Chapter 54: Yu Sheng’s Return
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation.
The valley rumbled with strange, wet chewing sounds that echoed all around, like huge jaws snapping shut over and over again. They rose and fell, crashing like waves against the sides of the mountains. Outside, the Otherworld itself had turned into one enormous, ghastly banquet. It didn’t take long for those huddled inside the cave to understand the dreadful truth behind those noises.
Li Lin, swallowing nervously, crept toward the entrance. His heart pounded as he craned his neck forward and peered outside. Almost at once, his scalp prickled with fear. The sight was beyond imagining.
All around, jagged fissures were splitting across the land. The mountains looked as if they were gnawing at one another, their rocky faces collapsing inward only to split apart again. The very earth seemed to be devouring itself, folding and unfolding in a horrifying dance of hunger. And everywhere, grotesque flesh-beasts sprouted from the shadows, only to be seized and swallowed by some invisible, monstrous force. It was as if the valley itself had become a living, breathing mouth.
But amid this terrible feast, Li Lin’s eyes fell upon a figure he never expected to see: Yu Sheng stood calmly in the clearing just outside the cave, looking somewhat dazed as he stared at the chaos unfolding before him.
For a moment, Li Lin simply blinked, utterly baffled. All the horror, all the strangeness seemed to slip from his mind. He found himself thinking that Yu Sheng must have only stepped away for a short stroll—certainly not that Yu Sheng had died or vanished. There was something strangely ordinary about his presence now, as though nothing had ever been amiss.
Huli and Irene, who had been standing guard at the cave’s entrance, were the first to realize what was happening.
“Benefactor! I knew you weren’t gone!” cried Huli, ears perking and tails swishing, her voice bright with relief. But almost immediately, her delight turned to worry. “Hurry, Benefactor! Come inside! It’s dangerous out there!”
Yu Sheng turned and took several brisk steps into the cave. As he walked, he mumbled thoughtfully, “That thing in the sky… it feels sinister, but it doesn’t seem aggressive.”
Irene, looking every bit the tiny, doll-like figure she was, barely listened to his muttering. She was much more concerned about whether he was truly safe and sound. Her eyes scanned him from head to toe. “Are you really all right? Is your mental state stable?”
Yu Sheng shot her a glare, half annoyed and half amused. “Can’t you just wish me well for once? Do you know how hard it was for me to get back?”
Then, casting a glance outside, he continued, “‘Hunger’ should be finishing up soon, but that giant eyeball up there… I don’t know where it came from. It’s not one of the ‘Entity-Hunger’ forms. It doesn’t feel like it belongs to this valley at all.”
Irene, who had been ready with some sarcastic remark, froze at Yu Sheng’s words. “Wait… it’s not from here?” she asked, her voice going quiet.
Yu Sheng shook his head. He still shared a subtle connection to the Otherworld, allowing him to sense the presence of the eye above. “No. Right now, I can sense every Hunger Entity. That eye doesn’t match anything. It’s an intruder, hovering up there for who knows how long. It must have replaced the original sky years ago.”
Irene gaped at him, rendered momentarily speechless. Then a deep, steady voice emerged from the shadowy depths of the cave, breaking the silence.
“That’s an ‘Angel,’” the voice said.
Startled, Yu Sheng looked up. A towering man nearly two meters tall stepped into the dim light. His face was outlined by a strange, ghostly blue glow—foxfire flickering gently on his cheeks. He regarded Yu Sheng with caution and a certain grave seriousness, as if weighing whether to trust him.
The man’s gaze flicked over Yu Sheng, not unfriendly yet not exactly warm. “Were you separated from the group earlier?” he asked, his voice rumbling low, as if testing Yu Sheng’s response.
Yu Sheng sensed the man’s wary tone, though it held no true hostility. He decided not to dwell on it. Instead, he focused on what the man had said before. “‘Angel,’ you said?” he asked, genuinely curious.
The tall figure crossed his arms and spoke slowly, each word chosen with care. “More precisely, a ‘Dark Angel.’ A dangerous being we don’t fully understand. Some say they trigger events or mutations wherever they appear. Every Dark Angel is different—different shapes, different powers, different ways of haunting a place. This one above us has likely been feeding on this Otherworld for many years. Its presence warped the creatures here into what we see now.”
Yu Sheng raised his eyebrows, surprised at how much this man seemed to know. Clearly, he understood more about these Dark Angels than he was willing to share outright. Yu Sheng could sense that the big man was holding back, perhaps out of caution. And that was fair enough—they barely knew each other’s names.
“I’m Yu Sheng,” he said at last, offering his hand. “These two here are Huli and Irene—they’re my friends.”
The big man hesitated, as though still deciding how much to trust a stranger who had just strolled in from a nightmare outside. Finally, he took Yu Sheng’s hand. “Hello, I’m Xu Jiali,” he said.
Yu Sheng blinked. “Wait, sorry, what was that again?” He couldn’t help wondering if he’d heard correctly.
A girl wearing a bright red outfit, who had been sitting quietly on a stone stool off to the side, answered before Xu Jiali could repeat himself. She looked up at Yu Sheng, a smirk playing on her lips. “He said his name is Xu Jiali—like ‘lovely beauty.’ And me, you can just call me Little Red Riding Hood.”
Yu Sheng stared at her, then at the towering man, and put two and two together. “Ah, I see. You two must be professionals—using code names and all that.”
Xu Jiali gave a small shrug, his tone flat but honest. “She’s using a code name. Mine is real.”
Yu Sheng blinked again, stumped. “Oh… I see,” he managed, at a loss for words. Unsure what to say, he complimented the name anyway, thinking it sounded pleasantly cultural. Then he turned to the last person in the cave who hadn’t introduced himself. The young man’s face stirred an odd sense of familiarity in Yu Sheng’s mind, though he couldn’t quite place it.
The fellow stepped forward without hesitation. “I’m Li Lin,” he said simply.
Before Yu Sheng could respond, Irene piped up, sounding almost relieved. “Hey! That name sounds normal!”
Li Lin’s face fell, as if he’d just realized that he was in a group with a fox spirit, a human-like doll, someone named Xu Jiali, and a girl calling herself Little Red Riding Hood. He sighed inwardly, but soon enough his attention drifted elsewhere.
The chewing noises outside were fading fast. The trembling of the ground, which had rattled everyone’s nerves, was also settling down. Soon, only silence and the faint echo of distant crunches remained.
Xu Jiali stepped toward the entrance and looked out again, his eyes narrowing at the transformed landscape. The valley that had once stretched out green and alive was now barren. It had been stripped down to jagged rocks and crumbling earth. No forests remained. Instead, there were strange, twisted ravines and deep cuts in the land where creatures had devoured one another.
Turning sharply on his heel, Xu Jiali fixed Yu Sheng with a searching gaze. “Is this… your doing?” His voice held a note of disbelief. It was a wild idea that a human could cause such a thing, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that Yu Sheng’s disappearance and reappearance were linked to this strange feast.
Yu Sheng gave a little shrug, clearly in a good mood. He looked as if he’d just finished a grand meal and was feeling pleasantly full. “Sort of,” he answered honestly. “It took some effort.”
Li Lin looked from the ravaged valley back to Yu Sheng, his face a picture of bewildered shock. “How… how is that even possible?” he breathed, struggling to understand how Yu Sheng could have caused or survived something so unimaginable.
But Yu Sheng didn’t know how to explain the truth—that he had been consumed by some entity called Hunger, and then, through a twist of fate and will, turned the tables. It was too strange to make sense, and these were people he barely knew. He gave a vague answer, keeping things simple.
“Got lucky, found a weakness,” Yu Sheng said, waving a hand as if brushing away a troublesome fly. “I don’t really understand it myself. There was a chain reaction, and then all those things started devouring each other.”
Li Lin realized that pressing Yu Sheng further wouldn’t help. Some secrets weren’t meant to be shared, and he accepted the answer with a respectful nod.
Just then, Irene let out a sudden shout. “Hey! That thing in the sky—is it floating away?!”
In a flash, Yu Sheng rushed to her side, leaning out from the cave’s entrance to see for himself. Sure enough, the huge eyeball-like presence that had hovered menacingly over the Otherworld was drifting upwards, shrinking as it went. It was pulling away, growing smaller and dimmer as if someone had turned down the brightness of a lantern in the sky.
Within seconds, the great eye was merely a fraction of its original size. Moments later, it was hardly more than a faint disc in the sky—and then, as if it had never been there at all, it vanished completely. Bright, more natural light began creeping over the valley, and the sky’s proper colors returned. Wisps of cloud drifted back, as if breathing a sigh of relief.
“It’s gone?” Irene asked, craning her neck and blinking at the now-ordinary heavens. She whirled toward the tall man who had explained the Angel’s nature. “You said that was an ‘Angel,’ right? A Dark Angel. Now it’s gone! What do we do?”
Xu Jiali gave a small, relieved chuckle, the tension in his shoulders easing. “What else can we do?” he said, allowing himself a slight smile. “We celebrate—and then I go back and write my report.”