Chapter 60

Chapter 60: Foxy’s New Home

Irene looked down at her right leg—fully restored. She tested the joint, turning it left, then right, then tugged on her sock. Holding Yu Sheng’s hand, she eased herself upright.

“Th-they’re the same length, right?”

Little Doll tipped her head up and stared at him. “I didn’t guide a rebuild this time. I only did spirit-infusion and fusion. Can you take a look for me…”

Yu Sheng rolled his eyes. “Of course they’re the same length. I only patched the surface; I didn’t cut it off and sculpt a new one.”

Relief washed over Irene’s face. With her short little legs, she paced across the tabletop a few times. At last, a grin broke through. “I can run around again!”

She glanced back at him, smug. “Yu Sheng, your handiwork was pretty good this time. Maybe you really do have talent for making dolls?”

“Thanks for the compliment…” Yu Sheng replied, dry as dust.

He watched her sling her drawing frame onto her back. In two quick hops, she sprang from the table to the empty chair beside it, climbed down backward, and hit the attic floor running—circling the open space like she’d been freed from a cage.

Normally, when Irene went wild, Yu Sheng found it unbearable. Too loud, too chaotic, too many collisions that left the house looking like a battlefield. But this time, the irritation didn’t come. Instead, a strange sense of accomplishment swelled in his chest.

“Talent for making dolls…” he muttered, glancing down at the scraper in his hand and the putty jar that was almost empty. He couldn’t tell whether Irene had been flattering him or praising him for real.

He wasn’t sure about talent, either. But he couldn’t help thinking about the two lotus root segments he’d messed with earlier—and somehow managed to “spirit-infuse.”

Judging by the way Irene was acting, she’d completely forgotten about them.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, snapping Yu Sheng out of his thoughts—and stopping Irene mid-lap.

Yu Sheng turned. A pair of fluffy white rabbit ears rose over the top step, followed by Foxy. She peered into the attic with a face full of tension and curiosity.

The demon fox girl wore a pajama set that hung a little too big on her. Her silvery-white hair was still damp, as if she’d followed her nose straight here after a shower. The moment she saw Yu Sheng and Irene together, her shoulders loosened with visible relief.

“Ah! Benefactor, and Irene—you’re both here!”

Then she noticed Irene’s restored limbs. Surprise lit her eyes. “Irene, your hand… it grew back?”

“Yu Sheng fixed me!” Irene thrust both hands up proudly, then bounced on her toes. “And my leg’s fixed too!”

Foxy stared, awestruck, then turned to Yu Sheng with unmistakable respect. “Benefactor, your immortal arts are amazing. You know netherworld passage, you can reshape a body and bring it back, and you even know how to refine puppets.”

Yu Sheng took that apart in his head. Netherworld passage was probably what she called his door-opening ability, and she’d decided Irene was some kind of puppet he’d refined.

Irene, realizing what Foxy meant, instantly launched into a fury. “What do you mean ‘puppet’?! I’m a living doll from Alice Little House! Blessed, you know? You stupid wild fox—if you don’t understand, then don’t talk nonsense!”

Foxy listened, stunned, while Little Doll screamed herself hoarse. Then she lowered her head. “Oh. I don’t understand. I won’t talk nonsense.”

Irene froze mid-rant, utterly thrown. She was used to trading insults with Yu Sheng. This was the first time she’d met someone who didn’t argue back, didn’t fight, didn’t even try. For a second, her mind went blank.

And in that second, Yu Sheng noticed something.

He stared past Foxy, alarm sharpening his voice. “Where’s your tail?”

Irene snapped back to herself and looked. A beat later, she caught it too.

Foxy’s tail was gone.

“I put it away.” Foxy smiled and turned slightly. “The door is narrow, and I kept bumping into things.”

Then—

Vmm.

A sound like a treasured blade sliding free. Radiance flared behind her, and with a loud poof, a huge fan of fluffy tails burst outward like an explosion of snow.

Irene shrieked, “Mom!” and got launched by the sudden wall of fur, tumbling across the floor and rolling for several meters.

Foxy yelped and rushed over, flustered, grabbing the swearing doll and hauling her upright.

Yu Sheng watched, stunned. His first thought was pure relief. “You scared me. I thought you’d fired all your tails like missiles…”

Then another, even stranger question followed. “Why did your tails come out with a vmm sound?”

Foxy considered that seriously. “It can also be poof.”

Irene, just dragged back to her feet and ready to curse again, went rigid. She stared at Foxy. “You add your own sound effects?!”

“The fox must make a sound before showing its tail,” Foxy said, as if stating a natural law. Her speech was smoother than before, though odd pauses still slipped in. “It warns people nearby to dodge.”

Her gaze flicked to Irene. “But you didn’t dodge.”

Irene instantly exploded. “How was I supposed to know those weird rules? What kind of fox are you, anyway?!”

Foxy’s ears drooped. She thought hard, then shook her head, frustration tightening her mouth. “I… don’t remember.”

Irene’s anger stalled. She looked away, suddenly awkward. “Don’t take it seriously. I was just saying it.”

Yu Sheng stepped closer to Foxy. After a moment, he spoke with genuine weight. “Don’t be too upset. Not remembering doesn’t mean you can’t go back. Maybe someday you’ll find your home.”

Foxy’s ears snapped upright. “Benefactor’s netherworld passage… can send me back?”

“He can open that door to anywhere,” Irene cut in, hands on hips, sounding smug as if it were her skill. “Sometimes he yanks it open and ends up crawling into someone’s pill refining furnace. Maybe one day he’ll open a door to your hometown.”

Then she seemed to remember something and turned to Yu Sheng. “Hey, should we go check that pill refining furnace again? There were immortals over there and stuff. What if that’s Foxy’s hometown? Or maybe they’ve at least heard of it. It kind of feels like it’s all part of the same system…”

Yu Sheng’s face tightened. “With what happened last time… they’d probably attack on sight.”

“Oh, right.” Irene nodded like she’d just solved the problem. “If I were on the other side of that door, I’d want to kill you too.”

Foxy’s gaze shifted between them, lost but attentive.

Yu Sheng cleared his throat twice. “We’re talking about who we can ask about your origins. Don’t worry. I’ll help you look. Slowly.”

“Benefactor, you don’t have to spend so much effort.” Foxy understood this time, but she still shook her head softly. “If we can find it, that’s better. If we can’t, it’s fine too. Anyway… I don’t remember what home looks like. Even if I went back, I… wouldn’t know anyone.”

As she spoke, she reached into her tails and pulled out two sharp canine teeth. Holding them made her expression soften into a small, comforted smile.

“I already found dad and mother. I don’t have to go back.”

Yu Sheng exhaled quietly and nodded. “If you can think that way, that’s good. Then what are you planning to do from now on? Have you thought about it?”

Foxy stared at him for a long time, then slowly shook her head.

“I… don’t know,” she admitted, voice small and uneasy, like a young animal leaving its nest for the first time. “This is my first time leaving the valley. It’s nice here, but everything is strange. I don’t understand, and I don’t know where to find food.”

She hesitated, then added, “Mother said a fox can’t forget a favor. But I don’t know what I can do for Benefactor.”

Yu Sheng understood her perfectly.

He smiled, gentle and steady. “Then live here from now on. I have an empty room—and plenty of food. You won’t go hungry. As for what you can do… help me fight later. For now, that’s enough.”

He thought it over as he spoke. Whatever legends existed about demon foxes repaying favors and changing fate, Foxy didn’t look like someone who could help him write C code, draw an illustration, or make a ppt. But her subsonic headbutt and that tail-launching move were terrifying. When he dealt with otherworlds in the future, she’d be a rare, high-end combat asset.

Irene could handle hard crowd control. Foxy could charge in and hit people. He could stand off to the side and shout “nice” from safety.

Perfect.

Foxy blinked at him. “Fight?”

“In the future, we’ll have contact with more otherworlds,” Yu Sheng said, slow and careful. “Like that valley. There are many abnormal spaces in this world. Dangerous entities inside. Some people might be trapped in them like you were. Others might ask us for help for different reasons. And I… have my own reasons to keep dealing with otherworlds and entities.”

He paused. “In short, I need helpers.”

Foxy’s face went pale with sudden worry. “Then… will I get trapped again?”

Yu Sheng blinked, then smiled at how real the fear was. “Did you forget my netherworld passage?”

Foxy froze—then her mouth curved upward, slow and bright. She nodded hard. “Okay. I’ll help Benefactor fight!”