Chapter 449

Chapter 449: A Brief Calm and a Triumphant Return

Returning from the chaotic depths of death, Yu Sheng opened his eyes in the captain’s cabin of the Otherworld Hotel.

He didn’t go straight back to the bridge to regroup with the others. Instead, he dimmed the room lights and sat in his chair, emptying his mind and savoring the brief, clear stretch of quiet in the gloom.

His new body was strong and full of energy, but he had just endured a crisis that spanned the stars. The exhaustion buried in his subconscious wouldn’t vanish with a single resurrection. And with everything he had learned from Yanxing Entity still circling in his head, his thoughts felt tangled. He needed time to sort them out.

He sat like that for a while with his eyes closed. Then the cabin door slid open with a soft hiss, and footsteps so light they were almost nonexistent approached.

He opened his eyes.

A pair of sparkling gold-red eyes stared at him in the dark. When they realized he had noticed, they curved slightly. Fluffy ears twitched, and the fox young lady let out a silly little laugh.

“If my ears weren’t sharp, you’d have scared me awake,” Yu Sheng said, exhaling. He smiled and ruffled the fur behind her ears. “Why do you walk without making any noise?”

Foxy squatted beside him on the floor and looked up, pleased as can be. “I’m not wearing shoes.”

Yu Sheng stared at her for a beat.

Fair enough.

In the gloom, a fluffy tail slid over and rubbed against the back of his hand. Foxy tilted her head. “Irene said you were back, but we didn’t see you on the bridge. So she sent me to find you. Benefactor, why didn’t you go over?”

“Resting. And sorting my head out,” Yu Sheng said, leaning into the chair. “Too much has happened.”

He idly held her tail, smoothing it between his fingers. Even though his quiet had been interrupted, this warm, lazy big fox squatting beside him wasn’t noisy at all. If anything, she brought a different kind of calm.

He sighed without thinking. “…Fluffy is good civilization.”

Foxy scooted closer while still squatting. She clearly didn’t understand that last part, but she smiled anyway, eyes narrowing. “Mm. Then rest.”

So the two of them sat in the dark for a while. Yu Sheng kept turning over dark angels in his mind, while Foxy seemed to be thinking about something else entirely, her bright eyes wandering as if she were simply happy to be there.

After a long time, Yu Sheng broke the silence.

“Foxy.”

“Hm?”

“Do you remember the eye that covered the sky in the valley?”

The tail in his hand tensed, fur bristling, but it calmed almost instantly.

“I remember.” Foxy nodded, then leaned closer until her shoulder pressed against his leg. “I heard the special operations bureau already gave It a name. They call it Worldwatcher, or Worldwatch Angel.”

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then said seriously, “Next time we meet, we probably won’t need to hide.”

Foxy lifted her head, staring at him with wide eyes.

Yu Sheng didn’t explain. He only reached out and scratched behind her ears again. After a while, he muttered, almost to himself, “Your Benefactor really is an angel-fighting expert now.”

Foxy looked at him and said, equally serious, “But if you can’t win, you still have to run. That eye is scary.”

“Yeah,” Yu Sheng said, unable to help a small laugh at her solemn face. “If we can’t win, we run.”

He drew a slow breath and stood. “All right. That’s enough rest. Let’s show our faces on the bridge, then we’ll meet up with Yuan Ling and Yuan Hao. There’s still a huge pile of things to deal with.”

He pulled open the door to the bridge. Foxy hurriedly fished her shoes out of her tail and slipped them on, then followed him through.

The moment Yu Sheng stepped onto the bridge and steadied himself, a rush of air brushed past his ear.

Before he could turn, a loud, lively voice came barreling in from afar. “Yu Sheng! You’re finally back!”

Yu Sheng didn’t even look back. He lifted a hand and caught Irene as she pounced, then carried the flailing Little Doll over to the captain’s seat. Irene, dangling from one hand, wasn’t offended in the least. She was in a fantastic mood, chattering nonstop even as he moved her.

“Hey, Yu Sheng, you have no idea how wild it was just now. The fleet of the Grand Void Spiritual Axis was flying all over orbit like it was market day—everyone racing to scoop up crystal fragments. Old Man Yuan Ling kept sending messages, and I even had C Buckle open the eavesdropping channel. Their public channel was noisier than the produce market near our place. Oh, and we haven’t gone back to Wu Tong Road in forever. Last time you even promised to take me shopping… Why don’t you buy me a mobile phone, huh? A phone watch works too. I’ve wanted one for ages. Silly Fox already has a phone, and she can’t even figure out a match-three game…

“Also, what was that Yanxing Entity blooming thing at the end? Was that you? It was spectacular! Even more spectacular than the Anka Aila one last time. Yu Sheng, why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Did you leave me any space to talk?” Yu Sheng said, laughing helplessly. “I’m just listening to you yap, yap, yap.”

He set her on the armrest, then opened the communicator and sent a message straight to “Taia.”

“I’m rested. Let’s meet at the Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain. The Otherworld Hotel will land at the same place as before.

“I have a lot of intel about Yanxing Entity’s origins—and what happened to Yun Qing Zi at the end.”

Irene sat on the armrest, momentarily blank. Then she looked up and immediately kept going, as if the pause had never happened.

“You sent it? You sent it, right? Okay, listen, I’m not done yet. Big Nephew just sent a message—he’s freaking out over at Wu Tong Road 66. When he opens the door it’s still ink-city. The fight’s over, but everything’s a mess. The ink clan people are running around putting out fires and saving people. There are crazies sprinting through the streets, cultivators with qi deviation running naked in the sky. He even saw two immortals fighting on an overpass, each one yelling the other had fallen into demonic cultivation—they were beating each other bloody, but Mo Ran later took people and dragged them off…”

Irene went on and on. The quiet clarity Yu Sheng had finally found in the cabin was instantly churned up by the Little Doll’s noise. But after a moment of helplessness, he only smiled, sighed, and—like always—set Irene on his shoulder and let her keep babbling into his ear.

He was used to it by now. It was just background music for life.

Not long after, the Otherworld Hotel returned to the surface of the Grand Void and landed once more in the Yun Shan sea of mist at the Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain, in front of the grand hall of the Parted Clouds Palace.

Immortal Yuan Ling had returned to the mountain gate ahead of them. When he saw Yu Sheng’s group ride Foxy out of the ship and touch down on the plaza before the hall, he immediately brought his Senior Brother, his junior brothers, and a crowd of disciples to greet them.

Yu Sheng hadn’t even climbed down from the nine-tailed fox’s back before he saw Yuan Ling leading the others across the plaza. Before Yu Sheng could speak, the three immortals clasped their hands and bowed deeply in solemn salute.

Then came the hundreds—no, thousands—of inner disciples behind them, and countless Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain disciples gathered along the paths, in front of every hall, between corridors and terraces. Who knew how many people dropped to their knees in unison, bowing and touching their foreheads to the ground toward the plaza before the Parted Clouds Palace.

When had Yu Sheng ever seen a scene like this in his life?

Cold sweat nearly burst out of him on the spot. He felt more tense than when a dark angel had poked him full of holes and sent blood spraying everywhere. In the next instant he sprang down from Foxy’s back and dashed toward Old Man Yuan Ling in a blur.

“Hey—stop, stop, stop. Don’t do this, don’t do this. You’re gonna make my heart stop, I’m telling you. We’re all friends—”

But Yuan Ling kept a straight face, solemn as ever. “Friends are friends, but how can we not thank the grace of saving the world? Today, Shu Ji and the Grand Void—who knows how many people lived because of you. The Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain ought to bow once…”

Before the old gentleman could finish, Irene waddled over at top speed. She looked up brightly. “Yeah, yeah, Yu Sheng, make them bow again. My pose was bad just now. Again, again!”

Yu Sheng reached out, grabbed the Little Doll, ignored her flailing claws, and stuffed her into Foxy’s tail. Then he looked back at Yuan Ling with a helpless smile.

“Don’t mind her. Her mouth has no filter.

“Fine, I accept your thanks. But if you’re planning some huge gift later, spare me. I’m not used to this. Still, you can settle the repair bill for the Otherworld Hotel. Treat it like the Hotel took your commission to go beat an angel.”

Yuan Ling blinked, then smiled. “Of course.”

As they spoke, Yuan Hao and Yuan He dispersed the gathered disciples. Honestly, at least half of them had come out of curiosity just to see what kind of person could knock a dark angel out of the sky. In the end, only Xuan Che stayed to follow along as everyone headed toward the main hall.

They hadn’t gone far when, just as Yu Sheng was about to tell Yuan Ling and the others the truth behind Yanxing Entity, a streak of rosy light shot over from a nearby peak.

The glow landed before Immortal Yuan He and condensed into a Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain disciple in white helm and white armor.

The entire group halted. Immortal Yuan He frowned. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

“Ma-Master!” the white-armored disciple bowed, breathless. “You… the monster you kept in the tower got struck by lightning and knocked out…”