Chapter 27

Ailin's task was quite simple.

Basically, she just needed to find a spot where she wouldn't be in the way and lie there without getting up to cause trouble.

Yu Sheng walked over to the still-sleeping silver fox, circled her massive body and pile of tails, and found a spot that looked relatively comfortable—a depression where two large tails overlapped.

He bent down, tugged at the fur on her tail to adjust its position, then patted the fur on another tail to fluff it up more; Ailin watched beside him, dumbfounded: "Are you making a bed?"

"Isn't it just to make lying down more comfortable?" Yu Sheng said casually as he leaned against the thick, silvery, furry tail, "Who knows how long you'll need, and I'm someone with very high standards for sleep quality…"

Ailin immediately made a "tch" sound, then floated over once Yu Sheng was settled, and dropped the frame straight onto his chest: "Catch."

Yu Sheng frantically fumbled to catch the frame falling from midair, even briefly thinking she was seeking revenge for his silent amusement and trying to crush him: "Whoa! Can't you say something before you drop it?!"

He managed to catch Ailin without being knocked out by the frame, then adjusted his posture, half-reclining against one of the fox's large tails, cradling Ailin's painting in both hands, exhaling softly as he waited for the moment he'd sink into the dream.

Sinking into another dream from within one's own dream—this was an unprecedented experience.

A low hum came from the oil painting—some ancient lullaby, carrying a distant, nostalgic atmosphere; though he couldn't understand the lyrics, he felt a quieting force slowly seeping into his heart, his eyelids growing heavy, and as his consciousness hovered between sleep and wakefulness, he glanced down again at the painting cradled before him.

Like holding someone's funeral photo. jpg.

Yu Sheng: "..."

How does this doll always manage to create situations that feel so vividly alive?!

The next instant, his thoughts abruptly cut off in this wild notion, then plunged violently into emptiness, falling straight into the deepest depths of this dream.

He felt he'd instantly lost control of his body—or rather… he felt no presence of his body at all; he had become a formless perspective, swiftly passing through a stream of memories, thoughts, and sensations that weren't his own, shadows swirling around him like overlapping fragments woven into an endless curtain, which then merged into a tunnel with no end.

Sounds buzzed and rumbled, information flooded his mind—he couldn't even tell whether those were actual sounds he heard or memories directly surfacing in his mind—

Someone screamed, something exploded, a whistling sound came from the immortal shuttle's propulsion system; they were falling, the shuttle had veered off course and plunged into a world that hadn't been on the path, as if it had suddenly appeared.

A massive impact—the immortal shuttle crashed into a dark, brooding mountain; the spirit of the artifact fled from Hengtian Qi, clashed violently with the immortal piloting the shuttle, arguing over things like "underpaid spirit stones," "reckless driving," and "reporting to the Immortal Sect," then, with an explosion, the spirit died, and many others died.

Those who survived were dying one by one.

All deaths and departures became a rapid stream of fragments flashing before Yu Sheng's eyes—he saw those faded, blurred figures die of hunger, die of toxins in the mountains and forests, die of desperate fights, die of… the ever-present, all-encompassing malice that filled this valley.

The valley itself wanted to kill them, by wielding the power of hunger.

The seemingly endless "tunnel" suddenly vanished; Yu Sheng found himself suspended in a faded scene—after passing through countless chaotic memory fragments, he had finally reached the fox's current dream.

Just as Ailin had said, the dream's colors were uniform; everything here carried an old, lifeless, dull grayness—the dark sky, the gloomy forest, the filthy gray soil and stones; just one look made him feel suffocatingly oppressed.

"Ailin?" Yu Sheng tried calling inwardly, since he didn't see her anywhere.

"I'm here."

"Where are you?" Yu Sheng scanned around, "Why can't I see you?"

"I'm with you," Ailin's voice came directly into his mind; the sensation was… strange, "You can't see me, and you can't see your own body—we're both foreign consciousnesses that have slipped in; just having a viewpoint is already good enough."

"Oh, I see," Yu Sheng understood, then began searching the small grove for the fox's figure.

He didn't search long—in fact, the moment he thought of looking for her, he heard a sound from nearby.

It was the sound of digging soil.

Yu Sheng immediately followed the sound, his perspective drifting through the shadowy trees, and soon spotted the white figure.

A silver-haired girl in a tattered dress knelt at the edge of a forest clearing, her once-plump, beautiful fox tails now matted and filthy with dirt; she bowed her head, digging fiercely into the earth, muttering to herself, and around her were countless deep holes she'd dug by hand.

Yu Sheng "floated" over and arrived beside the fox.

The fox couldn't see him; she kept digging, her hands repeatedly clawing into the soil. Ailin's voice suddenly entered Yu Sheng's mind: "Talk to her. Engage her."

"She can't see us."

"It doesn't matter—you just need to speak to her. This is a dream; she'll respond— to the dreamer, nothing in a dream is unreasonable."

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then looked at the fox girl: "What are you digging for?"

"Mom and dad…" The fox answered without any surprise at suddenly hearing the voice, as if it were natural, "I remember burying them here… they were definitely buried here…"

For some reason, Yu Sheng felt a heaviness in his chest, and unconsciously asked again: "Why… do you want to dig them up?"

"I… miss them," the fox gradually stopped, her eyes blank and vacant, yet still answering instinctively, "I'm so hungry—I want to tell them I'm hungry… but I held on, they told me not to listen to that monster, I held on… but I'm so hungry…"

The fox lowered her head, looked at her hands caked in dirt, and resumed digging, muttering as if to herself: "They must be right here… they're definitely here, resting safely beneath… I listened to them, always listened to them, I didn't listen to that monster…"

"Her mental state is off," Ailin's voice entered Yu Sheng's mind, "Way off…"

"I know, I sensed something was wrong with her the moment we met," Yu Sheng replied inwardly.

"I'm not talking about that—I mean… something foreign has mixed into her mind, something is trying to interfere with her thoughts," Ailin explained, attempting to clarify this complex situation to a layman, "There are other voices in her speech—her own will is still holding on, but the foreign thoughts are pushing her to the brink."

!.

Ailin suddenly fell silent.

The fox stopped digging, rose with a vacant expression, took a few steps to the side, then stood motionless in the clearing.

Yu Sheng immediately followed, and the next second, he seemed to hear a faint, blurred voice.

The voice sounded as if it had risen directly from his own mind—as if he himself had whispered it—

"Dig… dig them up…

"You just want to see them one last time, you just want to confirm you've truly listened to them, you haven't seen them in a long time, right…

"'I' miss them so much…"

The fox turned her head blankly, staring at the deep holes she'd dug.

"I miss them so much…" she whispered.

Yu Sheng suddenly realized—the voice he'd just heard rising from within himself was the "foreign intrusion" Ailin had mentioned!

He was mentally connected to the fox's dream, so the voice he'd heard wasn't from his own mind—it was from the fox's mind!

The fox slowly turned toward another direction in the clearing, as if to resume digging.

Every handful of soil was gradually digging through her own mental defenses.

Yu Sheng finally understood what the voice was tempting her to do—a chill surged from his core, and he instinctively shouted: "Hu Li!"

The fox girl froze blankly, turning to look at the empty edge of the grove.

After a long while, clarity finally returned to her eyes, and she recalled where she had heard that familiar voice.

"... Benefactor?"

Yet the forest stood empty; Yu Sheng's voice came no more, and that earlier call seemed merely a hallucination.

Hu Li stood dazed in the clearing; after a moment, she noticed the great pits dug up around her.

Fear finally began to show on the fox demon girl's face.

She awoke, jolted back to consciousness just before the final step of the defense line collapsed.

(End of this chapter)