Chapter 15: Trapped in This Place
When Yu Sheng heard the young woman pronounce her name, his first reaction was to think, [This young lady is really straightforward, using ‘Fox’ directly as her name.] After a few more questions, he finally figured out that her name was actually ‘Foxy,’ not ‘Fox.’
Foxy—a rather peculiar name, but fitting for someone with such an abundance of tails.
Sitting together amid the crumbling ruins of the old temple, Yu Sheng introduced himself, “My name is Yu Sheng. I come from… well, I’m not sure if you’ll understand, but I’m from ‘outside.’ Not just outside the Valley.”
Foxy’s eyes widened in shock, as if she immediately grasped the meaning behind his words. That surprise also carried a deeper implication—she knew of the existence of the ‘outside.’
She took another careful, restrained bite of chocolate, staring at Yu Sheng’s face. “You… really came from ‘outside’? Do you know… the way out? Is it… up there?”
As they spoke, Foxy’s speech became gradually more fluent, as if her ability to converse was rapidly recovering.
Yu Sheng was caught off guard. “Up there? Why do you ask?”
Foxy struggled to piece her words together, her speech still hesitant despite becoming smoother. “An Immortal… before dying… said we all came from up there. But then the sky suddenly darkened… and we couldn’t go back. The ground… grew more and more dangerous, filled with poison. The people who came with us… many died… and we couldn’t return.”
Yu Sheng listened, barely managing to make sense of the chaotic narrative through sheer imagination. He realized that this Valley—labeled simply as ‘Otherworld’ by Irene—seemed to hide a complex story. The girl with many tails before him clearly had an extraordinary origin.
She, too, was trapped here.
But when Yu Sheng tried to ask what ‘up there’ referred to, or who the ‘many people’ were and how they arrived, Foxy’s responses became muddled and incoherent again.
“Up there… is just up there. I’ve been trying for years to go back, but I always hit something. It hurts. Everyone else… forgot. There was Father, Mother, the Immortal, and… others. We came down on a ship… a big ship…”
Suddenly, as if remembering something, she pointed toward a dark part of the Valley. “That way… the ship fell and became part of the mountain. Father wanted to go back and get something, but later… something killed everyone… and no one knows how to… enter the ship anymore.”
A chill crept up Yu Sheng’s spine as the eerie tale unfolded.
Doing his best to piece together her fragmented story, he came to a speculative conclusion: Foxy and her kin—along with an ‘Immortal’—had arrived here aboard a colossal ship, likely capable of flight. When they landed, the Valley was still habitable. However, something catastrophic occurred, causing the sky to darken and the land to become lethal. The survivors were trapped, and soon after, a terrible force wiped out most of the group, leaving only Foxy alive.
But Yu Sheng understood that this narrative was just his interpretation of Foxy’s disjointed and flawed recollections. Many memories were fragmented or distorted, and even Foxy herself seemed unable to fully grasp what had truly happened.
This girl’s mind was clearly not in the right place anymore.
He couldn’t help but ask, “How long have you been trapped here?”
Foxy shook her head slowly, cradling the half-eaten chocolate in her hands. “I don’t know… a long time. This place… doesn’t change much. It’s hard to tell time. I just… fall unconscious when I’m too hungry, and when I wake up, it feels like a long time has passed.”
Yu Sheng frowned, glancing at Foxy’s ragged dress and recalling her chaotic experiences. He realized that she had likely been stuck here for years—far longer than he had imagined.
“How have you survived all these years?” he asked, unable to hide his confusion. “Do you just rummage through this old temple? There doesn’t seem to be anything edible…”
Foxy shook her head again. “No food… Sometimes there are berries in the forest, but they’re poisonous. Eating them makes me faint. Most of the time, I just… stay hungry.”
Foxy paused for a moment, her lips curling into a slow smile. Pointing at herself with a hint of pride, she spoke, “Monsters are resilient. We don’t starve to death, but… the hunger… it’s unbearable.”
Her expression twisted as if recalling a painful memory. Abruptly, she stood up and darted to a nearby pile of rubble, retrieving the discarded bag of kitchen waste with a reverence reserved for precious treasure. Hugging the bag of leftover scraps to her chest, she looked at Yu Sheng with utmost seriousness.
“It’s still edible,” she declared.
Yu Sheng opened his mouth, but no words came out. Deep down, he wished he could summon mountains of food or even open a Door back to the real world—but right now, he could barely take care of himself.
“Benefactor…” Foxy spoke up suddenly.
Yu Sheng froze, caught off guard. “What did you call me?”
“Benefactor,” Foxy repeated, her tone earnest. “Mother said anyone who helps you greatly is called a Benefactor. You gave me food.”
Waving his hand dismissively, Yu Sheng replied, “That title sounds odd… Just call me Yu Sheng. I’m used to it.”
“Oh… okay,” Foxy mumbled, her voice trailing off. Then, hesitating, she pointed at Yu Sheng’s finger, lowering her head. “Sorry.”
“Huh?” Yu Sheng blinked, glancing down at his hand. Only then did he remember the bite mark from when Foxy had lunged at the bread. The wound had already healed completely, with just a trace of dried blood on his skin. He shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s nothing, just a scratch.”
Foxy, however, looked genuinely worried. “Benefactor… Are you really okay? Being bitten by a monster… The wound harms your essence and can’t heal.”
“But it’s healed,” Yu Sheng replied, rubbing the spot to remove the remaining blood. “Look.”
Foxy’s eyes widened. “It really healed… Benefactor… Are you an Immortal?”
Yu Sheng scoffed. “I’m not. I don’t even know what you mean by ‘Immortal’—from what I gather, it’s someone who cultivates to reach enlightenment, right? But why would Immortals hang out with… uh, ‘monsters’? Weren’t you saying that your group was a bunch of monsters following an Immortal? In every story I’ve heard, Immortals and monsters usually fight to the death.”
Finally voicing the confusion that had been gnawing at him, Yu Sheng frowned. Immortals and monsters traveling together? That didn’t fit any myth or legend he knew. Usually, such groups met only to tear each other apart.
Foxy tilted her head, as if struggling to comprehend his confusion. After a moment of pondering, she replied uncertainly, “Because… he’s a Tour Guide Immortal.”
Yu Sheng was speechless, a chill creeping down his spine. He couldn’t help but question her again and again, only to confirm that he hadn’t misheard.
A Tour Guide Immortal. An Immortal… who guides tours.
Apparently, long ago, a Celestial Ship carrying both monsters and Immortals had crashed in this forbidden zone. They were all part of a traveling group—led by an Immortal guide. The idea alone nearly shattered Yu Sheng’s perception of reality.
[Great, just great. Here I was, weaving some epic xianxia tale in my head, and it turns out to be a budget travel group disaster. Figures. Ninety-nine yuan for a four-day trip with no shopping stops… Guess that’s why things went south.]
Yu Sheng sat in the night breeze, letting the cold wind sweep over the ruins of the broken temple and his face. The more he thought about it, the more distorted and surreal the world seemed.
Just then, Foxy’s voice interrupted his thoughts again.
“Benefactor…”
“Just call me Yu Sheng,” he sighed. “What is it now?”
Foxy clutched her stomach, wincing. “Benefactor… My stomach hurts…”
Yu Sheng stared at her, then at the half-eaten chocolate bar in her hand.
[You’ve got to be kidding me. Even a Fox Immortal can’t handle chocolate?]
In a rush of panic, he reached out to grab the remaining chocolate. “Stop eating that! This stuff is—”
But before his hand touched it, Foxy growled, throat rumbling like a feral beast, and lunged forward to chomp down on his hand.
“Ouch!”
In that instant, Yu Sheng’s howl of pain was even louder than hers.
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