Chapter 276

Chapter 277: Ambush

After hanging up, Yu Sheng took a deep breath and glanced at Irene: “I feel like Bai Li Qing took that pretty well.”

“Of course. She’s a Director,” the little Doll said, carefree as ever. Seeing that the call was over, she hopped down from the coffee table and headed for The Door as she spoke: “So, are we going out now?”

Yu Sheng didn’t waste words. He opened a side door, grabbed his Tetanus Staff, shouldered it, and said: “Let’s go.”

The three stepped out of Wutong Road 66 and walked toward the thick fog flowing a few meters from the house. Then they crossed the unseen boundary and entered.

The instant they crossed, a cold, heavy pressure settled over them. The distant, indifferent feel of the Otherworld in the fog made Yu Sheng shiver a little. After they walked a bit farther, he looked back. Wutong Road 66 had turned into a vague shadow in the fog, a mansion’s outline standing at the far edge of his sight, like a silent, crouching behemoth.

He frowned and asked in a low voice: “Did we lock The Door when we left?”

“Locked,” Foxy said with a nod. “I watched you lock it, Benefactor.”

Perched on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, Irene poked his head: “You got all serious just to ask that? You afraid someone in this fog is going to break in and steal our stuff?”

“I was just asking,” Yu Sheng said as he brushed the Doll’s hand away and watched the fog around them carefully. “Stay sharp. Something could pop out.”

Night had deepened in the real Boundary City, and the foggy “other side” wore the same night. Tall light poles were hard to see in the mist. Their bright tops floated like rows of glowing eyes. Farther off, among taller buildings, neon colors seeped through the night in a blur.

It was very quiet. Now and then Yu Sheng thought he heard a faint car horn or music, as if a bit of sound had leaked from the real world. But when he listened close, it faded like empty wind.

A soft blue glow rose at his side. Foxy’s tails slowly spread, and fox fire bloomed behind her, one flame after another.

“Nervous?” Yu Sheng asked with a small smile.

The Fox Maiden kept a straight face and shook her head, and then a dozen more fox fires drifted out by accident.

Irene kept studying the buildings around them: “We’re really in the same Otherworld that trapped the big nephew before, right?” she whispered.

“Should be,” Yu Sheng said with a nod. “The blood link connects… why ask?”

“Just thinking. If it’s the same space, this ‘fog Otherworld’ is really big. It’s not close from Wutong Road to the Vientiane Mall,” Irene said. “That also proves Little Red Riding Hood was right. If you go out through the fog near the mall, there’s an even wider area, and you can even reach the old town. I wonder how big this place really is.”

Yu Sheng frowned and followed the thought. [How big is it, really?] The fog already spanned the old town and the busy city center. It was clearly more than that. What lay beyond? What about where the fog was even thicker?

“Could it be as big as all of Boundary City, maybe even all of Borderland?” Irene murmured.

“Wouldn’t that be like another Borderland?” Foxy’s ears perked. “An Otherworld version of Borderland?”

Yu Sheng’s heart stirred, and he frowned: “I remember Bai Li Qing said there can never be a second Borderland in this world. Even if the universe is infinite, it won’t produce a place the same as or similar to Borderland. It’s a rule of the universe. There’s something similar about a planet called Terra.”

“Did she say anything about the Otherworld when she told you that?” Irene asked. “The Otherworld doesn’t care about reason.”

“No,” Yu Sheng said after thinking. “Back then we didn’t even know about this ‘Mistbound City.’”

As he spoke, he pulled out his phone.

No signal.

Irene clicked her tongue: “Looks like we only have signal inside Wutong Road 66. Guess that’s a special trait of your house.”

Just then, Foxy stopped walking.

The Fox Maiden seemed to catch something. Her ears flicked, and she sniffed hard at the air.

Irene lowered her voice at once: “What did you find, silly fox?”

“Human scent,” Foxy said, adjusting her head a little as her ears twitched again. “A stranger passed nearby not long ago.”

Someone in the fog?

Yu Sheng’s eyes turned serious at once.

On his shoulder, Irene looked oddly excited: “Another person trapped in here? A rescue job delivered to our door?”

“Not sure,” Foxy said, uncharacteristically grim. “There’s a weird smell mixed in. I don’t know it, but it’s not normal. It’s not an ordinary person. It’s strange.”

“A strange smell?” Yu Sheng couldn’t share the Fox Immortal’s senses, and the gap between the two worlds made it even harder to imagine. He took it to mean something not-quite-human had come through here, so he grew more cautious. “Let’s be extra careful. Foxy, put the fire away. Too bright.”

“Okay.” The Fox Maiden nodded. The fox fires faded from the air. She pointed ahead and led them into the deeper fog without a sound.

She kept tracking the “strange” trail, stopping now and then to crouch and sniff at the road and wall corners. Then she corrected their path and moved on. She looked focused and professional.

Irene nudged Yu Sheng’s head with a whisper: “Hey, our hotel has its own police dog.”

“If she smacks you later, I won’t stop her,” Yu Sheng murmured.

“Tch.”

Irene clicked her tongue, but couldn’t stay quiet for long. She soon whispered again, a bit tense: “The fog’s thicker than before. Are you sure our silly fox isn’t leading us the wrong way? What decent person would pick the thickest fog to squeeze through?”

“That means whoever came here isn’t decent,” Yu Sheng said, and he also noted the change in the area. Without making a fuss, he lowered the Tetanus Staff from his shoulder and carried it at his side, while closing the distance to Foxy. “Are we close?”

“The scent is messy,” Foxy said, stopping again with a frustrated look. “They walked in circles here. I don’t know if it was to erase their tracks or to do something else. I can’t tell which way they went in the end.”

Yu Sheng grunted and let his eyes sweep the fog.

The haze had grown thick enough to unsettle. A few meters away was only blur. The shapes of buildings and streetlights looked… wrong compared to other areas.

Many houses rose too tall and leaned, their lights stretching and trembling with the flow of fog like living things. Far off, the ground looked like it curled and swelled. The neon that floated in stairwells had turned into wide patches of unfriendly dark red.

As the fog thickened, the Otherworld itself seemed to change. This place felt deeper.

Then, as if to prove it, a suspicious shadow flickered at the edge of Yu Sheng’s vision.

It was a tall, thin, strange silhouette.

Before he could see it clearly, malice surged behind him. Strong warning flared in his mind, and he lunged forward without a second thought. He took two steps and whipped the Tetanus Staff in a sweeping arc. Then, without checking if he hit, he slipped sideways hard.

A sharp metallic clang split the night. Sparks flew. Yu Sheng saw he had struck a thin, bizarre blade. As it bounced away, several more lines of Chilling Light slashed the spot where he had just been standing.

A ball of fox fire burst between Yu Sheng and the blade, blasting the fog back. He braced, and at last saw the attacker.

A figure almost a head taller than Yu Sheng walked out of the mist with a graceful yet uncanny stride.

The figure had a slim, feminine outline, but it was only an outline. Her whole body was wrapped in a black, metal-like shell that was both skin and armor. Her joints showed clear Doll-like lock structures. Dim red light flowed in the seams and between the joints. Her face was the iron mask of a noblewoman, cast in white metal with a perfect, chilling smile frozen in place.

Strangest of all, the Metal Doll wore a black Head Veil like something from the clergy. It offered no protection, but it gave this not-human thing an extra layer of dread.

She came from the fog, iron heels ticking on the ground, and slowly raised one hand toward Yu Sheng.

Every finger was a blade more than half a meter long, gleaming with Chilling Light.