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“Don’t ask me about the mechanics; I don’t know how it works myself,” Yu Sheng said, rubbing his ear as he spread his hands helplessly at Irene. “All I know for sure is that I can open ‘doors,’ and these doors can lead to all sorts of places. They could be Otherworlds, or, like you just saw… some distant location. Of course, we can’t be certain whether it’s another world, another planet, or a parallel universe.”

He paused for a moment before continuing, “Maybe we should ask the people on the other side about it? But that elf girl didn’t seem too pleased just now…”

Irene stood there, half-dazed. It took her a moment after Yu Sheng’s rambling to react. After some thought, she finally spoke up, “So… what about activation conditions? Like, under what circumstances can you open a door?”

“Not entirely sure yet. I feel like I can open one pretty much anytime,” Yu Sheng mused, explaining honestly based on his current understanding. “As for the methods, there seem to be two. One is by directly opening an existing, ordinary door in reality. This kind is effortless; sometimes I don’t even realize I’ve done anything, and when I open the door, it leads straight to ‘somewhere else.’ The second is what you just saw—”

As he spoke, Yu Sheng raised his hand and mimed the action of pulling open a door in mid-air.

“Creating a door out of thin air. It’s more taxing and requires concentration to sense and imagine it. Plus, the door might suddenly vanish if I lose focus during the process. But the upside is that I won’t accidentally walk into an Otherworld just by opening any random door.”

Irene’s crimson eyes followed his arm back and forth several times before she broke the silence, “Are you… human?”

Yu Sheng looked slightly offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“At this point, you still have the nerve to say that line—you know, the one you told me not long ago,” Irene muttered, trying to recall. Then, mimicking Yu Sheng’s tone and expression, she said, “—If I’m not human, then are you?”

She straightened up, staring directly into Yu Sheng’s eyes.

“Some humans can wield supernatural powers, but I’ve never seen anyone like you.”

“Maybe you have, but you forgot,” Yu Sheng retorted stubbornly. “Your memory isn’t exactly reliable.”

Irene blinked, taken aback. “…That’s… true?”

This time, it was Yu Sheng’s turn to feel a bit awkward. He was just being contrary, habitually bantering with this doll. He hadn’t expected Irene to have such clear self-awareness, and her first reaction was to admit it… She admitted it…

Quickly regaining his composure, he coughed twice and steered the conversation back. “So it seems that when I ended up in that valley, it wasn’t due to the strange properties of this house but because I opened a passage myself at the moment I opened the door. Therefore, if I can replicate what I did then, I can return to that Otherworld in theory.”

Discussing serious matters, Irene’s expression turned solemn. “Is this ability controllable?”

“…Somewhat,” Yu Sheng replied uncertainly, then elaborated, “I can basically control when to open a passage to ‘somewhere else’ and when the door I open is just a normal door. But I can’t determine exactly where it leads. There’s even a chance I might open a door straight into a volcano. However… there’s one thing I’ve just confirmed.”

Irene leaned in, eager. “What’s that?”

“The passages can be recreated. Under certain conditions, opening the door twice can lead to the same place,” Yu Sheng explained. “Like that elf you just saw—we’ve met for the second time now.”

“Oh, no wonder she reacted the way she did,” Irene remarked.

Yu Sheng looked a bit embarrassed. “I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but I vaguely remember that ‘feeling.’ I think if I practice more, I should be able to consistently open those ‘doors’ I’ve connected with before. But the biggest problem now is… when I first entered that valley, I wasn’t prepared at all, and I’ve mostly forgotten how it felt when I opened the door. That makes it really hard to recreate that passage.”

“But at least you have a lead now, right?” Irene quickly chimed in, trying to comfort him. “I used to think you wanting to rush back to save that fox was just wishful thinking, but now it seems like a feasible plan, doesn’t it?”

Hearing this, Yu Sheng gave the doll in the painting a surprised look. His gaze made Irene shift uncomfortably in her chair. “What are you looking at me for? I’ve told you before, there’s no way anything could happen between you and a… paper doll.”

This time, Yu Sheng didn’t wait for her snarky remark to finish before interrupting, “It’s the first time I’ve heard something nice come out of your mouth—I always thought you were full of trash talk. Never expected you to know how to comfort someone.”

Irene was momentarily speechless.

She could curse up a storm when she wanted to.

But Yu Sheng was in such a good mood now that even Irene’s sharp words felt like background music.

He looked at his hands, waving them in the air. Rising from the dining table, he began pacing around the room, looking full of energy.

Seeing this, Irene paused her barrage of colorful language, her eyes following him. “You’re not planning to start… um, ‘training’ right now, are you?”

“No time like the present. Besides, I slept all day; I’m full of energy,” Yu Sheng replied matter-of-factly. “And this practice doesn’t take up much space.”

“Just be careful. If you open a door and run into that elf again, she might hurl a fireball your way—and you’ll splatter me with blood again.”

Now that was the kind of banter he was used to.

Yu Sheng waved her off dismissively, his gaze settling on the kitchen door nearby.

Creating a door out of thin air required extra energy, so for practice, using a physical door that didn’t drain him made more sense.

But before he began, something else occurred to him.

“What did you just say?” He turned to look at the doll in the painting on the dining table.

Irene thought for a moment. “I told you to be careful? So that elf doesn’t throw a fireball at you?”

“No, the more annoying bit.”

Her mouth twitched. “Don’t splatter me with blood!”

“That’s it. I want to test something first,” Yu Sheng said, grinning as he walked over to the table. He picked up a small fruit knife lying there. “My blood.”

Irene’s eyes widened in visible alarm. Hugging her teddy bear, she jumped up from her chair. “Hey, what are you doing! I was just saying—you don’t have to get all dramatic! I’m warning you, I’m not to be trifled with. Put that knife down. You might scratch the canvas, and who knows what’ll happen to me…”

When the doll panicked, she tended to babble nonstop. Yu Sheng frowned slightly. “Why are you so nervous? I’m not going to cut you.”

Before he finished speaking, he’d already pressed the knife against his own finger—but after a moment’s hesitation, he switched to the back of his hand. Taking a deep breath, he made a quick cut.

It didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected.

Irene watched, stunned. As Yu Sheng moved his bleeding hand closer to her, she backed away hurriedly, exclaiming, “What are you doing? Wait… you don’t actually believe in that ‘blood pact’ stuff from novels, do you? I told you to read less of that junk…”

“First off, I am a novelist—even if I’m not exactly famous—so I take offense at your opinion on novels,” Yu Sheng shot her a glance, noting the horror on her painted face. “Secondly, this has nothing to do with blood pacts. I just want to test a hypothesis. When I was in that valley, Foxy came into contact with my blood, and both of us underwent some changes. I want to see if something similar happens with you.”

He was referring to how, after Foxy had touched his blood, she’d suddenly become able to sense his ‘death,’ and he could perceive some of her thoughts and memories. He also suspected that the projection of the silver-white fox appearing in his dreams was linked to this ‘blood connection.’

Irene paused, noticing the seriousness in his demeanor. Though she didn’t fully understand what was going on, she gradually quieted down. Even if she still seemed a bit reluctant (mainly due to mistrust in Yu Sheng’s questionable methods), she adopted a cooperative stance.

Of course, her cooperation was largely because she couldn’t escape. Being sealed in an oil painting, there wasn’t much she could do besides hurl verbal abuse, and Yu Sheng had pretty much grown accustomed to that by now…

But truth be told, Irene wasn’t exactly an ideal ‘test subject.’

After all, her ‘condition’ was rather unique.

Yu Sheng found it difficult to determine whether his blood was being applied to Irene herself or just the oil painting that served as her seal. He smeared his blood on the frame, and before the wound closed, he let some drip onto the canvas. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t replicate the direct contact that had occurred when Foxy had licked his blood.

Irene looked up at him; it was hard to tell what her perspective from within the painting was. But she clearly sensed the contact with the blood.

And that was about it.

The oil painting didn’t absorb his blood the way Foxy had.

“Do you feel anything?” Yu Sheng asked uncertainly after waiting for a while.

Irene thought for a moment. “…It was warm? But now it’s cold.”

“So it didn’t work,” Yu Sheng sighed.