeing the doll’s reaction, Yu Sheng decisively chose not to continue down that line of conversation.

His own situation was clearly not right — it seemed that even within the realm of the “supernatural,” it was a little too supernatural.

Fortunately, Eileen didn’t appear to have thought too deeply about it — probably because she had really been locked away for too long, and this doll’s mind didn’t seem to be working at full capacity.

Yu Sheng exhaled, and looked up toward the kitchen.

A vague look of conflict and hesitation flickered across his face, and then he tugged at the corner of his mouth, turned, and walked toward the kitchen.

Eileen in the Oil Painting immediately jumped down from the Chair: “Hey, are you making breakfast?”

No one knew why this creature who couldn’t eat anything at all got so excited every time a meal came around.

“I’m going to handle the ‘local specialty’ I brought back just now.” Yu Sheng said without turning his head.

Eileen, carrying the Toy Bear in one hand, waved the other dismissively. “Oh, off you go then…”

The doll suddenly stopped.

Her Head, which wasn’t working particularly well due to being sealed away for too long, finally caught up to something.

…Where in the Otherworld would there be any such thing as a local specialty?!

“Wait a moment!” Eileen suddenly let out a sharp cry, nearly startling Yu Sheng, who had already reached the kitchen doorway. “Just what kind of ‘local specialty’ is that of yours?!”

Yu Sheng walked into the kitchen, stopped, turned back, and smiled faintly. “Guess.”

Eileen’s eyes went wide. She stared at Yu Sheng, who had already begun tying on an apron, and gradually a look of shock crept into her crimson eyes — along with an expression that said “has this guy’s head already started going wrong?” “W-wait, wait, what are you doing? You’re not planning to… no, is that thing really something you took off the entity?! How did an ordinary person manage that?! Hey, you’re not seriously going to…”

Yu Sheng decisively shut the kitchen door, blocking the chatterbox’s noise on the other side.

A moment later, the muffled sound of Eileen’s shouting drifted over from the direction of the dining room: “Hey, don’t shut the door! At least come help me restart the TV first! The TV doesn’t work anymore!”

But Yu Sheng had already stopped paying attention to her.

He walked over to the sink, lifted the pot lid he had pressed over the piece of “meat,” and saw that the severed tail in the sink had gone completely still — only the torn muscle at the cut end would occasionally twitch faintly.

He gazed silently at this severed tail that had once burrowed its way into his belly, and once again felt that sensation seeping out from his very bones — that “appetite.”

But this time, that appetite was not as violent as it had been at first. It only stirred gently, carrying with it a kind of pleasant anticipation and a perfectly calibrated restless excitement.

Can I really do this? Is this normal? Am I still normal?

Yu Sheng ran through all of these questions in his mind, but the thinking did not cause his hands to hesitate in the slightest.

He prepared scallions, ginger, and cooking wine, then took out a chopping board and a cleaver. Yu Sheng carefully rinsed the severed tail under running water, scraped off the scales, then placed it on the chopping board and brought the blade down.

It cut far more easily than he had expected. Although it had been as hard as stone when it was still part of the monster, the feel of the knife cutting through it now was no different from cutting through firm beef.

And there were no bones inside either.

Yu Sheng had thought it over: the first time he had felt his body “strengthen” was after he had bitten into that monster.

And in his second confrontation with the monster, he had also torn into its flesh with his teeth, and had felt a further increase in his strength afterward as well — though the magnitude was noticeably smaller, the change was real.

This had given him a bold and… appetizing idea.

What would happen if it were cooked?

Yu Sheng worked nimbly, cutting the meat into pieces, his mood gradually brightening.

Even the racket Eileen was making outside the door felt less noisy.

He didn’t know whether what he was doing was normal… it probably wasn’t quite right, since even a doll sealed away inside an oil painting thought the whole business was deeply strange.

But compared to coming back from the dead, a suspicious piece of meat really wasn’t such a big deal.

“I’ve already eaten it raw,” Yu Sheng murmured to himself as he cut the meat. “Stranger the first time, old friends the second…”

(End of Chapter)