Chapter 81: Paradise
Outside, it remained mountains—repeating, ever-repeating mountains. Layered and undulating, they resembled ripples born from space itself crumpling inward on a minute scale.
Once Yu Sheng recovered from the heart-jolting shifts of acceleration, deceleration, and vertigo, he finally saw the “repeating mountains” described by Miss Foxy.
The endless mountain ridges spread like concentric ripples across his vision, cloaked in mist that swirled between the peaks. Nothing else appeared beyond the word “mountains.”
Yu Sheng furrowed his brows, staring intently at the seemingly copy-pasted, endlessly replicated mountains for a long time. Then, suddenly, he remembered the coffee shop where he’d once met Bai Li Qing—that shop, too, had repeated endlessly into the distance.
But this was different. That coffee shop had only extended in two directions. At least its storefront window offered a visible boundary. These enclosing peaks, however… from any angle, no end could be seen.
“This… there’s no way we can reach the edge, right?” Irene clutched Yu Sheng’s head, anxiously peering toward the far ridge. “Are we really going forward?”
Yu Sheng fell silent, focusing inward. He recalled the moment he had first connected with this Valley, drawing upon the perspectives he had “seen” then, while also sensing the current environment.
After a while, he suddenly crouched and picked up a small stone, hurling it into the distance.
The stone arced into the air—only to vanish before touching the ground.
“Eh?” Irene gasped in surprise.
Yu Sheng cautiously stepped forward, approaching the spot where the stone had disappeared. Nothing seemed unusual at first glance, yet he sensed an invisible boundary. He bent down again, picked up another pebble, and gently tossed it forward.
This time, he clearly witnessed it vanish—passing through a threshold, causing the air to shimmer briefly, like ripples across a pond.
Lifting his gaze, Yu Sheng followed the ridgeline left and right.
He could feel it.
The peaks rose and fell, merging again in the far distance. An unseen barrier encircled the Valley on all sides, from the sky above to the depths below.
After a few seconds of hesitation, Yu Sheng drew a breath and stepped forward.
“Hey hey hey! You’re really going?!” the little doll shrieked from his shoulder. “This feels like an evil Door! What if we go through and then—”
Before she could finish, Yu Sheng crossed the invisible boundary. As air shimmered and rippled around him, a momentary weightlessness washed over them—and just like that, the two stood once more at the Valley’s center.
“…We can’t go back…!” Irene shouted out of reflex, before blinking in shock as she looked around. “Wait, we’re back?”
Moments later, a larger ripple swept through the air as a towering silver-white Demon Fox stepped out beside them.
“Benefactor!” cried Miss Foxy, eyes scanning nervously until she saw Yu Sheng and Irene safe beside her. Only then did she relax, brushing her tail tip gently against Yu Sheng. “You both vanished all of a sudden—scared me half to death!”
“The space closes at the boundary and funnels inward toward the Valley center,” Yu Sheng finally broke his silence after deep thought. “I wonder if other Otherworlds are structured the same way.”
Irene blinked, slowly catching on. “So… no matter what, there’s no ‘outside’?”
“There is no ‘outside,'” Yu Sheng said, shaking his head. “This Valley is the only ‘valid’ region in the entire space. What we saw—those endless mountains—they’re merely reflections, overlapping shadows projected by spatial closure. If you look closely, they’re just infinite copies of the peaks surrounding the Valley.”
Irene’s eyes widened, then she nodded slowly in realization. “…Whoa.”
Whether she truly understood or not, who could say.
After a moment, she poked Yu Sheng’s head. “So what do we do now?”
Yu Sheng turned to the silver-white Demon Fox Maiden beside them.
“Now that this place no longer generates Entities and has become peaceful… perhaps we can finally give your parents a proper burial. Raise a formal grave mound. What do you think?”
Fox Girl tilted her head, then nodded gently.
It didn’t take long to locate the site where her parents’ bones had been buried. For Yu Sheng now, constructing a grave was a trivial task.
The two bodies, once hastily buried, were respectfully unearthed and prepared. Yu Sheng molded the earth, shaping it into a solid, recessed tomb. Stone blocks fused seamlessly into a sturdy sarcophagus—a process far simpler for him than healing land or growing plants en masse.
The skeletal remains were laid within the Holy Coffin, the Holy Coffin was lowered into the grave chamber, and the soil writhed as it layered over itself. A burial mound quickly took form.
“We’ll still need a gravestone,” said Yu Sheng, eyeing the mound. Seeing the puzzled look in Miss Foxy’s silver eyes, he added, “It stands in front of the tomb, as a tribute…”
Miss Foxy nodded at once. “I’ll fetch one.”
With that, the silver-furred Demon Fox Maiden turned and darted into the distance. A storm of sonic booms tore through the air, and in a blink, she vanished before Yu Sheng and Irene.
It wasn’t long before she thundered back, dust swirling behind her, a strange silver-white metal slab clamped between her teeth.
It stood over half a person in height.
“Father and Mother gave this to me as a gift,” she explained as she set it down before Yu Sheng. “It’s… a musical instrument. I was pestering them to let me take up a hobby class, so they got me this. I never got the chance to learn, though… and now it’s broken.”
With a deft flick of her tail, she lifted the metal slab and wedged it into the earth before the grave. She pressed the soil around it with her paw until it was as firm as stone.
“Actually, gravestones aren’t usually—” Yu Sheng began, then stopped himself midway. “Never mind. If you think it’s fitting, then it is.”
“We don’t have such traditions where I come from,” said the silver Demon Fox Maiden as she lay beside the grave, her nose gently—this time, truly gently—nudging Yu Sheng’s arm. “When a Demon Fox dies, we keep a small piece of bone—maybe a fang or a finger—as remembrance. When an Immortal passes, we keep a lock of hair. The rest returns to nature, or is refined into artifacts for remembrance. No need for full burials. Some even relinquish their sentience before death, merge with the Great Dao, and leave behind only eternal awareness. Their bodies are discarded, given back to the heavens and earth.”
Her head shifted slightly on the ground as she gazed at the newly made mound.
“But I’ve heard the Immortals say… long ago, before the Celestial Ones came down from the stars, there were burial rites like this. People would solemnly inter their ancestors’ remains, or store them in Bone Vaults. That was from the age before the Stellar Era—when civilization still thrived within gravity wells. After leaving the surface world behind, our ways of thinking and surviving changed. The ethics of life and death were reshaped. Hence, funerals transformed as well.”
Irene blinked. “Why does it sound like you’re quoting something incredibly deep…”
“It’s all from the Academy lectures. I don’t remember everything clearly anymore. I… didn’t do very well back then.” Miss Foxy’s large tail swept back and forth across the earth, then returned her gaze to the grave.
After two or three seconds of silence, she softly said, “Still, this is good. I can come here to talk to Father and Mother… Benefactor’s ideas always make sense.”
Yu Sheng said nothing. He simply walked over and sat down beside the silver Demon Fox Maiden, leaning against one of her fluffy tails.
He found himself curious about her homeland, picturing a Cultivator and Demon civilization unbound from terrestrial limits, wandering freely among the stars. He pondered how to find such a place in this vast universe. Slowly, though, these thoughts drifted away. He emptied his mind and gazed into the distance.
He looked upon this Otherworld—no longer birthing Entities, no longer poisonous or corrupting, now bound to him by fate.
[Could this place be… a base of operations?] he mused.
But such a massive base—what could it even be used for? Housing people? Their little group barely numbered three. Besides, he still had Wutong Road No. 66. That place, for all its age, was still more livable than the wilderness. Farming, maybe? Could anything grow in the Otherworld? The light seemed sufficient. Grass grew, after all… If grass grows, surely vegetables and grains might. Maybe even livestock—cows, sheep?
Yu Sheng felt himself dozing off. Leaning against the Demon Fox Maiden’s plush tail, comfort wrapped around him like a cloud, thoughts floating like cotton in the breeze. He daydreamed wildly, and chuckled at some particularly absurd musings.
The little doll on his shoulder leaned in. “What are you thinking about?”
Yu Sheng responded solemnly, “I’m considering future development plans for this place. Step one is clearing the wasteland around that broken temple and planting carrots, string beans, and cabbages.”
“…Huh?” said Irene.