Chapter 068

Chapter 68: Foxy’s Hometown Memories

A pretty black haired girl with clear eyes in an ill fitting men’s outfit wandered down the busy street, peeking everywhere with open curiosity, while hugging a Gothic Doll that gave off a creepy, almost unquiet aura; a pair like that drew stares. To be honest, Yu Sheng felt he had badly underestimated how hard it would be to take Foxy and Irene out of The Door together.

He had lost count of how many curious looks followed them. Some were aimed at the wide eyed Foxy, but just as many landed on him.

Even so, Yu Sheng had to stick close to the Ms.Fox at his side, because she really did not understand anything here.

She did not even know what money looked like. In fact, it was already good that she knew you had to spend money to buy things, and that was only because, many years ago, she had also lived in some kind of civilized society.

From another angle, though, the gap between the rules in Foxy’s memories and the rules in Boundary City kept causing trouble.

For example, when they passed a parking lot, she became very curious about why so many “Celestial Vehicles” could sit there so quietly, and why those vehicles were so patient. When she first asked that, Yu Sheng did not even understand what she meant.

“In my hometown, carriages and boats all have Artifact Spirits,” Foxy explained in a low voice to Yu Sheng, “the Artifact Spirits of vehicles love to run and jump, and most will not sit quietly outside the mountain gate by The Door, so when people like immortals traveled and needed to stop somewhere, they handed their vehicles to stewards. The stewards had to take the vehicles nearby to ‘run around.’ There was also a kind of big field with a pocket world inside, where you could put your vehicles so they could run and play on their own. That was called a ‘self service parking lot’.”

As she spoke, she lifted a hand and pointed at a car by the curb that looked like a brand new driver was trying and failing to fit into a space: “This one is so stiff that, back home, even a child’s hobbyhorse would laugh at it.”

Yu Sheng hurried to press the Ms.Fox’s hand back down, saying softly: “Things aren’t the same here as in your hometown, so don’t point at people.”

Foxy blinked, puzzled, then nodded: “Oh.”

Yu Sheng quietly wiped the cold sweat from his brow, and he suddenly grew very curious about what kind of place the Ms.Fox’s home really was. At first, when he met Foxy, he thought her home was the classic immortal and devil cultivation world. But then a Tour Guide Immortal showed up. After that, “hundreds of Public Security Immortals surrounded a big Demon Fox who had damaged forest protection and sentenced it to five hundred years.” Now even the kids’ hobbyhorses came with artificial minds, or Artifact Spirits. His head felt stuffed with fog. He kept thinking:

[The style of Foxy’s hometown is hard to picture.]

[Can a normal universe even grow something like that?]

Sadly, Foxy herself could not tell what her hometown truly looked like. It was not only because she had been very young when she left home, but also because the long torment in the Otherworld had made her forget many things.

“I don’t remember a lot. I only remember the elders said our home wasn’t like that at the start,” Foxy tried her best to tell Yu Sheng what she could see in her mind, memories already yellowed and blurry, “one day, powerful ‘Skyfolk’ came down from the sky and enlightened the beings on the ground who used to fight all the time. A long time after that, we lived days where we could ‘cross the stars in an instant over billions of miles’ with the Skyfolk. I still remember the elders said the stars in the sky changed positions every few years. That was the Skyfolk adjusting some flight lanes. My father worked on those lanes. His job was to push out whatever broke into a lane and then give them a ticket.”

At this point, the Ms.Fox grew excited: “My father drove a very, very big Celestial Shuttle, bigger than a whole building. He said it was called a Youth Form Ark. The Youth Form Ark’s Artifact Spirit was even stronger. As long as one person lay in a special pool in the Ark and gave the Artifact Spirit orders, the thing would fly. It could catch things faster than light with a tool called… something like a moon loop that chokes breath… I forgot the name…”

Yu Sheng listened, stunned. He glanced at Irene, who was still in Foxy’s arms pretending to be an ordinary doll, and thought: [Can you make sense of this?]

Irene’s voice rose from deep inside him: “No. You actually believe this? She might be making it up. I suggest you wait a couple of months until Foxy’s mind is steady, then ask again. Maybe her version will change.”

Yu Sheng frowned. He also doubted how real Foxy’s wild stories were, yet he felt that if her head was still cloudy, she would be less likely to make up something so imaginative and so neatly set up.

No matter what, what Foxy told him left a strong mark in his mind.

“Enough, stop thinking,” Irene’s voice sounded again, cutting off Yu Sheng’s wandering thoughts, “hurry up and get Foxy some normal clothes. Your real challenge is here.”

At that, Yu Sheng’s face fell.

Many things look easy at the planning stage, but the headache begins when you have to handle the details.

He did not know how to pick clothes for a girl. He had never even gone into a women’s store.

He could only force himself to do it. He was the one who said he would adopt Foxy. It was too late to regret it now.

But just as Yu Sheng led Foxy toward the mall with the brave look of someone walking to his fate, a familiar figure flashed at the edge of their sight.

It was a short haired girl who looked about seventeen or eighteen. Her lips were pressed together, and her face carried a calm, older kind of quiet that did not match her age.

At first, Yu Sheng did not recognize her. He only felt she looked familiar. After two or three seconds, he realized where that feeling came from.

It was the girl who called herself “Little Red Riding Hood.” Today she was not wearing that dark red outfit. She had switched to a bright jacket, which made her hard to recognize at a glance.

Yu Sheng knew he had found a lifesaver.

At almost the same moment, Little Red Riding Hood on the far side of the street felt someone’s gaze. She lifted her head at once. For a short instant, her eyes were sharp like a wolf’s.

That wolf look vanished so fast no one could catch it. She saw Yu Sheng clearly and showed a hint of surprise.

She crossed through the flow of cars and came over. After looking Yu Sheng up and down for a few seconds with a bit of surprise, she said: “You’re shopping too?”

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow: “Is it strange for me to be out shopping?”

“Ah, sorry. It just feels like a coincidence,” Little Red Riding Hood bowed her head with quick, clean manners when she sensed her words were off, yet the doubt in her eyes did not fade.

She already knew Yu Sheng lived in an Otherworld called No. 66 Wutong Road.

When she stepped out of that Otherworld, she had guessed that this ‘human’ who called himself “Yu Sheng” probably had a very low human content. His very believable human behavior might be some kind of mimicry.

She really did not expect to see this person, who lived long term inside an Otherworld, walking on the street to buy things.

[Does this guy eat normal food too?] the wild thought popped up in her head.

Then she noticed Foxy standing next to him and the doll in Foxy’s arms.

She frowned, thought for a second, then recognized Foxy’s face. She pointed at Irene, who was motionless and whose eyes had lost their shine: “This one, dead?”

Irene’s eyes almost lit up again. The little doll twitched in Foxy’s arms, and a loud stream of beeps and chirps blasted into Yu Sheng’s head: “She’s the dead one! She can blow up eight hundred times right now! She #%$@-Yu Sheng! Say it back! Insult her for me!”

“She’s cursing you,” Yu Sheng said calmly to Little Red Riding Hood as he lifted a finger toward Irene, still too scared to move, “it’s too dirty to repeat. I am a cultured person.”

Irene cursed even harder.

Little Red Riding Hood could not hear her.

But she could imagine.

“You two are… pretty creative,” she could not help giving Irene several long looks, “you even found a way to bring her out in plain sight. Judging by the setup, are you buying clothes for her,” she nodded toward Foxy, “today?”

“You got it,” Yu Sheng spread his hands, muting Irene’s ongoing beeping in his head, “I’m stuck. Then I saw you. Can you help?”

“I can guess what kind of help you need,” Little Red Riding Hood answered in under two seconds as her eyes ran over Foxy’s clearly ill fitting outfit, and a small smile rose on her face, “this is something I haven’t done before.”

Yu Sheng’s eyes lit up: “So you’ll do it?”

She waved it off like it was nothing: “Sure, easy enough. But you have to help me with one thing after.”