Chapter 79: Transformation
“A trip through the Door?”
Foxy blinked at Yu Sheng’s words, momentarily stunned. Then, she hastily wiped the remaining bowls dry with her tails, grabbed one of them to wipe the sesame paste from her mouth. “Alright, I’m ready now…”
Yu Sheng’s eye twitched as he watched the Demon Fox Maiden. “It’s not that urgent—did you really just use your tail to wipe your mouth?”
Foxy glanced down at the sesame paste on the tip of her tail and only then realized what she had done. She quickly dunked the tail back into the sink, scrubbing it clean before giving it a few vigorous shakes right in front of Yu Sheng.
“I got used to it…” she muttered sheepishly, “Forgot we had better stuff at home.”
“No worries, it’s not a big deal,” Yu Sheng said, wiping water off his face. “But next time you shake your tail dry, maybe check who’s standing nearby—and watch out for the electronics.”
“Ah, sorry, Benefactor!” Foxy finally noticed she had drenched Yu Sheng and hurried over, using a dry tail to frantically dab at his face. As she wiped, she asked, “So… where are we going? Do we have to fight something?”
“Stop, stop, I can wipe it myself—” Yu Sheng waved off the chaos of tails attacking his face, spitting out two silver hairs. “We’re going back to the Valley, but this time, we probably won’t need to fight.”
Foxy froze, her whole body going stiff.
The anxiety and fear in her eyes were impossible to miss. In fact, Yu Sheng had expected exactly this reaction.
But that was precisely why he felt she had to see the Valley’s strange transformation with her own eyes.
“Don’t be afraid. I’m with you,” he said, stepping closer and gently patting the Fox Girl’s hair. “I know you have deep resistance to that place, but something bizarre is happening over there. I think it’s necessary for you to witness it yourself. Don’t worry, you won’t get trapped again.”
Foxy stared blankly at Yu Sheng. It took her several seconds to respond, finally giving a stiff nod as if mustering immense courage.
Yu Sheng led her back to the canteen, where the little doll was already waiting. With everyone ready, he opened the great Door leading to the ValleyOtherworld, and the three of them (though humanoid content was debatable) stepped through.
Sunlight bathed the Valley as it unfolded before their eyes. A fresh breeze swept across the Valley Floor. In the distance, rocks and wastelands gleamed under daylight. With night now retreating, everything appeared vivid and bright.
Even the post-feast devastation seemed gentler, more reassuring under the sun’s embrace.
Perched on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, Irene widened her eyes at the transformed Valley, dumbfounded before exclaiming, “Yu Sheng diving into the Alchemic Furnace—what a wicked Door this is…”
Yu Sheng instantly forgot what he was about to say and turned, looking at Irene with a mix of emotions. “Can you not invent sayings using my name?”
“Then you explain this to me first—” Irene pointed at the Valley. “The aura of the Hunger Entity has completely vanished! This place… it doesn’t even feel like the same ‘Otherworld’ anymore!”
“Not the same Otherworld?” Yu Sheng caught her phrasing, eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”
“The entire environment’s changed. I don’t know if you can sense the shift in atmosphere, but this place now has a certain… vibe to it.” Irene frowned slightly, glancing Yu Sheng up and down before continuing with some hesitation. “A vibe like you, or maybe… like Wutong Road No. 66.”
Yu Sheng: “…?”
While he was stunned, Foxy nervously scanned the surroundings. She had tensed up completely when they first passed through the Door, but now confusion had replaced her fear. Unlike Irene, she lacked a precise sensory ability for the Otherworld, but as a Demon Fox Maiden, she had an instinctive sensitivity to anything that once posed a threat to her.
The Hunger Entity had truly disappeared, and it showed no signs of regenerating even after all this time.
Yu Sheng’s voice broke their focus. “What I want to show you isn’t just that.”
As he spoke, he crouched down and extended a hand toward a patch of pockmarked soil in front of them.
There, remnants of trenches and corrosion left behind by the Hunger Entity’s tendrils marred the earth.
Foxy and Irene watched in silence as Yu Sheng pointed.
The soil began to ripple.
A faint rustling rose from deep beneath the surface.
The land started to heal. Grooves filled in. Corrosion faded.
Green shoots emerged from the dirt, delicate and frail—yet those tiny specks of life were enough to leave them both in awe.
The Valley was “healing”—that was the only word Irene could think of to describe what she was seeing.
Her neck stiffly turned as she looked at Yu Sheng’s face beside her.
Yu Sheng let out a long breath and slowly stood up.
Within a radius of several dozen meters around him, the ground had already begun to recover. But that, it seemed, was his current limit.
He could sense a subtle connection between himself and the land further away, but he couldn’t simply “activate” or “reshape” it directly as he did here.
Yet even so, he could feel it—what he had done had affected the entire Valley. As if he had planted a seed, initiating a slow, continuous reaction. He could feel it: the Valley was gradually awakening, stirring from dormancy and inching toward life again.
“How did you do it?” Irene finally couldn’t hold back and asked.
“I’m not exactly sure how it works,” Yu Sheng murmured thoughtfully. “But it’s likely the same kind of connection established through ‘blood’. Ever since the last incident ended, I felt like I had formed a stable bond with the Valley. Maybe because I’ve died here too many times… spilled enough blood to irrigate the land. Either way, after a certain moment, I could feel it. Like this.”
He pointed to the patch of ground beneath his feet that had already healed.
Irene stared at him with a mix of amazement and unease, her eyes wide. After a long pause, she blurted, “What kind of cursed Door-spawned thing is your blood?!”
Then she froze, realization hitting her: “Wait! You used your blood to build my body, and even smeared it on my painting frame! Does that mean you can control—”
“I can’t,” Yu Sheng sighed at once. “If I could control you, do you think I’d still be getting kicked all night in my sleep?”
Irene thought for a moment and relaxed. “Okay, fair enough.”
She turned to Foxy, who had been silent the whole time. “You’re from the Cultivation world—got a different perspective. What do you think?”
Foxy looked at Yu Sheng with starry eyes and admiration. “Benefactor, your immortal arts are profound—you command the very changes of nature. You could be a Garden and Landscaping Immortal!”
Yu Sheng: “…”
He couldn’t quite tell if this Demon Fox Maiden was praising him or making fun of him. Let’s go with praise.
“I shouldn’t have expected a serious take from you,” Irene muttered and jabbed Yu Sheng in the head with her finger. “Anyway, let’s set aside this ‘connection’ with the Valley for now. The real concern is the Entity that used to dwell here. It hasn’t regenerated for a long time… Could it really be gone?”
“Has that ever happened before?” Yu Sheng asked, suspicious.
“Of course not. At least, not that I’ve ever heard of,” Irene replied without hesitation. “Entities are inevitable phenomena in the functioning of the Otherworld, not individual threats you can just eliminate. As long as the Otherworld exists, the Entities do too. But…”
The Doll Lady paused, her gaze shifting subtly to their surroundings.
“The entire atmosphere of this Valley has changed. At least from my perception, it no longer feels like the Otherworld that once birthed Entity-Hunger. If that’s true… then maybe Entity-Hunger really is permanently gone.”
Her brow furrowed. It was as if she had found a logically sound explanation, yet couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it.
Foxy, however, didn’t seem to understand Irene’s internal conflict. She only grasped one simple thing: the monster might never come back.
She tugged at Yu Sheng’s sleeve and asked softly, “So… that monster… it won’t come out and hurt people anymore?”
“Seems like it,” Yu Sheng nodded after a moment’s thought. “Unless the Valley breaks off from its connection to me, and manages to turn itself back into what it was.”
Hearing this, Foxy stared blankly at him, lost in thought.
Then, all of a sudden, she pounced—throwing her arms around Yu Sheng in a crushing embrace. The force was so great that even Yu Sheng’s body, now far beyond normal human strength, let out creaks under the pressure. On top of that, a swarm of fluffy tails wrapped around him.
“Benefactor! This is wonderful! So wonderful!”
Yu Sheng was totally caught off guard. The air in his lungs was almost squeezed dry. There was no time to enjoy the warmth of a Demon Fox Maiden’s hug—it felt more like he was being clamped by several hydraulic presses from all directions.
“Loosen… up… I’m dying here… the tails…”
Foxy blinked and leapt back, alarmed. “Ah! Sorry, Benefactor—I got a little excited!”
Yu Sheng braced himself on his knees, wheezing. After a long pause, he finally waved her off weakly. “How… how are your tails so strong?!”
“Scared me too!” Irene chimed in, protesting, “You swung one tail and nearly knocked me off!”
Foxy just kept bowing in apology, her ears nearly pinned to her scalp.
But even so, it was clear—she was happy.
That was a joy even greater than when she’d first escaped the Otherworld—a joy that brought true, lasting peace.
Yu Sheng finally caught his breath (and healed a few minor bone fractures in the process). He placed a calming hand on Foxy’s head, then stood up and looked into the distance.
Irene immediately noticed the shift in his posture and expression.
The little doll turned to Foxy. “I think he’s got an idea again…”
“Should we head farther out?” Yu Sheng said, as expected. “What do you think’s beyond this Valley?”