Chapter 48 – The Day of Feeding

The Foxgirl stared wide-eyed at the large pile of things Yu Sheng had set down on the ground, standing there in a daze for several seconds as if she hadn’t processed the situation at all — not until Yu Sheng opened a can of eight-treasure congee and brought the food to her lips.

“Eat up, I brought it all for you — there’s more if it’s not enough.”

The fragrance of food. A real, genuine smell of food.

Not stone, not soil, not brick and timber — not the phantoms from dreams that no amount of imagination could use to fill an empty stomach.

Hu Li’s eyes slowly widened, and then it was as though she snapped out of a frozen state all at once, lunging forward and snatching the can from Yu Sheng’s hands. She didn’t bother with a spoon — she simply poured it straight into her mouth, letting out muffled whimpering sounds as she gulped it down.

The can was full to the brim, yet she finished it in barely over ten seconds, then began carefully licking along the edge of the can. But soon she grew frustrated, because she couldn’t lick the inside clean — just as Yu Sheng was about to help, Hu Li pinched the can with her fingers and tore it open with brute force. With a sharp screech of shearing metal, she ripped apart the rather sturdy metal tin, tearing it into a continuous strip of narrow metal pieces and licking clean every last drop of food that clung to it.

“There’s more here,” Yu Sheng quickly dug through his pockets and produced a loaf of bread to hand over, along with a bottle of water. “Eat slowly.”

In the blink of an eye, the food was already in Hu Li’s hands.

The Foxgirl wolfed everything down, and for a stretch of time, eating was the only thing she did. Neither Yu Sheng nor Eileen said a word. The only sounds left in the ruins were those of Hu Li eating, and the occasional muffled noise that rose from her throat — as though she wanted to speak, yet couldn’t bring herself to stop eating.

Then, Hu Li suddenly began to cry.

It was very sudden. Tears streamed down the fox-spirit’s face. She continued stuffing bread into her mouth, not sobbing, not making a sound — only tears flowing quietly down her cheeks, dripping onto the bread, which she then shoved into her mouth.

Yu Sheng was startled by the sight and hurriedly reached out to wipe at Hu Li’s grimy face. “Don’t cry — you’ll choke on the wind and your stomach will hurt. Stop crying, there’s more, and there will be more from now on too…”

Only at this point did Hu Li seem to finally come to her senses, having enough spare energy to think about other things. She stared blankly at Yu Sheng before her, and after a long, dazed moment, she suddenly held out the half-eaten loaf of bread in her hand: “Benefactor, you… eat too.”

Yu Sheng quickly waved his hand. “I ate before I came, I’m not hungry.”

Hu Li did not move, only stubbornly maintaining the gesture. Even though all the food here had just been brought by Yu Sheng, she was still insistent on sharing the bread in her hand with him — as though doing so held some especially profound significance for her.

Yu Sheng finally reached out and accepted the half-loaf of bread Hu Li offered.

The Foxgirl smiled, then grabbed a packet of compressed biscuits from the ground. This time, she finally did not wolf it down; instead, after tearing open the packaging, she ate carefully and delicately, nibbling one small bite at a time, as if trying to draw out the process of eating for as long as possible.

She seemed to finally not be quite so hungry — even if only for now.

“Delicious,” she said softly. “Benefactor, it’s delicious…”

“Don’t put ‘Benefactor’ in front of ‘delicious,'” Yu Sheng shuddered immediately, reminded of something unpleasant. “You… just eat until you’re full.”

“Mm, mm.” Hu Li nodded her head lightly.

“Finally getting some color back,” Eileen spoke up at last. She watched the fox-spirit, whose mental state had visibly stabilized somewhat, and let out a sigh of relief. “It’s truly a wonder you managed to hold on this long…”

Hu Li was slightly startled. She seemed to only now notice the doll on Yu Sheng’s shoulder — or rather, only now realize that this creature, a mere 66.6 centimeters tall, could actually talk and move on its own. She immediately looked stunned. “That — it’s alive?!”

Eileen’s eyes went wide. “…Obviously! Of course I’m alive! I just helped you bite open a sausage earlier!”

“She’s Eileen, a living doll from Alice’s Cottage,” Yu Sheng quickly made the introduction. “She’s the assistant I mentioned. Don’t let her size fool you — she’s actually very capable. I was able to contact you through the dream earlier thanks to her help.”

Eileen held her cleaver in one hand and placed the other on her hip, striking a proud pose on Yu Sheng’s shoulder.

Hu Li thought for a moment. She didn’t know what a living doll was, and she didn’t understand why something so tiny yet shaped like a person could talk and move — but she understood that this was her benefactor’s friend. So after a few seconds of hesitation, she held out the compressed biscuits in her hand. “Eileen, you eat too.”

Eileen’s proud expression immediately turned a little awkward. “Uh… I can’t eat that. Dolls can’t eat food…”

Hu Li instantly pulled the biscuits back and continued nibbling away at them.

Eileen: “…Hey, you just took them right back without even a second thought?! When you shared your bread with Yu Sheng just now, your attitude was nothing like this!”

“Dolls can’t eat food,” Hu Li said quietly. “Giving it to you would waste food.”

Eileen puffed up her cheeks and started to sulk, but no one paid her any attention.

By this point, Yu Sheng’s attention had already shifted to the dark, cold night surrounding them.

He could feel it — with his arrival, the aura within the valley was gradually changing. The “entity” lurking in the Otherworld had grown active, and his act of bringing food and temporarily freeing Hu Li from hunger had agitated the monster. He had come today, first to rescue Hu Li, and second to find a way to deal with the Hunger entity entrenched here. Originally, this had not been something that absolutely had to be done — but now that he had forged a “connection” with the monster, and learned that it was gradually learning to think, he had no choice but to find a way to eliminate this hidden threat.

Yet for some reason, the monster had still not shown itself before him.

A trace of puzzlement gradually surfaced in Yu Sheng’s heart. And at that very moment, a faint and distant sound drifted in on the night wind, reaching the ears of everyone present —

It was the howl of a wolf, from far away.

Yu Sheng and Eileen exchanged glances, and the latter hesitated for a moment. “Yu Sheng, did you just hear that?”

“That was the sound of a wolf. I thought I’d heard wrong…” Yu Sheng furrowed his brow, then turned to look at Hu Li, who was earnestly nibbling at her biscuits. “Are there wolves in this place?”

“No, there’s only me and that monster here,” Hu Li seemed equally bewildered. “That’s the first time I’ve heard such a strange sound.”

At that moment, the wolf howl rang out again, cutting off the group’s exchange.

It sounded a little closer this time.

A wolf pack was drawing near — pursuing something, or being pursued.

In the dark and dense forest, the massive flesh-and-blood Amalgamated Beast moved like a terrifying nightmare wandering among the trees. It continuously shifted position within the shadows of the woods, appearing briefly in the thin mist and then abruptly vanishing from sight.

Yet no matter which direction it fled, the monster would appear somewhere nearby in an eerily uncanny fashion, launching attacks from cunning angles.

Wolves took shape from the shadows, leaping up through the forest and lunging at the flesh-and-blood Amalgamated Beast surging through the darkness. More and more wolves then swarmed in from all directions, attempting to hem in the monster’s movements.

However, countless tentacles and bone-like articulated limbs lined with barbs suddenly burst out from within the beast’s body, instantly forcing back the just-gathered wolf pack and opening a massive gap in the encirclement.

The beast’s many eyes locked on a figure beyond the wolf pack all at the same time — Little Red Riding Hood sat astride the largest wolf, her calm eyes meeting the dozens of cold gazes of the monster from across the distance.

In the next instant, the beast’s mid-section split open violently, and a pitch-black, scale-covered “long tongue” shot out with a whooshing sound, streaking like a malice-laden arrow straight toward the girl’s throat.

But Little Red Riding Hood only tilted her body slightly to one side, and at the very instant before the tongue could make contact, she sharply raised her right hand.

The slender girl’s arm instantly burst apart and swelled. Blood and flesh seethed with a sizzling sound; smoke billowed upward; blood and mist intertwined in the blink of an eye, transforming into an enormous pitch-black wolf head — which then bit down savagely, clamping the “tongue” that had no time to change course firmly in its jaws.

The Amalgamated Beast reacted and lurched backward sharply. Little Red Riding Hood held her “bite” just as firmly, she and the wolf beneath her standing their ground against the monster as if nailed to the earth. And in that brief instant, another figure suddenly leaped from the shadows of the dense forest —

Li Lin charged toward the beast’s flank with the agility of a swift leopard, a short knife in his hand glinting with cold light in the night — a backup weapon that Xu Jiali had lent him temporarily. The monster immediately noticed this ambusher who had come rushing out of nowhere. As several of its eyes swiveled rapidly toward him, a raised razor-sharp claw came sweeping straight down at Li Lin.

Yet the true ambush was still to come. Halfway through his charge, Li Lin suddenly dropped low, dodging the monster’s claw with a movement no ordinary person could have managed. A tall figure then leaped out from the blind spot behind the monster — a powerfully built man nearly two meters tall raised high the Beam Dagger, which was large enough for others to wield as a short sword, and drove it down hard into a fleshy tumor on the monster’s back.

With a sizzling sound, the scorching blade of light plunged into the tumor without resistance, even severing the entire tumor clean off.

But the monster only let out a chaotic and ear-splitting roar, then spun around violently, throwing off the barely-holding Little Red Riding Hood and sending the powerfully built man, who had no time to pull back his strike, flying.

Xu Jiali tumbled into a nearby thicket and let out a muffled groan.

Li Lin hurried to the thicket and dragged his colleague out, then both of them looked toward where the monster had been.

But the monster’s figure had vanished without a trace.

The mist in the dense forest gradually grew thicker. Within the swirling, rolling fog, one could faintly make out countless twisted and bizarre phantoms taking shape, crawling up through the soil, swaying slightly in the cold wind.

Shadow upon shadow, without end.

The entire forest seemed to transform into a vast maw, eager in its anticipation of a meal.

Xu Jiali immediately drew in a sharp breath: “We can’t stay here — keep running toward the forest’s edge!”