Chapter 15: Trapped Here

When he heard the other person pronounce his name, Yu Sheng's first reaction was that this Miss was truly straightforward; how could she directly take "fox" as his name? After asking several more times, he finally understood that the other person was saying "Hu Li," not "fox."

Her name is Hu Li, a... somewhat strange, but quite fitting name for someone with that many tails.

"My name is Yu Sheng," Yu Sheng said, sitting with Hu Li amidst the ruins of the ruined temple, introducing his origins, "I am from... uh, I don't know if you can understand, I am from 'outside,' not outside the valley."

"You really are from 'outside'!" Hu Li's eyes immediately widened. She seemed to instantly understand the meaning of Yu Sheng's words, and her look of shock revealed another layer of meaning: she knew of the existence of "outside"!

Hu Li quickly and restrainedly took a small bite of chocolate, staring at Yu Sheng's face with wide eyes: "You, how did you get in? Do you know... the way out? Is it... in the sky?"

As she talked with Yu Sheng, Hu Li gradually became more fluent in her speech, as if she were rapidly recovering her ability to communicate with people.

Yu Sheng, after hearing the other person's words, was stunned: "The sky? Why do you ask that?"

"The Immortal, before dying, said we all came from the sky, but the sky suddenly went dark, so we couldn't go back," Hu Li struggled to organize her language. Although she spoke more fluently now, she still stumbled when saying these long passages, "Then, the land became more and more dangerous, started having poison, so... many of those who came together died, couldn't go back..."

Yu Sheng listened, stunned again and again, barely managing to understand this Miss's chaotic description through powerful imagination. He realized that within this valley, which Erin had simply classified as the "Otherworld," there seemed to be a complex story hidden, and this Miss with many tails had an even more baffling origin.

She was also trapped here!

However, when he tried to ask where exactly "the sky" was, and who the "many people" she mentioned were, and specifically how they came here, the other person's answers became disjointed again.

"The sky... is just the sky. These years I have been trying to go back to the sky, but I can't," Hu Li explained with gestures, "I tried hard to jump, but I would hit something, it hurt very much. Everyone... also doesn't remember. There was Father, Mother, the Immortal, and... and others. We came down on a boat, a very big boat..."

Hu Li, speaking up to this point, seemed to suddenly recall something, raising her hand to point toward a direction deep within the dark valley: "Right over there, the boat fell down and became part of the mountain. Father always wanted to go back to get something, but later... everyone was killed by something, so no one knew how to... get into the boat."

What Hu Li said began to seem eerie and terrifying, and Yu Sheng felt a sudden chill on his back.

He did his best to understand what the other person said—setting aside the specific concept of the "Immortal" the other person mentioned, and not considering what place the so-called "sky" was. Based solely on the disjointed parts Hu Li spoke, he pieced together some chaotic truths:

Hu Li and her family, along with those called "Immortals," landed in this valley many years ago on a large boat—very likely a large vehicle capable of flight—but at that time, this place probably wasn't yet a "dead land." It was only later that the "sky suddenly went dark," an unknown environmental catastrophe occurred, causing this place to be sealed off. Those who came with the boat were trapped from then on, and after that, the trapped people suffered a heavy blow, attacked by some powerful enemy, nearly wiped out.

The process was extremely brutal, and the result was that the final survivor was only "Hu Li" herself.

But Yu Sheng knew that all of this was just a story he had pieced together through powerful imagination. Hu Li's words were disjointed, many memories had obvious gaps, and her cognition was chaotic based on her own perspective. What the true truth was, even she probably couldn't understand or recall.

This Miss's thinking was already very off.

"How long have you been trapped here?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Don't know, anyway... a very long time," Hu Li slowly shook her head, carefully holding the half bar of chocolate in her hands, "Here always... nothing changes. Don't know how to calculate days. When hungry, I faint, then wake up and it seems like a long time has passed..."

Yu Sheng couldn't help but slowly frown. Looking at Hu Li's already tattered dress and connecting it with the chaotic experiences the other person described, he realized the time she had been trapped here probably far exceeded his imagination, at least measured in "years."

"These years... how did you survive?" he frowned, asking subconsciously, "What do you eat? Just scavenging for trash in the ruined temple? But there doesn't seem to be anything edible here..."

"No, food," Hu Li shook her head again, "In Lin Zi... occasionally there are fruits, but they are poisonous. Eating them makes you faint. Except for water, most things here are poisonous, so most of the time, just starving."

Hu Li, speaking up to this point, slowly smiled again, pointing at herself, seeming somewhat proud: "Monster, very powerful. Starving won't kill me, just... uncomfortable, the feeling of starving."

She seemed to recall very bad memories; the smile on her face crumpled. Immediately, she got up and ran quickly to a nearby spot, then picked up that bag of kitchen trash from between the broken bricks and tiles—holding that bag of leftover rice and rotten vegetables in her arms just like holding a treasure.

"Still edible." She said to Yu Sheng very seriously.

Yu Sheng opened his mouth but didn't know what to say—he wished he could pull out a mountain of food right now, or even open a door back to the present world, but he was barely able to protect himself right now.

"Benefactor..." Hu Li suddenly spoke up again.

Yu Sheng was stunned, unable to react for a moment: "What did you call me?"

"Benefactor," Hu Li said it again, her expression very serious, "Mother said, those who help you greatly are Benefactors. You gave me food."

Yu Sheng waved his hand: "... This title is a bit strange. You should just call me Yu Sheng, I'm used to it." "Oh, okay, Bene..." Hu Li mumbled, glossing over the title, then raised her hand to point at Yu Sheng's finger, lowering her face as well, "Sorry."

"Huh?" Yu Sheng was stunned, then noticed the wound on his finger again—this was bitten out by the other person in a rush when he gave Hu Li the bread earlier, but at some point it had completely healed, leaving only some bloodstains on the skin. Seeing this, he waved his hand indifferently, "It's fine, don't worry about it, just a superficial wound."

However, Hu Li looked very worried: "Benefactor, is it really fine? Bitten by a monster... the injury is in the Original Essence, it can't heal."

"But it has already grown back," hearing the other person's words, Yu Sheng was doubtful and didn't quite believe it. He casually rubbed off the bloodstain on his finger, "Look."

"It really has grown back..." Hu Li looked at Yu Sheng's finger with some surprise, "Benefactor... are you also an Immortal?"

"I am not. I don't even know what you mean by Immortal—based on my understanding, it's someone who cultivates to become an Immortal?" Yu Sheng said offhandedly, "But why would someone who cultivates to become an Immortal be with... uh, 'monsters'? Based on what you just said, you seem to be a boatload of monsters, then acting together with an Immortal, right? But from the impressions I got from various stories... isn't the relationship between Immortals and monsters not like that?"

Yu Sheng finally asked the question that had confused him since just now—

Hu Li mentioned many terms he had only heard in stories before, and she herself grew a huge pile of tails that looked like they had attained the Dao for a thousand years. Putting this string of information together finally resulted in an "Immortal" leading a group of monsters running around, and even after the "flying boat" crashed, the Immortal and the monsters united to survive in the wilderness for a while (although survival ultimately failed). This did not match his stereotypical impression of Immortals and monsters.

Aren't these two groups usually in novels the kind that chop each other into dumpling filling upon meeting?

Hu Li obviously didn't understand what Yu Sheng's reaction was about. Facing the question the other person raised, she just tilted her head in confusion, tried to recall for a moment, then spoke somewhat uncertainly: "Because, it was a Tour Guide Immortal."

Yu Sheng: "...?"

!.

He felt he had heard something very sinister.

But he asked repeatedly several times, and finally confirmed that Hu Li had neither misremembered nor misspoken.

That was a "Tour Guide Immortal," or rather, that Immortal was a "Tour Guide."

Ages ago, the monsters and Immortals who crashed on this forbidden land in the "Immortal Boat" were, damn it, a tour group.

Yu Sheng had just imagined an 850,000-character Xianxia story! All that imagining was in vain!

Don't ask why a monster tour group led by an Immortal would appear. Ask and the answer is 99 yuan for four days, pure play, no shopping—reasonable or not, it's very reasonable. Cheap groups are prone to problems.

Yu Sheng sat in the night wind, letting the cold wind blow over the ruins of the ruined temple, and then blow onto his face.

He felt this world was very sinister.

More and more so.

And just then, he heard the fox Miss next to him calling his name softly again.

"Benefactor..."

"Just call me Yu Sheng," Yu Sheng sighed helplessly, "What do you need?"

Hu Li held her stomach, looking very uncomfortable: "Benefactor, my stomach hurts a little."

Yu Sheng made a dazed "Huh?" sound, then looked at the chocolate that had already been gnawed half-eaten by this Fox Immortal.

Damn it, even Fox Immortals can't handle chocolate?!

"... Holy crap! Stop eating!" Yu Sheng immediately broke out in a cold sweat, reaching out to snatch the chocolate from Hu Li's hand, "This thing has... for you..."

But as soon as he reached out, a low growl came from Hu Li's throat, sounding like a Tibetan Mastiff. Immediately, she stretched out her neck and took a bite out of Yu Sheng's hand: "Ahhh!!!"

The next second, Yu Sheng let out a howl even louder than Hu Li's.

(End of Chapter)