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On the other side of things, Irene seemed just as wary of Yu Sheng. Her eyes kept flicking nervously toward his lighter, clearly suspicious that he was plotting to set her on fire.

“I still think you bought the painting yourself, hung it up, and then completely forgot about it,” Irene insisted for what felt like the hundredth time. “Humans do that, you know. You find something strange, think it’s worth collecting, then you buy it and just leave it there to gather dust.”

Her words made Yu Sheng pause. He couldn’t completely dismiss the idea. After all, he had only been living in this house for two months, and much of it was still a mystery to him. He wasn’t just unfamiliar with the house—he was unfamiliar with himself. Who knew what this place had been like before he arrived?

Could there have been another “Yu Sheng” before him?

The thought flashed briefly through his mind but quickly passed. He focused again on the crimson-eyed girl in the painting and shook his head. “That’s impossible,” he said firmly. “Anyone can see at a glance that this painting is expensive. There’s no way I could afford something like this.”

“Well, maybe it was really cheap?” Irene scooted forward, hugging her teddy bear tighter. “These days, there are so many fakes—vases, fans, paintings. Maybe the last owner got me as part of a bulk deal. You know, two and a half yuan per kilogram or something like that. Or maybe the seller didn’t know what I was really worth…”

Yu Sheng gave her a strange look. “Your frame is solid old wood, with gold inlaid on the edges…”

Irene thought about that for a moment. “It could be redwood veneer with resin inside! And maybe those gold edges are just iron wires plated with copper.”

Yu Sheng sighed. “That would still cost more than two and a half yuan per kilogram.”

“Four and a half yuan then. But no higher! No one would buy me otherwise.”

Yu Sheng just stared at her, lost for words.

Irene’s crimson eyes gleamed as she looked at him. “What? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Squatting in front of her frame, Yu Sheng suddenly found himself grinning. He couldn’t help it—he sat back on the floor and burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he nearly toppled over. The sheer absurdity of the situation hit him all at once: here he was, sitting in an empty room, arguing with a girl in a painting about whether her frame was fake and worth two and a half or four and a half yuan per kilogram.

And to think, not long ago, he had been on the verge of a heart attack—thanks to a frog that appeared out of nowhere in a freezing rainstorm.

Everything was just too bizarre.

On the other hand, Irene was clearly startled by his sudden outburst of laughter. She watched him with wide eyes, confused by his reaction. “Hey, stop laughing! What’s so funny?” she demanded.

Yu Sheng’s laughter eventually subsided. He moved closer to the painting, his expression growing serious again as a new thought occurred to him. “Earlier, I had this strange dream,” he began, his voice low. “Was that your doing?”

He was talking about the dream where he had been hacking at the door with an axe, and unsettling laughter echoed from behind it. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that it was somehow connected to the girl in the painting.

Oh, and his back was still hurting from when he threw it out in that dream.

“It wasn’t me!” Irene said quickly, shaking her head. But then, after a pause, her expression shifted, and she looked uncertain. “Well… not entirely me…”

Yu Sheng frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean? You’re not making any sense.”

“I mean, the dream was yours, but I kind of slipped into it,” Irene explained, her tone patient as if talking to a child. “I sensed someone was dreaming and thought I could find someone to help me. But I didn’t mean any harm! How was I supposed to know you couldn’t open that door? And honestly, you’re the one with the temper—forgetting your keys and deciding to break it down with an axe…”

Listening to her rambling explanation, Yu Sheng started to get the picture. “So, you didn’t lock the door? You didn’t create the dream? You can just… enter other people’s dreams?”

“Exactly!” Irene’s eyes lit up, and a proud smile spread across her face. But it quickly faded. “Well, at least I used to be able to do more. Now that I’m stuck in this painting, I can hardly do anything else…”

Yu Sheng wasn’t entirely convinced, but he found himself less skeptical than before. There were still so many unanswered questions about the strange dream. He glanced at Irene and asked, “You said you were looking for someone to help you. Help with what, exactly?”

“To get me out of here, of course!” Irene said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “It would be even better if you could get me out of this painting altogether. But if that’s too hard, at least take me out of that empty room! There’s nothing in there! If there were at least a TV on the opposite wall, I wouldn’t complain. Voice-controlled would be ideal. I’m not great with remotes. Oh, and a tablet would be nice too…”

Yu Sheng soon realized that Irene, the girl in the painting, had a habit of letting her thoughts wander off in every direction. If no one stopped her, she’d keep talking, and her mind would drift into the strangest places—often getting more and more carried away.

Before she could ramble further, Yu Sheng interrupted, “Then why were you laughing so creepily when you were supposedly looking for help? When I was trying to ‘open the door’ in that dream, what was with the mocking laughter from inside?”

“That wasn’t me!” Irene protested, waving her hands quickly and thrusting the brown plush bear she held toward him. “It was this one that was laughing!”

Yu Sheng gave her a long, hard look, his face expressionless, but his eyes clearly said, Do you take me for a fool?

“I’m serious!” Irene insisted, a little panicked. She shook the teddy bear vigorously. “It’s been sealed in this painting with me for so long that it’s probably gone a bit mad. Now, all it does is giggle! If you poke it, it usually laughs in this eerie way. But sometimes it just starts laughing on its own… it even scares me sometimes.”

Yu Sheng stood there, stone-faced, as Irene earnestly explained. Watching her so serious about it, he found himself starting to half-believe her. His gaze dropped to the teddy bear in her hands. After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded. “Alright then. Make it laugh. Let me hear if it sounds the same.”

Eager to prove her point, Irene immediately poked the bear’s head.

Nothing happened.

Irene’s eyes widened in surprise. She poked it again, this time harder—but still, nothing. She looked as if she were on the verge of tears. “Sometimes… sometimes it does this,” she muttered, her voice trembling. “I poke it, and it doesn’t laugh…”

Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched ever so slightly.

“So let me get this straight,” he said in a tone that was almost a tongue twister. “Sometimes it laughs when you don’t poke it, and sometimes it doesn’t laugh when you do. In short, whether it laughs or not has nothing to do with whether you poke it.”

Irene blinked, then slowly nodded. “Yeah… I guess not.”

Yu Sheng sighed deeply. He was starting to feel like he was losing brain cells dealing with this cursed painting. He didn’t even care about the strange laughter from the dream anymore.

At that moment, his stomach growled loudly, reminding him that he had fallen asleep without eating dinner. He shook his head, smiling faintly, and began to stand up.

“Wait, are you leaving?” Irene’s voice suddenly took on a panicked tone as she saw him get up. “You’re not going to leave me lying here on the floor, are you? At least hang me back up on the wall! There’s wallpaper to look at on the opposite wall; there’s nothing on the ceiling!”

Yu Sheng rolled his eyes, then reached down to pick up Irene’s frame. He winced in pain as his sore back protested.

“I’m taking you to the living room, so stop complaining,” he muttered.

Irene immediately perked up, hugging her teddy bear tightly as she settled back into her frame. “Oh, that’s much better. You’re actually quite nice! So, is it dinner time? What’s for dinner tonight?”

Yu Sheng glanced down at her. “Can you even eat?”

“I can watch!” she replied with a grin.

Yu Sheng sighed again, wondering if he had gone mad for even humoring her.

With a groan, he hoisted her frame up, trying to ignore the dull ache in his back as he began to carry her toward the staircase leading to the living room. All the while, Irene chattered nonstop from within the painting.

“Wow, your house is huge! I had no idea there was such a big space outside that room!”

“Is that your bedroom over there? Hey, is there anyone else here?”

“Should I say hello? Do you think they’d be scared? Normal people probably haven’t seen a talking doll trapped in a painting, right?”

“Oh, and what’s your name again? Yu Sheng? Huh, that’s a funny name… not like sashimi, right?”

Yu Sheng’s eye twitched.

“What’s wrong with your back, anyway? You’re so young, and you’re already having back problems? You really should take better care of your spine. Human joints are tricky, you know—can’t just replace them like parts of a machine…”

She suddenly paused as Yu Sheng glared at her. “Why are you staring at me like that? Your eyes are a bit… scary.”

Ignoring her, Yu Sheng finally reached the top of the stairs, panting slightly as he clutched his waist with one hand. Normally, the steps didn’t seem that steep, but with his strained back and a heavy painting in his arms, they now felt like an enormous challenge.

He thought about carrying Irene’s frame with both hands to safely make it down the stairs, but a sudden realization hit him: his back might not survive the effort.

He stood there for a moment, staring down at the stairs, deep in thought.

Irene, sensing the change in atmosphere, fell silent, her expression growing more and more nervous.

Then Yu Sheng lowered his gaze, locking eyes with the girl who had been talking his ear off, her voice growing more irritating by the second. “Irene.”

“Y-yes?” Irene stammered, her eyes wide.

“I’ve noticed your frame is quite sturdy.”

“Y-yes…?” she responded, clearly confused.

Without saying anything else, Yu Sheng placed Irene’s frame at the top of the stairs.

“Hold on tight. It’s going to get a bit bumpy,” he said flatly.

Realization dawned on Irene’s face as her crimson eyes filled with panic. “Wait, wait—don’t—”

“Off you go!” Yu Sheng said, giving the frame a firm push.

The painting began its descent, clattering and bouncing down the stairs with a series of loud bangs.

As it tumbled, Irene’s voice echoed through the house, her shrieks growing fainter as the frame tumbled downward.

“Yu Sheng, you scoundrel—aaahhhh! Owww! Ahhh! You—&%?#—!”