Chapter 53

Chapter 53: Grand Feast

Yu Sheng still didn’t fully understand how it happened, but he could feel the connection—vast, intimate, terrifying.

His consciousness surged through rock and soil, slid beneath the writhing forest, soaked into the valley’s water and wind. Through countless pairs of deformed eyes, he stared up at the sky above.

That massive Big Eyes—large enough to cover the entire heaven—looked down with calm indifference. It never changed, start to finish, like an observer beyond mortals watching a petri dish.

And yet Yu Sheng could feel it had noticed him.

The instant his connection took hold, the eye’s gaze landed precisely on where his “body” should have been.

Confusion. Curiosity.

The eyeball didn’t emote, didn’t shift expression, but Yu Sheng almost read those thoughts directly. A vast mind vibrated through the space, and each thought it had churned storm waves through the otherworld. An ordinary person couldn’t sense that roar. Even Yu Sheng, borrowing the senses of the entire valley, could only catch the vague impression of something thinking behind that pupil.

Strangely, there was no hostility in that eye.

No kindness either.

After a while, Yu Sheng felt its focus drift away from him. Or rather, it stopped watching the whole valley and narrowed in on something within it, sweeping slowly across the land as if searching.

Meanwhile, Yu Sheng’s awareness spread wider, and over the next few minutes a grim clarity settled in.

The entire valley was coming alive. A terrible vitality pulsed through it, turning the otherworld into a hungry, breathing thing.

Li Lin saw it too as they ran.

Rows of teeth pushed up along a distant ridge. Between the fangs, trench-like gullets tore open and rolled like waves. From deep within came a roar that sounded like thunder trapped underground.

On another side of the valley, the forest began to move. The trees melted into black tentacles that spread across the valley floor, flooding everything in their path like a swarm.

All of it happened under the cold stare of the eye. The sight felt less like reality and more like a nightmare that refused to end.

Little Red Riding Hood’s wolf pack howled around them, snapping at the tentacles, eye stalks, and tongues that sprouted from the ground. But no matter how hard the pack fought, the sliver of space they could stand on kept shrinking.

Li Lin tasted hopelessness. He glanced ahead and saw Foxy at the very front, carrying Irene and clutching the cleaver. She hunched forward as she ran, nimble and fast like a mountain beast. He, fully human, was already struggling to keep up.

Then Foxy slowed.

She reached a dip at the foot of the mountain and climbed onto a broad rock, scanning. Her fluffy ears twitched in the wind, catching every sound. She sniffed sharply, then locked onto a direction.

“This way! The entrance is here!”

Before the words finished, she jumped down with Irene in her arms and sprinted to the cliff wall. The others rushed after her and found a cave mouth just wide enough for two people to squeeze through side by side.

“It’s spacious inside!” Foxy shouted back as she slipped in first.

Eerie blue fox fire flared into existence at the tip of her tail, lighting the cave.

It looked like a natural cavern that had always been part of the mountain. Parts of the walls bore marks of being carved and widened by hand. In the corners sat crude tools—signs that someone had lived here for a time.

Xu Jiali pulled a palm-sized black device from his waist, scanned the space, and spoke in a low voice. “No toxins. Structure stable. No corrosion.”

Little Red Riding Hood waved a hand and posted a few wolves at the entrance. The other shadow wolves melted back into the darkness beneath her feet.

Foxy carried Irene to a stone platform near the opening and set Little Doll down, worry tightening her face.

“Are you… okay?” Foxy asked softly, eyes fixed on Irene’s broken arms and the way her right leg dragged.

Just looking at her, Irene seemed a breath away from falling apart entirely—second only to Yu Sheng’s corpse back at the temple.

The demon fox girl clearly didn’t understand living dolls.

“It’s fine,” Irene said, surprisingly relaxed. “This body was temporary to begin with. Some parts just aren’t sturdy. Once we go back, Yu Sheng will fix me. He made it. Though his craftsmanship is… kind of rough.”

Foxy’s eyes widened. “Benefactor sounds amazing.”

“…Maybe?” Irene hesitated, then muttered, “Sometimes I feel like he doesn’t seem human. He has all these weird abilities and ideas…”

She cut off, head snapping toward the cave entrance.

From where they sat, they could barely see outside, but something about the air had shifted.

“What is it?” Foxy asked.

“Can you carry me to the entrance? Just so I can look outside,” Irene said, uneasy. “Not seeing what’s happening out there makes me nervous.”

Foxy frowned, confused, but didn’t argue. She picked Irene up and moved closer to the mouth of the cave.

Irene craned her neck and forced herself to look up at the sky.

That huge eye still hung over the valley, so vast it looked like the pupil of the sky itself.

“It’s been staring this way since earlier,” Irene muttered, yanking her head back. “Why isn’t Yu Sheng back yet…”

Foxy went still. She looked down at the doll in her arms. “Benefactor will be fine, right?”

“He’ll be fine,” Irene whispered. Then she glanced at the three “temporary comrades” behind them and lowered her voice further. “Later, don’t mention Yu Sheng’s death to them. They should’ve forgotten it by now.”

Foxy tilted her head, ears twitching, not sure she understood.

Li Lin watched them from a few steps back, frowning. Maybe it was his imagination, but during the run he’d felt like something important had slipped out of his mind without him noticing.

He glanced at Xu Jiali and Little Red Riding Hood. Neither looked unusual.

Xu Jiali was searching deeper into the cave, investigating. Little Red Riding Hood sat on a stone stool with her arms crossed, watching the wolves at the entrance.

Her red jacket had been torn in the earlier fight. One sleeve was shredded, leaving her right arm exposed. Fine blood-red lines crawled over that skin, as if the flesh had once been ripped apart and only barely stitched back together.

The blue fox fire burned quietly overhead, casting her shadowspawn onto the ground. It swayed, sometimes twisting into the shape of the wolves that emerged from it.

Outside, the valley’s howling never stopped. The cave’s silence felt heavier with every breath.

Li Lin straightened and started toward Foxy and Irene, thinking he should at least introduce himself.

Halfway there, an irregular scraping sound stopped him cold.

Fangs grinding.

His spiritual intuition jumped.

Xu Jiali, deeper in the cave, looked up. Little Red Riding Hood lifted her head too, muscles tensing.

The valley’s presence changed.

Two or three seconds later, the world outside went quiet—quiet like death.

It didn’t last. The scraping returned, and with it a new sound: a whimpering murmur unlike the earlier chaotic howls. It grew clearer, louder, as if the entire valley had leaned in to listen.

Foxy sprang to her feet at the entrance, staring out with wide, frightened eyes. Irene braced herself against Foxy’s arm stumps, trying to see—

—and then she heard Yu Sheng’s voice.

“Irene.”

“Yu Sheng?!” Irene blurted, jolting in Foxy’s arms. “You came back to life? Where are you? Can you sense my location? Hurry and open a door! We found a safe place. It’s not safe outside. The valley is in big trouble—”

“Irene, don’t panic,” the voice cut in, calm and steady. “It’ll be over soon.”

Irene froze. “…Huh?”

The scraping outside thickened, denser and denser, like it was filling the whole otherworld. The sound echoed in the cave, turning nerves into wire.

Yu Sheng’s voice remained calm in Irene’s mind. “Irene, do you remember what happened when we contacted Foxy through the dream? When we used her senses to find this valley’s frequency?”

Of course Irene remembered.

“You directly touched hunger’s true core!” she snapped, fear sharpening her words. “It took root in your mind! W-what happened? Did something go wrong? You can’t come back to life?!”

The scraping grew louder. The cave seemed to vibrate with it.

“Don’t worry,” Yu Sheng said, quieter than the storm outside. “I’m fine. I just discovered something.”

Irene’s eyes widened as understanding hit her all at once.

She finally knew what the scraping sound was.

“Hunger didn’t take root in my mind,” Yu Sheng said.

His voice wasn’t only in her heart anymore.

It was across the entire valley.

“Instead, I took root deep inside it.”

Chewing.

Echoing through the otherworld like rolling thunder.

The sacred grand feast began.

The hunger entity that sprawled through this valley began to devour itself.