Chapter 283: Hu Li's Confusion

Yu Sheng had a dream.

In the dream, he once again entered that thick fog, but this time Hu Li and Erin were not with him. A strange street stretched straight out from his doorstep, and at the end of the road, something seemed to emit a powerful attraction. He kept walking forward, heading deeper into the fog, as if he had been walking inside it for ten years, a hundred years...

In the dream, he walked tirelessly, and gradually, the city within the fog revealed increasingly bizarre and surreal scenery. He saw buildings bending over like candles melting in hot wind, saw roads curling upward toward the sky like strange seaweed floating in water, and saw countless inverted shadows floating above the city, emitting strange light within the fog.

Yet he simply kept walking forward, delving deeper into the increasingly strange boundary city, as if passing through layers of ever more eerie mirages, until the surrounding mist turned into heavy darkness. Substantial shadows formed massive clumps, silently and slowly moving above the desolate, broken land. The entire world in the dream grew dim, and then he stood at the end of a desolate, shattered wasteland and saw that tall, slender figure once again.

The Artificial Saintess of the Holy Hidden Order, that killing machine, once again drifted toward him with those elegant, dance-like, ghostly steps, then suddenly accelerated like a rocket from behind, followed immediately by a steel headbutt smashing into his chest...

Yu Sheng let out a loud "Aaah!" and woke up. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw that daylight had already fully broken outside. Threaded-Steel Erin was sitting cross-legged on his chest, but obviously not awake at all—the doll had her eyes closed and was muttering in her sleep: "I, Alice Doll, pay up!"

Then she flopped down headfirst, rolling off Yu Sheng's stomach onto the bed with a "gurgle," and continued snoring on her back with limbs spread wide.

Yu Sheng's loud "Aaah!" upon waking hadn't woken up any of the Erins. He looked up and saw another Erin hugging his lower leg, hanging there like a koala, while muttering to herself: "So useless... who's so useless... your whole family... hehehe..."

The third Erin was crawling gloomily on the nearby floor; she must have fallen off halfway through her sleep, and while sleepwalking, she was wriggling and trying to find her way back to the bed, but obviously had gotten the direction wrong.

Yu Sheng sat up on the bed, momentarily bewildered.

... How could a doll that was once sealed inside an oil painting now be sleeping so soundly, sprawled out in disarray, and crawling all over the room?

He shook his head, cleared his mind slightly, then carefully pulled his leg out from the embrace of the Erin at the foot of the bed. He turned to look at the picture frame on the bedside table next to him—since the bedroom was only this big, there was no worry about exceeding the painting's "connection distance," so when Erin slept at home, she always placed her frame on the bedside table. The plush bear inside the frame was still lying quietly on the chair covered with a red velvet blanket, just as usual, its two glossy button eyes staring blankly at the world outside the frame.

Yu Sheng tapped on the oil painting, as if greeting Erin's "original body" and the plush bear inside it, then picked up his phone and checked the time, discovering it was already nearly ten in the morning.

At this point, going back to sleep was impossible, so Yu Sheng simply rolled out of bed and went to the bathroom to wash up.

As soon as he finished brushing his teeth, the Erins in the room woke up too. Three drowsy little dolls walked in in a line and greeted him in a chaotic manner: "Good morning." "Morning, Yu Sheng." "Yawn... did you kick me off the bed in the second half of the night?"

Yu Sheng casually brushed them off, then turned on the faucet, bent down, and picked up one Erin to wash her face. After dipping a few fingers in the water and roughly wiping the little doll a few times, he put her back on the floor, threw a small towel for her to wipe herself, then picked up the second and third ones to continue washing. The entire process flowed smoothly and with practiced ease; by the time he finished washing the last one, the first one hadn't even finished wiping yet.

The three Erins stood in a circle on the floor, using a single towel to wipe each other's faces, while glancing up at Yu Sheng in between wipes: "What's the plan for today?"

Yu Sheng took out his phone, glanced at it, and shook his head: "Nothing special planned. Mainly just waiting for news from the Special Operations Bureau—seeing if the deep-diver squad dispatched by Bai Liqing can find any clues about that 'Artificial Saintess' in that thick fog. We can't handle such large-scale net searches ourselves."

One of the Erins held up a towel, looking slightly surprised: "Still no news?"

"Obviously. How much time has passed? Besides, the environment in that thick fog is so complex that it greatly affects the speed of operations."

As Yu Sheng spoke, he bent down to retrieve the small towel and hung it on the towel hook designated for Erin. Actually, the little doll could come to the master bedroom bathroom to wash up on her own; Yu Sheng had specifically placed a small ladder next to the sink for her, allowing her to climb up to the sink without help. But ever since she slipped and fell into the sink for a bath last time, she never climbed up by herself again, and even washing her face now required someone's help.

Yu Sheng thought this little thing was just being pretentious.

"I'm going to the kitchen to cook. You go check if Hu Li is awake; if not, wake her up."

The three Erins spoke in unison: "Got it."

However, as soon as Yu Sheng and the Erins stepped out, they saw that Hu Li was not only awake but appeared to have been awake for quite some time.

The door to the fox-girl's room stood wide open. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, facing the window with her back to the door, motionless, as if meditating or entering a state of deep concentration.

Seeing this scene, Erin first whispered in surprise: "Hey! Is this the legendary 'cultivation' that the silly fox is doing? I read in novels... breathing in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth... she's quite diligent?"

Yu Sheng had never seen this scene before either. Hearing Erin's whisper, he was also momentarily stunned, too afraid to make a sound and disturb the fox girl's "cultivation," yet genuinely curious. He led the three dolls and carefully approached to see what was happening. As soon as he entered the room, he saw Hu Li's large ears on her head twitch, then the other party suddenly turned her head around with a bright smile: "Benefactor! Erin! You're awake?" Erin was instantly startled (the one with the frame on her back actually jumped up): "Whoa, I thought you were breathing in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth over here."

"Breathing in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth?" Hu Li tilted her head. "That's energy conversion technology from the ancient era... isn't it more convenient to forge a reactor and hide it within the five viscera?"

Erin: "..."

Seeing that the other party was not "cultivating," Yu Sheng walked over openly: "So what were you doing just now?"

"Spacing out, thinking about problems."

Yu Sheng: "Thinking about problems?"

Then he saw the fox girl solemnly lift two golden, glowing objects from the bed and hand them over with a serious expression: "Benefactor, Bai Qie and Yan Ju are looking stranger and stranger... Is this what chickens look like when they grow up in this world? I feel they're becoming less and less like the free-range flock in the valley..."

Erin, who was just recovering from speechlessness nearby, glanced over and immediately let out a gasp: "Holy crap! What is that so bright?!"

Yu Sheng also focused his gaze at that moment, and truly froze—stunned for a full half-minute on the spot.

What Hu Li was holding in her hands were actually two chickens with golden wings, jade crests, long necks, elegant tails, and an imposing bearing... ah, chickens.

!

In fact, they barely looked like chickens anymore. Only those two pairs of cross-eyed stares still resembled their former selves. Apart from that, these two former "chicks" now looked completely like they had absorbed an overdose of heavenly and earthly spiritual energy, ready to ascend to immortality at any moment.

Additionally, their size was clearly more than a full size larger than their siblings in the valley. Although they could still be steadily held in Hu Li's hands, their long tails, already shimmering with multicolored rosy light, nearly reached down to Hu Li's crossed legs. Moreover, it was visibly clear that their current form was not yet the limit of their growth. A certain indescribable "youthfulness" surrounded them, obviously meaning that given time, these two would continue to grow in this outrageous style...

"What the..." Yu Sheng held back for a long time before finally forming the words into a sentence, "Are these still Bai Qie and Yan Ju?!"

"It's them," Hu Li nodded vigorously. "They've been growing very fast lately, but this time their appearance has changed too much. I originally took them out to let them soak up some sunlight, but as soon as I pulled them out, I saw they were even glowing on their own, which scared me right then and there."

What could Yu Sheng say? After all, he had been scared too...

At this moment, the two "divine birds" in Hu Li's hands also seemed bored, suddenly spread their wings and flapped, then lightly took flight, circling gracefully around the fox girl. While circling, their wings barely moved, leaving a trail of faint floating light in the air, clearly riding spiritual energy. After circling twice, they landed on Hu Li's shoulders and continued to look at Yu Sheng with their two pairs of cross eyes.

There was a kind of beauty where a celestial bird from the Nine Heavens had been hit by a stupidity spell.

Hu Li was amused by these two suddenly flying "chicks," her eyes lighting up with joy: "Oh, you two can fly now... by the way, do chickens fly?"

Yu Sheng was speechless, only his mouth twitching: "..."

This fox still thinks she's taking care of these two following the chicken-raising process?! The species has already changed, damn it!

Erin approached and tugged on Yu Sheng's pant leg. The little doll looked up with a confused expression: "Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng, what's the principle behind this?"

"How would I know," Yu Sheng slapped his forehead. "At least one thing is certain: these two can't be eaten anymore, since they've turned into this."

Hearing this, Hu Li instantly realized it too and quickly turned her head: "Oh, right, right. They have such spiritual awareness now, it seems we can't easily eat them... So what should we do, Benefactor?"

"What else can we do? They'll be your wingmen from now on," Yu Sheng sighed. "You now have two left and right guardians. You said back then that keeping them would be of great use, and now it really seems to be of great use..."

(End of Chapter)