Chapter 26: Eileen's Ability

Eileen had the ability to enter other people's dreams—and according to her, she could not only slip into someone's dream but also influence its direction to a certain extent, like pressing the exam-end bell in a dream to summon a dump truck or something.

To be honest, if used well, it seemed like a very powerful skill. It might even allow her to perform advanced operations like psychological suggestion, mental parasitism, memory reconstruction, and so on.

But Yu Sheng seriously doubted how much of this doll's boasting about her ability was reliable—from what he'd seen so far, she was utterly useless even in dreams, and couldn't even hide properly in the grass.

And even inside the dream, she was still trapped in that oil painting.

Eileen's oil painting floated in front of Yu Sheng. The doll girl within the frame looked a bit embarrassed, and Yu Sheng found her current situation awkward—the way she floated in midair like this was actually worse than just hanging on a wall.

“So you can only stay in the painting even in dreams?” Yu Sheng twitched the corner of his mouth and finally voiced his confusion. “I thought that in the spiritual realm, you could at least come out and move around...”

“That's why it's called a curse,” Eileen said helplessly. “Trapped in the painting in reality, and the same in the spirit world. No matter where I go, I can't leave this painting unless I find a suitable vessel. Freedom? Not even in dreams.”

“That's really tough.” Yu Sheng sighed sincerely.

“Hey, but there is a difference between being in a dream and the real world!” As if feeling her pride was hurt, Eileen quickly tried to make up for it when she saw Yu Sheng's sympathetic reaction. “Over here, I'm at least a bit freer than in reality. See, I can float around... Don't laugh! And—and that's not all!”

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow, genuinely a little curious. “Not all?”

Eileen thought for a moment, struck a pose like the “rage” state in King of Fighters ’98, and started looking like she was exerting effort inside the painting, as if she was about to activate some ability. Even Yu Sheng was taken in for a moment, instinctively watching the painted doll's transformation seriously. Then, in the next second, a layer of psychedelic light and shadow really did ripple across the surface of the oil painting!

Just as Yu Sheng's eyes were widening, the oil painting went “bang”—and turned into an 80s-style poster.

Eileen had changed to the color palette of an old movie, standing inside the poster and staring wide-eyed at Yu Sheng.

Eileen: “I can change art styles.”

Yu Sheng: “...”

“You laughed out loud!”

Yu Sheng forced his face straight: “I didn't.”

“Your inner voice!”

Yu Sheng didn't want to deal with this doll anymore. That big fox was still lying beside him, and he still hadn't figured out her situation.

Eileen looked a bit hurt. Seeing that Yu Sheng wasn't paying attention to her, she floated off to the side and started muttering, “I can change into other things too, like prints, scrolls... I'm still working on turning into a relief, then I'll have thickness, and you won't be able to say I have a flat character setting anymore...”

Yu Sheng couldn't stand her muttering anymore. He suddenly turned his head and said, “First, when did I ever say your character setting was thin? Second, that's not even how the phrase is used—likewise, even if you turned yourself into marble, it wouldn't make your character setting any thicker.”

Eileen opened her mouth to say something, but before she could speak, she went “bang” and turned back into an oil painting—her transformation time was up. It had lasted less than three minutes in total.

Yu Sheng was dumbfounded. He knew this doll was useless even in dreams, but he hadn't expected her to be this useless...

But this time, Eileen didn't seem particularly disappointed. She finally noticed the white fox lying on the grass nearby—or rather, she finally sensed that this big fox seemed a bit out of place in the dream environment. Curiosity shifted her attention. “Hey, what's up with this fox? Why is its color different from the surroundings?”

Noticing the puzzled look on Yu Sheng's face, she added an explanation: “Things in a normal person's dream tend to have a unified color tone. Even if the dreamer doesn't notice, I can see it from the sidelines. Like in this dream of yours, the sky and grass are all gray—that's the ‘base tone’ of your dream. But this fox... it looks like it wandered into the wrong set.”

She paused, looking suspiciously at Yu Sheng. “How could such a strange phenomenon appear in your dream?”

Yu Sheng was silent for a moment. He turned to look at the sleeping white fox and slowly said, “Her name is Hu Li.”

“I know, she's obviously a fox...”

“I mean her name, Hu Li,” Yu Sheng corrected helplessly, then reminded her, “Remember what I told you when I was trapped in that ‘Otherworld’ before? I met a fox, white fur, red eyes, a bunch of tails...”

Eileen was dazed for a moment. Her not-so-great memory finally started working and she recalled what Yu Sheng had mentioned before.

Her expression turned dramatic. She stared wide-eyed at the enormous demon fox and opened her mouth several times before finally forcing out words, “What?! How did you capture her in your own dream... wait, no, how are you so capable that you can lock someone inside...”

“I didn't catch her. And I don't think she's really ‘locked’ in here either. It's probably just something like a shadow? I can't really explain it,” Yu Sheng had to explain. “I saw her shortly after I fell asleep, but I can't wake her up no matter what.”

Eileen looked at Yu Sheng, then turned to look at the demon fox, her gaze bouncing between the two of them several times, as if trying to figure out the logic behind this scene, but it was obviously not easy.

“I've never heard of anything like this...” she muttered in astonishment. Then she suddenly turned the painting frame and stared intently into Yu Sheng's eyes. “Are you really human?”

Yu Sheng immediately frowned. “What kind of question is that? If I'm not human, are you?”

But Eileen still stared at him, her expression more serious than ever. “Okay, a human, an ordinary person, living in an Otherworld for a long time without knowing it, then going into another Otherworld and encountering a malignant entity. Not only did you survive, but you cut a ‘souvenir’ from that entity, stir-fried it, ate it, and came out bouncing. Now you can store another mind in your own dream—and the original body of that mind is still trapped somewhere else.

“With all these absurd things happening to you, and then you say—you're human? Just an ordinary person?”

Yu Sheng felt a bit uncomfortable under Eileen's crimson stare. He subconsciously averted his gaze, thinking to himself that she'd missed “resurrection from the dead”—compared to that last one, the earlier absurdities were nothing...

“It's true... a lot of weird things have happened. I'm a bit confused myself, but if I have to say it, even you are one of the recent ‘weird things’ for me,” Yu Sheng said helplessly. “Stop staring at me. I don't know what's going on either. I can't wake this Hu Li up. If I could, maybe I could ask her about the situation.”

Eileen stared at Yu Sheng for a while longer, as if confirming he wasn't joking, then slowly withdrew her gaze and focused on the silver-white demon fox again.

She thought for a long time.

“I have an idea.”

Eileen suddenly said.

“An idea?” Yu Sheng asked curiously. “Let's hear it?”

“I'll try to enter this fox's dream, if she happens to be dreaming too,” Eileen said, pointing at the demon fox. “Her current state seems like a mental seal, but no matter how well a mind is sealed, dreams are hard to defend. Maybe I can ‘see’ something, and if we take the chance to wake her up here, even better.”

Yu Sheng was genuinely surprised. Just a moment ago, he was lamenting how unreliable this doll was, but now she had come up with such a high-end plan. He couldn't hide his surprise. “You can do that?”

“It's not hard, as long as she's dreaming too... Even if she isn't, your minds are clearly connected now. I can find a way to ‘squeeze’ over and take a look, but... there's some risk. I need your help.”

Yu Sheng's expression instantly turned serious. “No problem. Tell me what to do.”

“Because making a jump between minds is like ‘deep diving’ in unstable waters. If the ‘connection’ in between has a problem, I might get trapped on the ‘other side’,” Eileen said seriously, looking at Yu Sheng. “So, I need a ‘rope’. You'll be that rope.

“You'll ‘dive’ with me, sinking from your own dream deeper into the big fox's mind. You'll also share some of the pressure so I can focus on finding the direction. If something really goes wrong during this process... I'll use a relatively intense method to ‘wake you up’.

“Your waking has the highest priority in this chain dream, and it will pull my mind back too, so we can both return safely to the real world. But I have to warn you, my ‘waking’ process might not be very comfortable.”

“How uncomfortable?”

“...大概 like dreaming you're taking the college entrance exam, and just as you haven't written your name, the end bell rings. Before you can even react, a dump truck crashes into the exam hall, turning you and your most unforgettable high school crush into paper-thin characters with especially flat character settings...”

Yu Sheng couldn't understand a thing from this bizarre analogy of Eileen's.

But he figured it couldn't be that bad. It was just a sudden awakening—how uncomfortable could it be compared to dying?

Compared to this hesitation, he was more eager to find out what was going on with Hu Li and what was happening with his own dream.

“No problem, let's start.” Yu Sheng took a light breath and nodded solemnly to Eileen. “What's the first step?”

“Go over there, get close to the big fox—the closer the better... just lie down on her tail.

“Then, hold my painting frame, close your eyes, and we'll jump within the dream.”

(End of chapter)