The realization that someone was hiding in this perpetually locked room made Yu Sheng's scalp tingle, and a torrent of speculations immediately followed.
Who was it? When did the owner of that voice hide in there? Did she sneak in while he was asleep, or was she already here when he arrived two months ago?
If it was the latter, he had spent a long time in this house without going out, and he was certain that this room on the second floor had never been opened. So the person in the room had been hiding inside all this time? Was there another passage in the room, or…
Was the thing that laughed really a "person"?
A chaotic jumble of thoughts surged in his mind, but the expression on Yu Sheng's face gradually calmed—it seemed that his previous encounter with the "frog" had brought about some changes, or perhaps it was the effect of "dying and coming back to life." He felt that his current state of mind… was a bit strange.
He couldn't discern any goodwill or malice from the voice, but he could hear a tangible strangeness. Yet, Yu Sheng found that after the initial sensation of his scalp tingling, all fear and hesitation had vanished from his heart. All he had left now… was intense curiosity.
He wanted to figure out what was in that room.
He wanted to figure out what secrets were hidden in this large house that he used as a refuge.
This was his safe house, his only "home" in this huge city—and there couldn't be anything unsafe in a safe house.
He slowly leaned in, pressing his ear against the door. He thought he could still hear a low laugh hidden inside, but it might have been an illusion, perhaps just the hollow sound of wind swirling in his ears.
He curled his fingers and knocked on the door.
"Open up. I heard you."
The door, of course, did not open, but the hollow laugh did disappear.
An expected outcome. Yu Sheng said nothing, just turned and left—he went to the room next door, the one filled with miscellaneous items, and retrieved an axe from inside.
Returning to the locked room's door, he silently raised the axe high and swung it down with all his might.
The sharp axe struck the thin wooden door, producing the piercing sound of metal colliding. Sparks flew from the axe's edge, but the door, which looked like it could be kicked open with one foot, was left without a single scratch.
That faint laugh was heard again, vaguely, but Yu Sheng paid it no mind. He just calmly raised the axe again, as if performing a particularly serious, meticulous, and patient task, and continued to chop down, axe blow by axe blow.
He knew this door couldn't be opened, not with a drill or a saw, but even knowing this, for the past two months, he had tried to open this door in various ways almost every day—today, a strange voice came from inside the door, which only further fueled his motivation to open it today.
And as each chop proved fruitless, this motivation grew even stronger. Each swing of Yu Sheng's axe became more forceful, more fluid, and even… more aligned with his own heart's desire.
His gradually emptying mind even conjured up some peculiar associations—he felt like he was Wu Gang on the moon, chopping down the tree. As soon as he felled that damned osmanthus tree, Chang'e, the Jade Rabbit, Bald Qiang, and Sisyphus, who were watching from the side, would form a circle and applaud him…
He had no idea why Sisyphus had appeared in his association.
But the faint laughter from behind the door grew more and more grating, even becoming clearer and closer, as if the owner of the voice had walked over, step by step, and was now pressed against the back of the wooden door, as if she was completely aware of the door's indestructibility and was unscrupulously mocking the axe-wielding Yu Sheng from behind this wall of sighs.
But suddenly, another voice appeared amidst that strange, piercing laughter, sounding nervous and annoyed: "Can you stop laughing?! If he really gets the door open, I'll be the first one he chops!"
The laughter from inside the door immediately ceased.
Yu Sheng, who was just raising the axe to swing down, also froze for a moment, and then he heard a snap from his waist.
Along with the snapping sound, the axe in his hand, which he couldn't control, also fell, striking a spot that was completely unplanned.
A crisp sound, completely different from the previous piercing collisions, came from the door. Yu Sheng's axe fell to the floor, and then, he abruptly raised his hand… to support his back.
His back hurt. He'd thrown it out pretty badly. A sharp, shooting pain.
He supported his back and艰难地凑到门前, taking a couple of seconds to recover before focusing his attention on the spot where his last axe blow had landed.
A "flash of light" lingered about two or three centimeters from the door panel, on the side of the door hinge. It looked like a spark from the axe blow, but it was frozen in the air as if time had stopped at the moment the spark erupted.
And by this small point of light, Yu Sheng vaguely saw that there was something on the door panel nearby.
He reached out to touch it.
A suppressed shriek came from behind the door: "Eek—"
Yu Sheng's eyes snapped open. The bright light of the living room was a bit dazzling. Sleeping on the sofa had left his whole body sore. The wall clock on the far wall ticked away, the time on its face showing he had only been asleep for less than forty minutes.
Yu Sheng lay on the sofa for a moment, the somewhat numb memories in his mind finally becoming clear.
He had fallen asleep… Was that just a dream?
He stared blankly, but suddenly, he felt that something was wrong.
The process of that "dream" was too real, the details too clear and complete. He could even clearly remember the feel of the axe in his hand, the frozen spark on the door, and…
He suddenly sat up from the sofa, abruptly raising his hand… to support his back.
His back hurt. He'd thrown it out pretty badly. A sharp, shooting pain.
"Ho… hss… ly crap…" Yu Sheng couldn't help but utter a curse. The strained back combined with his abrupt movement and the general soreness from sleeping on the sofa created a compound effect. For a moment, he felt it would have been better to let that frog stab his heart; at least that only hurt for two seconds. Then, while pressing his back, he managed to stand up, his heart growing more certain that it had definitely not been an ordinary "dream."
A back strained in a dream wouldn't hurt in reality. Something truly sinister had appeared.
That thing had invaded his "safe house."
He adjusted his posture and mindset to prevent the back pain from affecting his movement too much. After a moment of thought, he grimaced and went up the stairs to the second floor.
With a baton in one hand, he went back to the room with the miscellaneous items and found the axe he had used in the dream, holding it in his right hand—the handle felt exactly the same in his hand as it did in the dream, as if it still retained the warmth of his own palm.
He came to the locked door. The door was still intact and new, and there was no sign of the "scar of light" left from his chopping in the dream.
It was quiet inside the door.
It was as if everything was as usual, as if nothing had happened.
But Yu Sheng still clearly remembered the location of that scar of light.
He hung the baton on his belt, switched the axe to his left hand, and reached out with his right hand to feel the door, fumbling for the spot where the flash he had hacked out in his dream was… he remembered it was near the hinge, where he had seen a faint…
The next second, he touched a handle, a handle that was invisible to the naked eye.
But he clearly remembered that there was no handle here. He had checked every inch of this door on the very first day he discovered it was locked, felt every part of its surface. He was certain that he had never touched any "non-existent handle"!
Why? Was it because he had observed it in his dream? Was it because he had "uncovered" some kind of illusion with the axe? Did it truly exist because he had confirmed its existence?
Yu Sheng's mind raced through all the movies, TV shows, games, and novels he had ever seen, instantly coming up with a host of possible reasons. But the movement of his hand did not hesitate in the slightest. He had already grasped the invisible doorknob, and then gently turned it.
The indestructible, locked door opened with surprising ease, opening from the side of the hinge.
It was an empty room. Looking through the gradually widening crack of the door, there were only the floor and walls. The light spilling in from the doorway slowly illuminated the dim space. However, even after carefully pushing the door fully open, Yu Sheng did not see the owner of the mocking voice in the room.
He held the axe tightly in one hand, carefully observing the situation in the room, only to find that there was really nothing inside, not even a bed or a chair.
Only the cold moonlight, filtering through the gaps in the old curtains, cast a mottled patch on the floor.
But suddenly, he saw something out of the corner of his eye.
There was "something" in the room. On the wall directly opposite the door, hung a painting.
An exquisite frame, the edges of the picture decorated with complex and classical vine patterns. In the center of the picture, as a background, was a chair covered with a soft red carpet.
But there was nothing else. There was no cursed ghost with a mocking laugh sitting in the oil painting, looking at the intruder.
Yu Sheng frowned, staring intently at the half-meter-tall oil painting frame for a long time. While keeping his eyes on it, he fumbled for the light switch next to the door frame and turned on the room's light.
Under the light, the details of the oil painting became even more vivid.
He cautiously approached the oil painting and stared at it for a long time.
And then he saw, in a very, very inconspicuous corner of the frame, a tiny bit of… a dress hem.
"…"
He thought for a moment, then spoke with a strange expression, "Are you in there?"
"No!"
A guilty voice came from the oil painting.