Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Engulfed

The antique black oil painting frame floated in the dim dream world. Inside it, the doll girl paced in tight circles, looking like her brain had filled with question marks.

“This shouldn’t be happening!” Irene ranted. “I already broke free of this thing’s control! I even have a body in the real world now!”

She spun, glaring out at Yu Sheng. “Fine—out there, I have to carry this painting around. I can accept that. I’ll treat it like extra luggage. But why is it worse in the dream? In theory, once we enter a dream, shouldn’t I be freer?”

“You ask me, who am I supposed to ask?” Yu Sheng spread his hands. “I thought you’d be freer too. I even wanted to see what you looked like at 1.67 meters, but you’re still a paper cutout.”

Irene looked ready to explode. She wasn’t even in the mood to bicker properly. After marching another few laps around the chair inside the painting, she finally sat down and grabbed the fluffy teddy bear, kneading it violently in her arms.

“Now I’m locked up with this thing again… fine.” She muttered to herself, more convincing the longer she repeated it. “At least I can move freely in the real world. The dream world isn’t that important. Yeah. Not that important.”

“Sometimes I really envy your optimism,” Yu Sheng said, and he meant it.

Irene bared her teeth at him, but whether in the real world or the dream world, she’d never been especially intimidating.

Yu Sheng walked around the floating painting and approached the sleeping silver fox.

“What now?” he asked. “Same as last time? I lie on her tail, and we sink together?”

“Same as last time,” Irene said, floating to his side, “but this time the connection will be more direct. I’ll find a way to keep Foxy’s consciousness close to awake. It’ll make it easier for you to talk to her—and later to sense what’s around her.”

Then her voice lowered. “But at the same time, hunger will notice you. It will come looking for you. After that, I can’t help you anymore. Contact and battle on the level of consciousness… that’s on you.”

She paused, then added, as if reassuring him, “But I can be the last safety net. If I sense your mind is rapidly destabilizing, I’ll forcibly yank you out. It’ll feel as awful as that violent awakening last time. Be prepared.”

“Honestly, I really don’t want to do that again,” Yu Sheng muttered, but he nodded without hesitation. His resolve hadn’t wavered. “All right. Let’s start.”

He found a stable hollow between Foxy’s tails again. Then he caught Irene—who promptly jumped straight down from midair—and leaned with the painting against the fox’s thick fur.

One man and one painting sank into the hazy dream.

Maybe because they already had a connection from last time, the second descent was faster and smoother than Yu Sheng expected. His vision barely blurred.

When it steadied again, he was looking at the demon fox girl’s figure.

She was crouched among broken rocks, staring blankly at something ahead.

Yu Sheng’s viewpoint shifted behind her.

Following her gaze—

He saw the wreck.

It looked like a massive aircraft that had smashed into the earth. Twisted metal ribs and shattered decking sprawled across the ground, and even in ruin you could still sense how grand it must have been. A faint radiance drifted through the remains like lingering spirit breath.

The whole wreck lay at the foot of a mountain. Collapsed, melted rock had nearly swallowed it, fusing it into the mountain itself. One glance was enough to imagine the impact.

If the passengers back then had been ordinary people, there wouldn’t have been any survivors.

Yu Sheng stared, shaken, but he didn’t forget why he was here. He moved closer and spoke softly, careful not to startle her.

“Foxy.”

Foxy’s ears snapped upright. She sprang to her feet and looked around, searching for the voice. When she couldn’t find the source, she answered hesitantly, “…Benefactor?”

“It’s me. Don’t look for me.” Yu Sheng kept his voice steady. “I’m contacting your consciousness directly.”

“Benefactor! You’re really here!” Joy flashed across her face. She still turned in place, still instinctively searching. “I… I was spacing out in the valley, and then suddenly I’m here. Am I… dreaming? Is this a dream?”

“Yes. I used some methods on my side to guide your dream so I could contact you. But now isn’t the time for details.” Yu Sheng spoke quickly. “Listen, Foxy. I’m going to rescue you. For that, I need to open a special door, and I need your cooperation. Do you trust me?”

“Come… rescue me?” Foxy froze. Then she seemed to realize what his words meant, and she shook her head hard, panic breaking through. “Don’t, don’t come, Benefactor. You finally got out. This valley is too strange. Once you come in, it’s hard to escape. Don’t come! Absolutely don’t—”

“I have a way!” Yu Sheng cut in, forcing calm into his voice. “Foxy, listen. I have a way. I’ve already found a stable method to go in and out of that valley. Now I only need your cooperation so I can open that door. Don’t worry about that monster. I can handle it—understand?”

He pushed on, trying to steady her, to make her breathe. “I’m really strong, and this time I also found helpers. They’re strong too.”

Confusion drifted across Foxy’s face. Her thoughts moved slowly, as if it took real effort to follow him. After a long moment, it was hard to tell how much she’d understood, but she finally asked, puzzled, “So Benefactor is also an immortal?”

Yu Sheng had no idea how her mind had jumped there.

But he could work with it.

“A very strong immortal,” he said, making his voice as reliable as he could.

Foxy smiled.

“Benefactor, what do I need to do?”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Yu Sheng said. “Just focus on sensing your surroundings. You’ll feel someone peering into your heart, and you might even feel someone looking at the world through your eyes. Don’t resist. That’s me.”

“Mm. Okay.”

Yu Sheng let out a fraction of relief. Talking to Foxy was easier than he’d expected.

Now came the second problem.

“Irene,” he called softly in his mind. “Start.”

The next second, a faint dizzy haze rolled through him, and Yu Sheng felt an indescribable tug.

A brand-new connection formed between him and Foxy.

It was nothing like the subtle link he’d built before through blood. This was stronger—sharper—and brutal in a way he couldn’t put into words.

Part of his consciousness tore loose and fused into a stream of unfamiliar sensations. It was like his nerves had been plugged into an extra set of limbs. The incoming signals were blurry and sluggish, but even so, he began to feel the aura around Foxy.

Cold. Rotten. Steeped in decay, as if everything here was perpetually dying.

Wind stirred through the valley, whispering through the dark woods.

Night was eternal.

And hunger endured.

Foxy stood in the forest with wide eyes, trying her best to look around.

She didn’t understand what her benefactor was doing. She didn’t even know whether staring like this was the right thing. She was just trying—in her own way—to do what he’d asked.

Then she felt the connection he’d described.

She jumped in fright… but she didn’t sense malice.

Foxy had always been sensitive to the slightest hint of malice. This time there was none at all.

If anything, there was comfort.

And even… her stomach didn’t feel quite as hungry.

…

The instant that mountain-crushing hunger—the mad tide buried beneath everything—surged toward him, Yu Sheng felt as if a towering wave slammed into him head-on. Hunger and insanity became almost physical: a vast shadow, solidified darkness, drowning his perception in an instant.

He didn’t even have time to call Irene’s name.

In the smallest sliver of thought he had left, he forced himself to seize the valley’s “feature” through Foxy’s senses—

And then the wild black tide swallowed him whole.

Yet deep within it, he discovered he was still awake.

Hunger gnawed at his soul until it felt like his very self was withering, dying. Yu Sheng watched himself get devoured in the dark raging tide in the blink of an eye, his perspective like a cold, detached bystander.

Then the hunger receded.

The withered, dead soul awakened again.

Yu Sheng opened his eyes in the darkness, and for a moment he couldn’t even tell whether he’d gone through another “death”—or whether it had only felt like one.

He drifted through the depths, unable to feel time passing, unable to find the edges of space, not even sure whether he was truly moving at all.

All he could feel was a gaze that never left him.

Not one gaze.

This entire chaotic darkness was part of it.

He was a speck of dust no bigger than a needle point, drowned beneath the endless hunger’s eyes.

And after who knew how long, he finally glimpsed something in the dark…

A vast, drifting limb.

Or perhaps just a shadow.