Chapter 55

The giant eye departed, leaving silently without revealing any secrets.

The people in the cave stared at one another, seemingly unsure what to do for a moment; the oppressive pressure brought by that eerie eyeball had been so shocking that even now that it was gone, a trace of palpitation and disbelief lingered in everyone's hearts.

"It really just left like that?" Irene murmured to herself, looking very uneasy. "Could it just be hiding behind the clouds?"

Yu Sheng shook his head. "It really 'left'; at the very least, it is no longer in this Otherworld."

He was certain of this because he could clearly feel that the "gaze" which had always shrouded the valley had indeed vanished.

"Why?" Irene kept muttering. "What was that thing here for? It hid here for so long, suddenly woke up to scare people, affected the entities here, and now it's suddenly gone... What was the point?"

Yu Sheng thought for a moment. "Maybe it was just resting here, and now that it's rested enough, it left."

Irene listened, stunned, looking at Yu Sheng with some doubt. "Is... is that so?"

This time it was Yu Sheng's turn to be greatly surprised—she actually believed that?!

"No one knows the purpose of the Dark Angels," Xu Jiali's voice came from the side, interrupting the meaningless discussion between Yu Sheng and Irene. "In fact, we cannot even determine if they possess the concept of 'purpose.' Their appearances are always random; sometimes it takes a huge price to drive them away, and sometimes... they leave on their own very quickly. Analyzing the actions of Dark Angels is meaningless. We should feel fortunate that that eye was not an individual with strong mobility."

Yu Sheng made an "oh" sound, stroking his chin thoughtfully, and just then, his peripheral vision noticed Li Lin observing the situation outside at the cave entrance.

That inexplicable sense of familiarity rose from the depths of his heart again. Yu Sheng couldn't help but gradually frown, memories surging in his mind, and suddenly, a scene finally flashed through his brain—

"Wait! Haven't we met?" Yu Sheng realized instantly, staring at Li Lin with wide eyes. "Just recently, we definitely met! Where was it... the small supermarket, right, the small supermarket!"

He took two steps forward, scrutinizing Li Lin's face from top to bottom—a face so unremarkable in a crowd that one couldn't remember it without trying hard—and this time it finally matched the memory in his mind: "You bought a box of instant noodles back then, right?"

Li Lin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He had known the moment Yu Sheng recognized him, but he showed no panic or surprise at all—because back when they first met in the ruins of that broken temple, he had also recognized Yu Sheng's face.

Although they had only brushed past each other once in the small supermarket, as a special agent of the Special Operations Bureau who had undergone professional training, his memory and observation skills far surpassed those of ordinary people.

Recognizing each other was only a matter of time.

Seeing the other's reaction, Yu Sheng instantly connected many things in his mind. He gradually understood, his gaze then sweeping over to Xu Jiali nearby, and to Little Red Riding Hood resting not far away.

"Where exactly are you from?" Yu Sheng asked, his eyebrows slightly furrowed.

"Let me reintroduce myself," Li Lin sighed, then straightened his body and pointed to himself. "Li Lin, agent of the Second Action Brigade of the Special Operations Bureau under the Borderland Geographical Council."

Xu Jiali also walked over, adjusted her posture, and spoke in a muffled voice: "Senior Deep Diver of the Special Combat Group attached to the Second Action Brigade, Xu Jiali—this really is my real name."

Yu Lin's mouth hung open. After staring blankly for a long time, he turned his head to look at "Little Red Riding Hood," who looked like a Gao Zhongsheng: "So you are also that Special Operations..."

"I am not," Little Red Riding Hood said, hugging her arms and pointing her chin up at Xu Jiali. "I am the child labor they hired."

Yu Sheng froze, looking at Xu Jiali in shock: "Your organization even hires child labor?"

"Child what labor!" Xu Jiali immediately glared at Little Red Riding Hood. "Holiday worker! At least say you're working to support your studies, will you?!"

Yu Sheng felt his brain was completely muddled. His first reaction was: Are all Gao Zhongshengs on the Borderland this hardcore, with holiday work-study content involving fighting monsters in the Otherworld? His second reaction was that he had finally met those "professionals" Irene had mentioned, but the style of these professionals was nothing like what he had imagined. As for his third reaction...

"So you came for me?" Yu Sheng looked at the three "professionals" before him, feeling he finally understood many things. "Just to find me, you followed all the way into this Otherworld?"

He hadn't expected that the moment this sentence left his lips, Xu Jiali and Li Lin both let out a long sigh in unison, and even Little Red Riding Hood sighed and lowered her head, no longer hugging her arms but covering her face instead.

Xu Jiali took out a cigarette from her pocket, lit it with a worried expression, and took a drag that consumed a third of it.

"If we could, we wouldn't want to either—our initial plan wasn't this..."

Yu Sheng: "?"

He felt the burly man before him didn't look very happy, thought for a moment, and didn't dare to ask too much. Fortunately, the matter here was finally resolved—many questions remained, but they could all be studied after everyone safely returned to the Real World.

Irene returned from Hu Li's arms to Yu Sheng's, and Yu Sheng carefully held the miserable little doll, walking out of the hiding cave first.

"It's completely quiet now," Irene said, sitting on Yu Sheng's shoulder, holding Yu Sheng's head with her broken arms, looking towards the depths of the valley with an expression of surprise and disbelief. "... a mess."

"Yes, a mess, but at least the Hunger Entity is gone," Yu Sheng nodded, looking at the valley where a layer of ground had been entirely "gnawed away." "... By the way, will that thing appear again later?"

"Yes, as long as the Otherworld exists, the entity will appear again, and the Otherworld will never disappear. Even if you bomb it with bombs ten thousand times, it will return to its original state," Irene said softly, holding Yu Sheng's head. "It's just... this time it will probably take a very long time."

"We should leave this place," Yu Sheng let out a long breath. Now that the Hunger Entity had temporarily vanished, the air in the valley seemed much fresher. A cold wind blew from the distance, and bright daylight dispersed the eternal night here. Although the scene before him was shattered, he still felt a sense of relief in his heart. "Hu Li, how do you feel now?"

The fox girl, who had been following closely behind Yu Sheng, immediately raised her head: "I, I'm fine, not cold, not hungry anymore, I ate very full just now!"

As Hu Li spoke, she smiled happily, laughing for the first time without any burden, bright and sunny.

Yu Sheng smiled back in return, reaching out his hand towards the side: "Then let's go home."

However, just as he was about to pull open a great door leading home, Hu Li unexpectedly took a step forward and gently grabbed his sleeve.

Yu Sheng stopped in confusion, looking at the fox girl before him.

!.

"Are you worried about the food left behind in the ruins of the broken temple? It was mostly ruined by the Hunger Entity, and you want to go get it back?"

Hu Li nodded gently, but immediately shook her head again.

"Benefactor, I want to go to a place, I..."

She spoke hesitantly, seeming to worry her request was too much, and also worrying that what she wanted to do was too willful, looking very conflicted.

Looking at the hesitant and indecisive fox girl, Yu Sheng didn't understand what she wanted to do at first, but suddenly, he recalled a scene he had once seen deep within Hu Li's dream.

After a moment of silence and deliberation, Yu Sheng nodded: "I understand. Is it in that forest?"

Hu Li looked up in surprise, looking into Yu Sheng's eyes.

Then she nodded slightly.

Li Lin and the other two, not understanding, cast questioning glances at Yu Sheng, but he didn't explain in detail, simply waving his hand at them: "Don't rush. I have a way to send everyone back in a moment, but wait a bit first. I need to accompany Hu Li to a place—if you are worried, you can follow along."

"Then let's go together," Xu Jiali nodded first. "This Miss seems to have stayed here for a long time. Before leaving, there must be something she needs to settle. I understand."

The group left the back mountain, bypassing the even more ruined broken temple that was now almost reduced to a few sections of crumbling walls, crossed the rocky beach at the valley bottom covered with gullies and cracks, and finally arrived at that former small forest.

The forest had long disappeared; those dark, mutated plants had been completely devoured in the previous feast. Now only a pitch-black wasteland remained here, covered with deep pits of various sizes and suspicious black debris.

"Is it here?" Yu Sheng glanced at Hu Li walking beside him and asked softly.

"Mm," Hu Li nodded slowly. "Mom and Dad are right here."

It was only at this moment that Irene finally understood what Yu Sheng was doing by following Hu Li here.

The little doll widened her eyes. She recalled the scene deep within Hu Li's dream, recalled those seductions, those memories that were hard to distinguish between true and false, and those illusions amidst the cold hunger. For some reason, she felt a sense of unease, and the deep pits of various sizes scattered everywhere around them only made this unease grow rapidly.

"It... it might be impossible to find!" she couldn't help but say, deliberately speaking very loudly. "A whole layer of ground has been gnawed away! Maybe it was already... by those tentacles that came out of the ground!"

However, Hu Li merely shook her head, interrupting Eileen.

"No, I buried them very deep," she said firmly. "Mom and Dad told me to bury them deep, so I buried them very deep."

(End of Chapter)