Chapter 7: Eileen's Escape Plan

Eileen was cursing up a storm.

Yu Sheng had no idea how a puppet sealed inside an oil painting could have such a vast vocabulary—and she didn’t even pause for breath as she slid all the way down the stairs, spewing a continuous stream of profanity.

He guessed it was because, being a puppet, she had no need for lungs.

Still, Yu Sheng remained utterly unfazed. While Eileen continued her tirade after tumbling from the stairs to the floor, he took his time, slowly gripping the handrail and making his way down at a leisurely pace—mostly because his lower back ached, making speed impossible. Once he reached the ground floor, he bent down with some difficulty and picked up Eileen’s picture frame.

“Are you crazy?!” Eileen fumed in the painting, hugging her teddy bear with wide eyes, her clothes and hair in disarray. “Who just tosses someone down the stairs like that?! What if the painting got damaged?!”

“My back hurts. Your painting’s too heavy to carry downstairs,” Yu Sheng said with an utterly unapologetic expression as he carried the frame toward the dining room. “I checked—the frame’s sturdy enough. And if it did break, maybe you’d get free?”

“If it were that easy to get out of here, would I still be sealed up?!” Eileen flopped back into her chair in frustration. “Ugh, my head’s spinning…”

Yu Sheng suddenly stopped and looked down at the girl in the painting with intense seriousness.

Eileen felt a little creeped out by his gaze. “You… what are you planning? I’m telling you, if you throw me down the stairs again, I won’t let you off easy. I’ll crawl into your dreams every night while you sleep—when you dream about exams, I’ll ring a bell; when you dream about gaming, I’ll unplug the cord; when you dream about going out, I’ll drive a garbage truck after you; when you dream about dating, I’ll…”

Why does this cursed puppet have so much trash talk!

Yu Sheng barely suppressed the urge to drag Eileen back to the second floor and throw her down again. He kept his face straight and forced himself to look serious. “I just wanted to ask—what exactly is the principle behind this ‘seal’ of yours? You mentioned finding someone to help you escape… so how exactly would someone help you get free?”

Eileen hadn’t expected Yu Sheng to bring this up. She froze for a moment, then stared at him in disbelief for a couple of seconds before speaking. “You… you’re agreeing to help me get out of here?!”

“Didn’t you say you needed someone to help you break the seal?” Yu Sheng frowned, then quickly added, “I’m just asking first. I haven’t agreed yet…”

But Eileen seemed not to hear his last sentence. She hurriedly cut him off. “There are three… no, two methods! The best one is to find my body. I don’t know where it is now, but it must be somewhere—probably not far from this painting. Anyway, if I can get close to my original body, everything will be easy. I can leave this damned painting…

“But if you can’t find it, or if my original body has been destroyed, then there’s the second option—make a new one. But a new body won’t be as good as the original, and it’ll take some getting used to…”

Yu Sheng had been listening intently, but he couldn’t help cutting in at this point. “Make a new one? How? Can I just buy a ready-made one from a doll shop?”

“Of course not!” Eileen said immediately. “I’m ‘Alice’s Doll’! A blessed living puppet, understand? How can I be compared to those three-quarter or quarter dolls in a store?”

She paused, then continued with a slightly more serious expression. “Living puppets are all born from the garden of Alice’s Cottage. Our original bodies come from there too. But I’ve lost my connection to the garden, and I can’t leave the painting, so I can’t return to the garden to be reborn. However, even without the garden, we have a way to create a temporary body in the mortal world as an emergency measure… But even a temporary shell isn’t easy to make.

“First, you need hair that grows on its own, soil that writhes like a living thing, dead bones that break and heal, and a drop of a living puppet’s tears—two drops would be better, so my skin would be nicer. Then you need to use alchemy to reanimate the materials, apply your own blood…”

She stopped when she saw Yu Sheng’s expression. “Hey, why are you making that face?”

Yu Sheng looked grimly at the girl in the painting, then sighed after a long moment. “…Let’s talk about the plan to find your original body instead.”

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

“Is that supposed to be common knowledge?!” Yu Sheng’s expression twisted in exasperation. “And forget alchemy—where am I supposed to find that insane list of materials you just mentioned?! Are you sure you didn’t copy that from some third-rate fantasy magazine? ‘Living puppet’s tears’? If I could find another living puppet, I’d just hand you—painting and all—over to her! Wouldn’t it be better to have your sister take you home than for me to mess around?”

Yu Sheng figured that since he hadn’t been in this “world” long, he still didn’t know much about those eerie shadows or the supernatural realm behind them. But at least from what he’d gathered through his limited channels, the “materials” Eileen mentioned were definitely not things an ordinary person in this world could access. How could she just rattle them off so matter-of-factly?

Eileen seemed a bit embarrassed by Yu Sheng’s reaction. She shifted in her chair, adjusted her posture, and lowered her voice. “Actually, other materials would work too. Like buying clay, paint, wig, stuff like that from the internet…”

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

Eileen shrank back into her chair. “I was just hoping the temporary body would be as good as possible… But if we can’t make the premium version, a basic one will do.

“But even with ordinary materials, the last step still requires a drop of your blood and a little alchemy technique. I can teach you—it’s simple. An ordinary person can manage it…”

Yu Sheng didn’t respond at first. He seemed to be thinking. After a few seconds, he suddenly said, “You initially said there were three methods, right? Why didn’t you mention the third?”

“…That one’s not good. It has a cost,” Eileen waved her hand, putting on an honest face. “You probably wouldn’t agree, and I don’t want you to try it either. We’re not exactly close…”

“If you know we’re not close, then stop blabbering so much.” Yu Sheng shot her a glare.

Eileen pursed her lips, looking a bit cowed (now she knew to be timid) as she cautiously asked, “So… will you help me get out of here? The second method is actually pretty easy. You could just mold a body out of anything handy. Even if the craftsmanship is bad, it’s fine—once I enter the shell, I can reshape it… Just don’t make it too ugly. It has to at least look human.”

This time, Yu Sheng didn’t bicker with Eileen. He thought seriously for nearly half a minute before giving a measured response. “I can’t promise now. I need to think about it.”

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

Sure, she seemed honest, a little talkative but essentially good-natured, with a distinct personality and harmless demeanor. She didn’t seem like she had malicious intent. But all of that was just a superficial impression from knowing her for only one day—strip away those “humanizing” impressions, and Eileen’s essence was still something eerie sealed in an oil painting.

He wasn’t about to be fooled by her cute appearance and immediately build her a body to let her out—who knew if, once free, she’d instantly change face, raise her teddy bear, and cut him down beneath her gothic skirt…

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

Eileen didn’t say anything when she heard his reply. She just stared at him for a while, then nodded naturally. “Oh, I see.”

Yu Sheng was surprised. He’d expected to haggle with the girl for a long time, but she turned out to be surprisingly… generous.

“Because we’re not close yet, right?” As if reading his mind, Eileen suddenly smiled and winked at him from beyond the painting. “When we get closer, I’ll ask again.”

“…Alright. We’ll talk later.”

Yu Sheng smiled too. He carried Eileen’s frame to the dining room, set it upright on the table against the wall, then turned toward the kitchen.

“I haven’t eaten dinner yet. I’m going to cook.”

“Okay… Hey, turn on the TV across from the table, will you? I want to watch TV…”

“So much trouble.”

Yu Sheng casually turned on the TV across from the table, then picked up the vegetables and seasonings he’d bought from the supermarket, which he’d left on a shelf, and went to prepare his dinner.

He actually loved cooking. Ever since arriving in this familiar yet unfamiliar “Boundary City,” he insisted on cooking every meal at home just to feel safe—because only inside this big house could he avoid those eerie shadows that kept pestering him.

He didn’t mind encountering some tall, thin shadow figure while out on the street, but not while cooking and eating—those two things were major events in his life.

…Even though now this “safe house” had an eerie “Eileen” in it too.

But compared to the shadowy figures, freezing rain, and frogs that roamed the city streets, a pathetic puppet who could only prattle on inside a painting was much more adorable—at least she wouldn’t dig his heart out.

(End of chapter)