Chapter 11: Three Strikes... Maybe

In the last second before death descended, Yu Sheng felt an endless, oppressive, almost thick liquid-like tangible... "darkness."

He felt his consciousness rapidly dissipating. He knew the shell that supported this consciousness was quickly losing life under the brutal injuries—as physiological functions shut down, the thoughts carried by the flesh sank and faded away. This was natural law.

Yet at the edge of dissolution, a force, or rather a powerful... "thought," a strange obsession, seemed to firmly bind Yu Sheng's mind. In a daze, he remembered the frog that had devoured his heart, remembered his previous "resurrection."

What had actually happened back then? What had happened to him? Why was he alive?

These questions turned into an obsession, forcing his consciousness to linger on the edge of that endless darkness. Even as it wavered, it never fully sank. He really wanted to know... what had actually happened, and after death, how had he "come back"?

The darkness pressed down, its sticky texture gradually turning cold and rough. He felt as if he was being covered by a thick layer of soil, and under that weight, his soul could hardly breathe... but suddenly, that heavy pressure vanished.

In some instant of epiphany, a thought suddenly emerged in his drifting consciousness—

In his death, death died before him.

Yu Sheng's death had died, and so the dead Yu Sheng once again returned from the boundless darkness toward the realm of the living—he felt his "body" suddenly become lighter, and began to accelerate out of that endless dark.

In that process, he vaguely saw something on the surface of the darkness, as if he was rapidly skimming across some "layer," but before he could clearly see it, he suddenly opened his eyes.

The cold night wind blew in through the large hole in the wall. Outside the half-collapsed roof was a murky, filthy sky. Deep in the night, the hollow wind howled through the valley.

Yu Sheng sat in the corner of the ruined temple, feeling muddled. This feeling was familiar—not long ago, he had just experienced it once.

But this time, he recovered faster. After only a few breaths, he recalled everything, including the sensation of being buried in darkness.

After adjusting his breathing, Yu Sheng slowly stood up.

He felt all his joints gradually waking from stiffness, like a newly born body quickly learning how to "live." His strength rapidly returned, his mind gradually cleared, and then he looked outside the ruined temple, toward the place where he had bled all over the ground.

There was nothing there now. That giant beast seemed to have left... or maybe it was just hiding, like before.

After a moment of silence, Yu Sheng tentatively spoke in his mind: "...Eileen."

Almost at the same moment his words fell, Eileen's noisy voice exploded in his heart: "Yu Sheng! Holy crap, are you okay!?"

Then she began to babble rapidly: "Just now you suddenly stopped responding. I called you so many times, you didn't answer. I couldn't even feel your consciousness anywhere. I thought you were dead! You scared me to death. If you died, no one would be left to fix the TV—are you really okay?"

Yu Sheng's facial muscles twitched instantly: "So you're only worried that no one would go home to fix the TV, huh?"

Eileen thought about it: "...Well, not only that. I was also afraid you might actually be dead..."

Yu Sheng: "..."

She actually hesitated!

Striving to calm his mood, Yu Sheng finally gritted his back teeth to make his voice sound calm: "What if I told you that I really just died once?"

Eileen didn't believe it at all: "Come on, you sound lively enough now..."

"...Right, I was just joking with you," hearing Eileen's reaction, Yu Sheng smoothly changed the subject, then after a pause, he asked somewhat abruptly, "How long has it been?"

"Huh? How long for what?"

"From the time I said 'I'll talk later' until now, how much time has passed?"

"Uh... from where I am, I can't see the living room clock either... I estimate about half an hour? Not sure. I've been sealed in this painting for some years, so my sense of time is a bit off. But looking at the sky outside, nothing's changed much; at least not a whole night has passed. It's still dark..."

Yu Sheng: "...Isn't that a bit too inaccurate? Do you even know the difference between half an hour and a whole night?!"

Eileen was silent for a moment, but then a harsh, low-pitched laugh came from her side.

Eileen immediately spoke to explain: "It wasn't me! It was this bear!"

Yu Sheng, exhausted in body and mind, waved his hand: "I know."

Eileen sounded quite happy: "Ah, you're finally willing to believe me..."

Yu Sheng couldn't be bothered to respond to this sealed puppet. He didn't have the heart to tell her that he didn't believe her explanation—he just thought that if she really wanted a beating, she didn't need to laugh; her words alone were annoying enough.

As it turned out, compared to Eileen's sassiness, that bear's snickering was just adding fuel to the fire...

With some useless thoughts running through his mind, Yu Sheng stepped out of the ruined temple again.

Whether it was an illusion or not, he felt his physical strength was even better than before he had died once. His steps were light, his movements strong, and even his eyesight... seemed to have improved a bit.

He seemed to be getting used to this place—used to the darkness, the rugged ruins, the malice and hungry gazes everywhere.

He walked toward the open ground in front of the ruined temple, toward the woods opposite the clearing, toward the deeper part of this "otherworld."

He knew he might still die, maybe even in the next step, the next second.

"Yu Sheng," Eileen's voice rang in his mind again, "are you really okay?"

"I'm fine. Just a minor injury. All healed now."

"Well, maybe you should just stay put for now, or find a safe place to hide. I'll try to recall if I've ever encountered this 'valley' you mentioned..."

"You go ahead and recall. I'll keep looking around here," Yu Sheng said casually.

"Ah? That might be a bit danger..."

"Eileen," Yu Sheng interrupted her directly. He had reached the open ground and now took a deep breath of the cold air, which carried a strange, foul stench from the valley. Staring at the sinister, shadowy dense forest in the distance, he suddenly grinned. "You know, these days I've been living in a daze."

Eileen clearly couldn't keep up with Yu Sheng's train of thought: "Uh... ah, should I know that?"

But Yu Sheng didn't care about her reaction. He just kept talking to himself: "...Just now, when you mentioned 'otherworlds' and incidents of people accidentally falling into them, do you know what my reaction was?"

"What reaction?"

"Happiness."

"Huh?"

"Happiness. I was very happy," Yu Sheng stood in the night, unable to restrain his smile. "You said that some people accidentally open the wrong door, or under some extremely low-probability circumstances, step on the wrong floorboard, and then fall into a damned place called an 'otherworld,' right? And you also said that if people who fall into an otherworld are lucky enough to figure out its rules, they still have a chance to go back..."

"That's what I said..." Eileen replied hesitantly, "But it really depends on luck. Professional investigators are fine, but ordinary people without training basically end up waiting to die once they fall into an otherworld..."

Yu Sheng mumbled softly: "It's okay. You'll figure it out by dying over and over..."

Eileen: "...What?"

"Nothing. I just suddenly found something to do," Yu Sheng let out a gentle sigh, as if to exhale all the murky air that had been trapped in him over the past two months of muddling through this world. "Let's start from here. It might take a while, but I'm sure I can get out of this place."

"I don't know what's going on on your end, but it sounds like you're... perking up?" Eileen said hesitantly. "Well, at least that's good. Go for it? Try not to die, okay? Still waiting for you to come back and fix the TV... and find me a body or something..."

"Alright, when I get back, I'll try to solve the body problem for you," Yu Sheng said casually. "I've dabbled a bit in sculpture and model-making before. I should be able to give it a try."

This time, Eileen was genuinely surprised: "Huh? You have experience as a puppet-maker?! Why didn't you say so earlier! How's your craftsmanship? What kind of puppets or models can you make?"

Yu Sheng hesitated for a moment, then told the truth: "About the level where I watch masters craft clay online, my brain tells my hands that I know how to do it, but my hands don't believe me."

Two seconds later, Eileen cursed him out quite colorfully.

But Yu Sheng's mood was completely relaxed. A certain carefree mentality—whether appropriate or not—fueled his confidence. He walked forward, then looked up into the night, intending to glance at the high mountain to one side.

A flesh-and-blood giant beast, several meters tall, formed from what seemed like the twisted limbs of countless monsters, was staring at him from the roadside.

Yu Sheng stopped, thought for a moment, and called out in his mind to the puppet sealed in the painting: "Eileen."

"What?"

"...Never mind. I'm about to die again."

"Huh?"

(End of chapter)