Chapter 27: Into the Depths of the Dream
(This novel is translated and hosted on Bcatranslation.)
What Irene wanted Yu Sheng to do was actually quite simple.
All she needed was for him to find a spot to lie down and stay out of trouble.
Yu Sheng moved carefully over to the enormous silver fox, who was still fast asleep. He circled around her huge body and all those silky, fluffy tails, searching for a comfortable place to settle in. At last, he found a cozy hollow formed where two of her giant tails crossed, creating a soft little nest.
He bent down and gently tugged at the fox’s thick tail fur, adjusting it just right. Then he patted another tail to fluff it up a bit. Irene hovered nearby, watching him with a rather puzzled look. “Are you making a bed or something?” she asked.
“Well, I want it to be comfortable,” Yu Sheng answered naturally, leaning back against one of those silver, cushiony tails. “Who knows how long this will take? I really care about sleeping well…”
Irene sniffed, slightly amused. Once Yu Sheng finally settled into his makeshift bed, Irene drifted closer. The picture frame that housed her spirit came to rest right on top of his chest. “Catch,” she said plainly.
Startled, Yu Sheng scrambled to grab the frame before it fell. He nearly thought Irene had done it on purpose, trying to drop it on him out of spite. “Whoa!” he exclaimed, “Can you at least warn me next time?”
But he had managed to catch her. She hadn’t slipped out of his grip, and he hadn’t been squashed. He adjusted himself into a half-sitting position, leaning back against the fox’s tail. He held Irene’s frame carefully in his hands and let out a quiet sigh, trying to relax as he waited to drift into the dream world.
He was about to sink into a dream inside another dream—something he had never experienced before. It felt both curious and unsettling.
From inside the painting, Irene began to hum a soft, ancient tune. It carried a kind of distant longing, filled with a sadness that stretched far back in time. Although Yu Sheng didn’t understand the words, he felt the soothing melody flow into his mind. Gradually, his eyelids grew heavier. Caught between waking and sleeping, he lowered his gaze one last time to look at Irene’s portrait in his hands.
For some odd reason, it almost felt as if he were holding a memorial portrait of someone who had passed away.
Yu Sheng paused, his thoughts drifting. Why was it that this puppet-like companion always managed to make things feel so grim?
Before he could puzzle it out any further, his thoughts cut off. He slipped into darkness, falling straight into the deepest part of the dream.
It felt as though he’d lost control of his body—or perhaps he no longer even had a body. He seemed to exist only as a floating awareness, rushing through strange memories, swirling thoughts, and mysterious sensations that did not belong to him. All around, shadows overlapped like countless, jumbled fragments of images woven together into a never-ending curtain. This curtain stretched forward and forward, forming a tunnel that seemed to extend into infinity.
A constant humming sound filled his mind, and a flood of information poured in. It was impossible to tell if these were actual voices echoing from afar or just lingering memories bubbling to the surface.
He heard someone shouting, followed by deafening explosions. He caught the roar and rattle of the Celestial Shuttle’s power core tearing itself apart. The shuttle was crashing off course, tumbling into a world that seemed to have appeared out of thin air.
A tremendous impact—he watched the shuttle slam into a dark, towering mountain. The spirit bound to that Heavenly Vessel broke loose and quarreled fiercely with the immortal who was piloting. They argued about things like “withholding spirit stones,” “reckless driving,” and “reporting to the Celestial Sect.” Then everything blew apart, and in the explosion, the tool spirit died. Many others perished too.
Those who survived didn’t live long. One by one, they met their ends.
Yu Sheng watched people, their once-vibrant figures now faded and yellowed like old photographs, die of hunger, fall victim to poison in the depths of the forest, or perish in desperate fights. He witnessed them being consumed by a boundless, relentless malice that hung over the valley like a poisonous fog.
It seemed as though the valley itself wanted them dead. It forced hunger upon them, driving them to madness.
Suddenly, the endless tunnel of memories vanished. Yu Sheng now found himself in a dull, colorless scene. After passing through so many chaotic fragments, he had arrived at what must be Foxy’s current dream.
Just as Irene had warned, the dream’s colors looked washed out and stale. Everything was dull and gray—the sky, the trees, the soil, and the rocks. The darkness and lifelessness pressed down on him, as if the very air weighed heavily on his chest.
“Irene?” Yu Sheng called out in his mind, searching for her presence. He could see nothing but the dim forest.
“I’m here,” her voice answered, echoing directly inside his head.
“Where? I can’t see you.” He glanced around, trying to spot even a flicker of her frame or figure.
“You can’t see me, and you can’t see yourself either,” Irene replied calmly. “We’ve slipped into this dream as foreign consciousnesses. We’re lucky we can even perceive anything at all.”
“Got it,” Yu Sheng said softly. Without a body to move, he simply thought about finding Foxy.
Almost at once, he heard a sound. It was the sound of digging, somewhere not too far away.
He guided his point of view—this invisible perspective—toward the sound, drifting through the grayish trees until he found her.
Foxy was there, in human-like form, a silver-haired girl kneeling at the edge of a clearing. Her once-beautiful fox tails were dirty, tangled with mud and grime. She wore ragged clothes and kept digging into the soil with her bare hands. The ground around her was pitted with holes she had dug before, each one dark and empty.
Yu Sheng’s unseen perspective floated closer. Foxy remained unaware that anyone was there. She continued to claw at the earth desperately, as if searching for something she had lost long ago.
Suddenly, Irene’s voice sounded in Yu Sheng’s mind: “Speak to her. Say something.”
“But she can’t see us,” he replied doubtfully.
“It doesn’t matter. In a dream, anything can happen. She’ll respond. A dreamer rarely questions strange things,” Irene explained.
Yu Sheng hesitated, then tried speaking to the fox girl. “What are you digging for?”
Foxy answered at once, without any trace of surprise. “My mom and dad,” she said, her voice hollow and distant. “I remember I buried them right here… I know they’re here…”
Yu Sheng felt a painful twist in his chest, a heaviness he couldn’t ignore. “Why do you want to dig them up?” he asked gently, though it hurt to ask.
“I… I miss them,” Foxy said softly. She paused, her hands still in the dirt. Her eyes looked empty, like she was in a trance. “I’m so hungry. I want to tell them how hungry I am… But I held on. They told me not to listen to the monster’s voice. I’ve tried so hard to hold on, but… I’m still so hungry…” Her words shook with quiet despair.
She looked down at her dirt-caked hands and then went right back to digging, as if trapped in a terrible loop. “They should be here,” she mumbled, voice trembling. “They must still be safe underground… I listened to them. I never listened to that monster…”
Irene’s voice rang urgently in Yu Sheng’s mind, “Something is seriously wrong with her.”
“Yeah, I knew from the start that something was off,” Yu Sheng answered silently.
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Irene insisted. “There’s something else tangled up in her mind—another presence trying to influence her thoughts. It’s as if a foreign will is pushing her, trying to break her down. She’s still resisting, but it’s taking all she has to hold on.”
Irene suddenly fell silent, as if listening for something.
Foxy stopped digging. She stood up unsteadily, swaying like a leaf in a silent wind. She took a few stumbling steps away and then just stood there, lost in the clearing.
Yu Sheng followed her at once, and a moment later, he heard a faint, blurry voice drifting through his thoughts. It did not sound like Foxy or Irene, but seemed to come from inside his own head—though he knew it wasn’t his.
“Dig them up. Dig them up…” the strange voice whispered.
“You only want to see them again, don’t you? You want to be sure you obeyed them. It’s been so long since you last saw them, hasn’t it?
‘I’ miss them too…”
Foxy turned blankly to look back at the holes she had dug. “I miss them so much…” she said, voice trembling.
Yu Sheng realized with a shock that this voice he’d heard must be the foreign presence Irene spoke of. Now that he was linked to Foxy’s dream, he could sense what she sensed. He could hear what she heard in the darkest corners of her mind.
The fox girl seemed about to start digging again, compelled by that cruel whisper. Each handful of dirt seemed to tear at her mind’s defenses.
A chill ran through Yu Sheng. He understood exactly what that voice was pushing her to do. Panic and protectiveness surged inside him, and he shouted instinctively, “Foxy!”
At the sound of his voice, Foxy froze. She turned her head slightly, staring at the dim, empty forest. Her eyes cleared, if only a little, and she seemed to recognize something in that voice.
“…Benefactor?” she whispered softly, as if recalling Yu Sheng’s earlier kindness. But no one appeared before her. Yu Sheng made no further sound. It was as if that one desperate shout had been only a passing wind.
Foxy stood there, stunned. Slowly, fear crept into her expression as she took in the countless holes she had dug around herself.
She was beginning to wake up. Just when it seemed she would break under the pressure of that unseen influence, she found one thread of hope to hold on to—and that was enough to stir her from the nightmare’s grasp.