Chapter 214

Chapter 214: Foxy’s Hometown’s Code of Honor

The starship’s streamlined shell and intricate structure lay buried amid the collapsed mountain. Even unrecognizable now, the remaining pieces still hinted at the elegant, mysterious grace it once had as it roamed the stars.

Honestly, just looking at it, Yu Sheng found it hard to connect something that was obviously a spaceship with the pile of cultivation terms Foxy always talked about. It didn’t even seem to match the name “celestial shuttle.” But then again, he couldn’t imagine what a starfaring cultivation civilization would build their craft to look like. Maybe it made perfect sense.

Song Cheng and Bai Li Qing walked closer, studying the strange style of the wreck.

The pair of eyes behind Bai Li Qing watched too, quietly curious.

Song Cheng muttered, “It’s definitely a style I’ve never seen. At a glance it looks a little like the Node series ships built by the Alglade people, but only three or four parts of the outer shell feel similar. If this thing really burrowed in from outside the known universe… do you think its principles could be related to the Dark Angels’ ‘invasion’?”

Bai Li Qing didn’t answer immediately. She pressed her lips together, as if communicating with her “sister” in her mind. After a long while, she shook her head. “You can’t tell much from the exterior, and the internal structure is beyond our understanding. But the residual energy response inside still has analytical value. If possible, we should isolate its power system. By working backward from that, we can roughly judge what level of travel this craft could support. In-system movement and interstellar voyages require completely different scales of energy, and the power needed to pierce a world is beyond what we can even imagine.”

Song Cheng said, “Then we’ll need a wave of experts. A cross-disciplinary joint team. If this thing really came from ‘outside,’ no one can be sure what principles are at work inside it. Should we contact the academy? They’ll probably be very interested.”

“There’s far more here to attract them than just this craft,” Bai Li Qing said softly. “The first entity to be permanently purged. The first otherworld parasitized by an angel yet rendered harmless. The teleportation door Yu Sheng opened…”

Song Cheng shrugged. “And the first vegetable patch planted in an otherworld.”

“Yes,” Bai Li Qing said, glancing back at Yu Sheng not far away. “A vegetable patch in an otherworld. Once the academy’s hardest-to-invite professors hear about this place, they won’t be able to sit still.”

Yu Sheng and Foxy sat on a nearby slope, letting the mountain wind wash over them as they watched the wreck and listened to fragments of conversation drift over.

Of course, Foxy’s ears were clearly better than Yu Sheng’s.

Her fluffy ears twitched, angling toward Bai Li Qing. After a moment, she leaned close to Yu Sheng and whispered, “They’re talking about inviting a bunch of very learned people to study the celestial shuttle’s principles… and to study your vegetable patch too, Benefactor.”

Yu Sheng wasn’t surprised. He rubbed the fur behind Foxy’s ears. “Not surprising. Bai Li Qing has always been interested in this. What about you? What do you think?”

Foxy blinked at him. “Me?”

Yu Sheng looked into her eyes, serious. “The celestial shuttle is yours. It’s one of the few links you still have to your hometown. You get to decide. Are you willing to let outsiders study it? They’ll almost certainly take it apart. If you don’t want that, I can refuse for you.”

Foxy froze, as if she were considering it properly for the first time. Then she slowly sat down beside him, pulled her two tails around herself, and hugged them tight while she thought.

After a long time, she tugged on Yu Sheng’s sleeve.

“Benefactor… if we leave these things here, they’re just wreckage.”

She looked up, meeting his eyes with quiet seriousness.

“You can mourn wreckage for ten thousand years, and it will still be wreckage. Mourning alone is useless.”

Yu Sheng’s eyes widened slightly.

Foxy patted the slope beside her, pulling him down closer. Then she spoke slowly while her fluffy tail brushed his back again and again.

“Let them study it. Bring scholars. Take it apart into components. Even move it to their research facility. I don’t mind. I’ve already kept what I want to keep. I don’t have an opinion about the rest. The Bureau seems reliable. If they find real clues, they’ll tell us—at least some of it. And even if they hide everything, the worst case is the same as now: we still don’t know anything.”

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, his expression turning subtle. “And if it gets worse… don’t blame my imagination. Maybe I’ve watched too many novels and movies. What if some faction—maybe not even the Bureau, maybe the Alglade people, the academy, or some group we don’t understand—has bad intentions? What if they learn about your hometown and decide to do something nasty, like an invasion, the way stories always go? Then what?”

Foxy looked surprised. She stared at him for a moment, then suddenly smiled.

“They can’t win.”

It took Yu Sheng a second to understand what she meant.

Foxy repeated it, emphasizing each word. “They can’t win. And back in my hometown, my clanspeople and the skyfolk won’t care either. Risk and threat are normal steps in evolution. As long as you win in the end, it’s fine. That’s what school taught.”

Yu Sheng: “…Is your hometown’s code of honor really that intense?”

Foxy tilted her head, uncertain. “Is it? Anyway, Teacher said the star-order built by the skyfolk is ‘peaceful coexistence.’ You kill all the ones who don’t agree with peaceful coexistence, and the rest will agree with you. That process is called ‘great unity.’ The ultimate form of great unity is peace.”

Cold sweat broke out on Yu Sheng’s back. That code of honor was way too intense.

But he wasn’t sure how much of what Foxy said was even accurate. She’d basically dropped out at elementary school level, and she’d been muddled for decades. Who knew how much of her memory about home was real, how much was imagination, and how much was simply misunderstanding because she hadn’t paid attention in class?

That was when he finally noticed her tails brushing his back over and over.

“By the way,” he asked, “what are you doing?”

Foxy tilted her head. “Rua.”

Yu Sheng: “…”

So he’d gotten bored and rua’ed Foxy’s tails often enough that she’d learned to rua him back.

…

After that, Yu Sheng opened a door and sent Song Cheng and Bai Li Qing back to Bureau headquarters. Before they parted, they briefly discussed a plan to research the celestial shuttle further. But with Fairy Tale and the Dark Angel Anka Aila still looming, Yu Sheng’s attention quickly returned to the orphanage.

The resettlement site in the valley was under tight, orderly construction. Yu Sheng left Foxy and Irene there to watch the progress and went straight to the orphanage.

It was deep night, but no matter the hour, there was always a guardian on duty.

Tonight, that guardian was Little Red Riding Hood. When Yu Sheng arrived, she was patrolling the corridor of the east building.

The corridor at midnight was especially quiet. Cold night air draped over everything as they walked slowly side by side. When they passed a window, Yu Sheng turned to look outside.

The outdoor activity area that had been lively during the day was now just a hazy silhouette: swings, sandbox, slide, climbing frame—everything sleeping in the dark. Seen through the corridor window, it all carried a faintly eerie undertone.

With everything that had happened lately, Yu Sheng couldn’t tell whether that eerie feeling was real… or just in his head.

Little Red Riding Hood, however, took it in stride.

“If you think the night feels eerie,” she said with a smile, unhurried, “then nothing in this orphanage is not eerie after dark. The children’s dreams often brush against the real world. A table shifts, a lamp flickers on, a window creaks once—we’re used to it. Relax. Don’t scare yourself. Real anomalies are a lot louder than this.”

Yu Sheng let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Being sharp isn’t the same as being jumpy,” Little Red Riding Hood went on, her tone serious now. “A Spirit Realm Detective has to notice every little movement, but also separate real danger from imagined fear. That balance is the key. Too relaxed and an otherworld entity kills you. Too tense and you drop dead on your own without an entity lifting a finger.”

Yu Sheng pressed his lips together and kept walking. After a while, he broke the silence.

“The resettlement site in the valley is already under construction. At the earliest, we can move tomorrow.”

“Mhm. About what I expected.”

“Do the children know?”

“It’s all arranged. They’re very well-behaved,” Little Red Riding Hood said. She hesitated, then tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Well… on the bright side, starting tomorrow we won’t have to patrol this building at night anymore.”

“On the dark side,” Yu Sheng said, “there isn’t any night in the valley. Keeping the little ones on a normal schedule is going to be your next big challenge. The good news is the blackout curtains the Bureau delivered work pretty well.”

Little Red Riding Hood: “…Bro, my head already hurts.”