Chapter 159

Chapter 159: At Home

Passing through the door and returning home, Wu Tong Road 66 looked the same as always.

Cheap furniture, but everything worked. Old decor, but the space was wide and warm. Bright lights. Clear windows. The old TV still hadn’t crashed.

Irene perched on the table, fully absorbed in some mindless variety show. The other Irene, the moment they got home, dashed into the living room, climbed onto the coffee table, turned on the second TV, and started bingeing an overdramatic urban romance.

Little Doll was kind of impressive. Yu Sheng felt his brain seize up after a single glance at what she watched, yet she could split herself and watch two shows at once without going insane.

No wonder she wasn’t bright.

Foxy went to the kitchen and washed her hands like a good girl, then came back with half a sausage in her mouth and strolled into the living room. She pulled out the old mobile phone Yu Sheng had given her and continued studying it with fierce concentration.

Yu Sheng changed clothes.

The TV’s chatter filled the house, along with Irene’s snide comments about the dumb plot and her bursts of laughter, and Foxy’s occasional grumbles that the doll was too loud. Yu Sheng looked at the living room and felt a strange unreality.

He’d lived in this big manor for two or three months now. Most of that time, all he could think about was leaving and returning to the “real” home in his memory.

But right now, for these few minutes, he genuinely felt like he was home.

It was familiar. It was easy.

Irene hopped from the coffee table to the sofa and wriggled between the cushions until she found a comfortable nest. Then she lifted an arm and complained toward Foxy, “When are you going to stop shedding? The sofa’s covered in tail fur. I’ve got it in my joints.”

“It can’t be helped,” Foxy said, fiddling with the phone and chewing her sausage while still managing to answer. “Demon fox are like that. Wait two months and it’ll be fine…”

Irene paused, tugging fur from her ball joints, and looked up. “In two months you’ll stop shedding?”

Foxy didn’t even look at her. “You should get used to it.”

Irene sprang up and shouted, “Yu Sheng! Are you really not going to deal with this Silly Fox?!”

Listening to Irene’s furious tattling, Yu Sheng couldn’t help smiling. Days like this… weren’t bad.

He walked over and sat between doll and fox, enjoying the brief peace—and also physically separating them.

Foxy scooted closer and draped her tail over Yu Sheng’s leg. “Benefactor, here’s a tail for you!”

Yu Sheng heard a sharp series of crackles. His arm and leg lit up with needle-prick shocks in a ring.

Winter static bloomed like flowers, and the message was clear: turn on the humidifier.

Yu Sheng jolted. He’d gotten used to Foxy shedding. But in this dry weather, he’d discovered something new.

Demon fox didn’t just shed. They built up static in winter.

None of the old fox stories ever mentioned this.

Foxy didn’t react at all. Her other tails rubbed against the sofa, and every few seconds there was another snap of blue light, like she was secretly a lightning cultivator.

Yu Sheng shivered and pressed his hand down on her tail, half amazed, half helpless. “Your tail… builds up static?”

“Yeah,” Foxy said proudly. “At night, with the lights off, it’s super pretty! If you rub it hard enough, it crackles for minutes!”

Yu Sheng stared, awed against his will. Then he asked carefully, “I don’t really mind the winter shedding, but… don’t you monsters have some kind of spell to get rid of static?”

“We do.”

“Then why don’t you—”

“Didn’t learn it.”

Yu Sheng had no idea what to do with that answer.

He started stroking Foxy’s tail more carefully. It still zapped him now and then, but it really did feel great—soft, warm, absurdly fluffy. As he stroked, his mind drifted into a list of solutions, practical and ridiculous alike: buy a few large humidifiers, get Foxy slippers with grounding wires, brush her tails with a damp comb…

Slowly, drowsiness rose.

He’d woken up too early today. And with everything that had been happening, he hadn’t been sleeping well. The moment he truly relaxed, he couldn’t hold it back.

His eyelids drooped.

In that hazy edge of sleep, the conversation with Bai Li Qing echoed again—Foxy’s origins, and the unknown beyond the world.

“Foxy,” Yu Sheng murmured, voice thick with sleep, “are you happy living here?”

Foxy paused. She lifted her head and looked at him, half-asleep on the sofa. After a moment, she smiled—pure and simple.

“I’m happy.”

“Oh. That’s good. As long as you’re happy…” Yu Sheng yawned, shifted, and lay down. “I’m tired. I’ll nap. When I wake up, I’ll cook for you.”

Foxy made a small sound of agreement. When she looked down again, Yu Sheng was already asleep, his head resting on one of her tails.

The TV volume dropped to its lowest setting.

Irene leaned over from the side, craning her head to look at Yu Sheng. She muttered, “How come you didn’t ask me too…”

Foxy thought about it seriously. “Probably because you always look too happy, so Benefactor figured there was no need.”

Irene bared her teeth at Foxy, then looked down at Yu Sheng again. “Fine. He really has been put through it the past two days. Humans are a troublesome species. Stress makes them sleep badly, and sleeping badly makes them stressed. It’s better he can eat and sleep than not sleep at all.”

Foxy nodded. Then she glanced at the clock on the wall and her eyes brightened with sudden eagerness.

“Hey,” she whispered. “It’s almost time to cook.”

Irene froze. “All you think about is eating! He just fell asleep! Didn’t you say we’d wait until he woke up—”

“I know.” Foxy waved her off. “So… how about we go cook? Benefactor cooks every day. It’s hard work. Today, let’s not make him go into the kitchen…”

“The main reason his cooking is hard work is you,” Irene said, rolling her eyes. Still, her gaze wavered. After forcing a serious face for a few seconds, she scooted closer. “It’s not impossible. You’re unreliable, but at least I have the Doll Progenitor’s blessing. We Alice little house dolls get a built-in cooking buff in the kitchen…”

She slapped her tiny chest with confidence. “I’ll cover you.”

“Okay!” Foxy beamed and started to get up. Then she remembered one of her tails was still under Yu Sheng’s head. She gently pulled it free, hesitated, and laid two more tails over him like a blanket.

A crackle of static popped.

Yu Sheng twitched twice—but didn’t wake.

Irene stared, dumbfounded. “He’s really exhausted…”

Then she saw Foxy reaching for more tails and hurriedly waved both hands. “Hey! That’s enough, that’s enough! What the hell—are you taking care of him, or trying to electrocute him?”

“I’m putting them on the floor,” Foxy said, spreading them out. “In case he rolls over and falls off the sofa.”

Irene stared at the neatly staggered pattern of fox tails—fully charged from rubbing against the cushions—and couldn’t decide what would hurt more: Yu Sheng falling onto the floor, or falling into the pile of thunder-spell tails.

After thinking it through, probably the floor.

After all, she was a doll. She didn’t conduct electricity.

And so the two young ladies—one a dropout from elementary school, the other a prenatal-education graduate with kindergarten correspondence courses—ran off to the kitchen with absolute confidence to cook.

Yu Sheng, asleep on the sofa, knew nothing about any of it.

His consciousness sank into a dream.

He drifted through a string of bizarre illusions and hazy memories, as if his mind had been emptied into a small boat rolling across a wind-tossed lake. It didn’t feel unpleasant. He vaguely knew he was dreaming, and he enjoyed the relief of not having to steer his own thoughts.

Then, after who knew how long, that little boat reached shore.

The chaotic illusions faded. A stable scene settled into place.

An endless gray wilderness stretched under dim, heavy daylight. Unknown wild grass covered the ground in thick mats. Clouds hung low. Everything was silent. A breeze passed now and then, but even the wind sounded hollow.

In the distance stood a small hill, quiet and still. It didn’t look far, yet it gave him a strange feeling—like it could never be reached, no matter how long he walked.

Yu Sheng stood in the grass, frozen for a moment.

Then he realized he’d seen this place before.

His dreamscape. More than once. And once, he’d even seen Foxy’s dream projection here.

Yu Sheng frowned.

He didn’t know why he’d entered this strange dream again, but if the same scene kept returning, something was wrong. Especially lately, when “wrong” had become routine.

Another breeze blew.

In the hollow sound of the wind, he heard something distant and faint—something that shouldn’t have existed here at all.

A wolf’s howl.