Yu Sheng felt that ever since that frog had gouged out his heart, he’d become a lot more easygoing.

Take now, for instance. He had woken up from a bizarre, unsettling dream, opened an eerie, locked room, found a talking painting, and even discovered that something undoubtedly weird was hiding within it—yet he remained remarkably calm.

He even took a step forward, removed the painting from the wall, and held it up to examine it closely.

The frame was quite heavy, with a texture that felt undeniably valuable. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the black, lacquered surface of the frame was covered in intricate, beautiful patterns. These patterns seemed to be some sort of continuous, written script, seamlessly interwoven and twisted into vine-like structures that eventually merged with the floral patterns at the edge of the painting.

Yu Sheng didn’t understand art, but he had a feeling that this thing was probably worth a fortune.

The figure hiding within the depths of the painting still refused to reveal itself, though the hem of a skirt in the corner seemed to retreat even further.

Yu Sheng tried to tilt his view to catch a glimpse of what was inside but saw nothing.

“I know you’re in there,” he said, shaking the heavy frame a little. “Hiding now is just fooling yourself.”

There was a faint rustling sound from the corner of the painting, but no response.

Yu Sheng placed the painting on the floor, squatted down, and pulled a lighter from his pocket.

He lit the flame, brought it close to the frame, and said, expressionless, “I’m going to count to three. If you don’t come out, I’ll set this thing on fire.”

A few seconds later, a soft, childish voice spoke from the painting, “…It’s just an ordinary flame. That thing won’t work on an otherworldly entity.”

But Yu Sheng could tell there was a hint of nervousness in the voice.

So he simply brought the flame closer to the edge of the frame. “Oh? Then let’s test that theory—”

A scream erupted almost at the same moment he touched the frame with the fire. “Stop! You’re really going to burn it!!”

Yu Sheng immediately snuffed out the lighter. Then, right before his eyes, a figure hurriedly jumped out from the thorny, vine-like edges of the painting.

It was a girl, dressed in a complex, elegant Gothic black dress with a hairpin adorned with white lace on her head. Her long hair was jet black, her skin as pale as snow, and her face quite cute—yet her eyes were a striking, unnatural shade of crimson. Those eyes were wide open, staring directly at Yu Sheng, as if trying to confirm whether this human outside the frame was truly going to burn the painting.

[TL Note: this girl remind me of "Alice"...]

Yu Sheng had to admit, he’d been startled when she suddenly jumped into the center of the painting.

Even though the girl didn’t look particularly frightening up close—in fact, she was rather pretty—the eerie, dim background of the painting and her sudden appearance made her startling. And those blood-red eyes, as if soaked in crimson, added to the unsettling vibe. She then leaned in even closer, pressing her face completely against the canvas, her eyes filling the entire painting, making her look even more bizarre.

“Don’t set it on fire,” the girl’s voice came from within the painting. “This is the only place I have to stay.”

“Take a step back first,” Yu Sheng instinctively put some distance between himself and the painting. For some reason, he felt that her crimson eyes had an unsettling, almost malevolent quality. It was as if that red color was slowly seeping into his thoughts and memories, becoming harder to shake off the longer he stared. But to maintain the upper hand in the conversation, he forced himself not to look away. “I won’t burn it.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Oh.” The girl in the painting was surprisingly agreeable. She didn’t seem to notice Yu Sheng’s momentary unease and nodded, retreating to the center of the painting. She sat down on the chair draped with the thick red velvet, then bent over to pick up a plush toy she had previously tossed to the ground, holding it in her arms as she continued to stare at Yu Sheng.

A Gothic girl sitting on a red velvet chair, clutching a stuffed toy—Yu Sheng suddenly felt he was seeing the “original” and “normal” version of this painting.

But then he noticed something off and frowned slightly.

His attention was drawn to the girl’s exposed wrist, which had an unmistakably… spherical joint.

Human joints couldn’t look like that.

Only a doll’s joints were shaped like that!

Perhaps sensing his intense gaze, the girl in the painting shifted uncomfortably, frowning back at Yu Sheng. “Why are you staring at me?”

Yu Sheng opened his mouth, initially wanting to ask about her wrist joints, but stopped himself just before blurting it out—he knew far too little about this “world,” and asking rash questions about something supernatural might reveal his own ignorance. Instead, he pivoted to a different question: “...Who are you? And why are you here?”

The girl hesitated briefly but ultimately answered.

“My name is Irene,” she said, adjusting her posture to appear a bit more formal. “I come from ‘Alice's Cottage. I was one of Alice’s dolls… But that was a long time ago.”

A doll?

Yu Sheng keenly caught onto that word, and instinctively glanced again at Irene’s wrist, noticing the distinctly non-human, ball-jointed structure. His attention then shifted to the two terms she had mentioned so naturally:

“Alice’s Cottage” and “Alice’s Dolls.”

What did that mean? He understood what a doll was, and he could, with some imagination and his newfound sense of calm, accept a talking doll and one that could hop around inside a painting. But this “Alice”… who was that?

The cottage sounded like a place, perhaps even an organization named after a location. And “Alice’s Dolls”… was that a term for a group?

Was this girl in the painting part of a larger community that called themselves “Alice’s Dolls”?

Once Yu Sheng’s train of thought started, it took off at breakneck speed—his imagination running wild.

There were more like her? An entire group? Were they all hanging in people’s homes? And despite how high rent and property prices were, they’d take up a room, lock the door, and mock the homeowner for not having the key, yet could be scared off with just a lighter...?

…This organization’s existence seemed oddly mysterious.

Yu Sheng had been silent for so long that Irene couldn’t help but speak up, “Why’d you suddenly go quiet… You’re not still thinking about setting me on fire, are you?!”

“I need to ask you something.” Yu Sheng suddenly looked up, his serious expression startling the girl in the painting.

“Uh… go ahead.”

Yu Sheng looked intensely at her. “This ‘Alice’s Cottage’ you mentioned—is it some kind of service for driving down property values?”

“…Huh?”

“I mean, do people pay you to hang around in other people’s homes, taking up space, laughing at night, locking doors during the day, with the goal of bringing down the neighborhood’s property prices? Sort of like hanging yourselves outside the management office to help stabilize housing costs…”

Irene stared at him with her crimson eyes, completely bewildered. It took her almost half a minute to catch up with Yu Sheng’s bizarre line of thought and realize what the man with the lighter was implying. Her face turned indignant. “Y-you can insult me, but you can’t insult the Great Dollmaker or my sisters! We… we’re part of a very powerful—”

“Then why are you hanging out in my house?!” Yu Sheng cut her off, eyes wide. “And why is the door locked?! And that dream I had before, was that your doing? And that annoying laughter—"

He rattled off his questions in quick succession, using his momentum to appear aggressive, but as soon as he finished, doubt crept back into his mind. He recalled the frog from that rainy night, and a sense of unease returned. This eerie painting in front of him seemed just as dangerous, and who’s to say that this “Irene,” this doll in the painting, wouldn’t suddenly turn hostile, change her expression, and lunge at him, chopping him down in front of the frame…

But he quickly shook off that unease, remembering that even after the frog had “opened up” his heart, nothing terrible had happened—he’d only died once, after all. And really, what harm could this doll, who was intimidated by a mere lighter, do to him?

Yu Sheng felt remarkably at ease now. The world was already this strange, and he had experienced a “death” that left him feeling oddly free. He didn’t want to keep second-guessing himself; he just wanted to figure out what was really going on with all the bizarre things around him… starting with this painting.

As it turned out, “Irene” was even more cooperative than he had imagined.

The doll in the painting didn’t suddenly lash out, nor did she throw the stuffed toy in her arms at his face. Instead, faced with his barrage of questions, she just shrank back in her chair, her expression showing… genuine guilt.

“I… I didn’t mean to be like this. It’s an accident,” she stammered, fidgeting in her seat and squeezing the plush bear so tightly it changed shape. “I was caught in an incident a long time ago and got trapped in this painting. I lost contact with the other dolls…”

She glanced around the room outside the painting.

“As for why I ended up in your house, I… I don’t know either. I’ve been stuck in this painting for so long, it’s not like I can decide where I end up being hung… Are you sure you didn’t just buy me at some art exhibit and put me up on your wall one day?”

Yu Sheng: “...”