Chapter 146: Exploiting a Bug to Enter the Map

To be fair, the moment Yu Sheng spoke the four words "unity of heart and mind," he felt it was quite difficult; mainly because most of the time he spent with Erin, both of them felt the other was crazy—but then he thought carefully: if both feel the other is crazy, isn't that itself a kind of unity of heart and mind?

His thoughts unconsciously wandered off; in a few seconds, he had strayed so far even his mother wouldn't recognize him. Finally, Erin bonked her head against his: "I told you to empty your mind! Not to let your mind fly away! At least keep your attention on opening the door—"

"Oh, oh, okay."

Yu Sheng instantly snapped back to reality, quickly gathered his thoughts, and then began seriously executing the steps to open the door.

But this time, he only summoned a "null-value door" that led nowhere, then gradually relaxed his mind while keeping the door stable.

He felt Erin's small palm pressing against his temple.

He saw Erin raise her other hand, pointing remotely at that door.

Thin threads of black silk grew and spread from the doll's fingertips, silently, as if some peculiar "creature" with independent life, rapidly weaving, writhing, deforming, splitting, and sprouting in the air...

Some threads pierced into his flesh and blood, pierced into his mind; a strange and chilling sensation traveled along his spine, a feeling that even made one shudder with dread.

If this were his first contact with Erin's threads, Yu Sheng would probably have instinctively thrown the doll away by now—these sinister and eerie things looked nothing like harmless; they seemed more suited to a script titled "The Treacherous Cursed Doll Finally Seizes the Chance to Ambush Its Owner, Attempting to Seize the Top Seat at 66 Wutong Road," truly highly suspicious.

But he had grown used to it—dolls in Alice's House were probably just like this.

Meanwhile, another portion of the threads spreading through the air extended toward that door—their fronts converged like a strange tentacle, first cautiously touching the door, then beginning tentatively to pierce into its interior.

The connection was established.

Yet in that very instant, Yu Sheng suddenly felt a wave of... daze.

The wind in the valley vanished; the surrounding scenery was at some point shrouded by a thick, dim curtain, as if boundless fog filled his vision, and deep within the fog, he saw...

A golden-haired, shattered doll lying quietly amidst ruins fallen into darkness; vast shadows also lay fallen deep within the ruins alongside the doll—that dead doll's eyes were open, and through the brief illusion separated by the curtain, Yu Sheng suddenly had the illusion that those eyes were gazing at him.

Yet everything vanished in an instant; he hadn't even had time to confirm whether that dead golden-haired doll was indeed the one he had seen in the mirror before, and all the illusions dispersed like smoke.

All he heard was Erin's energetic shout: "Hey hey hey! The door opened, the door opened! I feel this thing is connected! Yu Sheng, check if what I did was right..."

Yu Sheng jolted awake, and saw that the door leading to the Black Forest had slowly opened in his hands; countless black threads emitting eerie black mist wove and roamed inside and outside the door, outlining chaotic patterns like thorn bushes guarding the doorframe, while on the other side of the door lay unmistakably that forest shrouded in shadows.

The door to the Black Forest had truly opened successfully.

Yu Sheng stared blankly at the door entwined with black "thorns"; to be fair—it was a bit strange, but truly quite thrilling.

However, what concerned him more were those "illusions" he had just seen.

"Erin."

"Huh?"

"Did you see anything just now? When we were mentally connected, did you see any illusions or anything like that?"

"No," the little doll paused, looking at Yu Sheng in confusion, "I was just concentrating on helping you locate the door, afraid something would go wrong... What did you see?"

Yu Sheng hesitated, then still didn't hide it from the little doll: "... I saw that golden-haired doll again."

"Which golden-haired doll?" Erin didn't catch on immediately, "Do you know other dolls outside?"

"The one I told you about, the one I saw in the mirror," Yu Sheng reminded her, "the one shattered into pieces, dead somewhere unknown, you even said you'd help her go home if the chance ever came."

"Oh, oh, I remember now!" Erin finally caught on, then immediately frowned, "Why did you see her again? What was the situation this time?"

"... The same scene as last time, but I feel her gaze seemed to fall on me," Yu Sheng said slowly, "I don't know what happened; I just saw it the instant your 'threads' connected to me... I thought you might have felt it too."

He and Erin stared at each other, yet after pondering together for a long while, they reached no conclusion.

Yu Sheng's mind did conjure up many guesses, but with not a single clue, all guesses ended up as mere wild speculation.

He could only temporarily focus his attention on the door before him—yet this time, that mysterious golden-haired doll had inevitably left a deep impression in his heart.

Hu Li walked over, holding Yu Sheng's arm with some unease.

"The door to the Black Forest is open," Yu Sheng comforted her, rubbing the fur behind the fox girl's ears, "you'll go in with me later."

Hu Li immediately nodded: "Mm."

"Erin, you stay here," Yu Sheng said to the doll on his shoulder, "observe the scene as we pass through the door; Hu Li and I will stay on the other side for a few minutes, then open the door and return directly—if all goes smoothly, our 'landing point' upon return should still be here."

"Don't you need me to go in with you?" Erin looked somewhat uneasy, "What if you get lost inside and need help from this 'dream expert'?"

"Opening the door from the Black Forest side to return to reality doesn't require your 'navigation'," Yu Sheng explained, "compared to that, it's more stable for you to stay outside and act as Hu Li's and my 'insurance'."

"Okay," Erin felt this made sense, so she didn't argue further, directly jumping down from Yu Sheng's shoulder, "then I'll guard here for you—how many minutes did we agree on? Don't die inside..."

The moment the little doll finished speaking, Hu Li clenched her fists hard, looking very serious: "I will protect my benefactor with my life!"

Erin waved her hand: "That's not necessary; you mainly need to protect yourself; Yu Sheng's life isn't worth much..."

Yu Sheng opened his mouth, but after holding back for a long while, he couldn't think of any words to refute.

What depressed him even more was that even Hu Li didn't refute it...

"I really owed both of you in my past life."

He could only sigh like that, then grabbed the fox girl and turned to walk into the door.

After a moment of dizziness and sensory reset, he was already standing in that familiar Black Forest.

Distant and faint wolf howls, the hollow sound of wind blowing through the forest, the dim sky between dusk and night, shadows everywhere, and those bushes that seemed forever hiding something, ill-intentioned.

Everything was unchanged from his memory; this Black Forest seemed to always be like this.

Hu Li beside him opened her eyes wide, looking around; this was her first time coming here—because she had already heard much about this forest from Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood, she appeared very alert now; her pile of tails behind her stood like a sword tomb, and the fur on her ears slightly bristled.

After simply confirming the surrounding environment, Yu Sheng called out in his heart: "Erin, we've entered."

"I see you've entered," the little doll immediately responded, "the door here has already vanished; it looks no different from the scene when you usually 'open doors'."

"Our bodies passed through the door too, right?" Yu Sheng asked, "They didn't stay outside?"

"No, your bodies passed directly through the door."

Hearing the little doll's reply, Yu Sheng exhaled lightly, looking down at his own hands.

Indeed, after a series of "bug-exploiting" operations, he successfully entered the Black Forest with his physical body—and even successfully brought in a cyber-cultivating fox.

Everything was exactly as he had previously imagined; for the Black Forest, the boundary between "consciousness" and "body" was not so distinct; products of the Black Forest could be brought into the real world in material form, and materials from the real world could be sent into this Black Forest under specific conditions—the principle behind this might not be clear for now, but for him, having this conclusion was enough.

What Yu Sheng feared most before was that the Black Forest was truly a purely "consciousness" world, or more bluntly, a conceptualized, nihilistic thing.

Conceptualized, nihilistic things are the hardest to deal with, because that means you can only confront them with equally conceptual and nihilistic means—and humans are ultimately creatures living in reality; confronting "abstraction" is not something humans are good at.

Anyway, Yu Sheng himself felt that he belonged to "humanity," and he would only think according to human logic.

But since the Black Forest could establish a connection with the "material world" by "exploiting a bug," then everything became much easier.

This meant it had a health bar.

Yu Sheng liked things with health bars.

"Benefactor, what are we doing next?" Hu Li carefully scooted over and asked in a lowered voice, "Should we go fight those wolves? Or wait for that 'squirrel' you mentioned to come out?"

"The wolf pack is formless, and that evil wolf has its own conditions for manifesting, and it's not easy to deal with in a short time," Yu Sheng shook his head, "We're not here to fight this trip, and we're not looking for that squirrel either."

As he spoke, he reached out and pulled open another door.

This time, the opposite side of the door was no longer chaotic darkness, but clearly reflected the scenery of the valley.

He could even see Eileen standing on the opposite side of the door, her eyes wide with surprise as she looked this way.

"Hey, Yu Sheng, I can see you!"

"It looks like after entering the Black Forest in the flesh, one can open a normal door on this side," Yu Sheng smiled and nodded at the little puppet on the other side of the door, then immediately turned to look at the fox Miss beside him, "Get ready to go—but before leaving, we have to 'say hello' to the thing behind the Black Forest."

"Huh? Hello?" The fox girl was stunned for a moment, "What kind of hello?"

"The kind with twenty chicken legs."

"……Okay!"

(End of this chapter)