Chapter 124 – Savoring Yu Sheng

Chapter 124 – Savoring Yu Sheng

Yu Sheng’s consciousness drifted through an endless, boundless darkness. That familiar sense of void and oppression flowed silently at the edges of his perception. His thoughts moved very, very slowly, and in this lonely yet familiar “afterlife world,” he even began to feel a certain enjoyment of the quiet.

How to put it… the whole thing had played out without any suspense whatsoever.

The wolf, larger than a house, had pounced down, and Yu Sheng died on the spot—he hadn’t lasted any longer than that squirrel.

Of course, the main reason things ended so quickly was that Yu Sheng hadn’t dodged at all. Not only had he not dodged, he had actively offered himself up—offered his blood, his flesh, his spirit, his… every last drop of pure, blazing joy and curiosity.

He lay quietly in this postmortem darkness.

He flowed quietly through the wolf’s spirit and flesh.

He seeped quietly into the Dark Forest, searching within it for the tendrils of “Fairy Tale.”

Yu Sheng controlled his thoughts, keeping himself from being influenced by the bizarre notions and fragmented memories drifting through the darkness.

For him, every death was a form of “practice.” At first, he had completed his resurrections in a complete daze. Later, he became able to perceive the existence of the surrounding darkness. After that, he could sense the process of returning to the “mortal world.” And now, not only could he maintain clear thought within the darkness, he could even attempt to control this “thought”—this purest, most distilled form of consciousness, unburdened by a physical body.

He actively tempered this power of thought, attempting to calculate the passage of time in the darkness, even trying to perceive what was happening “outside” in reverse.

He knew that his physical body was still sleeping in the Real World, with Eileen and Hu Li by his side. What had died this time was only his soul—just like before, when direct contact with Entity-Hunger had resulted in him being devoured.

But this time was distinctly different from the last.

This time, Yu Sheng could vaguely feel that the shattered fragments of his soul were gradually breaking down, gradually becoming part of another entity. It was like a swallowed seed beginning to sprout, the tender shoot transforming into winding, growing tendrils—he sensed one of those tendrils, and so in the darkness, he extended his will outward and gently, deliberately… “plucked” it.

He saw “himself” running through the forest—blind, enraged, cloaked in boundless night, casting an enormous shadow.

He could even faintly feel his own fur, feel the night wind of the Dark Forest blowing past his ears. Wolf howls echoed all around as invisible wolves followed him, running endlessly through this curtain of night.

He could sense that these wolves fed on fear—that was the most primal, most essential function of fairy tales from their very inception. To frighten. To intimidate. To use terrifying, sinister imagery to make children who heard the stories fear the wilds and unfamiliar places, to make them stay obediently at home.

This fear had flourished in the Dark Forest, transforming into these packs of wolves that fed on terror.

But now they were starving.

Because in that hunt just moments ago, they had received no nourishment at all—they had consumed the flesh and blood of a strange intruder, yet all they felt was the emptiness of fearlessness, along with some joy and curiosity that the wolves could not identify and found rather bewildering.

The giant wolf passed through a clearing in the forest. Its muddled mind could not comprehend why this had happened—feeding was not supposed to be like this. Whatever was consumed, no matter what it was, should carry at least some fear. Yet the thing it had just eaten held not the slightest trace of fright. In fact… that “food” had seemed more like an ecstatic feeder itself.

Had it eaten that “human,” or had that “human” burrowed into its body and was now devouring it from the inside out?

The wolf did not understand. The wolf only knew to follow instinct, running through the forest, patrolling every place where Little Red Riding Hood might appear, searching out those hiding spots, destroying those hiding spots.

“You’re just going to keep running like this?”

A voice appeared abruptly—Yu Sheng was whispering beside the wolf, whispering to it in the wolf’s own low whimper.

The giant wolf stopped dead in its tracks, raising its head in a daze, surveying the Dark Forest that looked no different from its memories.

It could not yet comprehend where the voice had come from, nor could it connect it to its recent “feeding.”

But it could sense that something had… “appeared.” That something felt vaguely familiar, like prey—and yet also like a hunter.

The wolf howls rising and falling all around gradually quieted as well. The invisible wolf pack prowled uneasily through the forest, instinctively searching for this equally invisible intruder.

Grass and branches swayed. Wind blew through the treetops. A leaf spun past the giant wolf’s face, and in the gaps between its rotating edges, a single eye full of curiosity stared back at it.

“Are you… tasty?”

The leaf dissolved, and the giant wolf felt that strange “thing” vanish from its perception along with it. It lowered its head and let out a confused, chaotic growl. The pack began to whimper around it, the whimpering gradually rising in pitch until the entire Dark Forest echoed with howls.

In a thicket of bushes somewhere in the distance, a pair of anxious eyes watched the scene intently, letting out tiny cries: “Getting weird, getting weird…”

…

Yu Sheng plummeted through the darkness, and then that familiar sensation of crossing some “boundary” washed over him. In the final phase of the fall, he regained awareness of his body. As the soft touch of the bed registered beneath him, he opened his eyes with a start.

The moment he opened them, he saw two Eileen heads pressed forehead to forehead, hovering right above his face, two pairs of crimson eyes staring at him without blinking.

Having just come back to life, the sight nearly sent Yu Sheng right back to the other side. His whole composure crumbled on the spot: “Oh shit! You trying to scare me to death?!”

But Eileen’s reaction was even more dramatic than his. The two dolls saw Yu Sheng’s eyes snap open and let out a shriek, leaping into the air—then tumbled in unison off the edge of the bed, hitting the floor with two resounding thuds.

It sounded painful.

“You scared the daylights out of me!”

“You’ve got the nerve to say that? Who hovers that close staring at someone’s face? Thank goodness I opened my eyes before sitting up—if I’d shot upright just now, I’d have at least two bumps on my head!” Yu Sheng glared irritably at Eileen, who was clambering back onto the bed on all fours. Then he noticed the fox girl standing obediently by the bedside, giving him a gentle smile. “See, look at Hu Li—so well-behaved. She knows to stand quietly off to the side and greet me with a smile…”

Eileen had just made it back onto the bed when she heard the second half of his sentence. She immediately planted her hands on her hips and tattled: “She’s smiling because she has a guilty conscience!”

“…Huh?”

“She ate all the meat filling! No buns tonight!”

Yu Sheng blinked in confusion, then turned to look at the Fox-Spirit Girl. The smile on her face was finally starting to stiffen. She lowered her head, her tail and ears drooping together: “…I just meant to taste whether it was salty enough…”

“And then the first bite was too salty so she drank water, and then the water made it too bland so she had another bite of filling, right?” Eileen stood triumphantly at the head of the bed. “A whole basin! You ate every last bit!”

Yu Sheng had barely woken up only to be hit with this barrage of complaints. His head buzzed in chaos for several seconds before he finally caught up. He turned to Eileen: “And what about you? What were you doing while Hu Li was sneaking bites of the filling?”

Eileen answered with perfect self-righteousness: “I was pouring her water! I was worried she’d choke!”

Yu Sheng slapped a palm against his forehead.

He must have owed these two clowns a debt in a past life.

“Benefactor… I’m sorry…” Seeing that Yu Sheng had gone quiet, Hu Li thought he was genuinely angry and nervously sidled closer. “I won’t eat it all next time.”

As she spoke, a large, silvery-white, fluffy tail was placed in front of Yu Sheng.

“You can pet the tail. Don’t be mad anymore.”

Yu Sheng looked up, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

“It’s very nice of you to let me pet your tail, but you didn’t have to pull it off and hand it to me… It’s a bit unsettling to look at.”

“Oh.”

“Forget it, I’m not actually mad. It’s just that my brain’s a bit scrambled from having just ‘come back to life,’ and I can’t keep up with all this commotion from you two,” Yu Sheng let out a breath and casually picked up the fox tail that was still radiating warmth, handing it back to Hu Li. “I’ll go cook some noodles in a bit. I’m guessing you’re definitely not full yet—you two head downstairs and wait for me. Let me rest a little longer.”

Hu Li gave an “oh” and got up to leave. Eileen walked to the edge of the bed but suddenly turned back: “Oh right, you haven’t told us how things went on your end yet—judging by how long you were out, you really ‘died’ again?”

Yu Sheng smiled faintly. “That thing’s front teeth were thicker than my thigh. What do you think?”

Eileen’s expression turned strange. “…Then you seem to be in a pretty good mood for someone who just died.”

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, as if savoring something. After a long pause, an enigmatic smile appeared on his face. “Yeah, pretty good. I didn’t get to taste it, but it seems… worth looking forward to.”

Eileen blinked, and when the meaning sank in, she immediately shrank her neck back. “Damn, you really are something else.”

She hopped down from the bed and pattered off after Hu Li, shouting as she ran: “Hey! Silly fox, listen! We might be adding a new dish to the menu in a few days!”

“Huh? What dish?”

“Might be wolf meat…”

Listening to Hu Li and Eileen’s voices fade down the Corridor, an unconscious smile spread across Yu Sheng’s face. Then he let out a long, slow breath, relaxed his body, and leaned back against the headboard.

After a while, he reached out and picked up the phone sitting on the nightstand.

He opened Frontier Communications and found Little Red Riding Hood’s avatar—being a high school student, she should still be at school at this hour.

Although Yu Sheng always felt there was something odd about a Spirit Detective like her still having to dutifully attend school, after several interactions he had gotten used to it.

This Boundary City never lacked for all manner of strange and peculiar characters.

He quickly composed a message and sent it to the girl who lived among wolves—

“I entered the Dark Forest. I saw those wolves, both invisible and visible. I also saw the forest path, the Wooden House, and that squirrel—do you have time to talk?”

(End of Chapter)