Chapter 79: Change
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation
“Going out?” Foxy paused for a moment when she heard Yu Sheng’s words. Then, without missing a beat, she quickly wiped the remaining dishes dry with her tail, grabbed another tail, and wiped the sesame paste from her mouth. “Alright, I’m ready…”
Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow as he watched her. “No need to rush like that—wait, did you just use your tail to wipe your mouth?”
Foxy glanced down at her tail tip, which still had some sesame paste on it, and realized what she had done. She then dunked her tail into the sink, scrubbing it clean before shaking it vigorously in front of Yu Sheng.
“It’s a habit…” she muttered under her breath. “I forgot we have better tools for that at home.”
“It’s alright, no big deal,” Yu Sheng replied, wiping some stray water droplets off his face. “But next time, be careful about spraying water on people—or the appliances.”
“Ah, I’m so sorry, Benefactor!” Foxy gasped, realizing she had splashed him. She hurried over, using her dry tail to clumsily wipe his face. “Where are we going, then? Do we need to fight someone?”
“Stop, stop, I can do it myself!” Yu Sheng quickly fended off her tail, and spat out two stray silver hairs. “We’re heading back to the valley. But this time, there shouldn’t be any fighting.”
Foxy stopped in her tracks, her whole body going tense. Her fear was written all over her face—a reaction Yu Sheng had anticipated. He knew exactly how she’d react even before he spoke. But that was why he wanted her to see the strange changes in the valley herself.
“Don’t be scared. I’m here,” he said, stepping forward and gently patting her head. “I know you don’t like that place, but there’s something strange going on there. I think it’s important for you to see it with your own eyes. Don’t worry, you won’t get trapped again.”
Foxy stared at Yu Sheng, her gaze unfocused for several seconds before she nodded stiffly. It was clear she had mustered up a lot of courage to do so.
With that, Yu Sheng took her back to the dining room. They picked up the little Doll, who had been waiting for a while, and opened the door leading to the valley of the Otherworld. The three of them—if one counted the “human” quantity—stepped through.
The valley opened up before them, bathed in sunlight. A fresh breeze swept through the valley floor. The distant rocky terrain and wasteland were bathed in the morning light, and everything seemed bright and vivid after the darkness of night had lifted. Even the devastation left behind from the “feast” looked almost… gentle and comforting under the sun.
Irene sat on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, her eyes wide as she took in the scene. After a long silence, she blurted, “This is like Yu Sheng crawling into an alchemy furnace—absolutely bonkers!”
Yu Sheng turned to her, his expression complicated. “Could you please stop using me to make up sayings?”
“Well, then explain this to me—” Irene pointed towards the valley. “Entity-Hunger’s aura has completely disappeared! This place doesn’t even feel like the ‘Otherworld’ anymore!”
“It doesn’t feel like the Otherworld anymore?” Yu Sheng caught onto her phrasing, his expression shifting. “What do you mean by that?”
“The entire environment has changed. I don’t know if you can feel it, but there’s a different ‘atmosphere’ now. It feels kind of like…” Irene hesitated, frowning slightly as she looked Yu Sheng up and down, “like your atmosphere. Or more like the one from Wutong Road No. 66.”
Yu Sheng: “…?”
While Yu Sheng was still processing that, Foxy cautiously scanned her surroundings. She had been tense when she first stepped through the gate, but now she only looked confused. Unlike Irene, she didn’t have an uncanny ability to sense the Otherworld. But as a fox spirit, she instinctively sensed things that had once threatened her.
Entity-Hunger had truly disappeared, and there were no signs of it regenerating anytime soon. Yu Sheng’s voice broke Foxy and Irene out of their thoughts. “I want you to see more than just that.”
Saying this, he crouched down and reached towards a patch of uneven, pitted earth. This ground was riddled with hollows and corrosion marks left by Entity-Hunger’s tendrils. Though they didn’t understand, Foxy and Irene instinctively watched where Yu Sheng’s hand moved.
They saw the soil begin to shift, slowly.
They heard faint rustling noises from deep within the earth.
The ground began to heal—the hollows filled in, and the corroded patches vanished.
Green shoots began to sprout from the soil, fragile yet vivid—small signs of life that left them both stunned. The valley was “healing.” It was the only way Irene could think to describe what she was seeing.
Her neck turned stiffly, her gaze locking onto Yu Sheng’s face. Yu Sheng exhaled, standing up slowly.
The area within a few dozen meters around him had recovered, though this was the extent of his current abilities.
Further out, he could sense a subtle connection between himself and the land, but he couldn’t “activate” or “restore” it as easily.
Still, he could feel his actions were affecting the entire valley. It was as if he had planted a seed, sparking a slow, ongoing reaction—a sensation that the whole valley was gradually waking up and coming back to life.
“How did you do that?” Irene finally asked, unable to hold back her curiosity.
“I don’t know the exact principle behind it, but it’s probably related to the ‘connection’ formed by my blood,” Yu Sheng said thoughtfully. “Ever since the last incident ended, I’ve felt some kind of stable link with this valley. Maybe it’s because I’ve died here so many times, there’s enough of my blood soaked into the ground to water a garden… At some point, I just… felt it, like this.”
He pointed to the now healed patch of earth at his feet.
Irene stared at him, wide-eyed and a little horrified. After a moment, she muttered, “What kind of weird stuff is in your blood, anyway?!”
Then she paused, realization dawning on her. “Wait a second! You used your blood to make me a body and put it on my picture frame! Does that mean you can control me too—”
“No,” Yu Sheng cut her off, sighing. “If I could control you, do you think I’d still be getting kicked off the bed every night?”
Irene thought about that, then relaxed. “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.”
She turned to Foxy, who had been silent all this time. “You’re from a family of immortals—you must have a different perspective. What do you think?”
Foxy looked at Yu Sheng with admiration. “Benefactor, your powers are so amazing! You can influence nature, like a landscape gardening immortal!”
Yu Sheng: “…”
He wasn’t sure if she was praising him or not, but decided to take it as a compliment.
“I should’ve known better than to expect you to have any insights,” Irene sighed, then poked Yu Sheng’s forehead. “Anyway, you can put aside this ‘connection’ with the valley for now. The main thing is that the Entity hasn’t regenerated—I doubt it’s really gone for good.”
“Nothing like this has happened before?” Yu Sheng asked, a bit skeptical.
“Of course not. At least, not that I’ve ever heard of,” Irene said confidently. “Entities are inevitable phenomena of the Otherworld, not separate beings that can be permanently destroyed. As long as the Otherworld exists, Entities exist. But then again—”
The little Doll paused, her gaze turning thoughtful as she looked around.
“The atmosphere of the entire valley has changed,” she said. “At least from my perspective, it no longer feels like the Otherworld that gave birth to Entity-Hunger. So maybe… maybe it really is gone for good…”
Her brows furrowed, as if her logic told her the conclusion made sense, but she couldn’t quite believe it.
Foxy, however, didn’t understand Irene’s hesitation. She only knew one thing: the monster might never come back. She tugged on Yu Sheng’s sleeve. “So, there won’t be any more monsters hurting people here?”
“Seems like it,” Yu Sheng said after a moment of thought, nodding. “Unless the valley somehow severs its connection with me and goes back to how it was.”
Foxy stared at him, her thoughts unreadable for a moment. Then she suddenly threw herself at him, wrapping him in a tight hug—so tight that even Yu Sheng’s body, which was far stronger than the average human, creaked under the pressure. And if that wasn’t enough, she even wrapped several tails around him. “Benefactor, this is wonderful! It’s wonderful!”
Yu Sheng hadn’t expected this at all. He felt all the air being squeezed out of his lungs, and he couldn’t even enjoy the warmth of her embrace. It was like being caught in a vise from all sides. “Loosen… up… I’m dying here… the tails…”
Foxy immediately released him, springing back with a start. “Ah! Sorry, Benefactor! I got carried away…”
Yu Sheng took a deep breath, supporting himself on his knees, finally able to breathe again. “Your tails are way too strong!”
“You scared me too!” Irene protested. “Your tail almost knocked me off!”
Foxy bowed repeatedly, her ears almost flat against her head in embarrassment. It was clear, though, that she was still very happy.
It was a happiness that went beyond the relief she had felt when she first escaped from the Otherworld—a deeper, more genuine sense of peace.
Yu Sheng finally caught his breath (and fixed a few minor fractures in his body). He patted Foxy’s head to reassure her, then straightened up, looking out into the distance.
Irene noticed the shift in Yu Sheng’s demeanor right away. The little Doll turned to Foxy. “I think he’s got another idea…”
“Want to go a bit further?” Yu Sheng asked, just as they predicted. “What do you think lies beyond the valley?”