Chapter 159

Chapter 159: At Home

They stepped through the Door and returned home. No. 66 Wutong Road looked the same as always. The stuff was cheap, but it all worked. The decor was a bit old, but the rooms were roomy. The house was warm, the lights were bright, and the old TV had not frozen yet. One Irene sat on the table, watching a mindless variety show with full focus, while the other Irene ran into the living room at once, jumped onto the coffee table, grabbed a remote, turned on a second TV, and resumed her city drama.

To be honest, the little doll was kind of impressive. The shows she watched were so silly that Yu Sheng felt his brain tremble after one glance, yet she could use the Clone Technique to watch two at once and stay sane. [No wonder her brain acts funny.]

Foxy trotted to the kitchen to wash her hands, then wandered back with half a sausage in her mouth. She pulled out the old phone Yu Sheng had given her and kept studying how to use it.

Yu Sheng changed clothes. From the TV came the noise of the entertainment show, Irene’s snark about dumb scenes and giggles, and sometimes Foxy’s complaints that the doll was too loud. He watched the living room and, for a moment, felt something strange and hard to believe.

He had lived in the Big Manor for two or three months. Most of that time, he had been thinking about when he could leave this place and return to the home in his memory. But right now, in this minute, he felt… like he was already home.

The place was familiar, and it made his heart settle.

Irene hopped from the coffee table to the sofa and wriggled around until she found a comfy pose. After a while she suddenly raised an arm and turned to Foxy to complain: “When will you stop shedding? The sofa is covered with hair from your tail. I even have it in my joints.”

“No helping it. Us Demon Foxes are like this,” Foxy said while fiddling with the phone, chewing the sausage, and still answering. “In two months it will be fine.”

Irene plucked fox fur from her ball joints and looked up, puzzled: “You mean you will stop shedding in two months?”

“You should get used to it.”

Irene sprang up and yelled toward Yu Sheng: “Yu Sheng, are you not going to say anything to this Silly Fox?”

Yu Sheng could not help smiling at the doll’s report. He suddenly felt that days like this were pretty good. He went over, sat between the doll and the fox, enjoyed a quiet moment, and, as a bonus, split the two up for now.

Foxy scooted happily across the sofa and laid one tail across his legs: “Benefactor, tail for you!”

A string of crackles snapped out at once, and his arm and leg stung like needles.

Winter static was blooming. Its message was that it was time to turn on the humidifier.

Yu Sheng was stunned. He had just gotten used to the house rule that the Demon Fox shed, and now he learned that in dry winter she also built up static. [There are so many fox tales, and none of them mentioned this.]

Foxy did not mind at all. Her other tails kept rubbing against the sofa. Now and then they popped and flashed blue, like a Lightning Cultivator.

Shivering at the shocks, Yu Sheng pressed a palm to the fox maiden’s tail and, half amazed and half helpless, asked: “Your tail… builds static?”

“Yes,” Foxy nodded. “At night with the lights off, it looks pretty. If I rub hard, it crackles for minutes.”

Yu Sheng looked impressed, then asked carefully: “I do not mind your winter shedding, but do you monsters have a spell to remove static in winter?”

“We do,” she said.

“Then you…”

“I have not learned it.”

Yu Sheng had no comeback. He carefully stroked Foxy’s tail. It still zapped him sometimes, but the feel was very good. He started thinking about buying big humidifiers, getting Foxy antistatic slippers with a ground strap, and using a damp brush on her tails. Little by little, drowsiness crept over him.

He had gotten up too early today, and the last few days had been busy. Sleep had not been good. When he finally relaxed, the yawn rose and would not stop.

He drooped his eyelids and sighed softly. In the blur, parts of his talk with Bai Li Qing came back, about Foxy’s origin and the unknown beyond the world.

“Foxy,” Yu Sheng asked suddenly, voice sleepy, “are you happy living here?”

Foxy froze, looked at the drowsy Yu Sheng, and thought for a moment. Then a pure smile spread across her face: “Happy.”

“Oh, that is great. As long as you are happy,” Yu Sheng said as he yawned. He shifted on the sofa and lay down. “I am a little tired. I will nap. When I wake up, I will cook.”

Foxy answered with an okay. When she looked down again, Yu Sheng was already asleep with one of her tails as his pillow.

The TV volume dropped to almost zero.

Irene leaned closer, peeking at the sleeping Yu Sheng, and muttered: “Why not ask me, too…”

Foxy thought and said seriously: “Maybe you always look too happy, so the Benefactor thinks he does not need to ask.”

Irene bared her little teeth at Foxy, then glanced at Yu Sheng: “Fine. He has been through a lot these two days. Humans are a troublesome species. More stress, less sleep; less sleep, more stress. It is better that he can eat and sleep than lie awake.”

Foxy nodded, then looked at the clock on the wall. Whatever she thought of, eagerness lit her face: “Hey, it is almost time to cook.”

Irene blinked and glared: “All you think about is eating. He just fell asleep. Did he not say we would wait until he wakes…”

“I know,” Foxy cut in with a wave. “So how about we cook? The Benefactor cooks every day. It is hard work. Today we do not let him go to the kitchen.”

“I think the main reason cooking is hard is you,” Irene rolled her eyes. “Also, you say it so easily. Can you cook?”

Foxy lifted her chin with confidence: “I watch every day. I learned.”

“You only steal bites when you watch. When did you learn?” Irene eyed her with doubt, but inside, she was already wavering. After a few seconds of pretending to be serious, she scooted forward. “It is not impossible. You are not reliable, but I have the blessing of the Progenitor of Dolls. Dolls from Alice’s Little House get a cooking bonus in the kitchen. I will cover you.”

“Great!” Foxy grinned and started to get up. Then she remembered Yu Sheng was using one tail as a pillow. She gently tugged it free, thought a second, then pulled off two more tails and spread them over him like a blanket.

Static popped under the fluffy tails. Yu Sheng shivered twice but did not wake.

Irene stared, amazed: “He is really tired.”

Then she saw Foxy reaching for more tails and waved frantically: “That is enough! Are you taking care of him or trying to shock him?”

“I am making a pad on the floor. What if he rolls off the sofa while sleeping?” Foxy kept laying tails on the floor as she spoke.

Irene watched the fox tails, charged full with sofa rubbing, spread out in neat layers. She did not know if falling would hurt more on the floor or into that field of five thunders static. After thinking it over, she decided the floor would still be worse.

She was a doll. She did not conduct electricity.

Then the two of them, one with a grade school education and one with a prenatal class and a correspondence preschool, ran to the kitchen with great confidence to make dinner.

Lying on the sofa, Yu Sheng slept hard and knew none of this.

His mind had already sunk into a dream. Right now, he rose and fell through a string of wild Illusion Arts and hazy memories.

It felt like a tiny boat drifting on a wind tossed lake. Yu Sheng did not mind the feeling. He faintly knew he was dreaming and enjoyed this time where he did not have to control his thoughts and could just let his mind relax.

After an unknown while, he felt the “boat” of his awareness reach a shore.

The chaotic Illusion Arts faded, and a steady scene rose before his eyes.

He saw a gray, endless plain under a heavy sky. Unknown wild grass carpeted the ground. The clouds were low. All was quiet. Now and then a breeze blew, but the wind sounded hollow. A small hill stood at the far edge of the plain. It did not look far, yet it gave him a strange feeling, as if he could never reach it.

Yu Sheng stood in the middle of the grass. He stared for a while, then realized he had seen this place before.

This was his dream, and not just once. One time he had even seen Foxy’s “dream projection” here.

Yu Sheng frowned.

He did not know why he had come to this strange dream again, but if the same scene kept appearing, something had to be wrong. He had been dealing with wrong things a lot lately.

Another light wind passed. In the hollow sound, he suddenly heard a distant, blurry sound that did not belong here at all.

It was the faint howl of a wolf.